As many Americans protest against the new “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – citing the sheer Orwellian nature of it, but overlooking the fact that the U.S. already has multiple versions of such a “Ministry” in the forms of the FCC, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Ad Council, and the favored “news sources” that will be showered with $150 million tax bucks thanks to the 2021 Portman-Murphy Act – at least one soul in the Empire is trying to stop it.
That would be Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO), who, as Fox News’ Marisa Schultz reports, has introduced legislation to defund the administration's so-called "Ministry of Truth."
Which begs the question: In a nation-state described by its founders as a “constitutional representative-republic,” why does one of its so-called “representatives” have to propose a bill to STOP funding such a clearly unconstitutional gang of tax-eaters? Are the vast majority in DC so oblivious to the so-called rules that they do whatever they want, willy-nilly, until someone like Boebert tells them to stop?
Or do they constantly test the boundaries and see how much they can expand them?
Reports Fox:
’This kind of stuff is terrifying. We in Congress have the power of the purse. It is our duty to shut down this department immediately,’ Boebert told Fox News Digital Friday in an interview. ‘I'm calling on leadership in the Republican Party — Leader [Kevin] McCarthy, Whip [Steve] Scalise and others — to join me in calling for this department to be shut down and defunded.’
Which is nice of her to do. But is only a small start.
And it begs more questions.
First, many members of Congress acted surprised when DHS head Alejandro Mayorkas announced the creation of the board last week -- shouldn’t these folks already know the operations of the Teutonic organization they created in 2002 by melding 22 existing federal agencies to seep even further into state, local, and private affairs?
More to the point, shouldn’t they be aware that their Constitution doesn’t permit the DHS itself?
As Judge Andrew Napolitano recently noted, there is absolutely nothing in the U.S. Constitution that allows the creation or funding of a “Department of Homeland Security,” let alone a “Disinformation Governance Board." But, as he observes:
DHS was the brainchild of the Bush (W) administration. Many of us (constitutionalists) argued against it at the time. I’m getting emails this morning from friends and colleagues – a lot of them former colleagues of mine at Fox – saying, ‘Hey, judge, you were right! This is just outrageous! And the powers that the Republican Congress gave to the Republican President, George W. Bush, are now in the hands of a bunch of crazy lefties.
And the hands on the levers are not the point. The point is that the levers of power are illegitimate, themselves.
Writes Schultz:
Representatives for McCarthy did not immediately respond to whether he backs this bill or efforts to impeach DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, which Boebert also wants. Scalise supports Boebert's bill.
Both Scalise and McCarthy recently signed onto a letter questioning Mayorkas' suitability for office but didn't specifically raise impeachment.
But why should they have to talk about “impeachment” of Mayorkas? The office he occupies should not exist, and has been part of an illegitimate, ever-growing U.S. police state since Reconstruction, especially since the creation of the Prohibition-Era darling of the Bureau of Investigation, which was the predecessor to the FBI, the Office of Strategic Services (which the feds morphed into the CIA), the NSA, the ATF, the DEA, and the drug-war-fueled federal push to militarize local and state police.
As James Bovard wrote, last year, for American Conservative:
Shortly after its creation in 2002, DHS warned local law enforcement agencies to keep an eye on anyone who ‘expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government’ as potential terrorists. DHS-funded Fusion Centers have attached the ‘extremist’ tag to gun-rights activists, anti-immigration zealots, and individuals and groups ‘rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority’—even though many of the Founding Fathers shared the same creed. The Pentagon taught soldiers and bureaucrats that people who attend public protests are guilty of ‘low-level terrorism.’
And this new DHS arm will officially pump out more of the same.
Shouldn’t those who swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution look at the larger problem of the DHS itself?
And why are they evidently unwilling to do what it required of them under their sworn oath?
Perhaps they are too accustomed to the feds breaking their own rules.
After all, they not only have kept mum on the DHS itself, they also have not protested that wider array of unconstitutional police agencies and the numerous Ministries of Truth, previous politicians already have created.
If people think this new bureau at the DHS is bad, how about the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which was a fascistic and grotesque reworking of the glad-handing Federal Radio Commission (FRC) and which literally claims the power to fine people for saying the “wrong things” (as the government defines) on television or radio?
How about the “Portman-Murphy Countering Foreign Propaganda Act,” that was folded into the final National Defense Authorization Act Obama signed in December of 2016, fed $150 million to favored press outlets (we may never know all of them), through an office in the Pentagon (but, remember, always believe the government’s tales about foreign wars), lasted two years, died under Trump, then was revived by Congress and Biden last year?
Related: DHS Suggests Spying On Employees For 'Extremist' Content | MRCTV
Much has been said of leftist Wilson Center darling Nina Jankowicz, the infamous left-feminist who will head this new Ministry of Truth.
But this isn’t merely about the woman who will head the new “disinformation” wing of the DHS. It’s not about a woman who has already shown her keen alacrity for spreading disinformation so much that one can understand her antipathy for freedom of speech.
Sure, she’s the hack who, as Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently Tweeted, once wrote:
Last week, I told @NPRMichel: I shudder to think about if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms what that would look like for the already marginalized communities… which are already shouldering… disproportionate amounts of this abuse.
Sure, she has it completely flipped. The vast majority of people shut down at Twitter and FB, and blacklisted at Google/YouTube have been conservatives, libertarians, vax-skeptics, scientific debate-promoters, and anti-war activists who just want to be left alone.
But the point is not about the person in charge. No one has free speech if we are forced to pay for government messages, and the DHS is part of a vast array of beyond-the-Constitution “police” and “speech police” agencies that have usurped our rights for years. The personality and political posturing of the woman in charge of another illegitimate branch of that larger illegitimate network are just minor characteristics that should wake up Americans to look at the larger problem.
(Cover Photo: Gage Skidmore)