Judging Freedom - Larry Johnson: The Censorship_Industrial Complex.

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Larry Johnson: The Censorship_Industrial Complex.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, January 2nd, 2024. Happy New Year. Larry Johnson joins us now. Larry, happy new year to you. Thank you for all your incredible time and effort and help behind the scenes as well as on air during 2023. And I hope we can prevail on you again in 2024. It's a pleasure, my dear friend. Always. And thank you, Judge. Right. Unlike a lot of our guests who are new to me, you and I have been friends for a long time and we have been through the wars together. Yes, those wars were. Big fat targets on our backs.

Yes, we survived. Before we get to an interesting piece you wrote called Our Israel in the U.S. in a Quagmire. And before we get to the coming collapse in Ukraine, you have another interesting piece out since last we spoke about collaboration between American and British contractors, military contractors, to engage in some sort of surveillance of civilians. What is this all about? Well, this was the result of an investigation and actually a whistleblower that came forward to Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi, who broke the story about how Twitter and other social media companies were cooperating with the government in censoring people with political beliefs that did not support Joe Biden and the Democrats.

And what they've discovered is that, in essence, a combination of British, mostly American, but some British defense contractors have been carrying out what can only be called an information warfare operation against the American people. And it's not just against the American people. I mean, the distinction they drew is that a lot of the tools that are now being used against the American people in the past have been used by the intelligence community against foreign governments and foreign groups and organizations. So now what you have is just a very intense effort to try to suppress conservative political thought in the United States and to discredit anybody who dares question any of the established policies of the Biden administration in particular. So anything regarding Hunter

Biden's laptop, regarding the war in Ukraine, regarding U.S. support for Israel, unless somebody is sort of toying the line with those policies, they'll be attacked. And so it's really alarming. It's an 81-page report, and I link to it at sonar21.com. And I think all your listeners should try to read it. All right. So what tools are they using? Give us an example. Give us a hypothetical. Some conservative Republican in Texas has a small website, and Biden and his people don't like what this person is saying. What do they do?

Well, it's everything from the worst is getting shut down or denied access to, say, YouTube. It used to be Twitter that they could shut access off to, Facebook, and then to create stories that will label the person as an extremist, a conspiracy theorist. When even raising this story, you get labeled as a conspiracy theorist, but in this case, actually, it's true. It's a genuine conspiracy that brings together private sector as well as government. I mean, one of the key players in this is a guy who used to be a military officer in the Special Operations Command, an organization I worked with for over 23 years. And so the same information operations that are designed, everything from planting false stories to creating alternative narratives, it covers a whole range of issues.

Larry, is the government paying for this, or are these contractors doing it as favors to the government in order to get business from the government? I think it's a combination of the two. They're both getting paid and they're doing it as well as to curry favor with the government. So it's a two-way street. If Matt Taibbi wrote it and you report on it, don't expect to see it in ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post. You won't see it in any of the mainstream media. Yeah.

In fact, there was a hearing. They published it on November 28th. There was a hearing on November 30th, I believe, and got very, very little coverage. That's the other way to go about it. To suppress is if you don't talk about it, it doesn't exist. That's one of their approaches. Is your former employer, are agents of your former employer involved in this? Yes. Yes. And the true extent is not known, but they did have a whistleblower. The key to this

was a whistleblower came forward with documents, with evidence, with communications. So CIA is definitely involved. Director of National Intelligence is definitely involved. So it's alarming because the intelligence tools are supposed to be used overseas. They're using them against our own citizens. And that's really coloring outside the lines. Are the United States and Israel in a quagmire? Yes. So we've had a couple of developments over the last two, three days. Israel announced that it's withdrawing some brigades from Gaza.

I remember they went in vowing that they were going to destroy Hamas. Well, they're pulling it out. And the excuse that the leaders of the Israeli occupation force give is they said, well, it's hurting the economy. Now, that's true. Israel is suffering some significant economic harm because it had to activate so many reservists. And those reservists had to leave their businesses and places of employ. But that's only part of the reason. The other reason is the Israelis have suffered significant casualties, as Scott Ritter has reported previously

on your show. And it's mostly wounded in action, not killed in action, because the Israelis created this big pile of rubble by blowing up all these buildings, killing a lot of civilians in the process. But in that rubble, they've created natural holes that people can hide in. They have cover, they have concealment, and they pop out with an RPG and plug an Israeli tank

or an armored personnel carrier and end up wounding most of the personnel in those vehicles. So Israel's losing both men and equipment, and it's pulling them out to, quote, give them a rest. Now, they reported they're going to activate some more reservists, which then raises the real specter of sending more untrained troops into this environment where Israel does not have the advantage. Yes, they've killed a lot of civilians, but they've created vacant areas where Hamas is still operating freely. In fact, on New Year's Eve, Hamas fired rockets into Tel Aviv from the very center of the area that the Israelis were claiming

that they had full control of. You say brigades. How many people are the Israelis removing from active duty? I think they're going to be around 3,000. They haven't given precise numbers, but, you know, if they're talking about four or five brigades, six brigades, you're coming around, you know, 2,000 to 3,000. Why would they announce this, Larry? Very curious.

It underscores the other part of the quagmire is the political division that is growing within the Netanyahu government. There's great differences of opinion about how to proceed with this war. You've got the ultra right-wing extremists like Ben-Gavir, who want to kill all the rats, kill all the Palestinians. They're subhumans to him. He wants to wipe them out. There are others like Gantz, Danny Gantz, who was the opponent of Netanyahu in the last election, as well as the minister of defense, Gallant, who last Thursday, Netanyahu wanted to have a joint press conference with him. And they both blew it. They just told him to go pound sand. No, we're not doing it. We don't think it's appropriate.

So you've got Netanyahu being isolated. You've got divisions within the Israeli war cabinet about which way the war should go. And it's really a schizophrenic time because Netanyahu is getting greater pressure from the families of hostages that are still being held by Hamas. Here's a CBS News report on Israel pulling out thousands of troops from Gaza. Cut number six, Chris. We will allow the soldiers to gather strength for the next activity, says the Israeli military spokesman. They could be needed on Israel's northern border. Over the weekend, militants attacked from Syria and Lebanon.

Israel retaliated, striking Hezbollah targets. The threats to Israeli as well as U.S. interests also extend to the Red Sea. Iran sailed a warship into the waters today, a day after the U.S. Navy engaged four Houthi boats from Yemen that attacked a commercial ship, sinking three. And over the weekend, Tel Aviv once again saw protesters demand the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And tonight, Major, he was dealt another blow. The country's Supreme Court struck down a controversial law that would have limited the judge's powers. Not a good weekend for Netanyahu.

Do you think his days are numbered as prime minister? Yeah, yeah. No, the pressure on him is growing. And just the fact that, as I noted earlier, that Gallant and Gantz, the Minister of Defense and his chief political opponent, but who's part of his war cabinet, both refused to be seen with him in public. So he's growing more isolated. And then the other part of this quagmire that nobody's really focused on is the U.S. Navy announced, hey, remember our Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group in the Red Sea that we're going to stop those Yumpin Yemenis from attacking us?

We're pulling it out. We're going home. But we're going to replace it with a marine amphibious landing ship. And you're going, a marine amphibious landing ship is not known for its prowess in shooting down missiles and drones. So what this does, I think this is just a further reflection of the fact that those destroyers that were accompanying the aircraft carrier have fired off most of their missiles. They're no longer in a position to protect the carrier. So now they've got to go back to another port where they can refit, get rearmed before they go back out. But that makes

the United States look weak because there's really, we haven't even carried out any kinds of strike on the mainland. And the Yemenis are insisting, they've shut down maritime traffic in the Red Sea. So that traffic is not going to Israel, which compounds Israel's economic woes. So, and then these Israelis are talking about opening a northern front. They just killed the number two guy in Hamas today. And that is light. They did it in Beirut. And I think what you're going to see in the coming days is a dramatic increase in what's already a hot war tempo by Hezbollah. And so Israel is then going to be faced with having to try to fight a two-front war. They cannot fight a two-front war. They don't have the trained manpower to do it.

We're going to take a break for a commercial announcement. When we come back, Larry and I will switch to his analysis of Ukraine and its latest falling apart right after this. more paper cash. It's coming fast. So you need to get educated in other ways to protect and preserve the wealth you already have. What happens if the government destroys the United States dollar? I don't know, but I do know they can't destroy gold or silver or the value of it. That's why and so important that you learn now how to transfer your wealth into gold and silver. So educate yourself about investing in precious metals. Take charge of your retirement with gold-backed IRAs. And you can transfer a portion of your existing IRAs tax and penalty free.

So don't procrastinate. Take control. Do the right thing for you and your family. Go to learjudgenap.com or call 800-511-4620. Is Ukraine on its last legs? Certainly looks that way. Unless the United States comes through with another big tranche of funding, they're going to be out of money. And there's no rich uncle on the horizon with deep pockets ready to cough up a bunch of change and give them all the weapons, ammunition they need. What do you make of the Ukrainian attack on the Russian city,

which was an attack on an open air market at Christmas time, intended to and succeeded in killing Russian civilians. Yeah, it's very interesting to watch the contrast in coverage between what Russia, Russia's launched a whole barrage of missiles. You know, the other day it was like 150. I think today it was up over 200. So they keep launching these, but they insist they're hitting strategic targets. Now, there's some collateral damage to some civilian areas, but despite the hollering by the Ukrainians that,

oh, they're causing civilian casualties, they're not listing who the civilians are. They're keeping that quiet. Why? Because the Russians are killing a lot of foreign mercenaries. They're killing a lot of Ukrainian intelligence officers. They're killing a lot of Ukrainian intelligence officers. They're killing a lot of Ukrainian industrialists who are trying to manufacture drones and other wartime equipment. So Russia is being effective in that.

By contrast, Ukraine is hitting nothing but civilian targets. And they're doing it with the cluster munitions that they promised the United States that they would not use against civilians. It'd be one thing if they were hitting actual military targets, causing collateral damage, but that's not what's going on. But the problem is they don't have a lot to, you know, they can launch one or two. They may launch 12 missiles, and then Russia launches 100 times more than that, or 10 times that. So Ukraine's at a continued disadvantage, vladimir putin in his new year's

address and then in a visit with the wounded soldiers at a hospital made it very clear uh he said we're going to retaliate but we're going to retaliate retaliate in a pinpoint manner we're not going to kill civilians we're going to avoid that We're going to go after specific military targets. Well, the IDF has killed more civilians in three months than the Russian army has killed in two years. It's not even a close call. Yeah, yeah. I mean, and let's be candid, give the Ukrainians some credit. The Ukrainians launched the civil war against the people of the Donbass in 2014. And so far, as you note, Israel's killed more people, almost twice as many people as the Ukrainians killed.

And the Ukrainians had killed over 15,000 civilians. Where do you see Ukraine going? Do you think the U.S. and Great Britain would do the unthinkable and steal frozen assets from Belgian bank? They're not going to go in there with guns and masks on. They'll make it look like it's legitimate, but it's theft. And give it to Ukraine? Yeah, well, if they do so, and they've been warned, amply warned, that if this happens, they're going to, one, undermine faith in the United States dollar as the reserve currency, make it even more, give more people incentives, other countries incentives to seek alternatives, which comes at the very time that Russia has assumed chairmanship of the BRICS, and BRICS is setting up an alternative financial order that will be able to facilitate international trade. So it will undermine the U.S. confidence. Two, Russia still has ways that they can respond and seize Western assets that are still in Russia, which up to this point, the Russians have not touched it. They have abided by international law.

So it's one of those things that is, you know, I had a boss at State Department, a retired Marine colonel, and he always used to say, if it feels really good, it's probably wrong. So in this case, those encouraging the United States to do this because it feels really good, it's going to be wrong and it's going to be counterproductive uh we interviewed Scott Ritter our friend and colleague earlier today and he had a rather significant Russian businessman with him we used a translator and I said to him what is the Russian uh public's opinion of Biden, and he smiled and he said, we have a joke in Russia.

Thank you, Joe Biden, because the so-called sanctions have actually made Russian economic activity more self-sufficient and wealthier. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I saw when I was there. It really has, this last two years, it's like Russia woke up out of a deep sleep. They had been lulled into the slumber where they believed that a stronger alliance with the West would benefit them. And then when the rupture happened, Nelson looked around and went and said, wait a second. We've got everything the West needs. There's nothing the West has that we need. We don't need McDonald's. You know, we don't need Nike shoes.

We make our own. We make our own rocket engines anyway. So just, you know, across the board, they realized that Russia was in a much stronger position. And by reorganizing its economy to focus on trade with China, with India, with Brazil, with South Africa, and the other nations of the global South, all of a sudden it's really invigorated the Russian economy and really awakened them to the fact that, you know what? We've been bullied by these guys for years, and we don't have to put up with that anymore. And they are- You know what? We've been bullied by these guys for years, and we don't have to put up with that anymore. Didn't you find a Russian bank that was open at 7.30 or 8 o'clock at night? 7.30 at night.

And it was filled. We had to take a number. I was with Alistair Crook's wife. We left him at the lobby. He was nursing a sore knee, so we both had to change money. We went next door. We had to take a number, and So we both had to change money. We went next door and we, we had to take a, take a number. And we were like 20th in line and every, and they had 40 different

tellers scattered around between windows and desks. So it's not like it was just one or two people there in the bank. It was a big crowd. So take us back to your intelligence community days. What does the CIA do? What is their role in Ukraine in times like this, where all rational, fair-minded observers recognize that the Ukrainian government is on its last legs? What are they doing? Are they still spying on Russians? Are they still advising Ukrainian intel? Are they worried about their own safety if they're on the ground when Russia's attacking? Well, there should be two versions of the CIA in there.

Version one are the case officers whose job are to recruit spies, to recruit Ukrainians to spy for us, and to give us information about what's really going on inside the Ukrainian government. But then you have those who are committed to project Ukraine, carrying out the covert action. And oftentimes what happened, I saw this in Central America during the war against Nicaragua when we were backing the Contras. You had the case officers who were trying to accurately report what was going on, but the people like Jack Devine, he was one of them, and Vince Shields, he was another. They were suppressing the intelligence that was coming out that would have undermined the story that they were telling. So what you have here is a CIA covert action arm that's there to support the Ukrainians

and try to make it look like this project is going forward and we're succeeding because their promotion depends on it. Unfortunately, the honest Dutch uncle is not there to set the record straight. Well, is the CIA telling its bosses in Langley or its superiors in Europe? I'm not sure how the information travels. Yeah. That Zelensky and Zeluzhny are on their last legs. Well, if the intel guys and gals are doing their job right, yeah, they're going to report him back on the nature of the rift between General Zelensky and Zelensky, the president,

and to see is the rift growing or is it subsiding. But the fact of the matter is that we're seeing increased tensions between those two, and that's not likely to abate. If anything, the pressure's growing as you see the Russians continue to make advances all along the, you know, 600-mile front. And it's increasing the pressure on the Ukrainian generals who, in some cases, they want to pull out, retreat, get into a defensive position. And Zelensky's insisting that they stand and fight. But the stand and fight is just causing more casualties. What is to be expected from Joe Biden now? To call this a stalemate and say, ah, we stopped them from going to Kiev, therefore we did the right thing?

Well, Biden and his team have banked on being able to try to present negotiations with Russia as a sign that, yeah, boy, we backed those Russians into a corner, and now they're crying uncle, so we're going to negotiate. Larry, I don't think anybody believes that, do they? No, no. Oh, well, the Russians certainly don't. Putin, in his address to those wounded soldiers at the hospital the other day,

made it very clear. We ain't stopping until we have denazified and demilitarized Ukraine. And that also means demilitarizing NATO, because NATO is using Ukraine as a proxy. Made it very clear. Wow. How much longer is this going to go on if the U.S., if the House of Representatives sticks to its guns and doesn't send and doesn't authorize any more cash? No more drawdowns for Blinken. No more emergency expenditure of money while the Congress is asleep. No more swearing under oath that this is an American national security interest. Yeah, it can't last much, you know, not past May or June.

Because look, right now, Ukraine is still shooting off about 5,000 to 6,000 155-millimeter rounds a week. And yet the United States can only produce 14,000 in a month. So right there, the math doesn't add up. And there's nobody else in the world that's making a lot more. So Ukraine's going to run out of ammunition, number one. They're going to run out of Patriot missile batteries. We're already begging Japan to supply some to Ukraine. And yet those Patriot missile batteries have been proven ineffective

in shooting down the rockets and the drones that the Russians are launching on various targets in Ukraine. So it's just, they're in an attrition. There's like a patient bleeding out. And at some point, the blood is gone and the heart stops beating. Do you think all of this collapse in Ukraine is due to October 7th? Or do you think that Russian military superiority, American duplicity, Americans losing interest is the reason that Ukraine is now twisting in the wind? Well, no, it came about because Ukraine lost the counteroffensive. The counteroffensive caused enormous damage to them and to their reputation. And the West had really believed, genuinely believed that Ukraine had a fighting chance of getting to Crimea and reaching this Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. And it was

genuinely delusional, but they all believed it. And then when it didn't come to pass, all of a sudden people start having second thoughts about pouring money into the black hole that is never getting filled. And so the arrival of October 7th created an additional distraction. It's like throwing one more brick on a pile that's already getting ready to crack. And I think we're just watching the downward spiral of Ukraine. There's nothing that they can do at this point to turn it around because the bottom line is they don't have the manpower. They don't have the people. There's nothing they can do to turn it around. Larry Johnson, thank you very much. Thanks for your analysis as always. And we'll look forward to seeing you with that youngster McGovern to Scott Ritter and his colleague to Professor Sachs to Matt Ho to Colonel Kwiatkowski and now, of course, Larry Johnson. All of our superstars are coming up

the rest of this week. Phil Giraldi, Max Blumenthal, Colonel McGregor. Judge Napolitano, thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing. Our numbers have been extraordinary and we're deeply grateful. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.