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THE CASTLE REPORT: The Feds Admit They Censor Americans

August 30, 2024

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Darrell Castle talks about a letter written to the House Judiciary Committee in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted to Congress and the American people that under pressure from the Biden/Harris Administration, his social media platform censored American content related to COVID and Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 election.

Transcription / Notes

THE FEDS ADMIT THEY CENSOR AMERICANS

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 30th day of August in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about a letter written to the House Judiciary Committee in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted to Congress and the American people that under pressure from the Biden/Harris Administration, he censored them. He admitted to a censorship campaign that targeted content related to COVID and Hunter Biden’s laptop during the 2020 election.

Yes folks, in addition to donating hundreds of millions to the Biden/Harris campaign, Zuckerberg admitted to depriving Americans of real information and feeding them false information that was designed to affect their health, possibly fatally. That wasn’t enough for Zuckerberg and Biden, they also had to cheat, lie, and steal an election all the while telling us that trump is Hitler and a threat to democracy. If you don’t lie down while we steal this election through subterfuge, we will tell the rest of America that being a MAGA Republican is akin to being a NAZI.

In a government the size of America the typical voter is hopelessly torn to bits by the flood of information that is constantly fed to him and her. Who is to know what is worthwhile and what is not so one is just blown along by the winds of relentless propaganda fed to him by his own government through its various ministries of propaganda like Zuckerberg and Facebook. The voter hasn’t met any of these people and he doesn’t even know anyone like them. He normally doesn’t associate with power obsessed people but nevertheless they are out there looking to deceive him in order to gain and keep power at any cost.

The elite media seek to wash the voters’ minds collectively and individually clean each day. They control the government, and they tell him they have a higher moral purpose that involves a better use of his money than he could ever make. They have to save the planet from climate change and from all those evil Russians. They have to stimulate the economy so their fake numbers will be even more fake, and they must feed all those poor and sick. Their fake claims are just ways to distribute more and more of the fruits of the labor of hard-working Americans to powerful insiders. The higher purpose is nothing but an illusion and a swindle.

So, Mr. Zuckerberg formally admitted to Congress that he allowed himself and his company to be a part of this swindle of the American people. Facebook, he said, implemented a vast digital censorship regime on behalf of the federal government to suppress the speech of American citizens. Freedom of speech or the protected right of Americans to say what they think and want to say whether it offends or not, is the most basic of freedoms and without it no American is free whether he is a MAGA Republican or a totally sold out Joe Biden/Kamala Harris Democrat.

Zuckerberg’s letter admitted and outlined how Facebook colluded with officials from the federal government including White House representatives to silence content contradicting the establishment consensus regarding COVID and Hunter Biden’s laptop. Quote from Mark Zuckerberg:

“In 2021, senior officials from the Biden administration, including the White House, repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree. Ultimately, it was our decision whether or not to take content down, and we own our decisions, including COVID-19 related changes we made to our enforcement in the wake of this pressure.”

He went on to express regret at his company’s accommodation of the government’s “requests”. Somebody, and perhaps a lot of somebody’s, should have to respond in damages for what they did if not also in jail time. They deserve jail much more than the J-6 political prisoners sitting in jail because of an evil false flag event conducted by an evil government led by evil people. This is probably happening right now and will continue because the government is staffed by devoted ideological leftists who believe passionately that they are so morally superior that their end justifies any means.

Zuckerberg’s regret doesn’t resolve the issue, not by a long shot. It really means that he was feeling the heat from congress and needed to get ahead of the game. Joe Biden is a lame duck and already well under the bus. He was removed by Democrat elites so that Harris could pretend to be washed clean of his dirt as if she had nothing to do with it. She might possibly just be low enough on the IQ scale to not know but the same elites who ran the country when Biden was pretending to be president are running it now and will run it if she is elected, and then pretends to be president.

The various social media platforms are now so closely associated with the government that they are virtually one and the same. Free speech conducted and denied on these platforms affects your health i.e. denial of helpful information about COVID and the vaccines as well as wealth, safety and general happiness and enjoyment of life. It seems very wrong to me to allow the federal government to legally provide false information to us about vital events, etc. but the case of Murthy v. Missouri seems to allow it. In that case the Supreme Court ruled that states and individual plaintiffs who challenged the Biden administration’s censorship programs don’t have standing to sue because they cannot establish a clear link between the government’s pressure and the platform’s actions. In light of this Zuckerberg letter what will Congress and the state AG’s do now that the link is clearly established and admitted.

In addition to providing us with government lies about COVID, Facebook spiked the Hunter Biden laptop story thus affecting the election or said differently, allowing or assisting the theft of a U.S. presidential election. Everyone, including the Democrats’ Stasi, otherwise known as the FBI, now admits that the laptop was real and if known could have affected the election outcome. The laptop revealed a lot more than the obvious story that Hunter is a drug addicted sexual pervert. It revealed Hunter’s traveling the world from Communist China to Ukraine, to Romania, to act as broker in the selling of the political influence of his father, the big guy. So, Zuckerberg and Facebook contributed to Joe Biden’s coverup and theft of the presidency.

The fact that this is now a better late than never situation does not detract from the impact of Zuck’s letter. Americans can now look at it and say oh my God Zuck, you lied to us, deceived us, and let us think that Biden was good, and Trump was literally Hitler. He admitted that he was “wrong” to suppress information about Hunter’s laptop and that he regrets doing so. That’s nice isn’t it because his regrets are so meaningful almost four years after the stolen election.

I wonder if Zuck regrets helping Democrats flood the country with illegals thus allowing unprecedented violent crime including rape and murder of many women and little girls. Does he regret assisting Biden with taking us to the brink of nuclear war in two parts of the world while working to foment another in the Pacific. What about the radicalization of our K-12 children to the point that parents are shut out, not listened to and even prosecuted. I don’t give Zuck a pass on anything because he said he regrets giving in to certain demands, not to all demands, so I suppose he picks and chooses his regrets.

Donald Trump had something to say about Zuck’s letter; “Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story and much more. In other words, the 2020 presidential election was rigged.” Yes, it was rigged, but in light of this admission if we had a real Republican Party and a real Speaker of the House with the courage to do the right thing, perhaps something could be done, but oh well.

Why would it take so much courage for the Speaker of the House or any other public figure to do the right thing and bring forth the charges that this admission deserves. If you take positions in public that have not been approved by the consensus that makes up the powers that be, no one will come forward to debate you, instead you will be referred to as a kook, a nut, etc. The most admirable politicians of our era have been treated that way. Ron Paul was called all those names and much more, often by people in his own party and often by people unworthy of him. Influential people told Americans that Ron was a nut so they repeated it as if they believed it.

Ron tried to tell the American people that the Federal Reserve was robbing them, and he tried to tell them that the military industrial complex was doing the same thing with the Federal Reserve’s help. People wouldn’t listen and they shunned him as a nut but those of us on the outside listened and the young helped bring him forward, but once again the establishment wasn’t having any of it. The Republican nomination in many states was denied to him in what amounted to unfair tactics to deny him votes. It wasn’t as blatantly obvious as what the Democrats have done with Kamala Harris but cheating, nevertheless.

So, here we are just about two months from the 2024 presidential election and the Democrats have selected their chosen candidate for us. Ms. Harris got zero votes, has so far given zero press conferences, zero interviews, but she and Tim Walz did stage buying a bag of Doritos all I suppose to make them look normal. The people who selected her have inflicted a ridiculous anti-democratic joke on the American people. In reality, she is a bubbleheaded actress with the right skin color for today’s Democrats, the right hair and the right smile. It’s all choregraphed without a single original thought.

It is especially distressing when you consider how far American elections have degraded. We are at the point now where candidates who stand in opposition to those selected for us are charged with non-crimes and indicted and convicted of basically nothing and if that isn’t enough, they are shot at, wounded, then the alleged lone nut shooter is cremated before evidence can be processed, just like in the removal to China of World Trade Center evidence and debris. We are supposed to look at it and just say well that’s politics so just move along, nothing to see here.

Nothing having to do with the federal government can be believed or trusted anymore. The department of justice covering the FBI which is supposed to be investigating itself in the Trump near assassination should get a long look as should the government within a government, the CIA but who has the courage.

I’m sure you are aware that Robert Kennedy, jr. has dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Trump. Tulsi Gabbard, still on the Terrorist watch list, also endorsed him. I read an article in the Babylon Bee humor paper which said that Trump wanted Kennedy in the campaign because he would draw most of the sniper fire away from Trump, funny and a little sobering.

Tulsi said, “We are closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before. This is one of the reasons I am committed to doing all that I can to send Trump back to the White House where he can once again serve as our Commander-in-Chief.”

Finally, folks, I close this Castle Report once again with the words of the great H.L. Mencken:

“Every normal man must be tempted at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

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THE CASTLE REPORT: Harris’ Plan to “Fix” the Economy

August 23, 2024

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Darrell Castle talks about the announced plan of Kamala Harris to “fix” the American economy along with a discussion of that most undemocratic of institutions, the Democrat Party.

Transcription / Notes

THE HARRIS PLAN TO “FIX” THE ECONOMY

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday, the 23rd day of August in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the announced plan of Kamala Harris to “fix” the American economy along with a discussion of that most undemocratic of institutions, the Democrat Party.

Why do I refer to the Democrat Party as undemocratic. There are many reasons but primarily that Party seems to regard the will of the people as nothing but a nuisance to keep the ruling elite of the Party from having their way. For example, Hillary Clinton received more primary delegates than Barack Obama, but he was nominated because he had more “super delegates.” The current nominees, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz received no delegate votes at all, not a single vote but they have the nomination and not Joe Biden who received 14 million primary votes.

Far a perfect explanation of American politics, and the entire election process I turn to the incomparable H.L. Mencken:

“The state—or, to make matters more concrete, the government—consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.”

I search in vain for a finer explanation of the American political system and American politicians than Mencken’s, but what of Kamala Harris and her solutions to our troubles. I will focus my attention right here at home for now because we have so many issues and despite the dangerous climb up the escalation ladder abroad, I look inward for today. Home where our families live and home where we struggle to feed them in spite of various government decisions which try to keep us from doing so. Inflation is obviously a problem right now and Kamala Harris wants us to know that she is aware of it and intends to fix it. Her solutions are even more interesting since she is now vice president and has been in that office while inflation was embedding itself in the economy.

The consumer price index has charts available that tell us what inflation is and how it affects our daily lives and our ability to maintain our standard of living. When we notice, little by little, that our living standard is slipping away the information from the consumer price index tells us at least partially, why that is true. For example, a U.S. dollar from 1971 is equivalent to $7.77 in 2024 an increase of 677%. So, the real value, or purchasing value of a dollar decreases over time. Does your income increase correspondingly because if not then your standard of living is declining. In some areas of the country, Ms. Harris’s California for example, the change has been even more pronounced. Politicians such as Kamala Harris will try just about anything to solve the problem of inflation except the only solution that will actually work. The only solution is cut public spending drastically or raise taxes drastically or both, but those things will not buy very many votes.

The great economist Milton Friedman famously put it like this, in his dictum, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary problem.” In other words, if you’ve got inflation as we have today, you are printing too much money. Who wants to live within their means in this day and age of empire and entitlement. We want to run the world, and we want to stay in power and those things cost a lot of money. They cost a lot more than can be extracted from working people therefore the answer is not stopping spending, but it is obviously borrow more and print the payments.

These things, empire and entitlement, may seem reasonable at the moment, but in the long run we pay dearly for them. For example, the Covid stimulus checks we got of about $1200 provided some immediate relief for what the government was doing to us but in the long run we pay dearly for them in terms of how much more food and fuel cost today as a result. It must be terribly hard for politicians to think long term because long term thinking is hard and the solutions to problems caused by politicians are usually painful and difficult. You won’t persuade many to sell you their votes by promising to cut government spending.

The Vice President of the United States and potentially the future President of the United States has a plan for solving the problems that we, as working Americans, have. When I heard her first idea that she promises to do if elected I cringed because of the simple-minded stupidity of it. She said she would provide up to $25,000 in down payment support for hundreds of thousands of first-time home buyers. Notice that she said I will provide this money, or I will give this money so I thought that’s really nice of her and she must be a lot richer than I thought.

It turns out that her statement was unfortunately just a figure of speech because she will not be giving, but instead she will be stealing. Yes, she plans to steal this money from working Americans or add it to the already $35 trillion debt thus destroying the standard of living of our children and future generations. On an annual basis there are 1.8 million first-time homeowners in America. Using that figure would result in $45 billion in annual spending but I’m certain it would trigger a lot more applications than 1.8 million so the cost would be much higher. That’s not much I know, for people who give $120 billion to Ukraine, but still, it’s money the U.S. does not have.

I will give you just a few of my thoughts about this idea of hers or whoever thought it up. It does not result from simple-minded stupidity, but it is instead an obvious vote buying scheme. It’s a way of saying to her base, I know you are whores so I’m just curious, how much do you charge. It has no productivity attached, so zero benefit will be returned. It will, in turn, make homes more expensive so the average buyer now and in the future will be less likely to be able to afford a home. In other words, this idiotic idea will make the “housing crises” a lot worse, but it might buy enough votes to win and gain power. Finally, it would put a lot of people in homes who can’t afford to live in them thus sparking a mortgage foreclosure crisis that we saw with the Obama years. That’s why I suspect he probably thought it up.

That is unfortunately, not the only tried before, stupid idea that she has in store for us. She is going to “ban corporate price-gouging” at grocery stores. Yes, she resents the 1% to 2% profit in the food and grocery industry. She’s OK it seems, with the 10% to 15% profit in the defense industry. See folks the reason food costs 10% per cent more this year than last is not her administration’s idiotic, bumbling with the economy because it’s all those 1% to 2% margin grocery stores that are just price-gouging. She is going to use the most totalitarian method of good socialists everywhere to make this problem much worse and that is to tell grocery stores they can’t raise prices. So, if their suppliers raise their prices what is the store to do. Don’t worry about that because she has the answer. Just tell the suppliers they can’t raise their prices either and tell the transport people the same thing.

O.K. Madame President, what if the allowed prices are below the level of profitability for my business or what should I do if it cost me more to produce than I get from your prices. Well folks, anyone with a functioning brain and anyone who has even a modest understanding can see that this type of top-down control always results in disaster. She promises to do it joyfully though so at least we have her joyful cackle going for us. The bureaucrats in Washington are so much better at turning us into Venezuela, Cuba and other such places than actual producers could.

O.K. what else can she do to damage this country. How about a government home building program to put another nail in our coffin. Yes, she will build three million new housing units at a proposed cost of $40 billion. The cost would be worth it you see, because it would create a lot of shovel-ready jobs. Adding three million new government homes should bring down the cost of homes, especially if they are built in your neighborhood. It would bring down the cost of your home and that’s for sure, but I would wager that the chances of all the homes being built are close to zero.

So far, we have added $100 billion to the annual deficit and debt with zero benefit to the country or its people. The only result so far would be a probable food shortage and crises resulting and inflation being made much worse, not better. Can it get any worse than this, well yes it can, and we can depend on VP Harris to find that way. Once again, she said she proposes to give each newborn child $6000 to help end child poverty. What would be the best treatment for child poverty, lower inflation by reducing government spending and cutting unnecessary regulations so their parents can work to earn a living.

I’m always interested when I find one of the many forms of government hypocrisy. I’m going to give $6000 to each newborn implies that she thinks she actually has that authority, and with the office comes this vast pool of money she can do with as she chooses. The only reason more money isn’t “given” to people who vote for the giver is because of selfishness. We don’t have the money so that’s easy just add it to the debt but then you have the interest until the final demise of the nation the advent of which will be accelerated by the gift. Speaking of hypocrisy, she will give money to newborns while at the DNC there is a bus providing free abortions and free vasectomies.

This woman who wants to hold the office of President of the United States is clueless and that makes her even more dangerous than the not even sentient Joe Biden. When he was sentient, a long time ago, I doubt very much if he would have gone for such a destructive plan. This lady is proposing full-fledged tyrannical totalitarianism.

According to information released by the Harris-Walz campaign she doesn’t see it the same way I do. She will make tackling inflation a day one priority and she will outline her plan to lower costs for middle class families, take on and defeat corporate price gouging, and just simply lower costs for all Americans. The costs of all these giveaways, according to Ms. Harris, will be paid by taxes on the rich and powerful. She doesn’t say that those rich and powerful people are the very same elites who now control her and the Democrat Party and the tax system and policies of the nation.

Most likely, the costs will not be borne by the rich and powerful, but by us normal Americans since it will simply be added to the debt and eventually paid for by the people for whom she tells us she is doing it. So, I guess we already have on our books $35 trillion of vote buying and war making boondoggles and idiotic wasteful schemes so what is a few $100 billion more. The costs always end up on the least informed and least protected group and that is we the people.

To this extent each candidate is in on the rigging of the game and that is that neither will do the one thing that would help reduce costs for middle class families and that is cut back on government itself. Cut everything and eliminate a lot of things if you sincerely want to save this country for future generations. Instead, both of them propose new costly programs to expand its reach and intrusion into our lives.

In conclusion, what Ms. Harris seems intent on doing is setting racial and ethnic minorities along with Third World immigrants against the middle class of American society for the purpose of transferring a free and self-ruled country into a corporatist totalitarian left-wing globalist state. I’m sure she knows that if the nation does not continually inflate its currency thus devaluing its debt the interest on the debt could not reasonably be funded so as Mencken said it’s all lies and posturing fabricated to cover the Democrats real agenda.

Finally, folks these Democrats, now led by Kamala Harris, a simple-minded, inarticulate woman have grown so comfortable with lying that they have no problem with turning the American people out as whores selling their votes. They and the people have lost their way and have sunk into moral darkness so deep they can no longer see any way out.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

Photo Credit: Malte Mueller | Getty Images

THE CASTLE REPORT: Terrorist or Freedom Fighter

August 16, 2024

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Darrell Castle talks about former member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, and how she has been investigated, followed and branded publicly as a potential domestic terrorist under the government’s new “Quiet Skies” program.

TERRORIST OR FREEDOM FIGHTER

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 16th day of August in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about former member of congress Tulsi Gabbard and how she has been investigated and followed and branded publicly as a potential domestic terrorist under the government’s new “Quiet Skies” program.

Yes, it seems that Tulsi has upset all the wrong people or all the right people depending on your point of view, and she has been placed on what amounts to a dangerous terrorist watch list under the Quit Skies program. She has been and is being tracked by government agents in a program that reminds one of the surveillance regimes of the Soviet Union or perhaps East Germany before the Soviet breakup.

This all came to light because one of those agents was disturbed by what he was ordered to do and became a whistleblower by contacting an organization called Uncover DC. The whistleblower said that Tulsi was singled out as a terror threat and Tulsi said his report matched her experiences and explained why she had been having so much trouble moving about the world in recent days. She went abroad for a short trip just a couple of days ago and was harassed at each leg and in each airport of her journey.

She and her husband had their boarding passes marked with the quadruple SSSS designation which means Secondary Security Screening Selection. The quad S is usually a marker that tells the agents of TSA or any other airport personnel that the person so designated is a terror threat. So, from this point just imagine Tulsi as a threat to commit an act of terror. Perhaps she might say or write something the regime that seems to be in control of all Western nations considers to be not in compliance, but actual terror.

For Tulsi the quad S meant delays of up to 45 minutes every time she went through an airport security process. Tulsi, an Iraq war veteran and current Army reservist said she usually packs light but sometimes that made it even more difficult because it was easier for them to go through and examine with their eyes and their hands each item of clothes she had in her carry-on bag. She said she had a couple of blazers; workout clothing and underwear and they squeezed every inch of each item at each airport change for her trip.

Agents unzipped the lining inside the roller boards of her suitcase and examined every inch of the liner. She was ordered to take out every piece of electronics and turn each one on including her military phone and computer. Tulsi said she normally uses her military ID to get through security but for several trips including one trip to her reserve base in Oklahoma, the ID failed to get her through. One agent saw the quad S and said how can you be quad S and be in the military. I suppose that’s a good question would have been her answer but that’s just a guess.

She reports that on one flight there were at least six agents doing her screening, along with dog teams. There were dogs in Dallas and dogs at the gates where she had to wait. Yes, indeed Tulsi Gabbard is quiet the terror threat. The whistle blower said that she had been placed on a domestic terror watch list. According to him she had two explosive detection canine teams, one Transportation Security Specialist (for explosives), one plainclothes TSA supervisor, and three Federal Air Marshalls assigned to every flight she boards.

Uncover DC said she was placed on the list July 23 and the trio of Air Marshalls began flying with her on July 25. So far at least three Marshalls have flown with her on at least eight flights. The goal, according to the Quiet Skies program, is to surround people with human watchers. There are potentially 15 such Marshalls or human watchers assigned to each gate where the quad S flyer is waiting.

Tulsi said, “this is not a woe me situation, instead it’s bringing to the forefront how brazen the political retaliation and abuse of power continues to be under the Biden-Harris administration.” It seems to me that all this abuse heaped on Tulsi has served to confirm that she has been right about things all along. Tulsi’s not the first to be tracked by this Stasi imitation government that we are under right now and she won’t be the last, but she is perhaps the most high-profile target, and I might add the most obviously undeserving of such treatment.

The quiet skies program was expanded to identify and follow each person who could be identified as having been in the capital on January 6th, 2021. The government does this by pressuring their servants in the corporate world to hand over credit card information for every person who purchased anything within several miles of the capital that day. They also examined every camera in the capital and used facial recognition software to track each individual.

It’s bad enough that Americans are so corrupt that they will follow other Americans for no reason, but Tulsi is different. She is a war veteran with no connection to January 6th or any other government false flag operation. Her appearance on a terror watch list is an indication that the event we were warned could happen has in-fact happened. The surveillance powers surrendered by congress to the various intelligence agencies that make up homeland security have been turned against the American people who through their words demonstrate that they are not one hundred percent in lock step with the regime.

How does Tulsi feel about all this and about how she has been treated by the government she risked her life to serve. “I enlisted because of the terrorist attack on 9/11. I was like a lot of Americans. We enlisted to ensure the safety, security, and freedom of the American people and go after the terrorists who attacked us. And so now to have confirmation—I guarantee there are other men and women in uniform or veterans now being targeted. I can’t think of a word that adequately captures how I feel. The closest I can think of is the deepest sense of betrayal. It cuts to the core.”

I know she feels betrayed, and it has left her with a sadness that she lost something precious. I can see it in her face when she appears on video, and I can hear it in her voice. She went on to talk about the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group which was led by psychotic lunatic John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper. The documents recently released identify Trump supporters, people in the military, or religious people as indicators for extremism or terrorism. The intelligence community she tells us is therefore targeting people of “many stripes”, but especially those who wear the uniform or have worn the uniform.

Why Tulsi, why put her on the list when she is so obviously not a terroristic threat. She has been a persistent critic of the politicians in the current administration. She was a member of congress in the Democrat Party from the State of Hawaii, but she left congress for her own reasons and ran for President in the 2020 Democrat primaries. Her rebuke of Kamala Harris ended Harris’ campaign without a single primary delegate. Perhaps that has something to do with her current persecution.

The day before she was apparently placed on the list, she appeared on the Ingraham Angle and criticized the “proxy war” in Ukraine. She said the administration was using “crap” excuses to turn Ukraine into another Afghanistan. Her put down of Harris during the campaign, I imagine stung and was not forgotten by the newly chosen one. She put over 1500 people in jail, Tulsi said, and then laughed about it when asked if she ever smoked marijuana.

There is absolutely no legitimate reason for Tulsi Gabbard to be placed on the Quiet Skies program. Being listed as a potential terrorist, followed by 9 Air Marshalls and three canine teams everywhere she goes is horrible even by the almost non-existent standards for decency of this administration. This is an administration that opens the border for anyone who wants to enter thus permitting the rape and murder of women and little girls across the country. The new candidate for vice president on the ticket with Kamala Harris said he wished he could give ladders to all those people so they could climb in easier.

So, what is Tulsi to do about this persecution that has been cast upon her. She posted on X this statement. “My own government, my president, my commander-in-chief is targeting me as a potential domestic terrorist, the closest word that comes to mind is a complete sense of betrayal. After serving over 21 years and continuing to serve in our nations’ military, my own government has labeled and is targeting me directly now as a domestic terrorist. They’re using people like the air marshals as weapons and pawns to target their political opponents. Of course, there’s no explanation given, which is why we are taking legal recourse.”

What does she mean by taking legal recourse. It’s a little too early to know right now, but there has been some action. Empower Oversight is a firm that has represented whistleblowers and others in the Quiet Skies program as well as the IRS special agents who testified in the Hunter Biden case. Their lawyers sent a letter to Homeland Security demanding an immediate investigation into the Tulsi Gabbard matter. However, Empower says that it has learned that instead of calling off the dogs (literally) assigned to Tulsi the government is proceeding against the Quiet Skies whistleblowers.

Quiet Skies says that this is a program using a risk-based approach to identify and apply enhanced security measures on some domestic and outbound international flights. Simply applying this risk-based rule to passengers does not necessarily mean anything derogatory, etc. so on and so forth, or said this way blah, blah blah. You don’t have to worry about whether these people have probable cause because they admit that almost none of their search’s results in court proceedings so probable cause is unnecessary. I’m sure that if a court proceeding did result, then probable cause would be found very quickly.

Homeland Security tells us that the terrorist watchlist has greatly expanded lately. The new targets are not Muslims flying in from the Middle East, but domestic terrorist threats. You know all those grandmothers who visited D.C. on a particular day. They also have to pay very close attention to grandmothers who prayed in D.C. on January 6th. Yes, a 72-year-old lady who had lived her life squeaky clean without even a traffic ticket was just sentenced to a fine of $103,000, 6 months house arrest, 12 months’ probation and loss of internet privileges. Yes, I said privileges because speaking is now a privilege in this country and speaking the truth is a crime. Rebecca Lavrenz is known by her friends as the praying grandma, but the Biden Administration says she is a criminal.

In conclusion, Tulsi said that a TSA agent told her that he had noticed that the well-known Quad S targets he had seen were most often supporters of a former president. Can the deep state be dismantled or can the toothpaste be returned to the tube. It’s very doubtful but a good start would be to dismantle George W. Bush’s Department of Homeland Security with a hard look at each of its 270,000 employees to see whether each can continue under the component agencies. Without freedom to speak our minds we are definitely not free, and the Government of the United States of America is working night and day to criminalize speech and deprive us of freedom.

Finally, Folks, it’s too bad about Tulsi. She is a woman who should be honored and lifted up by the government as an example for all of us but instead she is persecuted. She is persecuted because the government is wicked, evil and satanic, and simply will not tolerate dissent. I understand why she is persecuted, but I don’t understand why people continue to vote for the descent of our country into satanic evil.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

Photo Credit:  www.917society.org

THE CASTLE REPORT: Failure of Imagination

August 9, 2024

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Darrell Castle talks about the Secret Service and its recent series of abject failures to perform its function even modestly let alone in the fashion we have come to expect from that vaunted agency.

Transcription / Notes

THE SECRET SERVICE’S FAILURE OF IMAGINATION

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 9th day of August in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the Secret Service and its recent series of abject failures to perform its function even modestly let alone in the fashion we have come to expect from that vaunted agency.

I decided to resist my natural instinct to devote all my attention to the coming war in the Middle East which I predict the United States will find it impossible to resist and instead devote my attention to something just about as dangerous right here at home. Yes indeed, the Secret Service is the rock of the United States Government and is filled with the most highly trained and dedicated agents in all of government, right. Well, no folks that is no longer right as we will see in this Report.

The Service is secret because its agents are supposed to be invisible. They are seen but not seen as part of the landscape you hardly notice them, but they are always there. The philosophy of the Service as well as the agents who staff it has been similar to doctors. The doctor doesn’t rejoice in the recovery room when his work is successful, and he doesn’t weep in the cemetery when it isn’t, he just tries to find out what is going on and then keeps going. The agent doesn’t care who he is assigned to protect he just does his job with professionalism and competence putting his own life on the line in the process.

The agents are not responsible for the behavior of their protectees, only their protection. If the protectee cheats on his wife or is a drunk or does business with underworld characters that is not the agent’s concern, only safety. Things seem to have changed at the Service in recent years to the point that we have come to expect lying, stonewalling, and obfuscation regarding the failure of the agents to properly do their jobs. It is very clear right now that the Service has not been forthright with the investigation of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. So, the American people can no longer depend on the Service to protect its assigned protectee unless that person happens to have a political philosophy and agenda in line with the Service and its controllers.

What we can depend on with certainty is the Service lying about its failure to do the job with which the American people have entrusted it. Little by little information about the attempted assassination leaks out from whistle blowers inside the Service and with each revelation it looks worse. The series of security failures was so large that it seems obvious that the Service is no longer even competent let alone elite. Lies follow lies but some are just too obvious. The director of the FBI covering for the Service by saying that perhaps Trump was not shot. His lie was quickly put to rest by doctors but why would he tell such a lie. Perhaps it was a cover for the Service but more likely just a difference of political views.

My favorite lie though, was from the interim director of the Service, or perhaps it wasn’t a lie just simple incompetence and lack of intelligence. When director Kimberly Cheatle resigned a new director or interim director had to be appointed and that was Ronald Rowe, a man with 24 years of service. While being questioned by members of Congress about how this attempted assassination could have happened, he said it was “a failure of imagination.” The Service never imagined that anybody would want to take a shot at Donald Trump. The more you think about that response, the more hilarious it becomes, and it could take us down a number of rabbit trails, but nevertheless that was his answer.

So, the Service just could not imagine that we live in a dangerous world and that is why its agents were tasked with protecting one of the highest profile and most polarizing people in the world. I can’t help but wonder how such a man managed to rise to his position in the federal government.  A lack of imagination then, caused the Service’s counter sniper team to not attend the pre-event coordination meeting with local law enforcement and had zero communication local SWAT teams.

That is only one of a series of failures and inexplicable things that happened during this event. In fact, it is harder to find things the Service did right than it is to pinpoint mistakes. One wonders if all these failures to properly do the job of protecting Trump were just stupid incompetence or whether something more sinister was going on. In many countries around the globe, those we often refer to as 3rd world, we would immediately assume the incompetence was a cover-up for something more sinister. Here in America, we are the essential and exceptional nation, and above all that and we walk with pride in the knowledge that we are not just physically and intellectually superior, but morally superior as well.

Government conspiracies are very difficult to pull off as we all know because they usually require the silence of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, which would be very unlikely. On the other hand, if the people heading the event were as obviously incompetent as Kimberly Cheatle and Robert Rowe who denied resources to Trump’s security detail and assigned inexperienced agents to it, perhaps there is something to it. There are many problems here, but all we know for certain right now is that resources were strangled, and substandard agents were assigned to the team. Is that enough to suspect something sinister, perhaps but it gets worse.

What we have been discussing is all pre-shooting failures and incompetence. Once shots were fired the incompetence continued. When the alleged shooter, Thomas Mathew Crooks, was killed by counter sniper fire (apparently) there was an autopsy of his body. By the way isn’t it interesting how the lone nut always has three names. Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan Sirhan, James Earl Ray and now Thomas Mathew Crooks. Post shooting investigations of the lone nut’s background usually reveal that he was never referred to by three names, but that is how we are to remember him.

I have seen reports of the autopsy from this past week but the Butler County Coroner’s office released cause and manner of death on July 21st. Cause and manner do not constitute an autopsy as any good lawyer can tell you. It seems that an autopsy has been conducted but it is doubtful whether we will ever be able to see its results. Virtually everything having to do with physical evidence in this case including position of the body, location of wounds, consistent with the sniper rifle that supposedly killed him, all are being guarded like state secrets. Why, nobody seems to know why the public can’t see this evidence. What all the secrecy does is fuel doubt, and cause speculation and a belief that something sinister is going on.

It seems to me that it is incumbent on the part of the Service, its boss Homeland Security, and their boss, the President, to be more forthright with their answers. I’m a little sick of their, go away peon attitude. If you want to know why everything seems like a conspiracy, it’s because they make it so. What is the burden of proof here. Is it the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt or the civil standard of its more likely than not because using that standard it’s starting to look bad for the service.

The Service has many other issues that might lead one to the belief that leadership is less than forthright with us. Somebody left cocaine in plain view in the White House, but the Service has no clue who did it. The cocaine, it has now been revealed, was in a container which had DNA evidence in it but still we the people are not entitled to know who left and apparently used cocaine in our house. A Secret Service Uniformed Division officer found the bag of cocaine on July 2, 2023, on a Sunday while the President was in Camp David. The ensuing dispute between the Uniformed Division, the Forensics Services Division, and the Secret Service leadership became public knowledge. The leadership, meaning Kimberly Cheatle, apparently wanted to protect her friends and boss in the Biden family but the other divisions refused to go along. That is the story now that Kimberly Cheatle is no longer the director.

Secret Service Agents took Vice President-elect Harris to the DNC, that’s the Democrat National Committee, before the January 6th protest, riot, insurrection, or whatever you choose to call it and whatever you choose to believe.  I realize that it is extremely hard to discern what to believe and too often it comes down to a person’s pre-conceived political biases. The sketchy information, otherwise known as lies, is revealed to us piecemeal and in a fashion that tells us what to believe. For example, the pipe bomb placed on the bench outside DNC headquarters that day was clearly visible on video. Children played near it but no one stopped them. The supposed bomb was of the comic book variety with a timer like a large kitchen clock.

So, for the Service and for this government some questions need to be answered. There are many others but some that occur to me are these. Was the pipe bomb inert or active. Why was EOD people not called to dispose of the bomb. If it was an active as opposed to inert bomb, why didn’t the explosive detection dogs find it. Why did it take the Service more than a year to reply to the Inspector General’s request for January 6th documents. When the Vice President-Elect said she felt threatened or that her life was in danger, why did it take a year to learn that she was not even in the capitol complex that day.  Why did the Service and its agents and leadership sit by while people they knew to be innocent were given enhanced sentences because of a threat to the Vice President-Elect.

There are many questions to be asked and answered about the attempted assassination as well as cocaine gate and insurrection gate. Once Director Cheatle fell on her sword, why was no one fired for incompetence. The answer is the same shuffling one that we always get and that is that the investigation is ongoing, etc. Some in congress and even some in the conservative press are suggesting that because of this administration’s emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) the standards may have been lowered to the level of incompetence in favor of identity politics.

The Service’s web site is revealing and might give one reason to think that might just be the case. Its various categories for recruitment include outreach to African Americans, Pacific Islanders, Hispanic, Indigenous Nations, Federal Women’s Program. LGBTQ, Persons with Disabilities/Disabled Veteran, Office of the Ombudsman, and Inclusion and Engagement Council. What is missing from this list is merit and there is nothing about being willing to take the bullet meant for the protectee.

This makes me think that morale and job satisfaction among all those dedicated dark suits and dark glasses can’t be very high. To be thought of as an incompetent failure must be difficult for them and being politically correct and loyal like a good lapdog is not much of a compromise. Whatever happened to honor and the refusal to compromise or what used to be known as character and integrity.

Finally, folks, the lack of imagination the interim director blamed for this debacle cost a man his life and deprived his family of his love, provision, and protection. It also caused several people to be wounded and a presidential candidate to be wounded and almost killed. Is the destruction and dissolution of our society planned. Quoting the interim director, the investigation is still ongoing, etc.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock | 92916328

THE CASTLE REPORT: Democracy, Republic, or Oligarchy

July 26, 2024

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Darrell Castle talks about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the resignation of the Director of the Secret Service, the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential campaign, but especially what it all says about America today.

Transcription / Notes

DEMOCRACY, REPUBLIC, OR OLIGARCHY

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 26th day of July in the year of our Lord 2024. I be talking about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and the continuing saga surrounding it including the resignation of the Director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential campaign but especially what it all says about America today.

I am going to assume that you know the difference between democracy and republic and that the United States Constitution makes this nation a republic. Just to reiterate something you already know democracy is government by the will of the majority, but republic is government by the elected representatives of the people who in turn are recognized as having individual rights. In a republic the majority does not rule when the majority’s decision interferes with the protected rights of individual Americans.

My argument is that a republic is what the founders bequeathed to us in the Constitution, but today our system of government has evolved until we no longer have a republic or a democracy but instead, we are ruled by an oligarchy. That word comes from an ancient Greek word meaning rule by a few. Aristotle explained it as not only rule by a few, but rule by the worst few who usually take power by force or subterfuge. Rule by a few, but the best few, is an aristocracy.

The people who hold and wield power want those who don’t to think it is a legitimate process, or that they achieved power through a legitimate process, but often they don’t. For example, when President Biden notified the people of his decision to withdraw from the presidential race, he did it by way of a letter on his social media account which is written and posted by others. It was written on his stationery instead of presidential stationery and it carried no presidential seal. Most importantly, it was not his signature because it did not match any of his many previously signed letters or orders.

We are not supposed to notice and there is to be no investigation into who wrote the letter, who signed the letter, did the letter reflect the president’s decision, or did others make that decision for him. If it was made by others, obviously none of them are president and many or all of them are unelected. Who is running this country and who is making the decisions about who runs it. Joe Biden received many primary votes from the members of his party who are now expected to have their decision wiped away in favor of someone who has never received a single primary delegate.

Rumor has it that the elite of the Democrat Party, primarily Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons, and the Obamas went to the president and said Joe we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can let us resign you from the race and continue your term, or we will remove you through the 25th amendment. A palace coup in other words, but one which only started when the interests of the ruling deep state were noticeably affected.  The ones who exercise power were not granted that power by the people but somehow, they have it. They have known for years that Biden is and has been unable to perform his duties as president, but they chose not to mention it because they were in charge.

They decided he could not beat Trump so they set him up for a debate long before the convention so the world would notice his condition but there would be time to replace him before the Democrat convention. Notice that the voters have nothing to do with this process because it is totally orchestrated by power brokers who endeavor to remain unseen as much as possible, I suppose to keep up the democracy appearance. I wonder how the process of replacing Biden with Harris is any different from when the KGB decided it was time for a new leader more acceptable to their will.

I read that when Khrushchev was getting old and a little infirm and the KGB decided that Brezhnev, who was one of them, would be more suitable they made the change in a similar but less public way. Mr. Khrushchev had a state visit somewhere and when he returned someone appeared in his office with a letter, put it in front of him and said sign this, and he was never seen in public again. In China, everyone knows that they live in a state completely owned and operated by the Chinese Communist Party. The interests of the Chinese people are not important or even considered unless their interests somehow align with the Party and will strengthen and expand its power.

How is that process different from what we are seeing with the Democrat Party today and even the Republican Party has its chosen ones. This is all very important especially in terms of foreign and domestic policy as it is made today. Who makes policy today. Who commits the United States to having 700 military bases around the world with a defense budget 8 times bigger than Russia and 3 times bigger than China. Why can’t we have a leader who defends the Constitution by ending perpetual war, ending the massive intrusion of government into our private lives, and changing to an agenda of national prosperity. The reason is that it would not expand and solidify the power of the deep state and those who maintain it and profit from it.

That’s all background into our political system to help explain what is happening now with the Democrat non-choice for president as well as the attempt to eliminate the competition by assassination. I have mentioned many times before the three ways to get rid of a pesky politician who won’t follow the script. First, you can offer him or her money and if he already has enough like Trump, and Kennedy, you can find something of value to serve as money such as some plum job in government like when Hillery Clinton became Secretary of State.

The second method is scandal which is easy to generate because the FBI has dossiers literally on everyone. When I was a candidate for president in 2016, I talked to an FBI agent once who sent a little chill up my spine when he told me a little of what the FBI knew about me. Sex is the most obvious scandal with video tapes of little boys or little girls or some other Jeffrey Epstein type thing in the backgrounds of evil people. When I say evil, I mean that only the evil gets to a position to be considered for membership. If you are not truly evil, they don’t worry about you because they know you are not wicked enough to do what it takes to challenge them.

They all have skeletons and even if they don’t, skeletons can be invented. When people have no conscience at all and they conclude that power is literally everything and that to achieve or maintain power they must please their global masters, then skeletons will be found, and the law is no barrier. The law, which is supposed to be a barrier between the people and their government, becomes a weapon in the hands of the government. They will find corrupt prosecutors to bring false charges and use corrupt juries and judges to get false criminal indictments and convictions. They will raid your home and plant evidence and give perjured testimony about what was found in the search. They will send hundreds to jail on false charges usually without trial or due process and then blame you for the false charges. They will look through your past for a disgruntled person in order to turn a non-crime into a felony.

Sometimes the offer of money or something else of value is rejected and the scandals do not stick. There are those who just seem to feed off scandal and use it to get stronger. That effect usually means that the public, the people, have become wise to the game and see the one being pursued as a hero. He becomes a persecuted martyr and people admire his courage and unwillingness to cave in. They know the ones creating the scandals are many times worse than the one they persecute.

When money and scandal don’t work the only thing left is the final solution, which has been used many times and can be pointed out to the one who just won’t listen. The Kennedys, Martin Luther King, even Ronald Reagan found out the hard way that the third way is the hardest, but it usually works. Even when not totally successful as in Reagan’s case, it works if the target loses his hold on power as Reagan did. In the case of Donald Trump, the assassin was not successful in killing, but perhaps he was successful in neutering the opponent of the deep state. If you don’t like the name deep state, then choose your own but we are talking about the invisible, unelected ones who are the puppet masters, and who do not take no for an answer.

For example, the secret service has been trying to tell Donald Trump to stop holding large outdoor rallies. It’s just too hard to protect him from assassins outdoors and unfortunately the deep state seems to be succeeding. We are told now that Trump’s team is looking for large indoor arenas like basketball arenas. So, let me get this straight Ms. Cheatle, unless Trump stops doing the things that attracted voters in the first place, you can’t promise him the safety of history’s greatest empire. The other thing is that Trump was obviously affected by the assassin’s bullet so that it changed his demeanor. Was it the bullet or someone in his ear that changed him into a unity candidate. I hear now that he is looking at the head of one of the Wall Street banks as his secretary of the Treasury. That would be a big mistake and is the equivalent of letting the fox guard the henhouse. If you want to kill the deep state, and that is the basis of his popularity, then you don’t unify with it, you terminate it.

The lone nut/patsy who supposedly fired the bullet that almost killed Trump did not kill him, but he did manage to bring down the director of the Secret Service. Yes, Kimberly Cheatle fell on her sword the other day instead of answering a few basic questions. The questions were designed to trap the director into admitting that she and the service were negligent. Democrats and Republicans went after her with the same questions, and she danced around the questions well and supported her unknown bosses by not answering and instead resigning.

None of the House members who questioned her were looking for an answer to the question of who did this Ms. Cheatle. Did the Service refuse Trump requested resources and did the people they assigned to him have enough of the right stuff to do the job. The answer to those questions is no he didn’t get the resources, and no they weren’t up to the job, but the right questions were not asked and certainly not answered. Did you account for every bullet that was fired and did ballistics match them to the lone nut/patsy’s rifle. How many spent brass cartridges did you recover from where, what calibers, and how do you account for the forensics evidence of a second shooter. How can one person fire from two places at once.

Ms. Cheatle is the service making any investigative effort to determine if the audio evidence indicates a plot to kill Trump. Removing the director of the service makes everyone in Congress happy. They got their scalp hanging from their belt so they can feel good but the second shooter, if one exists as evidence seems to indicate, is still at large and the deep state can rest easy until it has a chance to try again. Maybe Trump has been neutered by his millimeter from death experience. A bullet passing close to one’s head has an effect that is perhaps hard to measure and varies from person to person.

Finally, folks, I close this Castle Report with a quote from Paul Craig Roberts.

“Cheatle is correct that the Secret Service failed. It failed to assassinate Trump.”

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

Photo Credit: Ryan Heffernan

THE CASTLE REPORT: The Dark Secrets of War

July 12, 2024

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Darrell Castle talks about the ordeal of Julian Assange and what his case tells us about what it means to be a real journalist in today’s world.

Transcription / Notes

THE DARK SECRETS OF WAR

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 12th day of July in the year of our Lord 2024. I will be talking about the ordeal of Julian Assange but also what his case tells us about what it means to be a real journalist in today’s world. In essence his case tells us that the truth no longer sets us free and telling the truth has become a crime.

Before we get into the matter of Assange perhaps a little background is in order. A free press is vitally important to American freedom and if I can convey nothing else to you today it is that the press, and by that, I mean real, genuine, journalism is there to inform the people of what their government is doing. Those in government should be looking out for and expecting the press to expose their works of darkness, if they have any. That sentiment has been spoken by many from the founders all the way to the Supreme Court in the modern era.

I will illustrate my words with a quote from Justice Hugo Black in the case of The New York Times versus The United States decided in 1971. His quote came to me from an article written by Scott Ritter in his newsletter Scott Ritter Extra.

“The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose the deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.”

That quote is one of the most important in American history because it is fundamental to liberty. The press is supposed to be the servant of the people, not a wholly owned subsidiary of the government itself, and certainly not of any one political party. The case quoting Justice Black goes back to the Vietnam days of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.

Ellsberg was not a journalist but an employee of the U.S. Department of Defense working in the Pentagon. He was involved in the production of a report ordered by secretary of Defense Robert McNamara that was a history of U.S. involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968.

The Times printed the report on its front pages and further stated that the report showed that the Johnson administration had lied systemically to Congress and the American people about U.S. entry into and conduct of the Vietnam War. McNamara claimed that he only had the report prepared because he wanted to leave a written record for future policy makers to prevent them from making the same mistake. The report revealed lots of things the government was lying about including U.S. troops raiding into North Vietnam, etc. The optimistic picture of the war presented by the government was false and the government knew the war was unwinnable and a waste of lives. It was top secret information and although Ellsberg was not a journalist he was disturbed by the report, and he violated his security clearance by sending it to the Times who then chose to publish it on the front page.

I lived through that time, so I remember it well. I was not happy that Ellsberg released classified information and I wanted to see him punished. I admit now that I really didn’t understand what was happening and what was at stake. Ellsberg sent the information to the New York Times, but that paper made the decision on its own to publish it. The Times was perhaps not an affiliate of the Democrat Party at that time as it is now and also the Times along with other media was generally hostile to the war and happy to see it discredited. President Johnson was a lame duck and, on his way out, with Robert Kennedy predicted to be his successor.

Julian Assange is, in many ways, the opposite of Daniel Ellsberg in that he didn’t steal any government top secret documents and release them to the media. Assange was, in fact, the media because he was the founder of the internet site, Wikileaks, which endeavored to hold government accountable by revealing its secrets. People sent him information that they had obtained, and he decided whether to put it out on Wikileaks or not.

He received a video that was obtained by a U.S. Army Corporal consisting of gun camera footage shot from a U.S. helicopter. When he saw the video, he knew that it was dynamite and potentially could bring severe retaliation against him if he published. The video shows a helicopter crew being ordered to fire on civilians huddled together on the ground. Nine civilians were huddled together in the street and the machine gunner reported them as civilians, but the order clearly given to him and clearly heard was “light ’em all up.” There was hesitation on the gunner’s part and then the order “come on, fire.”

The people all went down but one and he was killed as he was running away. That is pretty obviously an international war crime and very graphic for those who saw it. Few, if any, outside those involved knew of it until Assange decided to publish it on Wikileaks and that decision sealed his fate. The U.S. came after him for espionage and treason although they never explained how a foreign national can be guilty of treason. Assange is Australian and the crime of treason can be committed only against one’s own government. Espionage was enough, however, to have him relentlessly pursued until his life was destroyed.

He was living in London at the time and was granted asylum by the nation of Ecuador in their British Embassy where he remained for seven years. He actually lived inside that building for seven years and his wife was unable to see him during that time. During those seven years, the President of Ecuador, who had granted asylum, was replaced by one who was more susceptible to American pressure. He was handed over to British authorities who put him in Belmarsh maximum security prison while his lawyers fought American requests to have him extradited to the U.S. where he would have faced long term imprisonment.

He spent five years in Belmarsh most of it in solitary confinement in a cell 23 hours a day. Keep in mind that he was not a criminal and had not been convicted of anything. He had no real due process for 12 years because he knew that his American fate had already been decided. I think I said that Assange was opposite Daniel Ellsberg and that is because he was the New York Times, not Ellsberg. The U.S. went after Ellsberg at first for espionage, but later thought better of it and left him alone. The New York Times, in the case I mentioned, proved that free press was alive then, despite the government’s best efforts.

Assange was the New York Times because he was the publisher of the information. Can you imagine the publisher or editor of the New York Times being confined for 12 years without any charges. The government wanted to make an example of the only one who had the audacity to practice real journalism. Living in a tiny cell 23 hours a day for five years is, according to the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights, a crime that cannot be justified because it imposes severe mental pain and suffering beyond any reasonable retribution for criminal behavior and thus constitutes torture.

Before someone is so confined in solitary, he should at least be charged with a crime and perhaps even be guilty of one. In Assange’s case the state won and let everyone know that it claims the right to conduct its war crimes and other such deeds in total darkness and the light of day will not shine on it. If you think otherwise, then take a look at Julian Assange and be very afraid. The state sends this message to all would be journalists out in the working press and those in journalism schools. We are everything and you are nothing. We are superior and exceptional and morally correct, and our ends justify any means so don’t think about opposing us.

If you try to oppose us, you will be ostracized by your fellow journalists and that will be the least of your troubles. Just come join us like all your comrades and spit out the propaganda as we give it to you and your life will be one of ease.

In Julian Assange’s case he is guilty of no crime, but they won because they broke him after 12 years. The news of his release was met with joy, but then I started thinking about what it really means. He won his freedom, but to do so he had to compromise and plead guilty to a crime he didn’t commit. The state made him say that he was guilty and that he is sorry about his guilt. He was forced to acknowledge that what he did was a crime and so lying became the price of freedom. The government doesn’t think anything about lying and has become a master at it so making him lie is no big deal to them.

Anybody who says anything the U.S. government doesn’t want him to say is in danger. You could be arrested and thrown into prison for years with no charges and no trial.  His attorneys were finally able to negotiate a plea deal whereby he pled guilty to one felony charge of illegally obtaining and publishing U.S. government documents of various kinds, many of them evidencing war crimes and human rights abuses, and a few others exposing some political crimes during the Clinton campaign. His plea deal justifies the government’s history of abusing his rights along with denial of press freedom because after all, he was guilty of espionage.

One interesting thing about the plea deal is the choice of locations. There is a federal courthouse on the island of Saipan in the Northern Marianas, a U.S. possession. The reason that island is a U.S. possession is because a few thousand U.S. Marines paid for it with their lives in June 1944. That’s right we just memorialized the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France but just one week after that on June 15, 1944, U.S. Marines landed on Saipan in what was the largest Pacific landing to date. The U.S. was so powerful it could conduct the two largest amphibious assaults in world history on opposite sides of the earth at virtually the same time. So, now I must ask you what’s happened, what’s become of us.

Apparently, it was Assange’s lawyers who wanted that location because it was under U.S. jurisdiction, but not in the U.S. It is fairly remote but also fairly close to his native Australia. I saw a video of him seeing his wife who waited all those years for him. He didn’t want to set foot on U.S. soil, that bastion of liberty that so many were willing to die for in 1944. If he had landed in Washington there would have been no way to prevent the government from reneging on the deal and bringing him to trial in Washington D.C. It’s a shame that his lawyers had good reason to think that a fair trial was not possible.

The New York Times shied away from the Assange story for much of his ordeal, but finally published an article entitled, “Assange Agrees to Plead Guilty in Exchange for Release, Ending Standoff with the U.S.” The best I can make of the deal is that he is free and that is good. What it means in a bad sense is an overturning of the case of New York Times versus U.S. It is an assault on the first Amendment and the concept of the 1st Amendment as a guardian of a free press, and the vital importance of a free press. So, Julian is free, but the press is not.

Finally, folks, are there any people left who still practice real journalism? Yes, a few because although Julian is free, he can’t work anymore, at least not without extreme risk. Some others perhaps, definitely Tucker Carlson, definitely Glenn Greenwald, definitely Matt Taibbi and perhaps I would include Bari Weiss as well.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.