I
was frankly shocked by Tucker Carson's courage last night; he's not going to be
getting a lot of cocktail party invitations from the cream of the Beltway
conservative establishment anymore. If you missed Carlson's epic denunciation of the big D.C.
establishment think-tanks — the likes of the Heritage Foundation, American
Enterprise Institute, and Competitive Enterprise Institute — do yourself a
favor and spend the next six and a half minutes watching the video embedded
below. He points out that Google, Facebook, Twitter, and the
others are all enjoying special legal protection that enables them to get away
with censoring conservatives, and that the biggest and richest conservative
think-tanks support continuing this legal protection, and coincidentally, they
receive donations from Google and other tech titans.
Grabien screen grab.
Here's
the rush transcript via Grabien,
but I urge you to take the time to watch Carlson's trademark delivery of his
scathing criticism.
Tucker: We told you a lot on the show the past two years how Google,
Facebook, and Twitter work in secret to impose a left-wing political agenda on
this country. In 2016 for example, Google employees worked behind the scenes to
boost Hillary Clinton's voter turnout. They seem to despond that when they
couldn't stop Donald Trump from winning. Google as you well know regular lease
of John suppresses conservative videos on YouTube. At one point, Twitter,
meanwhile — and you know this well, often bands users entirely for the crime of
disagreeing with the left. At this point, it is very clear that Big Tech it's
conservatives and works assiduously to harm them. Republican voters are
starting to figure this out. A Harris poll from last year found that 83% of
Republicans understand that tech is biased against conservatives. Another poll
this summer found that 42% of all voters, not just conservatives, believe the
Trump Administration should take action to push back against the tech
Monopoly's political bias. So far, that's not happening but no one in
Washington is doing anything to bring these companies in. But it doesn't have
to be that way for there are a lot of things you could do if you wanted to. For
example, tech companies have thrived under a special immunity from Congress
that protects them from lawsuits over what people say on the platform. It's an
exemption that Fox News, for example, does not have. Why does Google have it?
Senator Josh Hawley would like to know the answer. Has proposed stripping that
community from tech companies and treating them like everyone else unless they
can maintain neutral platforms for all views, which of course was the original
deal they struck. That's a great idea, but it hasn't happened. Another idea is
breaking up major tech companies so that a handful of monopolies don't have
effective veto power over the First Amendment, which is where we are today.
It's another great idea. But again, it has not happened. Why all the inaction
on these questions? Well, a big part of the problem is that conservative
nonprofits here in Washington, the ones that are supposed to be looking out for
you, aren't actually looking out for you. They are looking out for Big Tech. A
new report from the campaign for account ability obtained by this show
highlights how conservative organizations in D.C. Have colluded with Big Tech
Emma to shield left-wing monopolies from any oversight at all. It's an amazing
story and it's happening now. This October for example, Americans for
Prosperity, that's a purportedly conservative group controlled by the
billionaire Koch family supported and add supporting Facebook and Google. The
ads they ran targeted state attorney generals, Republican and Democrat, leading
antitrust investigations into those two companies. In March, Americans for
Prosperity ran digital ads urging members of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
any effort of antitrust laws to break up America's innovative tech companies.
In all, the Koch network spend $10 million defending Silicon Valley companies
that worked to silence conservatives. The richest companies in the world being
defended by a conservative nonprofit as they attacked conservatives. Why are
they doing this? As one former Koch employee told they show off the record, I
know for a fact they take money from social media companies to do their
bidding. It turns out, he was right. Google has given money to at least 22
write leading institutions that is also funded by the Koch network, those
include the American Conservative Union, the American enterprise institute, the
National Review institute. The competitive enterprise institute, The Heritage
Foundation, and the mercator center. Google, for example, the single largest
donor to the annual dinner a few years back. What does all this money buy,
exactly? You know the answer. In September of 2018, the competitive enterprise
institute and three other groups that had been funded by Google and the kochs
sent a joint letter to Attorney general Jeff Sessions at the time over the
doj's plans whether search engines and social media were hurting competition
and stifling speech. Here's how it works. Big Tech companies silence
conservatives. Conservatives' nonprofits try to prevent the government from
doing anything about it. Makes sense. Then there is The Heritage Foundation.
May be the biggest and best funded think tank in Washington. Half the
conservatives in the city have seemed to work there at one time or another, 30
years ago I did for example. To this day there are nice and well-meaning people
at heritage. As an organization, heritage no longer represents the interests of
conservatives. At least on the question of tech. A recent paper by heritage
entitled "Free enterprise is the best remedy for online biased
concerns" defends the special privileges that Congress has given to a
left-wing Silicon Valley monopolies. And if conservatives don't like it,
heritage says, they can go start their own Google. The paper could've been
written by tech lobbyists. In fact, it may have been written by tech lobbyists.
A trade association represents Silicon Valley called the liability exemption that
Googles enjoys, quote the most important Lawton tech. Well, the paper repeats
that line verbatim. Word for word. Along with many other lines that the
lobbyist wrote. It's embarrassing. But heritage isn't embarrassing. None of the
so-called conservative nonprofits in Washington are embarrassed. They make
deals with people who hate you. They secretly sell out your interests. They may
beg you to tithe like it's the medieval church for that's the system we've had
for decades. And maybe that's why no matter how much money you send him nothing
gets more conservative. Just the opposite. You wonder how much longer the
system can continue.