Without grand introduction, here are three political topics from 2023 that didn’t get the emphasis they deserved. The criteria are simple: notable developments that flew a bit more under the radar than they should have.
Biden Political Diplomacy Chips Away at US Sovereignty
Joe Biden was in Mexico, Liberty Nation reported in January, and he was speaking the language of globalism:
“‘There can no longer be any question, none, in today’s interconnected world. We cannot wall ourselves off from shared problems,’ President Joe Biden declared Jan. 10 at the North American Leaders’ Summit in Mexico City. While that remark may appear to be somewhat benign, keep in mind that it came at an event where Biden’s counterpart, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, publicly thanked him for refusing to build ‘one meter’ of border wall to protect the US from the ongoing invasion of foreign ‘migrants’ at the expense of the rights, privileges and standing of American citizens.”
The two leaders and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came together to issue a “Declaration of North America” that has the unmistakable overtones of a European Union-style alignment for the continent.
“Murky new world citizen values [were] trotted out: ‘justice,’ ‘equality,’ ‘democracy,’” LN noted. “These intentionally ill-defined descriptors are meant to replace the robust constitutional rights guaranteed to citizens of a sovereign United States.”
Antony Blinken (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
That same month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Denver to give the keynote address at the US Conference of Mayors’ 91st Winter Meeting. Why did a Cabinet official “whose duties are confined to the foreign policy field need to speak to an audience of American mayors?” LN asked.
The novel step was taken to imbue a spirit of trans-nationalism within US cities. “This marks the first time a Secretary of State has addressed the Conference and underscores the critical role mayors are playing on the international affairs stage,” the mayors’ organization stated.
Blinken’s message was impossible to misinterpret. “Public health, climate, supply chains, the future of technology, economic security – these are the issues that our diplomats, your diplomats, are working on day in and day out,” he told the mayors. “It’s what we mean when we say that the line between foreign and domestic policy is more blurred than it’s ever been.”
Big Media Transition Into Quasi-Official State Organs
It’s not exactly a secret that dominant media organizations are thoroughly biased, but 2023 may be remembered as the year when all pretense was permanently cast aside. While PBS and NPR made national headlines over their political feud with X owner Elon Musk, who accurately labeled them as state-affiliated outlets, a hyper-accelerated steep decline in basic journalism ethics mattered most this year.
LN reported in April:
“Politico Europe is the European edition of the well-known news site devoted to covering American politics. On April 9, it ran an interview with French President Emmanuel Macron that made headlines due to Macron’s tough talk about the need for Europe to reduce its dependency on the US to avoid getting caught up in a potential conflict with China over Taiwan....
“In an astonishing footnote posted below the interview, Politico Europe revealed that it had in essence granted Macron full editorial approval of the published text.”
The editorial note was indeed remarkable. “The quotes in this article were all actually said by the president, but some parts of the interview in which the president spoke even more frankly about Taiwan and Europe’s strategic autonomy were cut out by the Elysée,” it read.
A major media publication breaking worldwide news through an exclusive interview with a top Western leader openly conceded that it allowed that political figure to edit the content of its article. What’s more, it had the gall to act as if it were upholding journalistic standards as it did so.
This was hardly the only display of hubris on the media scene.
Lester Holt (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
“Secretary of State Antony Blinken is facing grave accusations of weaponizing US intelligence offices for political purposes,” LN reported in late April. “This should place Blinken squarely in the hotseat, the focus of intense media investigation. Not only is that not happening but, instead, a chummy place of honor has been prepared for him. On April 29, Blinken will be the special guest sitting at the ABC News table at the White House Correspondents’ Association banquet.”
NBC News regularly deploys its stars to conduct sessions for notorious globalist think tank The Aspen Institute. Network anchors Lester Holt and Kristen Welker performed their duties at the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, with Welker engaging in a friendly chat with Chelsea Clinton on “the fight for reproductive health” and Holt sitting down with Never Trump obsessive Liz Cheney.
Amazingly, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel selected this flagrantly compromised duo to be moderators for the third GOP presidential primary debate on Nov. 8.
Yes, the bias has always been there. But the big takeaway from 2023 is that a gross appearance of impropriety does not matter in the least to big-box media anymore.
American Thought Police on the March
Two blue states led the push to criminalize speech in 2023.
In New York, Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul took advantage of heightened tensions caused by Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza to usher in a series of measures to crush constitutional rights in the Empire State.
“My top priority is to protect the safety and well-being of all New Yorkers,” Hochul stated on Oct. 31. “We cannot allow hate and intimidation to become normalized. As governor, I reaffirm that there is zero tolerance in New York for antisemitism, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind, and it’s critical we deploy every possible state resource to keep New Yorkers safe.”
Do you see what she did there? “Hate of any kind” trails in the wake of freshly festering Israeli-Palestinian strife, opening the door for a government crackdown on anything it chooses to define as “hate.” Hochul set aside $75 million in taxpayer dollars for the venture. Among other things, the money will fund “an expansion of the New York State Police’s social media analysis unit,” her staff declared.
In Michigan, meanwhile, a sweeping extension of an already rigorous hate crimes law passed the state’s House in June. As LN reported on July 6:
“The bill defines criminal ‘intimidation’ as a ‘willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened.’”
That’s right: The lower chamber of the Michigan legislature is willing to send state residents to prison for making another person feel uncomfortable. The tyranny of emotion that is a signature of progressive governance is going penal. “This legislation allows police or prosecutors to decide what is a crime after the fact, or after the speech is spoken,” Republican state Rep. Gina Johnsen observed.
What do all three of these political news items have in common? They are about establishing ugly precedents that threaten our national integrity, access to information, and basic rights as Americans. If they did indeed slip under the radar this year, it is largely because those pursuing this destructive agenda would rather have us pay attention to more trivial matters.
