CBS Mornings devoted a significant segment of Wednesday’s first hour to a foolish report on the importance of leftist teenage influences on TikTok. Correspondent Jo Ling Kent hyped the quickly emerging “campaigning design” for the apparently beneficial impact it had on young voters, naturally focusing on how it advantaged the Democratic Party. Co-host Jericka Duncan began by highlighting a couple of (carefully selected) positive videos concerning Vice President Kamala Harris’ brand new running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D). Before turning to Kent, she giddily applauded how “Democrats have really deployed these influencers to attract those young voters.” Kent focused much of her report on 23-year-old TikToker Awa Sanneh and played certain tasteful clips from her videos, like one where she bragged, “I just peed in the White House.” The obviously delighted correspondent celebrated that “when she posted this video of her White House bathroom break, her half a million followers took notice.”      So much for the decency the Democratic Party swore it demonstrated. Kent could barely contain her excitement about another one of Sanneh’s videos, her “birth control blog” where she idiotically declared “over the United States of my uterus” following the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. “It was this viral video she posted…that initially caught the attention of a Democratic super PAC,” Kent cheered. Rather than being fueled by organic enthusiasm for the candidates or the presidential race in general, Kent herself revealed that, “Democratic organizations are flooding the creator community with cash and providing behind-the-scenes access.” She also interviewed a Rob Flaherty who had the esteemed role of running “digital strategy” in President Joe Biden’s White House and for the Harris campaign. More accurately, Flaherty is a millennial “coaching” a bunch of Gen-Zers with “talking points, resources, [and] base language” to market Kamala Harris.  Flaherty called the “highly meme-able Harris a massive asset,” clearly in denial that his work was simply part of the desperate attempt by the older generations to stay relevant in popular culture, while simultaneously struggling to appeal to the younger ones. Ironically, Kent clarified again that, “While Flaherty says the Harris campaign does not pay influencers directly, CBS news found a constellation of other Democratic political organizations that do,” meaning the so-called influencers demonstrated very little initiative or passion but were instead motivated by their greed (Sanneh revealed creators were paid from $3,000 to $10,000 “and upwards”). In fact, Sanneh said that she was “hired” by Protect Our Care, “a progressive advocacy group that relies on anonymous donors.” Kent revealed that groups like Protect Our Care send carefully scripted talking points, adding, “She takes their talking points and puts them into her own voice, saying she always discloses when she's being paid.” The hypocrisy was all too evident and that statement was a pathetic reassurance of the integrity of the Democrats’ new and not-so-subtly insidious agenda.  Actually, just a few moments later, Kent disclosed: “when it comes to selling commercial products or sharing financial advice online, federal rules do require influencers to disclose when they are being paid. But in December, the Federal Election Commission voted against similar requirements for influencers spreading political messaging.” Interestingly, Kent continued to expose the Democratic scheme by interviewing the University of Pittsburgh’s Sam Woolley who “studies political influencers,” asking him, “How can you tell what is a genuine grassroots expression of political opinion versus what's being paid for?” “If you see multiple influencers spreading the same exact message, you can start to realize, ‘Hmm, some kind of coordination is going on,’” Woolley responded. Following the report, co-host Gayle King gushed, “I am so fascinated by this, Jo Ling. ‘Cause at first I couldn't decide is this obnoxious, or refreshing, or creative?” She decided on “refreshing and creative” but certainly should have gone with her first impulse. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CBS Mornings 8/7/2024 07:39:27 AM EST JERICKA DUNCAN: If you've been on Instagram or TikTok over the past day, chances are you've seen videos, like these, about the new Democratic vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz. They reflect a different kind of campaigning design to win the newest battleground, our social media feeds. Jo Ling Kent is here to show us how Democrats have really deployed these influencers, if you will, to attract those young voters. Good morning, Jo Ling. JO LING KENT: Good morning, Jericka. Good to see you. Now, influencers have become a key conduit to reach voters this election, as both parties are trying to gain an edge with Gen-Z, a bloc that’s estimated to have 41 million eligible to cast their ballot in November. Eight million for the first time. [Cuts to video] AWA SANNEH: Look at the volume in this hair… KENT: 23-year-old Awa Sanneh made a name for herself dispensing beauty tips on TikTok. SANNEH: I just peed in the White House. KENT: So, when she posted this video of her White House bathroom break, her half a million followers took notice. SANNEH: I was just shocked. I was, like, did you see that marble? KENT: Sanneh, who met us in Houston, was one of a few dozen influencers invited to the White House to watch the State of the Union and meet President Biden. SANNEH: He said to us, “The collective presence in this room has more viewership on Gen-Z than all of traditional media combined.” So, here's my birth control blog… KENT: It was this viral video she posted after the fall of Roe v. Wade.. SANNEH: Over the United States of my uterus– KENT: …that initially caught the attention of a Democratic super PAC. On the right, Turning Point USA has mobilized influencers for years, raising nearly $200 million since 2020. CHARLIE KIRK: You realize they're coming for you guys next. KENT: Now, Democratic organizations are flooding the creator community with cash and providing behind-the-scenes access. CLARKE PEOPLES: Come with me to meet the president of the United States… ROB FLAHERTY: We just have to be working with them and if we’re not, we're missing a huge way that voters are getting information about the world. KENT: Rob Flaherty runs digital strategy, previously in the Biden White House and now for the Harris campaign. VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? KENT: He called the highly meme-able Harris a massive asset, as the campaign reaches out to thousands of influencers.  What kind of coaching do you give influencers acting on behalf of the Harris campaign? FLAHERTY: Talking points, resources, base language. KENT: While Flaherty says the Harris campaign does not pay influencers directly, CBS news found a constellation of other Democratic political organizations that do. In May, Future Forward, the super PAC supporting Harris, hosted panels like “Gaming the Algorithm” and “How advocacy can benefit your business.” SANNEH: In the first 100 days of a Republican presidency under Trump, Project 2025 talks about sacking thousands of civil servants… KENT: Last month, Sanneh says was hired by Protect Our Care, a progressive advocacy group that relies on anonymous donors. She made a video warning about Trump's second-term agenda. They almost help you script it, right? SANNEH: Right. Definitely. KENT: She takes their talking points and puts them into her own voice, saying she always discloses when she's being paid.  What's your rate? SANNEH: So, a video, just for a creator in my size, an average can go from $3,000 to $10,000, depending and upwards. SAM WOOLLEY: This is a bid by campaigns to create authenticity at a small scale. KENT: University of Pittsburgh's Sam Woolley studies political influencers.  How can you tell what is a genuine grassroots expression of political opinion versus what's being paid for? WOOLLEY: If you see multiple influencers spreading the same exact message, you can start to realize, “Hmm, some kind of coordination is going on.” KENT: Next up for Sanneh, the Democratic National Convention. SANNEH: They just told us that if we wanted to put on our own show that they would give us all the resources to do that. KENT: The Democrats are rolling out the red carpet. SANNEH: Definitely. And I'm glad to be on it. KENT: The beauty influencer now applying her own filter to this presidential campaign. [Cuts back to live] KENT: Now, when it comes to selling commercial products or sharing financial advice online, federal rules do require influencers to disclose when they are being paid. But in December, the Federal Election Commission voted against similar requirements for influencers spreading political messaging, guys. DUNCAN: Hmm. VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Hmm. GAYLE KING: I am so fascinated by this, Jo Ling. ‘Cause at first I couldn't decide is this obnoxious, or refreshing, or creative? And after watching your piece, I'm now come down to refreshing and creative. And very smart to do this way. KENT: Yeah it’s interesting… KING: We’re learning how to do it. Yes. KENT: It's interesting, and it's a whole different business model. KING: Exactly. KENT: Both the campaigns and the super PACs having a strategy to reach more people. And the key thing here, it's not just influencers with millions of followers.  KING: Yeah. DUNCAN: Mhmm. KENT: We're talking about micro-influencers. Some people say in Pennsylvania, Bucks County… DUNCAN: Right. KENT: …30 followers. KING: I love she took you behind the scenes. I thought she was very good… KENT: It was fascinating! KING: …showing how that was done. KENT: She really opened up the doors and showed us how this works. KING: Yeah. DUTHIERS: Jo Ling, thank you very much. Great report. KING: Yes, yes, yes. KENT: Thanks, you guys. (...)

Comedian and podcast host Steven Crowder says that YouTube “essentially” banned him until election day. Crowder’s channel received strikes on no fewer than eight videos, including one posted in 2023, he announced in videos posted Monday on X. Google-owned YouTube reportedly accused Crowder of committing “harassment and cyberbullying” and “hate speech.”  Crowder called the censorship “startlingly dark,” and accused Google of “the direct suppression of your vote through misinformation, through censorship, through forbidding you from finding information.” The videos are related to the 2024 election and include critiques of the legacy media, Google and the Biden-Harris administration. The strikes issued by YouTube on Aug. 2 do not expire until Oct. 31, which is mere days before the Nov. 5 election day, hence Crowder’s complaint of being “essentially” banned till the election. Crowder said seven out of the eight censored videos were posted since President Joe Biden stepped out of the 2024 presidential race in favor of his Vice President Kamala Harris. According to Crowder, Google’s “election policy” involves taking sides with Democrats and censoring “any and all opposition to their narrative,” what he calls “direct election interference.” He warned that all Big Tech platforms are also engaging in election censorship, “rigging this election.” The show host also argues that YouTube targeted him because he plans to provide election coverage using not only legacy media sources but also independent analysts. “We know for a fact that they’re not happy about it,” he says. But, despite that, “We’re not going to be scared off. We’re not going to be beaten into submission.” He encouraged listeners to find his show on Rumble. MRC Free Speech America has found evidence repeatedly of Google’s election-interfering censorship, including most recently of Google search engine suppression of the Donald Trump assassination attempt and excessive promotion of Kamala Harris. MRC exposed Google for interfering in elections 41 times since 2008. This would not be the first time YouTube censored Crowder. For instance, last November, Crowder’s video exposing the Nashville mass shooter’s alleged manifesto was censored. YouTube has suspended Crowder more than once, including in December 2021, when no explanation was provided. Not long before that, in October 2021, YouTube accused Crowder of “hate speech” for highlighting the threat of “transgenders” sexually assaulting women. Read Also: Steven Crowder Bashes ‘Terrifying’ Big Tech Censorship, Government Collusion & Censorship Obsession: YouTube Censors Steven Crowder — Again? Conservatives are under attack. Contact YouTube here and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

A Mexican cartel is using drones to “drop explosives” on a rival gang near the Arizona southern border, the New York Post reported, citing a recently leaked bulletin.The United States Border Patrol’s Yuma Sector Intelligence Unit released a bulletin on Tuesday warning about the recent cartel activity along the U.S.-Mexico border. According to the alert, members of Los Salazar, a cell of the Sinaloa Cartel, are using drones with explosives to attack Los Pelones, a rival cartel. The activity is part of an ongoing conflict between the two cartels in Sonoyta, Mexico, roughly two miles from the border. “Other confrontations between these two organization[s] have occurred along the border, south of Wellton Stations area of operations in recent months,” the bulletin read. “Agents are reminded to take any necessary precautions if drones are encountered or obse[rved] and report that activity up their chain of command as soon as possible.”In March, Air Force General Gregory Guillot told the Senate Armed Services Committee that, in his estimation, there are “over 1,000” drone incursions each month at the southern border, calling the number of encounters “alarming,” Blaze News previously reported. Guillot noted that no one knows the exact number of incursions but that it is “in the thousands.”At the time, he told lawmakers, “I haven’t seen any of them manifest in a threat to the level of national defense, but I see the potential only growing.”Cartel spotters typically use the drones to spot gaps in the border wall where they can sneak past law enforcement agents undetected. Guillot stated that some of the drones may be used to carry illicit drugs over the border.Last year, Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez told the House Oversight Committee that more than 10,000 drone incursions and 25,000 sightings were reported over a one-year period.“We have made great progress in countering the threat of small, unmanned platforms,” Chavez said. “However, the adversaries have 17 times the number of drones, twice the amount of flight hours, and unlimited funding to grow their operations.”In 2023, Customs and Border Protection called human smugglers’ use of drone technology a “growing trend.”The Associated Press recently reported that the Mexican army has stated that some of its soldiers have been killed by cartel drones dropping explosives. Mexican Defense Secretary Gen. Luis Cresencio Sandoval stated, “Our personnel have suffered wounds, and some of our troops have even died."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

U.S. government bureaucrats wanted to create a Ministry of Truth, but Elon Musk and X's efforts thwarted them for the moment. In George Orwell’s "1984," the Ministry of Truth manipulates and controls the public via government propaganda, which restricts speech and tells the public what to believe. Bureaucrats in Washington wish they could do the same. But due to the First Amendment’s free speech protections, they can’t. Instead, as the fast-developing news story around Elon Musk’s war with online advertisers makes abundantly clear, the U.S. government has devoted itself to becoming the indirect or secret arbiter of what counts as truth. Rather than nakedly forming an agency akin to the Ministry of Truth, the government helps fund progressive third-party NGOs and private firms to regulate speech through contracts and grants worth billions of dollars altogether. In return, these organizations create methods to identify certain ideas and media outlets that platform these ideas and excommunicate them for being outside the bounds of orthodoxy in the name of fighting mis- or disinformation. Given the importance and complexity of this story and the government and its allies' interest in memory-holing what’s happening, understanding the sequence of events is crucial. A timeline In 2019, the World Federation of Advertisers, a global association of the world’s biggest advertisers, formed the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, which also partners with the World Economic Forum to “improve the safety of online environments” by combating “hate speech” and “disinformation.” Shortly after GARM’s launch and prior to the 2020 presidential election, conservative media outlets were labeled “disinformation” by the media investment group GroupM, which also happen to be a GARM member, according to leaked data acquired by Gabe Kaminsky. As a result, these conservative outlets were blacklisted and missed out on millions in ad revenues from GroupM clients, which include Coke, Google, Airbnb, Uber, Ford, and more. And in 2020, NewsGuard, a pro-censorship company that created a browser extension that labels conservative outlets fake news, received a $25,000 grant from the federal government after winning the “Pentagon-State Department contest for detecting COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation.” In its press release, NewsGuard said it helped the State Department and the Department of Defense by “identifying online sources spreading COVID-19 disinformation or misinformation narratives, understanding the nature and possible motives of those sources, and flagging hoaxes, narratives, and sources of disinformation as they emerge.” NewsGuard’s advisers include Tom Ridge, former homeland security secretary; Richard Stengel, former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs; Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA; Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former secretary general of NATO; Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia; and Israel Mirsky, an elite figure with no Wikipedia page at the intersection of pharmaceuticals, psychedelics, advertising, and technology. Then, in February 2021, the U.S. Agency for International Development — currently led by Samantha Powers, former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations under President Obama, and Michele Sumilas, former program officer for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — sent out a leaked internal “Disinformation Primer” that pushes for partnerships with the private sector. It also encourages tech companies to “pay attention to audio/visual forms of mis- and dis-information” and “build fact-checking and verification tools” and media organizations to “collaborate,” “debunk sources as well as content,” and “tell stories about the scale and threat posed by information disorder.” As part of NewsGuard’s prize for winning the COVID-19 propaganda contest, the organization also gained access to a “Government Contracting 101 session.” Soon enough, the DOD collaborated with NewsGuard by reportedly granting it $750,000 in September 2021 to “fund early-stage companies to develop products and technologies,” according to a January 2022 report. However, NewsGuard later told reporters that it was only a licensing fee even though it had previously called it a grant in its January 2022 report. Regardless, NewsGuard received around $750,000 from the federal government in 2021. In the same year, the Global Disinformation Index, a British pro-censorship nonprofit founded by Clare Melford and Daniel Rogers, also received a $100,000 grant from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. GDI censors free speech through its Dynamic Exclusion List, which informs companies of the media outlets GDI labels misinformation or disinformation. Most of these outlets are conservative-leaning. GDI’s list of the 10 riskiest online media outlets includes Blaze News, alongside the Daily Wire, Newsmax, One America News Network, and more. The Washington Examiner reported that “roughly $545,000 flowed from the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit group funded almost entirely through congressional appropriations, to GDI’s American nonprofit groups between 2020 and 2021, according to financial records.” Then in October 2021, NewsGuard partnered with the European Union to revise its Code of Practice and Disinformation, which was published the following June. A week later, GARM added “misinformation” to the list of online harms it deemed inappropriate for advertising support. As a result, NewsGuard announced that it would offer a free compliance assessment for companies to make sure their ads comply. NewsGuard also created an option for advertisers to access an exclusion list — a blacklist — to “avoid placing ads on misinformation and unreliable news sources.” Simply put, NewsGuard will encourage companies to stop advertising on conservative media outlets. A couple of months later, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security faced criticism for creating the Disinformation Governance Board to restrict the freedom of speech for political dissidents and act as an arbiter of truth and for selecting Nina Jankowicz, who herself spread disinformation by covering up the Hunter Biden laptop story, as the board’s head. Many Republicans likened the board to the Ministry of Truth, a government propaganda arm to tell citizens what to believe. Ultimately, the Disinformation Governance Board was terminated in August 2022. Unable to censor speech directly through government means, Jankowicz turned to a government-backed NGO to accomplish her mission. After the termination, Nina Jankowicz announced the Hypatia Project to combat “gendered abuse and disinformation.” Like other pro-censorship firms and NGOs, her project was conducted with the Centre for Information Resilience, a group funded in part by USAID, the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Then in October 2022, Elon Musk officially bought X (formerly Twitter) in the hopes of forming a free speech social media platform where people would be free to share their opinions — even those outside the Overton window. Soon, GARM recommended that its clients boycott X, essentially blacklisting X, for supposedly violating GARM's guidelines. Between November 2022 and December 2023, at least 18 GARM members, in addition to other major advertisers, stopped advertising on X. This GARM-backed blacklist sparked large outrage among conservatives, which brought attention to NGOs and private firms’ attempts to censor speech. In the past two years, a number of lawsuits were filed against these organizations, inducing a lawsuit led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Daily Wire, and the Federalist against the U.S. State Department, GDI, and NewsGuard for “funding censorship technology.” In July 2024, the House Judiciary Committee released a report titled, “GARM’S HARM: HOW THE WORLD’S BIGGEST BRANDS SEEK TO CONTROL ONLINE SPEECH.” And in August 2024, X and Rumble filed an antitrust lawsuit against GARM for its illegal blacklist of X, causing X to potentially lose out on billions in ad revenues. What’s most startling is that some of the largest advertising firms in the world, all of which are GARM members, receive U.S. federal contracts to the tune of billions of dollars. Furthermore, Publicis Groupe, one of the pro-censorship GARM advertising firms with federal contracts, led the seed investment round for NewsGuard. Today, August 8, 2024, the World Federation of Advertisers announced the termination of its GARM project following Musk’s “war” against the pro-censorship advertisement mafia. In response to this big news, the House Judiciary Committee posted on X, “Big win for the First Amendment. Big win for oversight.”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), and now running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris, has made his 24-year military career an important cornerstone of his political persona. He has made multiple references to his time in the Minnesota National Guard, but some of those comments have come under renewed scrutiny due to their misleading nature.Aside from putting in his retirement paperwork after it became clear his unit was going to be deployed to Iraq, Walz has also suggested in some of his remarks that he was in combat, even though he was not, and said he retired as a command sergeant major when, in reality, he retired as a master sergeant. — (@) The Minnesota National Guard explained "because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy," Walz was unable to retain the higher rank when he retired.On the Harris' campaign website page that introduced Walz as her running mate, the post repeated the false rank he retired as: "The son of an Army veteran and a retired Command Sergeant Major in the Army National Guard himself." The Harris campaign has since corrected the sentence to have his true rank.Walz had deployed once to Italy.In a video promoted by the Harris campaign, Walz previously told a crowd while advocating for gun control that "we can make sure those weapons of war, that I carried in war, are only carried in war." — (@) The Washington Free Beacon further reported that in 2009, Iraq war veteran David Thul, a sergeant in the Minnesota National Guard, told Walz staffers the then-congressman was misrepresenting his service by claiming to be a veteran of Operation Enduring Freedom. OEF was the U.S. military operation that was started in and primarily focused on Afghanistan. Like Iraq, Walz did not serve in Afghanistan."Congressman Walz is clearly claiming ... to be an Enduring Freedom veteran. Nobody disputes the fact that he is not an Afghanistan or Enduring Freedom veteran. So this represents a fairly serious issue," Thul told a staffer, who agreed that by using the label of OEF veteran, it could lead to confusion among voters. Walz had deployed once to Italy in support of OEF, but he was not in a combat zone for that operation.In 2008, Walz endorsed a book about elections, which included a section about him. In the book, he is falsely labeled as a "National Guardsman who served in Afghanistan."Walz was also photographed outside a George W. Bush rally in 2004 apparently holding a sign saying, "Enduring Freedom Veterans for Kerry."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

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