by Robert M. Traxler

“CNN rejected a pair of provocative ads from President Trump’s re-election campaign last Thursday, saying the 30-second spots deriding the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry — one deeming the effort “nothing short of a coup” — contained inaccuracies and unfairly attacked the network’s journalists.” The New York Times.

CNN took an ad for the President’s campaign off the air after being criticized for even considering airing it by the social media and media elite. Free speech? Not quite, or should I say no way near free, censored, controlled and manipulated yes, free hardly. If this doesn’t scare the hell out of you it should. Political speech is the most protected under the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled that even giving money to a political campaign is speech under the Constitution, an example of the wide interpretation of the First Amendment given by the court.

John Owen Brennan is a former CIA Director and the self-appointed leader of the Intelligence community against President Trump, and alleged head of the “Deep State” cabal. Mr. Brennan became a CNN contributor and star; he piqued my interest when shortly after election day, he angrily declared President Trump a traitor and criminal who will be impeached. President Trump had not yet been sworn in, and he already had the intelligence apparatus in Washington working to destroy him.

Mr. Brennan confessed on July 31, 2014, to bugging the United States Senators’ computers, those that had data on the Senate investigation of the CIA’s interrogations of prisoners when he was President Obama’s CIA director. Mr. Brennan categorically denied ever hacking the Senate’s computers on March 11, 2014, while under oath, clearly perjury, but who cares, he is a new tool in the left wing’s tool box building a case against President Trump. A confessed liar, Mr. Brennan fits in well at CNN.

I viewed with interest Mr. Brennan’s early career at CNN as he derided President Trump with pure anger bordering on rage. It became apparent Mr. Brennan was establishing a smoke screen to mask his and others’ efforts to use government investigative and intelligence authority to derail President Trump’s campaign, and failing that, to see him impeached. Using the FBI and CIA to influence an election is not new but we as a nation have been careful since the days of J. Edger Hoover at the FBI and “Wild” Bill Donavan at the CIA to keep a distance between domestic politics and the clandestine agencies.

If censoring political advertisements and using the vast power of government to help defeat a political opponent does not deeply concern you, it should. Nearly all socialist movements start with limiting free speech and assembly, along with the use of large groups of angry citizens to eliminate political foes and shout down debate, a tactic used by Mao, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, Lofven, Pol Pot and other socialists. The media is the modern version of the mob,  but better at shouting down opposition, as they are in the back pockets or handbags of most every American in our cell phones and on our computers at work and home.

Say what you may about FOX News, but they allow the anti-Trump ads to be aired, even the ones not complimentary of FOX News. Apparently the oppressive right believes in free speech a bit more than the open, caring, left-wing champions of free speech. Folks, you can not make this stuff up. The management at CNN and MSNBC are good examples of do as I say, not as I do, when it comes to free speech.

And we have not even gotten into why the House of Representatives is running the impeachment inquiry out of the Intelligence Committee and not the Judiciary Committee. The rules allow the Intelligence Committee to withhold testimony from the public and work in the shadows. Testimony is then leaked out in partial sentences and interpretations of what was said. Another great example of left wing “free speech” championed by the “new media.” We must ask why the Republicans cannot call witnesses or cross examine. Why the constitutionally protected right to face you accuser is ignored? Above all, why is there no media outrage concerning closed hearings?

I have never believed the “Deep State” exists, but my mind is changing.