Ted Cruz Supports Bill To Create Fascist Media Cartel While Suppressing Independent Journalism, Now Set To Pass Soon

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has given his support for a bill that would ultimately create and solidify a big media cartel, that also drowns out many independent and smaller authors. Now it appears the bill will have safe passage to get passed unless there are further disruptions.

In February of this year The WinePress detailed bill “S.673 – Journalism Competition and Preservation Act.” This is the bill in question and up for debate now.

For a more thorough analysis and breakdown of the bill, definitely read that report for more details below; but for now, I’ll provide the condensed version.

The bill was first introduced to the Senate in March of 2021 by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. The bill originally had seven other cosponsors, some on the Senate Judiciary Committee*. They were:

1. Sen. John Kennedy [R-LA]*
2. Sen. Cory Booker [D-NJ]*
3. Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY]
4. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI]*
5. Sen. Cynthia Lummis, [R-WY]
6. Sen. Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]*
7. Sen. Susan M. Collins [R-ME]

Klobuchar – along with other mainstream outlets and politicians in tow – have stated,

This bill is about protecting local journalism by leveling the playing field and allowing local news outlets to band together to negotiate for fair compensation from tech platforms.

She said

In reality, the bill essentially grants mainstream media and corporate giants total immunity from antitrust laws, creating a backdoor syndicate to only prop-up the larger outlets. Moreover, as the bill clearly states, it would allow smaller and independent outlets to get squashed and locked out.

As explained in our WinePress article: “the smaller and independent “print, broadcast, or digital news organization” that does not have –

A dedicated professional editorial staff that creates and distributes original news and related content concerning local, national, or international matters of public interest on at least a weekly basis;

and is marketed through subscriptions, advertising, or sponsorship; and provides original news and related content with the editorial content consisting of not less than 25 percent current news and related content;

or broadcasts original news and related content pursuant to a license granted by the Federal Communications Commission under title III of the Communications Act of 1934.

-Could basically get locked out by this newly formed cartel group that decides who best fits this description, and who they choose to let in.”

In other words, this bill will solidify and protect the corporate monopolies and allow them to strike deals with these social media outlets to only promote their content, while small journalists and content creators will get buried and/or completely deplatformed and censored.

It is the definition of fascism, and a giant slap in the face of the clear precepts of the First Amendment.

Fascism should more appropriately called Corporatism, because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

Benito Mussolini

The bill sat dormant in the Senate since February, but is now nearly ready to pass, thanks to Senator Ted Cruz, another member of the Judiciary Committee, and a deciding vote on the matter.

A couple of weeks ago Cruz interjected some amendments to the bill that ultimately made Klobuchar withdrawal the bill temporarily.

Ultimately passing 11-10, Politico explains Cruz’s amendments, ‘that would keep antitrust restrictions in place for news organizations if they are negotiating with tech platforms about how or whether to moderate certain types of content.’

What is preeminent to me is whether this bill is going to increase or decrease censorship.

If you’re negotiating, you ought to be negotiating on the ostensible harm this bill is directed at, which is the inability to get revenues from your content. You should not be negotiating on content moderation and how you are going to censor substantive content.

What happened today was a huge victory for the First Amendment and free speech. [Democrats] would rather pull their bill entirely than advance it with my proposed protections for Americans from unfair online censorship.

Since then things have changed. Yesterday Breitbart reported that Cruz has now agreed to a new amendment by Klobuchar that ‘enables and facilitates the censorship he purports to oppose,’ the outlet wrote.

Allum Bokhari, a senior tech correspondent for Breitbart, had this to say:

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[In the process], Klobuchar revealed the JCPA was never about rescuing mythical small-town newspapers: it’s about cementing the power and influence of established media companies, while crushing their independent competitors on social media.

While the Cruz-Klobuchar amendment may limit formal negotiations between the media cartel and Big Tech to price, there is no way to prevent the effects of the informal ties that will develop between the cartel’s representatives and companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter. An already-corrupt relationship, in which Big Tech companies voluntarily devote billions of dollars to propping up the corporate media, will become more corrupt – something Senator Cruz knows.

Of course, the Cruz-Klobuchar amendment does not even attempt to address the myriad other anti-publisher and cartel-enabling provisions of the bill, such as the impossibly problematic arbitration and litigation provisions.

For example, the bill provides that a cartel may force a Big Tech company to an arbitration proceeding to determine pricing. But in any such proceeding, the Big Tech company will have the inherent advantage– possessing all the relevant algorithmic and competitive information, not to mention more money, resources, and lawyers to fight the arbitration with.

Big Tech will fight to disclose any financial or algorithmic data, and how are news media companies supposed to protect their own competitive and proprietary information and data from each other in such a proceeding? It’s an impossibility and a conundrum the sponsors of the JCPA are either blind to or don’t care about – no, they just want to ram a poorly conceived and structured bill through.

What’s the remedy for a news media company excluded from a cartel? Well, it can sue in federal district court to be included. Doing so will cost hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars and expose all kinds of confidential and proprietary data to one’s competitors.

It can’t be overstated the built-in deterrence to an excluded news media company to pursuing such a “remedy” – assuming for an instant it has the resources to even entertain doing so. After all, the whole alleged purpose of the JCPA is to help financially crippled local news. It is sophistry to think that these financially crippled local news outlets would have the requisite money and resources to mount such fights.

It’s for these reasons that Senator Cruz’s actions represent such a betrayal. He and Senator Klobuchar both have presidential ambitions and they’re on full display here. Both will walk away from the JCPA table trumpeting the mantle of bipartisanship to push their own personal agendas. However, Main St. Americans will be left behind as usual, with even fewer sources to turn to for news that isn’t controlled by Big Tech censors. In fact, news media will only become more beholden to Big Tech if JCPA passes.

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In a celebratory speech following these new agreements, Cruz had this to say:

Let me commend the authors of this bill for the hard work they put in on an important issue.

I’ve had extensive conversations with Senator Klobuchar, and sat down and heard her concerns, and we worked together on this amendment.

Moreover, Cruz in a press release from his official website wrote:

Today I secured significant protections against Big Tech censorship with an amendment to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2022. The changes that I successfully fought for would prohibit the media and Big Tech from negotiating over or agreeing to censor content.

The prohibition against censorship not only protects the content of the journalists whose outlets may be negotiating with Big Tech but it critically protects the speech of journalists and smaller media outlets who don’t have a seat at the table.

This is a major win for free speech and it strikes a blow against the virtual monopoly that Big Tech has to limit the information that Americans see online. The bottom line is Big Tech hated this bill from the start and now they hate it even more.

But as already discussed, this bill accomplishes the dead opposite of protecting free speech.

But it’s not just Breitbart and The WinePress concerned about this bill’s passage, but other groups like Public Knowledge take issue with the JCPA. Lisa Macpherson, Senior Policy Analyst at Public Knowledge, issued a statement today on the current markup of the legislature:

While the JCPA has undergone extensive rewrites, it is still an antitrust exemption, a legal maneuver that has a history of failing to achieve beneficial goals. Allowing the largest media conglomerates – like Alden Global Capital, Gannett, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and News Corp – to collude on the terms of access and value of their content will hurt competition and make our news landscape worse, not better. In a bill that is supposedly meant to encourage local journalism, there is no accountability for how the money is spent. Facebook and Google will fund more stock buybacks and executive bonuses than journalists’ salaries. It also introduces a precedent of payment for simply linking to information on the internet.

This bill is also a threat to content moderation. The JCPA allows publishers to sue Facebook or Google for taking down content that the platforms find offensive or contrary to their community standards. And with the most recent amendment, proposed by Sen. Cruz (R-Texas), harmful misinformation, networked disinformation, and hate speech will be even harder to police under this bill — and that is by design. The JCPA will not save local journalism. Instead, it will make a few billionaires even wealthier at the expense of a healthy and open internet and information environment for all of us.

Be that is it may, Breitbart in an exclusive report, says several congressional aides and others with knowledge of the proceedings say that Cruz totally chickened-out.

Breitbart wrote:

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Several aides on both sides of the JCPA fight familiar with the matter told Breitbart News on Wednesday that Cruz caved to Klobuchar and has agreed to changes to language he offered in an amendment to allow the bill to advance. When questioned repeatedly about it on Wednesday, Cruz’s office did not deny these aides’ characterization.

Cruz himself has not replied to inquiries from Breitbart News sent over text directly to the senator. Several Cruz staffers have refused to answer whether he cut a deal with Klobuchar, and they have refused to make the senator available for an interview to explain himself.

A Cruz spokesperson would only provide, when asked detailed and serious questions about the possibility of a deal and what form the deal would take, a generic statement claiming that Cruz opposes censorship of conservatives–something that would be inherently untrue if he votes for or simply even just enables Senate consideration of this legislation.

Sen. Cruz is a fierce defender of the First Amendment and free speech and he will always fight to prevent Americans from being censored or silenced.

The Cruz spokesperson told Breitbart News.

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And as noted in their report, even others like Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) made this statement on the bill, repeating the touted narrative:

We have reached an agreement that clarifies what the bill was designed to do: give local news outlets a real seat at the negotiating table and bar the tech firms from throttling, filtering, suppressing or curating content. The only reason I can see for parties to oppose this bill is that they have a problem either with healthy market competition or free speech.

Lastly, it should be noted, however, one of the original co-sponsors, Rand Paul, pulled his support from the JCPA.

He told the Daily News that he changed his mind because of a change in the bill that “mandates government arbitration and government involvement in the solution.”

While I’m for newspapers and broadcasters being allowed to bargain collectively, I’m not for the government enforcing a final arbitrated solution. It may sound like a technicality, but it’s a pretty important part of this and so I’m going to keep working with the authors to see if they will come around to my way of thinking if they want my support.

In other words, he’s not against the censorship that he originally supported earlier this year, and, him wanting to legislate anything automatically means “the government” is getting involved, making him a complicit arbiter in this, whether he wants to admit to it or not.

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

[2] For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof: but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged. [11] The rich man is wise in his own conceit; but the poor that hath understanding searcheth him out.

Proverbs 28:2, 11

As I have pointed out before, this bill is targeted at the likes of people and outlets such as myself. While Breitbart is one of the few larger outlets chastising the bill and those involved, they are still more likely to be protected because they are so large. Whereas The WinePress, for example, will get squashed like a bug.

Granted, The WP currently does not use dedicated social media platforms, except Rumble, and YouTube (prior to the channel’s termination by them).

Exclusive: YouTube Terminates The WinePress Channel For “Covid-19 Misinformation”

Nevertheless, many readers use it to share these posts: but this bill would essentially guarantee that most people will not see my work, as it is swallowed up by the giant outlets. Only their “truth” can be pushed, only their staged theater and pre-scripted drama. The WP is being buried and censored as is, but this would REALLY burry it. The only thing left after that is total annihilation of the site.

And yet there are fools in this country with a brain no bigger than a cashew, who continue to froth at the mouth about voting – the same people who also shout that the 2020 election was stolen!

But all of this censorship (assuming this bill passes, or some variant of it) is happening because the people collectively hate the truth, are vile, unrighteous, and wicked.

[12] For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them; [13] In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. [14] And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter. [15] Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

Isaiah 59:12-15

Notwithstanding, even though opportunities to preach the truth are rapidly dwindling even more, I will continue to trust the Lord that he allow the message to reach those that it need it for the time that remains online.

[1] Finally, brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you: [2] And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not faith. [3] But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you, and keep you from evil. [4] And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you. [5] And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ.

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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