The Biden Administration Deliberately and Knowingly Diverted Federal Funds From Fight Against Terrorism Counter-Terrorism To Fund Anti-Conservative Propaganda. This is a federalcrime and Must Be Prosecuted.
By John Acord, editor
January 22, 2-24

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) paid an activist group $700,000 to create self-described propaganda that attacked conservatives, a new investigation found. The funds were deliberately and knowingly diverted from a fund to fight Domestic Terrorism. This is a federal crime.

According to public records requests, the Media Research Center discovered that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) utilized the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Program, a grant program designed to fight against terrorists, to financially compensate far left Democratic activists for creating blog posts that criticized conservatives, including Donald Trump. These blog posts were cleverly presented as promoting “media literacy.”

In its funding application, the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab declared that “propaganda and misinformation concerning topics including immigration [and] racial justice” had become “disruptive.” It asked DHS for funding to run “community-created counter-propaganda.”

“Propaganda can also be used for socially beneficial purposes. Indeed, because the public has long been recognized as being suggestible, the United States has long made use of beneficial propaganda during WWI, WWII, and the Cold War,” the grant application said.

The findings position the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab and a closely linked activist group, Media Literacy Now (MLN), at the center of a sprawling, government-funded campaign to run propaganda on Americans to create a mandate for increased censorship. The Daily Wire reported last week that the same groups were also paid by the State Department, which had them arrange for German anti-” disinformation” activists to train U.S. school teachers on the techniques used in that country, which has some of the most anti-free speech policies in the West.

Congress must eliminate all domestic censorship programs, according to MRC’s statement regarding the grant. This deliberate diversion of funds is only one among many thefts of public funds by Biden officials to fund far left Democratic activists and to smear and gag conservatives.

The Biden administration has been successful in securing a substantial grant of $700,000 from the TVTP program, which will enable it to achieve something truly remarkable. Through its collaboration with the Media Literacy Now network, the administration will be able to promote its media literacy agenda to a wide audience, including the entire American public school system. This will be accomplished by leveraging the network’s resources and ultimately offering compensation to students who advocate for media literacy education. The result will be a comprehensive and far-reaching initiative that will have a significant impact on media literacy education in the United States.

The Biden administration has been successful in generating widespread interest in media literacy education, thanks to two significant grants from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security. This sudden surge in popularity has created a lucrative market for media literacy programs, which some critics argue are rooted in an anti-American ideology masquerading under the innocuous-sounding label of “media literacy.”

The DHS grant led to an entity known as “Courageous RI,” helmed by U-RI professor and leftist activist Renee Hobbs, which said that its program would use the funds to manipulate the public and policymakers into demanding policies to crack down on “misinformation.”

According to the report, Rhode Island requires specific attention to education due to the presence of multiple hate groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center in the state. Furthermore, it mentioned that individuals from Rhode Island were involved in the January 6 incident where the Capitol Building was breached.

The program aimed at countering terrorism was established during Obama’s presidency, and Miles Taylor, who served as Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Trump and gained attention for penning a controversial op-ed in The New York Times, worked to maintain its existence despite his boss’s opposition, as reported by Politico in 2020. This year, the program has been employed to draw comparisons between individuals who subscribe to the idea of a “deep state” and those who deny the Holocaust.

The Rhode Island Lab utilized funding from the Department of Homeland Security to compensate individuals $250 per blog post, with the intention of creating content focused on topics such as misinformation, disinformation, media literacy, and other related subjects. However, the articles often promoted Left-wing policies, which is problematic since federal grants can not be used to support lobbying efforts. Additionally, some posts strayed from the intended focus on media literacy and instead expressed strong political opinions, including criticism of the National Rifle Association and Stand Your Ground laws.

One post expressed concern about the negative impact of MAGA describing it as a place that has become darker, scarier, angrier, and less hopeful. The post also questioned if we are approaching a state of civil war, pointing out that Trump has taken advantage of the protections offered by the First Amendment.

“It won’t be easy, but we really have to reduce Trump’s influence,” it pledged.

Content moderation decisions of digital platforms actually do not violate ordinary people’s constitutionally guaranteed speech rights. That’s because private social media companies are not bound by the First Amendment,” another said, claiming that “the political right enjoys higher amplification compared to the political left.

The DHS-funded entity served to bring together federal and state law enforcement officials, anti-speech activists, teachers, and Democrat advocacy groups.

Gregg Amore, the Democratic Secretary of State for Rhode Island, established an official collaboration between his department and Courageous RI. He instructed his team to draft the “Manifesto” for the program. This document emphasized the potential connection between endorsing “anti-government theories” and the risk of engaging in acts of violence or domestic terrorism.

“Our emphasis on personal freedoms has led to a neglect of the greater well-being of society,” Amore noted at the debut of Courageous RI.

The Rhode Island School Superintendents Association and the U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island, Zachary Cunha, are also among Courageous RI’s “coalition” members, as is Moms Demand Action, a Left-wing anti-gun group.

Despite being advertised as an initiative to educate individuals on spotting propaganda and false information, the project concluded with compensating young individuals for producing government-approved messages. The “Statewide Community Creative Media Contest” rewarded students with cash prizes, reaching a maximum of $1,000, for developing “public service announcements.” These announcements were created with assistance from local public safety specialists and professionals in the fields of communication and public relations.

As part of its “Media Literacy and Civic Engagement Curriculum,” it trained teachers to use the classroom to root out “misinformation,” encouraging them to “address [] controversial current events.” It said with DHS funding, it would train more than 6,800 educators and students to embed “media literacy and terrorism prevention in many different kinds of community programs.”

The last element of the initiative was called “Brave Community Dialogues.” In an event held in June 2023, a video was shared stating that the inclination of Hispanics towards the Republican Party in 2020 was influenced by false information spread through Spanish-language media, with Russia potentially being responsible. The video urged social media companies like Meta to take stronger measures in censoring information.

The conversations also included a podcast series. In one episode, DHS agent Robert Mahoney, the grant’s administrator, appeared as a guest. “Somebody who has access to guns or has anti-government theories or has conspiracy theories, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to mobilize to violence, but it does mean in the sense of wanting to do interventions. If you’re causing concerns among your friends and family, to have a way of reporting or maybe getting someone the help that they desperately need,” he said.

Pam Steager, a brave official from Rhode Island, inquired about ways to support individuals before they reach a stage of extreme radicalization that may lead to violent actions.

Possible alternative:

The beginnings of extreme beliefs may commonly held views in the United States. In a different episode of a podcast, Hobbs endorsed an educational program that involved children listening to a podcast where a staff member from the Southern Poverty Law Center compared resistance to illegal immigration with Nazism.

“You know, if one looks at the anti-immigration movement today, it is astounding the things that are said by mainstream people. You know, we have national politicians right now walking around this country talking about how illegal aliens are, quote ‘coming here to kill me, and kill you, and kill our families,'” the SPLC official claimed.

The podcast also featured authoritarian leftists like Jennifer Lima, a school board member who said that students who “misgendered” people committed an “act of violence” that should be “dealt with accordingly.” Hobbs said she wanted to “inspire people to be as courageous as you are.”

Yet another podcast guest was former Congressman David Cicilline, who wrote that the “key threat to our democracy” is the GOP, which he described as “a Trumpist authoritarian cult.” On the podcast, Cicilline said that Congress needed to make laws to make social media companies liable for “dangerous” content like “misinformation” from “Trump,” MRC found. As a congressman, Cicilline advocated for DHS funding for the group.

With the financial support from the Department of Homeland Security serving as a starting point, the organization is now expanding its reach across the country, and will be holding a “Courageous Conversation” event in Charlottesville, Virginia on Wednesday. This event aims to encourage frank and open discussions on important issues, with the goal of fostering greater understanding and progress.

Media Literacy Now, an activist group with strong ties to the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island, is determined to enforce mandatory “media literacy” training for all children in the United States. However, they only support this requirement when media literacy is utilized to endorse progressive perspectives. As such, they openly opposed a Texas bill that aimed to incorporate media literacy education, as it included the 1619 Project as an instance of misinformation.

The head of the Rhode Island Media Lab, Hobbs, is also an advisory board member of MLN. She once convinced the National Council for Teachers of English to call for focusing on turning children into “change agents” through critical race theory, then claimed that a veteran Washington Post reporter needed to be subjected to her “media training” when he criticized it.