Don't Tase Me Bro

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Copyright © 2018 by Andrew Meyer With excerpts by Joel Meyer All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

CONT ENT S

1. Enlightening Intentions 2. The Taser Heard Round The World 3. Jailhouse Shock 4. The Media Myth Machine 5. Waking Up In The Spin Room 6. Operation Mockingbird 7. We Are Change

Afterword

1 21 37 45 66 76 91 117

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ENLIGHTENING INTENTIONS

Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” — JOSEPH STALIN

He apparently asked several questions - he went on for quite a while - then he was asked to stop. He had used his allotted time. His microphone was cut off, then he became upset. — UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA SPOKESMAN STEVE ORLANDO

It’s time to set the record straight. I became upset long before I entered the University Auditorium. 1

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The day was September 17, 2007 – Constitution Day. On this immortal Monday morning my mind was on fire. I was still wrestling with the idea of going to John Kerry’s “town-hall forum.” For days I had anxiously anticipated questioning Senator Kerry with the issues boiling in the back of my brain since the 2004 election. Now that the day had come and my chance was finally here, I was torn. The pessimist inside me was saying Andrew, what are you doing? You have class today. Forget John Kerry! What are you going to accomplish anyway? Let’s say you do get to ask John Kerry your questions – what will come of it? He’s probably just going to give you a political non-answer and send you on your merry way. Don’t waste your time. Forget about it. But the optimist in me wasn’t going down without a fight. Are you serious? You have the once-in-a-lifetime chance to question John Kerry, the man who promised to change Amer‐ ica, the man who should have been President! And you’re scared of missing class? What a joke! If you don’t follow through with what your heart is telling you is right, than you are a coward. Go to the town hall and give Senator Kerry what he hasn’t heard in years – tough, important questions about the 2004 election. Nearly forgotten now, John Kerry had promised to change politics in the United States in 2004, four years before Barack Obama made the same promises. The Amer‐ ican military was fighting wars-for-profit in Iraq and 2

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Afghanistan, and in 2004, Senator John Kerry was the man millions of Americans voted for to restore peace. On Election Day in 2004, the exit polls were in and I was ecstatic. John Kerry was going to be the next President. The government was going to start working for the people. Our soldiers were coming home. When the news networks began announcing George W. Bush had been re-elected, I couldn’t believe it. The exit polls had never been this wrong. How could Kerry have lost? I was certain that John Kerry was going to fight the results. After the electronic voting machines in Volusia County, Florida came up with a tally of negative 16,022 in 2000, there was no way Senator Kerry wouldn’t challenge the election results. For all the public knew, the vote counts in Florida and Ohio had been made up by the Republican Secretaries of State! No, John Kerry was going to fight. I was certain the election wasn’t over yet. Not by a long shot. So when John Kerry conceded the election on Election Day, I was shocked. I was absolutely floored. How could he concede the election on the day? When there was evidence the electronic voting machines were rigged or at least suscep‐ tible to malfunction? When there were multiple accounts of people not being allowed to vote in the swing states with the closest margins of victory? With these questions in mind, a book in my hand and a video camera in my pocket, I walked over to the University Auditorium to question Senator Kerry. The book was Armed 3

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Madhouse. The facts inside its yellow cover raised serious questions about the state of elections in America. In the national media circus that followed my arrest, my character and my intentions were called into question by the “main‐ stream” media, but the actual questions I asked John Kerry were largely ignored. Here now are the questions I asked Senator Kerry, complete with the relevant facts the media chose to ignore.

“I first and foremost want to thank you for your time; you’ve spent a lot of time talking to us here today. I want to thank you for coming and being open and honest. You recommended a book to us earlier; I wanted to recommend a book to you. It’s called Armed Madhouse, by Greg Palast.” John Kerry – “Yeah, I have it, actually.” “Yeah, he’s the top investigative journalist in America.” John Kerry - “I’ve already read it.” For me, this admission was stunning. In Armed Madhouse, or the “mysterious yellow book,” as the Wash‐ ington Post called it after my arrest, journalist Greg Palast made the case that the 2004 election was tainted by election fraud and voter disenfranchisement. Palast reported that five 4

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million Americans were denied the right to vote because of “caging lists,” wrongful purging from voter registration rolls, uncounted “provisional” ballots, “spoiled” ballots, rejected registrations, and rejected absentee ballots. Armed Madhouse showed the disenfranchised voters were largely Democratic voters being targeted, and that the tactics used to bar voters in 2004 were expanded by the government for 2008 and beyond. On November 10, 2004, Congressman Dennis Kucinich said of his home state of Ohio – whose electoral votes would have won Kerry the election - “Dirty tricks occurred across the state, including phony letters from Boards of Elections telling people that their registration through some Democratic activist groups were invalid and that Kerry voters were to report on Wednesday because of massive voter turnout. Phone calls to voters giving them erroneous polling information were also common.” The way Palast tells it, John Kerry would have won the 2004 election if not for this sabotaging of American democ‐ racy. That’s why I was flabbergasted to hear John Kerry say that he had read Armed Madhouse. Senator Kerry knew that he should have won the election, that his voters were being targeted, and that six millions voters were projected to be suppressed in 2008? “And he says YOU WON the 2004 election!” John Kerry - “Right.” “Isn’t that amazing? You won in 2004! In fact, there were multiple reports on the day of the 5

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election of disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida and Ohio. John Kerry - “Right.” As Senator Kerry was well aware, there were multiple reports of disenfranchisement of black voters on Election Day 2004. If only the Senator had known before the election that his opponents were up to no good, preventing his supporters from casting their votes. Had the Senator known that millions of Democrats were being disenfranchised, jeopardizing the election, he would have done something about it, right?

Kerry promises every vote will count July 25, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — John Kerry said Sunday that a team of lawyers is looking at "each and every district" where there have been voting problems to try to prevent a repeat of the 2000 election disputes. Kerry said he put the legal team in place as soon as he secured the Democratic presidential nomination in March. He said he also has thousands of lawyers around the country prepared to monitor the polls on election day. "We're looking at each and every district where there have been problems," he told a voter who asked Kerry how he would make sure every vote is counted this November. "We 6

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may or may not be bringing challenges publicly in the course of the next weeks."

In fact, Senator Kerry knew before the election that voter disenfranchisement could cost him the election. And yet, even after “losing” several disputed states by small margins, Kerry chose not to use his thousands of lawyers to contest the election results, the way Al Gore did in 2000. In 2004, the Green Party and Libertarian Party were filing a lawsuit on Kerry’s behalf, while the Senator and his “thousands of lawyers” did nothing. After I questioned Senator Kerry three years later, he said there “wasn’t enough evidence of wrong‐ doing” to take action. “There were also voting machines – electronic voting machines – in Volusia County, Florida, that counted backwards.” In the 2000 election, “faulty memory cards” in the electronic voting machines caused a vote tally of nega‐ tive 16,022 from Volusia’s precinct 216 (Bush only won the state by 537 votes). The same faulty and/or poten‐ tially rigged voting machines from the 2000 election were used again in the 2004 election. Besides the “caging lists,” wrongful purging from voter registration rolls, uncounted “provisional” ballots, “spoiled” ballots, rejected registrations, rejected absentee ballots, and disin‐ 7

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formation spread by political operatives, this means Senator Kerry had yet another reason to challenge the election results. How could anyone rig the voting machines, you ask? Aren’t they safe and secure? Clint Curtis, a computer programmer from Florida turned whistleblower, testified in 2004 before members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in Ohio about election fraud. Here is his testimony:

Judge: Mr. Curtis, are there programs that can be used to secretly fix elections? Curtis: Yes. Judge: How do you know that to be the case? Curtis: Because in October of 2000 I wrote a prototype for present Congressman Tom Feeney at the company I worked for in Oviedo, Florida that would do just that. Judge: And when you say “did just that,” it would rig an election? Curtis: It would flip the vote 51/49 for whoever you want it to go to and whichever race you wanted to win. Judge: And would that program that you designed be something that Elections Officials that might be on County Boards of Elections could detect? Curtis: They’d never see it. •

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So how easy is it to implant an undetectable program that could rig the electronic voting machines, and illegally alter the course of American democracy? On a CNN-Lou Dobbs report in 2006, Princeton professor Edward Felton demonstrated that it takes less than a minute to insert a virus on an unsupervised voting machine. Felton and two graduate students were able to write a virus similar to Curtis’s - a virus that would flip the vote count 51/49 - in less than a month after receiving a Diebold voting machine to work with. This disturbing and rarely discussed report showed just how easy it is to subvert the will of the people. Felton put his virus on a memory card. The key to accessing the memory card on a voting machine was the same exact key for every machine. So with one key, you can access any of the machines. To install the virus, Felton simply switched out the machine’s memory card with his virus-laden memory card. Once the virus is implanted in one machine, the removable memory card from that machine, when taken back to the central tabulator at Election Headquarters, spreads the virus and rigs the vote count. As Professor Felton dramatically demonstrated, “It’s not a very safe machine.” In fact, the Diebold machines – still in use around the country - are so unsafe that a video on blackboxvoting.org showed footage of a trained chimpanzee named Baxter monkeying with a vote count. This was the state of American democracy when I questioned John Kerry. Rigging an elec‐ tion takes less than a minute, and even a monkey can do it. 9

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“So amidst all these reports of phony, bogus stuff going on, how could you concede the elec‐ tion on the day? How could you concede the 2004 election on the day, when in this book it says there

were

five

million

votes

that

were

suppressed and you won the election? Didn’t you want to be President?” Here’s the tricky part. John Kerry went to all the trouble of running a campaign, raising millions of dollars, and getting himself elected as the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. You would think that the obvious answer to the question “Didn’t you want to be President?” is a simple yes. I’m not so certain. If John Kerry actually wanted to be President, why didn’t he contest the tainted, illegitimate elec‐ tion results? Senator Kerry and the Democratic Party knew before the 2004 election that millions of Democrats weren’t being allowed to vote. They also knew beforehand that the voting machines were potentially rigged. So if John Kerry and the Democrats truly opposed George W. Bush and the Wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, if they really wanted to change things, wouldn’t they have fought the election results as fiercely as possible? Wouldn’t they exhaust every possible legal remedy? Yet instead of mounting a legal challenge, they did nothing. While the Green Party and Libertarian Party were filing lawsuits on his behalf, John Kerry and his 10

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“thousands of lawyers” failed to contest George W. Bush’s re-election. The question is - Why? Why would John Kerry and the Democrats concede control of the White House, if they opposed what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were doing with it? Did the Democrats care about ending the wars? About removing corrupt corporate contracts from the trillion dollar federal budget? About anything they talked about on the campaign trail? “I’m not even done yet. I have two more ques‐ tions. If you were so against [invading] Iran, how come you are not saying let’s impeach Bush now – impeach Bush now before he can invade Iran? Why don’t we impeach him? Impeach Bush. Clin‐ ton* was impeached for what, a blowjob? Why don’t we impeach Bush, alright?” President Clinton, in case anybody forgot, was impeached for “perjury” and “obstruction of justice.” His impeachment-worthy crime was lying about having “gotten sucked off” by former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, arguably a less relevant ground for impeachment than misleading America into two pointless, murderous wars designed to profit “special interests” at every other Ameri‐ can’s expense. In 2006, despite mounting evidence such as the Downing Street Memo proving the Bush Administration had manufac‐ 11

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tured the intelligence claiming Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s military had nuclear weapons - deceiving America into a $4 trillion (and counting) war that left hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of U.S. troops dead - despite then-Vice President Cheney’s threats of making war on Iran, newlyelected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said “impeach‐ ment is off the table.” If the Democrats were truly opposed to the Bush Admin‐ istration, why would Pelosi take impeachment off the table? Why did John Kerry immediately concede the 2004 election? Perhaps the reason why the Democrats consistently refused to offer tangible opposition to the Republicans is because in reality, they were not opposed. In fact, many “mainstream” politicians - both Democrats and Republicans presented favorably on TV - have often been financed largely by the exact same business interests. The “mainstream” Republicans and Democrats have had the same puppet masters for decades, which is why they danced the same jig. Well boys, the jig is up. In his farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower said, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” As it happens, the “military-industrial complex,” or the “corporatocracy,” the “elites,” the “oligarchs,” the “top 1%,” 12

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the “banksters,” whatever you want to call them, have controlled world politics for decades. Millions of people worldwide are waking up to this fact. Call it “conspiracy” if you want, but the truth is that a handful of people own the banks, the oil companies, the military manufacturers, and the media, and these people collaborate to decide who the “main‐ stream” political candidates are. For example, let’s start with a look at the top 2008 campaign contributors for Barack Obama and John McCain. From the following corporations’ individual members, employees, owners, their immediate families and the corpora‐ tion’s political action committee, Barack Obama received $994,795 from Goldman Sachs, $699,790 from Citigroup, $695,132 from JPMorgan Chase & Co., and $514,881 from Morgan Stanley.

John McCain received $230,345 from Goldman Sachs, $322,051 from Citigroup, $226,057 from JPMorgan Chase and Co., $268,452 from Morgan Stanley, and $378,995 from Merill Lynch.

John Kerry and George W. Bush were also heavily financed 13

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by people from these banks during their 2004 campaigns. In April 2009, Senator Dick Durbin said that the banks “Are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” For decades, the real struggle in American politics has not been between Republicans and Democrats, but between politicians working for their constituents and politicians working covertly for the banks and corrupt corporations that paid them. This likely explains why John Kerry did not contest the 2004 election. With Bush in office, the globalists Kerry represents won the election anyway. In public, John Kerry and Barack Obama and other paidfor Democrats claimed to be against the wars, against George Bush and Dick Cheney and the paid-for Republicans. In real‐ ity, Kerry voted to fund the war, Obama continued Bush’s wars and started new wars, and both Kerry and Obama voted for the bank bailouts. Despite the public masquerade that they are opposed, the “mainstream” politicians on both sides of the aisle have the exact same core agenda. Many Democ‐ rats and Republicans are political Coke and Pepsi, the same harmful product with different packaging. Candidate Obama promised to end the War in Afghanistan, stop wiretapping Americans without warrants, and prevent illegal immigration. In reality President Obama did none of those things while expanding the policies of George W. Bush. Obama protected the bankers that caused the financial collapse, prosecuted journalists and whistle‐ 14

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blowers at a record rate, and broke what many considered his biggest promises. While candidate Obama promised to cut health insurance rates, the health care bill delivered by Obama his Democrat Congress was designed by insurance companies and massively raised prices! Overseas, not only were President Obama’s foreign policies the same as Bush’s, he even kept the same Secretary of Defense. The end result of voting for paid-off politicians is profit for corrupt corporate owners financing political campaigns, and suffering for everyone else. The money that could be spent building American schools and infrastructure instead “disappears” in Iraq by the billions. The criminally rich enslave and defraud the masses, and in private when the charade is over, the “mainstream” candidates get paid millions for “book deals” and “speeches” a.k.a. kickbacks and go on lavish vacations together at your expense. “Also, are you a member of-were you a member of Skull and Bones in college, with Bush, were you in the same secret society as Bush? Were you in Skull and Bones?” John Kerry, along with George W. Bush, and his father, George H. W. Bush, were in fact members of Skull and Bones, a college club once known as the Brotherhood of Death. Here is Bush Senior’s group photo - he is to the left of the clock.

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On NBC’s Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked both John Kerry and George W. Bush about the ramifications of belonging to the same secret society.

February 8, 2004: MR. RUSSERT: You were both in Skull and Bones, the secret society. PRESIDENT BUSH: It's so secret we can't talk about it.

August 31, 2003: MR. RUSSERT: You both were members of Skull and Bones, a secret society at Yale. What does that tell us? 16

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SEN. KERRY: Not much, because it’s a secret.

Bush and Kerry both laughed off the question, but American citizens should not be laughing. In reality, Skull and Bones is essentially college training before the members join the other secretive organizations that have controlled America, such as big banks, the CIA and the CFR (Council on Foreign Relations). Here is a list of some notable past and present CFR members Bill Clinton Dick Cheney John Kerry Hillary Clinton George H. W. Bush John McCain Richard Nixon Gerald Ford John Edwards Besides most of the “mainstream” Presidential candidates of the last few decades, the CFR roster includes wealthy bankers, military brass, college professors, and corporate exec‐ utives – including the heads of media conglomerates. And who declares presidential candidates to be “mainstream” in 17

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the first place? The media, of course. Coincidentally (or not), CFR corporate members have included Time Warner (owned CNN) General Electric (owned NBC) News Corp (owns FOX) Disney (owns ABC) Basically, the CFR is a business club that has hugely influenced or decided American foreign policy for decades. Hillary Clinton admitted as much when the CFR, based in New York City, opened a new branch in Washington D.C. In Hillary’s own words, “We get a lot of advice from the Council, so this will mean I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.” Perhaps the reason we haven’t heard more about the CFR - despite the fact that for decades nearly every President has been a member - is the same reason CFR candidates won so many elections: the “main‐ stream media” executives are CFR members! The CFR business club would select an entire field of Democratic and Republican Presidential candidates to promote, including the “frontrunners,” and the media executives in the club ensured that only those candidates were reported as “main‐ stream.” The CFR candidates pretend to be completely opposed, when in reality they all support the biggest and most harmful rackets in the world - War, Drugs, and 18

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international banking. Here is another list of CFR corporate members Merck Pharmaceuticals JP Morgan Chase & Co. Pfizer Inc. Wells Fargo Northrop Grumman Lockheed Martin With the help of their puppet politicians and news media, these destructive corporations have been able to advance their agenda in Congress and the courts, no matter how harmful the result is to the vast majority of the American people. CFR members have received billions in tax credits and subsidies, as General Electric did when it received a $3.2 billion tax credit while paying no taxes in 2001. CFR member Exxon Mobil received $3 billion in subsidies while paying no taxes in 2009. The special clubs for insiders only are part of why Wall Street was given billions in bailouts for problems they caused, and why the “mainstream” media is mostly silent on these issues. CFR “mainstream” media supports war and suppresses the revolution of consciousness and ideas which would bring peace on earth. When the “Don’t Tase Me Bro” video went viral online, CFR media went into overdrive to ignore the issues, framing me as a “prankster” while downplaying my 19

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questions to Senator Kerry and placing people’s attention on the taser. Tasers and police accountability are certainly important issues, but the focus on police and tasers was a distraction from the larger issues I raised. The real issue at hand in the “Don’t Tase Me Bro” affair was the question of corruption of the American government asked to Senator John Kerry. Kerry’s failure to challenge his ally George W. Bush exposed his lack of concern over the continuance of Bush’s policies. The media’s decision to ignore the questions I asked John Kerry while covering my ques‐ tioning John Kerry speaks volumes about their agenda. If you want real news about the world and honest politicians with ideas that will bring real change, start by turning off your tele‐ vision. With the connective power of internet, the real revolu‐ tion is online - and it manifests the more we talk to each other and learn from independent, enlightened people. By changing our consciousness, we can build the best world.

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THE TASER HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

After asking the question, the man would not let Senator Kerry finish his statement and kept badgering the senator about his beliefs, talking about ‘blow jobs’, and yelling as loud as he could as to sensationalize his presence…Upon contact with Meyer, he began acting in a violent manner pushing the officers involved, including lifting me off the ground and screaming obscenities…The man continued to scream and yell as well as push, kick, and elbow the officers attempting to take him into custody…The officers could not get a hold of his other arm as he was kicking, punching, and elbowing into officers… I obeyed the command from Sgt. King to utilize the taser for the continuation of non-compliance by the man. 21

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— EXCERPTS FROM THE POLICE REPORT OF OFFICER NICOLE LYNN MALLO

Truth is treason in the empire of lies. — RON PAUL

The event was advertised on campus as a “Town Hall” forum where the audience would question Senator John Kerry. When I got to the University Auditorium, there was a line of people being patted down by security to get inside. In my pocket was a small video camera I brought to record the ques‐ tions I planned to ask. The media would later claim that I brought the camera because I planned to get arrested. The media claimed that I was pulling a practical joke, that I was not serious. In case it’s not clear by now, I came with the camera because I wanted to publish video of myself asking Senator Kerry questions that still demand an answer – not because I “planned to get arrested.” Frankly, I didn’t think most people would care about what John Kerry had to say in 2007, three years after he conceded the election. However, I did know that asking him these questions might cause a scene, as I was essentially calling Senator Kerry a fraud. There was also a part of me that was afraid. 22

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In the weeks before the town-hall forum, I had been reading articles that claimed the Patriot Act and the recent Military Commissions Act allowed the President to name anyone an “enemy combatant” and banish them to Guan‐ tanamo Bay. Journalist Seymour Hersh was reporting on atrocities committed in Abu Ghraib, including the rape and torture of Iraqi citizens. I had also recently read 1984 – George Orwell’s story of a dissident taken to a secret prison and tortured for objecting to his country’s wars and lies. Justi‐ fied or not, I was afraid that exercising my freedom of speech could have dire consequences. Weeks earlier, when it was announced that John Kerry was coming to campus and planned to take questions, I couldn’t believe it. My mind was burning with questions, and there was literally no other person I would have rather asked them to. This was not just a Senator that claimed to represent the American people - this was the first man I ever voted for President. I thought John Kerry was going to help America become the place I grew up thinking it was. I truly love the United States and I believe that We the People can and should live up to every virtuous ideal that America stands for. The Declaration of Independence states that “All men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” When I read books that described how the CIA was assassinating foreign leaders to control their country’s natural resources, it was a difficult, maddening experience for me. 23

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So when I went to see John Kerry, I was upset. But I knew I had to act calmly. Blurting something out during Kerry’s speech (as I was sorely tempted to do six or seven times) would be highly unproductive and most likely result in me getting thrown out before I could ask him anything. So I sat, and I listened, and I waited. One of the first things Senator Kerry said was “What I want to try to do is make sure that it really is a dialogue, so, I’m going to try to shorten my comments up front…if we can’t lengthen the time you all get to ask questions. Don’t you think that would be more fun, rather than talking at you the whole time? I can that way make sure I address what is on your minds, and not just share with you what I think is on my mind.” John Kerry then spoke for over an hour and took seven questions from a moderator before the moderator said “We’ll probably only have time for about three questions.” At that point, I hurried to the microphone stand…only to wait in line behind six or seven people. There was also a second microphone on the other side of the room with an identical line of people. Not only was the Senator answering each question as if he had a high school debate contest to win, but the first couple questions from the audience seemed 24

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to be scripted softballs planned in advance by the event organizers. Let’s pretend for a second that I am advertising an event in your hometown - “Pizza with the Papa.” Papa John is coming to town and bringing free pizza for everyone! Sounds delicious, right? But what if the Papa promoted his brand for an hour and a half before announcing he only brought three small cheese pizzas for the first lucky three in line? You thought there was pizza for everyone! His event’s advertising led you to believe that, right? Well, I surely didn’t go to the University Auditorium to listen to Papa John. I came for the free pizza. To me, this was frustrating. The event was advertised as a “Town Hall forum” for audience members to ask questions of the Senator, not a speech. Senator Kerry even said at the outset that he wanted to maximize the time for audience comments. In reality, the Senator took exactly seven ques‐ tions from the audience before he made this comment: “I think a lot of politicians, people look at them, I look at some of them, I look at some and I must say, as a non-candidate right now, at least for president, occasionally, I watch C-Span and say, oh, my God, I hope I don’t sound like that.”

When Kerry said that, I couldn’t even help myself. I was 2125

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years-old, had just had my image of America shattered, and the man standing in front of me smiling and joking was Bene‐ dict Arnold in my eyes – a man who purported to care about Americans while selling us out to evil warmongering bankers. I was 20 feet from Senator Kerry when I reflexively spat out, “You do.” I don’t know if the Senator heard me, but the moderator then called for the “last question” from the other side of the room. At this point, a woman from the ACCENT Speaker’s Bureau (the student group running the event) approached the line on my side of the room and said time was up, no more questions. I didn’t move, and neither did a few other people in line. Moments later, a man from ACCENT appeared and told the people in line to sit down. More of the people waiting in line began going back to their seats, but I remained in line. The man then told me specifically I had to sit down, and I told him I had been waiting to speak and I wasn’t going anywhere. The ACCENT member then signaled University Police Department officers at the back of the auditorium to come over. Senator Kerry was in the middle of answering the “last question” when I made my move. The senator had spoken for over 90 minutes without truly addressing a single issue affecting the country. With police officers heading down the aisle to haul me away, I moved five feet to the open micro‐ phone stand and interrupted Senator Kerry, 26

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“You know, I’ve been waiting here for two hours and I just want to ask you a question.” According to his police report, Officer William Wise “proceeded to Meyer’s location and advised him to stop yelling and causing a disturbance or he would be escorted off the property.” In reality, Wise came up behind me and without saying a word immediately twisted my elbow behind my back. My arm felt like it would be broken if he should apply pressure. With my arm in Wise’s “transporter position,” as his report called it, I was being led up the aisle while loudly asking, “Are they arresting me? They’re going to arrest me because I want to ask you a question? Is he going to arrest me?” Amazingly, as Officer Wise was moving me towards the exit John Kerry intervened. “Security, sir, I’m happy to answer his question.” This point here is crucial. I stepped out of line and inter‐ rupted Senator Kerry, but the Senator called off Officer Wise and instructed him to let me get back in line. I went back to the microphone stand and handed my camera to a woman I had never met who also didn’t leave when the man from ACCENT told her to. I showed her how to use my camera and waited for Kerry to finish answering the previous question. 27

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Most of the viral YouTube videos start here, when I begin to ask my questions. I was extremely nervous, in part because I was now flanked very closely by two police officers, including one that had dragged me away about 30 seconds earlier. In the middle of my questions to Senator Kerry, the second officer grabbed me and said “Ask him the question.” I couldn’t believe it. Why was a police officer interrupting me, when the Senator already said I could speak? Towards the end of my questions to Senator Kerry, the man from ACCENT signaled to someone in the back of the room to cut my microphone by waving his hand across his neck. ACCENT later claimed that my microphone was cut because I said the word “blowjob.” Immediately after my microphone was cut off, Officer Wise and Officer Mallo grabbed my arms and began pulling me away. They did not say a word as they grabbed me. I had spoken for 90 seconds. “Are you going to arrest me? Excuse me! What are you arresting me for? Whoa whoa whoa whoa. Is anybody watching this?” Now here’s a great question. Why were the officers grab‐ bing me? The first time Officer Wise attempted to escort me out of the auditorium, I had broken the forum rules. But John Kerry overruled that. The Senator asked for me to stay and ask my question, and Officer Wise complied. In fact, when 28

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the officers are grabbing me after I asked my questions, you can hear Senator Kerry say: “No, that’s all right, let me answer his question,” The official reason for the police arresting me is stated in Officer Wise’s police report: “I leaned over to Ofc. Mallo and we made the decision that Meyer would be escorted out of the auditorium after his statements/questions due to his overall demeanor and actions.” Because the Officers didn’t like my questions and demeanor, they decided to forcibly remove me. A few people, the University of Florida’s lawyer included, said they didn’t see a First Amendment issue in my case. Perhaps those people never read the police reports or watched the video of what actually happened. Part of what makes America the greatest country in the world is our freedom of speech. Unless Congress recently passed a “Help Americans Ask Socially Accepted and Docile Questions Act” abolishing the First Amendment, police offi‐ cers do not have the right to touch you at a public forum on the grounds of “we don’t like your questions or demeanor.” In the media, many defending the arrest cited statements made later by police officers that I was “kicking” or “punch‐ ing” them, when a viral video seen by millions proved those statements were lies. Some defending the police officer’s unlawful arrest were upset at the politics of my questions, 29

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while others just worship the authority of the state over the individual. In either case, that mindset of valuing the power of authority over individual liberty has led to atrocities throughout history. It has been said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, which is why Americans that value our unprecedented freedoms stay on guard for violations of that liberty. Senator Kerry is not one of those Americans. If Senator Kerry had really wanted me to stay and stop the police from violating my rights, he almost certainly would have raised his voice and said something like, “Let him stay.” Of course, instead of fighting for my rights, Senator Kerry weakly protested. How fitting, Senator Kerry refusing to stand up for the people that voted for him. By allowing the police drag me away, Senator Kerry removed the chance of having his answers challenged and being further exposed as a fraud. “I’m not going anywhere. I want to listen to [the answer to] my questions. Get off me! Get off me! What the f--- are you doing?” What were they doing? They were forcefully grabbing me by both arms, while I’m asking to listen to Senator Kerry’s response. A third police officer appears and points a taser at me, telling me to put my hands behind my back. Officer Wise is twisting my wrist and arm in a pain-inducing hold again to force me to comply. No one has told me what I am being arrested for. I am raising my arms in the air, backing away from the officers, confused and scared witless. 30

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“What is going on here? I want to stand and listen to the answer to my question.” Now Sergeant King, a massive man who looks like he could play defensive tackle for the Florida Gators, grabs hold of me and begins basically carrying me up the aisle. “Help! Help! Are you kidding? They’re arresting me!” I couldn’t believe what was happening. I was being dragged outside after asking questions at a political forum. Because no one told me why I was being arrested, I felt that my questions were the reason. I was afraid I could be headed for a torturous dungeon, like Winston Smith in 1984, or the “enemy combatants” in CIA black sites around the world. “What have I done? What have I done? Get away from me man, get away from me!” At the top of the aisle, I tried to run outside and escaped Sgt. King’s grasp for half a second before getting tackled by both King and Wise. They could easily have taken me outside. Instead, Sgt. King and Officer Wise held me down while two other officers grabbed my legs. At this point there were five, soon to be six police officers present. According to a police report, my legs were “kicking freely,” which necessi‐ tated Officers Sexton and Lamb pinning them down. In real‐ ity, I was completely pinned by four officers, not “kicking, punching, and elbowing.” You don’t see me throwing a single punch or kick on any of the three or four videos that recorded 31

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the entire event. The police’s fictional arrest report may have resulted in millions of Americans wondering how many other police reports have been works of fiction. “You will be tased if you do not comply!” Hundreds if not thousands of Americans emailed me about the police’s behavior, and several made the point that police have to remove drunk, violent men much bigger and rowdier than me from football games all the time. Rarely are there seven police officers at one such incident, yet police hardly ever need to resort to using a taser in that situation. A taser is a pain-inducing device, legalized torture, that serves as a less-lethal replacement for a gun. Hundreds of people have died from being tasered, and a taser should only be used in a dangerous or life-threatening situation. There was no legiti‐ mate reason for the officers to use a taser on me. I posed no threat, and the officers had me pinned on the floor. “Just let me go, and I’ll walk out of here.” I even offered to walk out of the building if they would get off me, a meaningless offer to the police at this point. “Roll on your stomach! Put your hands behind your back!” “You will be tased!” “Do it now!” “I think if everyone calms down, this situa‐ tion will calm down.” That last line is John Kerry, pretending he wanted the 32

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police to get off of me. Again, if Kerry wanted the cops to let me go, he could have, you know, raised his voice. Instead, he decides to make a joke. “Unfortunately he’s not available to come up here and swear me in as President.” “Do it now!” “You don’t have an option!” “Let me just stand up! Why are they arresting me? Can someone do something here? I’m being arrested. What did I do? Get off of me!” “Gimme the other hand!” “Get the fuck off me, man! I didn’t do anything!” The police had me pinned to the ground. I was laying on my stomach, scared for my life, and I wouldn’t let them put on the second handcuff. I didn’t punch or kick the officers, as they claimed, but with the terrible feeling of how unjustified this arrest was, I couldn’t just comply with the police who were unjustly attacking me, and accept the second handcuff like a docile sheep. “Don’t tase me, bro! Don’t tase me! I didn’t do anything!” On my stomach with one hand cuffed, Officer Wise is grabbing my other hand, with Sgt. King holding down my back and Officers Sexton and Lamb on each leg. From where I’m sitting (sprawled on the ground that is), the offi‐ 33

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cers have control of the situation. Let’s see how they proceed. “Roll over!” With four officers on top of me and another three standing around, Sgt. King instructs Officer Mallo to deploy her taser, a “non-lethal weapon” that has killed more than 200 people in the U.S. since 2001. “OWW! OWW! OWW! OWWW! OWWWW! OWWWW! Let me go! Let me go!”

People have asked me: Did it hurt? The worst pain of my life was when I was in a descending airplane in 2006, and the cabin pressure hit me so bad it felt like one of my molars was going to explode. Getting tasered was a close second. So, yes, it hurt. A lot. “Get back!” – Officer Wise In the video shot from my camera you can clearly see Officer Wise with a disturbingly wide grin on his face right after they tased me. It’s as if he won the Super Bowl and the lottery. The man could not have been happier. “Why are you doing that?!” A woman in the background asked the question, and to me, the answer has become obvious. Certainly, the officers were caught up in the heat of the moment, and they were trying to do their jobs, which to them might be as simple as 34

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“control the situation.” But I also believe that some of the offi‐ cers just wanted to use force on me, and not because they needed to gain control of the situation. With seven officers either on top of me or close by, control was already well within their grasp. My incident is not unique in this respect. After this inci‐ dent, reports and videos of officers abusing the taser popped up on news channels across the country. Officers typically have to be tasered before they can receive the taser, and I think some officers can’t wait to try it out. According to Florida police documents, a subject only has to be “passively resisting” in order for an officer to be justified in using the taser. In retrospect, I was lucky. Unlike other cases of gross misuse of the taser, I was tased only once and survived. Many others have not been so fortunate. A day after the police arrested me, the mainstream media parroted the police report that I was kicking and punching officers. The entire incident was on video, recorded from multiple angles, and clearly showed that I neither kicked nor punched. Despite millions of viewers watching the arrest and many commenting on the false police reports, the mainstream media uncritically published the police reports that I was kicking and punching. “What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?” As you can imagine, taking 50,000 volts to the back did not calm me down. When I finally got to my feet, I was terri‐ 35

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fied. In my young mind, if the police were willing to taser me in public for asking questions, they were almost certainly taking me to a secret location or somewhere like Guantanamo Bay where I could be classified an “enemy combatant,” never to be heard from again. This was in the early days of the inter‐ net, before you would expect an incident like this to be shared all over social media. This is why you can hear me saying things like, “You can’t just kill me you know,” And, “Oh my God, They’re giving me to the government.” While my Guantanamo nightmare never manifested, I wasn’t exactly wrong on that second count. In fact, the offi‐ cers brought me to one of the government’s most brutal mani‐ festations – the county jail.

36

3

JAILHOUSE SHOCK

FROM THE DESK OF JOEL MEYER “I have a collect call from Andrew Meyer, an inmate at the Alachua County Jail.”

It is after 5:00 pm on Monday, September 17, 2007 and I had been fasting all day in preparation for my colonoscopy, the next morning. I was in my office when my wife Judy, who works with me in our business, came in to tell me that Stephanie from Channel 6 News was on the phone and wanted to speak with Joel Meyer, the father of Andrew Meyer. •

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We both looked at each other with quizzical expressions on our faces (like what’s this all about?) I answered the phone and she asked me, “Is this Andrew Meyer’s father?” “Yes, this is Joel Meyer, what is this in reference to?” “This is Stephanie from Channel 6 News, have you seen Andrew’s video?” “What video? Did Andrew send you a video?” “No, the video with Senator John Kerry” “The video with John Kerry?” “Do you know what happened?” “No, what are you talking about?” “Your son Andrew was at a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida, he was tasered and arrested”. “What?!! You’re kidding me!” “This is the first time you’re hearing about this?” “Yes” “Just go to gainesvillesun.com and take a look at the video.” I went to the web site and immediately saw a picture of Andrew being dragged away by the police. Holy Shit!! I tried to view the video, but my computer could not download it. Instead, I skimmed the news story about it. By this time, Stephanie asked me if I would like to comment on what happened and I told her, “Thank you for calling, but I have to talk to my attorney 38

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first. I can’t make any statement until I see the video and have all the facts”.

I hung up the phone and was in shock. Judy & I read the entire article regarding “the incident” (which is how we always refer to it) and were dumbfounded. After trying to comprehend what happened, I got the phone number for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office and called them. After getting connected to the right department, I was told that Andrew was still being “processed”. The woman informed me that he was arrested for: Disturbing the Peace Inciting a Riot Resisting Arrest with Violence

She told me that Andrew’s arraignment was the next morning at 9:00 am and that he would be assigned a public defender. She also stated that he might be released on his own recognizance or need to post bond, depending on how the judge rules. Now what do we do?? [To be continued… ] 39

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I’d like to start off by saying that prison is truly a living hell. It is a place where love and compassion are looked upon as weaknesses and violence and brutality are worn like a medal of honor. Prison is a tedious task of survival that can shatter your dreams and ambitions. The California Department of Corrections isn’t designed to help to rehabilitate yourself, or even to help you to become a productive law-abiding citizen. — QUOTED IN “ BLACK DIAMONDS

AND PEARLS ” BY BLACKALICIOUS

The officers were tightening my handcuffs and twisting my wrists. As they led me out of the auditorium, my wrists were choking and I asked if they could take the cuffs off me. The officer twisting my right hand in a vice grip behind my back instructed Sgt. King - gripping my left hand behind my back to follow suit and twist. Both my hands were now in severe pain, though only my right hand felt like it was going to break. The cuffs were so tight on my wrists they were slowly cutting off the circulation to my arm. Several times I asked the officers to loosen the cuffs for this reason, and was ignored. 40

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My right arm was numb for over an hour because of this treatment. An officer finally told what I was being arrested for, and the charge was “inciting a riot.” You might think that inciting a riot requires a second or even third person to do something resembling a riot, but you would be wrong. Apparently I incited a riot of one. My mouth felt dry and disgusting the entire car ride over to jail. While it was widely reported that I was “laughing and lighthearted” on the way to jail, I can assure you that I was not. The entire video of this car ride was actually released by the police and posted on the internet, so you can watch it and decide for yourself. The media would use it to try and discredit me, claiming that I wasn’t serious because I tried to calm myself and talk in a civil way with the officers. In reality, I was stunned. I couldn’t believe what was going on. Though I had heard and read about police brutality and seen incidents on TV, I never imagined that this could happen inside the University of Florida auditorium. In the video of my ride to jail, you can hear me asking the police offi‐ cers, “Is this America? Is this America? Is this America, or is this Nazi Germany?” That sums up how I felt completely. I couldn’t accept that that response to my actions really just happened. My mind – not to mention my body – was thor‐ oughly shocked. I asked the officers driving me to jail if they had read 41

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1984. Officer Mallo, sitting in the passenger seat, knew about it. Officer Vinson, driving me to jail, had never heard of it, though he did offer to have several officers waiting for me at the police station in case I wanted to “resist” some more. I declined. When we got to the station, two things happened. My worst case scenarios were put to bed. They were not bringing me to some federal government facility and stashing me as an enemy combatant. The enormous relief I felt at not being PATRIOT Acted was then immediately displaced by the discomfort of jail. I asked a couple of the officers at the jail if I could have some water – my mouth was still as dry as the desert and tasted foul. The officers looked at me like I was crazy. You’re in jail now. You don’t get to ask for anything. Another officer led me to a small room where all of my possessions were taken, including my socks. Strip to your boxers and give me your clothes, prisoners wear orange jumpsuits. After taking your clothes, the next thing “corrections offi‐ cers” want from you is your picture. Now, I am naturally a happy person. I typically smile for the camera. I felt that my arrest was ridiculous, so I was going to be myself and smile happy for the camera, mug shot be damned. The booking officer threw me in a cell by myself for maybe two hours for that. This is jail. There is no fun here. I work here. I am the law. You are a criminal. I am here to punish you. 42

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After solitary, and a somber booking photo, I was sent to see the nurse. She was the first person I met in jail who treated me like an actual human being. I talked to her about the jail conditions for a bit, and she agreed they were not what they should be. The nurse pulled up my file, and I got my worst shock since the taser. They were charging me with resisting arrest WITH violence. I felt enraged and confused and nervous, a hot wave of adrenaline and emotion. Officer Mallo assured me that I was going to be charged with resisting arrest without violence, a misdemeanor. Sometime between my arrival at the jail and my conversation with the nurse, someone decided to have my arrest trumped up into a felony. I learned later while volunteering in the Miami-Dade public defender’s office that “overcharging” to gain leverage through plea bargaining and/or extract the harshest penalty is commonplace in the American justice system. The nurse finished her examination, and I was promptly brought to a new cell with no cellmates. I asked one of the jail’s officers for a pen and paper - and was flatly denied. In the cell, I was cold and miserable and unable to sleep. Without socks, I was freezing - jails are kept cold to pacify the inmates - and it was nearly impossible to sleep on the hard iron-bar bench that served as a bed. Instead of sinking into despair, I began focusing my thoughts on the present moment, and praying that the truth of this situation comes to light. 43

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A guard spoke to me through the cell peephole in the morning. “You were on Good Morning America.” I was in shock again. How big would this story get? When I had the chance to make a phone call, I called my parents and spoke to my Dad.

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4

THE MEDIA MYTH MACHINE

FROM THE DESK OF JOEL MEYER “How’s it going Dad?” I was relieved to hear his voice. “They said I have a collect call from an inmate at the Alachua County Jail” We both laughed at how ridiculous it sounded. I told him how I found out about the incident and that it has been the top news story of the night. We talked about the incident and his arrest. I told him Bob Bogen was working on getting me a name of a lawyer, to get him better representation than the public defender assigned to the case. I asked him if he wanted me there for his arraignment, 45

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because I was supposed to have a colonoscopy in the morn‐ ing. He did not think it was necessary (in my heart I knew Judy & I should be there). I instructed him to stay cool and let his attorney speak for him. I asked Andrew if he was in a holding cell. He said that after the phone call he would be processed and then taken to a cell with bunk beds, until morning. At that moment I said to whoever was “listening,” “if a hair is harmed on my son’s head, someone will be held responsible.” Andrew told me that he didn’t know where his video camera was (he gave it to the female student next to him in line to tape his questions) and he lost the book he was hold‐ ing. He wanted me to e-mail Greg Palast, the author of the book he was holding and tell him what happened (Stay tuned…more on Greg Palast later). Andrew then made a very intuitive statement, “All John Kerry had to do was tell them to leave that kid alone.” I asked him if he was alright and he told me that the tasering was the second most painful experience he ever had (the first was on a descending plane and his ears felt like they would burst from the air pressure). Also, after his arrest the handcuffs were too tight and cutting off his circulation, but the officers made no attempt to loosen them. Andrew said he was in jail the whole day. When I asked him what took so long for him to call us, he said he was in soli‐ tary for a good while because he smiled for his mug shot. Well, we did spend a lot of money on his braces. 46

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Andrew asked “How is Mom doing?” Judy then got on the phone, told him she was OK and asked how he was. He replied, “I’m happy this happened actually, this is going to bring a lot of things to light, that need to be brought to light.” A recording declares that there are only 60 seconds left. At that moment I still was not sure if I would be in Gainesville for the arraignment but told Andrew to call me immediately afterwards. Time is up. The house phone rang and it was from a New York area code. Since I have relatives in NY, I answered it. “Hello, my name is Matt Glick, I am Matt Lauer’s producer for The Today Show.”

The President of the Brotherhood of Law Enforcement Officers from around the state has written a letter to UF President Bernie Machen. The Fraternal Order of Police asked Machen to suspend Andrew Meyer from school and ban him from campus, because they believe he’s ‘a threat to society.’ — UNNAMED REPORTER, AS SEEN ON YOUTUBE VIDEO “POLICE CALL ANDREW MEYER A ‘THREAT TO SOCIETY. 47

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I would not have taken the trouble to write a book to say to the reader: I have been persecuted for twenty years by prostitute Journalism. The thing I am interested in saying is: The prostitution of Journalism is due to such and such factors, and may be remedied by such and such changes. — UPTON SINCLAIR

I was very loudly singing songs in my cell. “LEAN ON ME, WHEN YOURE NOT STRONG, AND YOU NEED A HAND, SOMEONE TO HELP YOU, CAAAARRRYY ONNNNN….” I had slept for maybe 2 hours the entire night, and boisterous singing was very necessary to cure my boredom and wake me up. My arraignment was about to begin. I was brought to a room with about 40 inmates seated on bench rows. We were all waiting for the judge’s face to appear on the video screen. I was seated towards the back, and while my last name is in the middle of the alphabet, I was the first inmate called to the stand. Out of forty inmates, I was one of only two released on our recognizance. After my arraignment, I was sent to a new empty cell for another agonizingly long hour until I was finally released. Freedom! I can easily say that the best part about jail is leaving. The food stank, the cell stank, some of the guards’ 48

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attitudes stank, and I stank – I hadn’t showered in a day after the sweaty mess of being roughed up by police. I was given my possessions back, including my socks and my cell phone. As soon as I turned my phone on it started ringing. Unlisted number. I had an idea who it might be after hearing that my arrest was the top story on Good Morning America. “Hello?” “Hi, Andrew, this is Sandy, from Fox News.” “Uh, hi.” “Listen, we’re interested in doing an interview with you. Are you available to do Fox and Friends this morning? We’ll fly you out to New York.” “No thanks.” Click. RING. “Hello?” “Hi, Andrew, this is Laurie with CNN.” Click. RING. RING. RING. My cell phone didn’t stop ringing for three days, day or night. A couple times I picked up the unlisted number for the hell of it. “Andrew, this is Chad with Fox News.” “Oh, hi Chad.” “Hey, you know, I graduated from the University of Florida not long ago.” 49

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“Oh, wow. You’re a Gator too?” “Yeah, I remember it used to get pretty crazy down there. Listen buddy, I’m with Fox and Friends, and if I can get you up here for an interview, I get a bonus. How about helping a fellow Gator out?” “Let me think about it.” Click. Outside the jail, five of my friends were waiting for me. For them to wait for me at the station, I felt much loved. In the days that followed, the support of my friends and family helped carry me through. A gaggle of media and photogra‐ phers were also waiting for me outside. My friends walked with me out to the car where my parents were waiting. I wanted to get in the car and away from the media as fast as possible, but I was overjoyed at seeing my Dad, and I stopped to give him a hug. In the car, I rode with Rob Griscti and Allison Blakeslee to Rob’s law office. While I was in jail, two attorneys had offered their services to me pro bono, but my Dad was directed to Rob through close family friends. I think practically the first thing I said in the car was, “I’m ready for O’Reilly.” I was ready to tell the whole world exactly what I thought of the war and the hypocrites in Congress. Allison and Rob just looked at each other. When we got to the law office, Rob advised me not to walk outside into the hallway because there were reporters roaming the 50

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building. The media was everywhere. They wanted their pound of flesh and they wanted it RIGHT NOW. And it wasn’t just me they were after. In the next few days, almost everyone I know had some run in with the media. Just being listed as my friend on Face‐ book was enough to have a reporter after you. The Wash‐ ington Post wanted to interview a guy I knew named Quigley after seeing his band’s video on my website. Nancy Grace contacted my fraternity brother Ryan Campbell. And the Miami Herald managed to snag an exclusive interview with my grandma Lucy, who gave them the inside story of my status as a member of the National Honor Society in high school. Sitting in Rob Griscti’s law office, I was at a crossroads. I wanted to speak out, about election fraud and the case to impeach Bush and the collusion of the Democrats in wars for profit - the questions I had asked John Kerry about in the first place. But I was paralyzed, both by the trial by media that was taking place, and the bogus criminal charges against me. The media’s focus on me personally and the inaccurate way they portrayed my life was stunning. While my parents and I were concerned with defending against a preposterous felony charge, I was being prosecuted by the media from the start. The very first sentence of the Associated Press story on the incident accused me of being a “well-known prankster.” The evidence used to prove this fabrication was a video 51

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posted in the “Sketches” section of my website called “Harry Dies.” In “Harry Dies,” some guys I knew stood on a street corner the day the seventh Harry Potter book was released and video-taped themselves fake-ruining the ending for people by holding up a sign that says “Harry Dies.” I was not in this video. I was not even holding a camera. All I did was post the video on my website. The media claimed that I was in the video, and used “Harry Dies” as their evidence to call me a “well-known prankster” and suggest I should not be taken seriously. My website, TheAndrewMeyer.com, was and is focused on my journalism. I find it interesting that my political writingeasily found on my website - such as “We are [in Iraq] to make money for Vice President Cheney’s corporation, Halliburton. We are there for oil.” - was not reported by the media as rele‐ vant background information on me, but comedy sketches from my website, one of which I had nothing to do with, and a picture of me at a party in a red pimp hat taken from my Face‐ book account were important enough to be shown on Good Morning America and CNN. Instead of airing my actual reasons for questioning John Kerry, the mainstream media also played clips from a second video from the “Sketches” section of my website. In a comedy sketch from my friend Peter’s local television show GTV, “Beauty is in the eye of the Beerholder,” our friend Matt was dressed in drag at a bar and turns into a gorgeous woman as 52

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my character ordered more drinks. That sketch found its way to Good Morning America. Also unreported by the media were the weekly column I wrote for the college newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, and the multiple journalism awards I won in high school writing for the Sun Sentinel and my high school paper, The Circuit. Those details, painting an accurate picture of me as a writer, were omitted by the media. Instead, the media created a two-dimensional characteriza‐ tion of me as a person - for a purpose. By leaving out the evidence of my work as a writer and college journalism student, the media could instead label me a “prankster” - creating a false controversy about whether my questions to John Kerry were serious, and brushing aside the issues I raised in questioning him. Without stirring up a confusing and pointless debate about my character, the news networks would not be able to distract their viewers and hide my questions to John Kerry, which are the type of questions professional journalists should be asking. The reporters on television could not focus on my ques‐ tions and discuss them, because then the question would become, “Why don’t CNN and FOX News and MSNBC ask these questions?” By focusing on my questions and discussing them, the news networks would have revealed their own lack of authentic journalism. Those questions also would have raised the issues that mainstream media is forbidden from discussing. 53

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The coverage of “Don’t Tase Me Bro” is the perfect analogy for how the news networks operate 24/7. The news media may discuss political candidates or events, but they rarely focus on the facts of the serious issues involved. When they discuss elections, news networks typically analyze candi‐ dates’ personalities, not their opinions on important issues. One reason CFR-news media does this is to hide how much the Democrat and Republican candidates are typically in agreement. The media intentionally inflates the minor differ‐ ences between Republicans and Democrats to World Wrestling Entertainment level proportions, acting as if the two sides hate each other and are completely opposed, when in reality the “mainstream” candidates on both sides often support the same corporations once in office, because they are paid by the same corporations. However, after listening to the media hype, voters on both sides of the conservative and liberal spectrum are ready to vote for the “lesser of two evils,” because they are so disgusted with the personal issues and “controversial” politics of the mainstream-CFR candidate on the other side. Meanwhile, in hyping this imaginary fight, the news media tries their hardest to ignore the honest and inde‐ pendent candidates altogether. Forget

relevant

issues,

forget

intelligent

debate, this is ABC/NBC/etc. News, and we’re going Red state vs. Blue state. Forget the primaries, we’ve already chosen the candidates 54

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for you! Obama vs. McCain! Hillary in a land‐ slide! Watch our anchors make fun of “loony” longshots like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, and then we’ll talk about Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber! This is the mainstream media! We divide, distract, and conquer. You “decide.” Dennis Kucinich was one of two Democratic candidates for U.S. President in 2007 who favored peace, and bringing American troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both voted for war. Instead of focusing on the major differences in policy - differences that would have a huge impact in the world - between candidates like Kucinich and Obama, the fake news media focused on minor differences, and mostly the differences of personality, between Hillary and Barack. By ignoring Dennis Kucinich, the fake news media created a two-person battle of personali‐ ties where both candidates held the same CFR-approved opinions! The Republican race is covered the same way. Voters that didn’t want to “waste their vote,” lined up to vote for the lesser of two evils in this rigged contest. This is how news media divides and conquers. They anoint chosen candidates to defeat the honest candidates who are indepen‐ dent of the system. While everyone lined up to take sides in Hillary vs. Obama, and Obama v. McCain, the candidates on both sides were chosen to spend Americans’s money on more

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bombs and bank bailouts while chipping away your civil rights! This is why the media ignored my questions. One CNN report played the entire video of the incident shot from my camera with the questions edited out. The fact that I confronted John Kerry with questions aimed at the false divide between he and George W. Bush was nowhere to be seen in the national media circus that followed my arrest. The mainstream media stories, both print and televised, either attempted to discredit me person‐ ally, focused on the taser, or paid lip service to free speech while completely ignoring what I said to Senator Kerry in the first place. As the fake news media did their worst to frame me as a villain, the legal system and the university were adding pres‐ sure to an already tense situation. My parents were focused on getting rid of the charges against me and helping me grad‐ uate. The state prosecutor was threatening me with a felony charge and the university was looking into disciplinary action. In my attorney Rob Griscti’s office, both my parents and Rob advised me to stay away from the media for a while. The advice made sense, considering saying the wrong words in public could be used against me in court or lead to my expul‐ sion from the university. In trying my best to do the right thing, be a good son and take my college education and the charges against me seri‐ ously, I left myself open to vicious attacks by the media. 56

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While I stayed silent, both the left and the right were taking shots at me on television. Many people in my generation immediately adopted the opinions of Jon Stewart and the other “comedians” on The Daily Show. When Stewart described my actions as “student douchebaggery” on The Daily Show, he turned a large portion of public opinion against me. At the time, I thought Stewart was an anti-establishment independent that cared about ending the wars and demanding honesty from politi‐ cians. Later, when the Obama administration was in power, Stewart showed his true colors, refusing to seriously question Obama for bombing Libya and failing to prosecute the bankers that had caused the financial crisis in 2008. By the time he left The Daily Show, Stewart was clearly an estab‐ lishment servant and a partisan hack that bowed down to the Democrats. At the time however, Stewart’s voice swayed many people, and he used his influence to portray my serious questions as “douchebaggery.” On Fox News, I was public enemy number one immedi‐ ately following my arrest. Bill O’Reilly called me the “biggest wimp in America,” and Greg Gutfeld grossly joked that I should be killed for saying the word “bro.” You would think with how much O’Reilly acts like he hates the Democrats, he would love seeing a college student call them out on their hypocrisy. Instead, O’Reilly called me “a bad guy,” and a “pinhead.” With how controlled Fox News is by its manage‐ ment, O’Reilly may have had his opinion handed to him by 57

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his bosses, but he also may have been furious because I was exposing the collusion between the parties and revealing how insignificant and phony the “debate” on his show really was. On MSNBC, one talking head argued the police should have used more force on me. More force than a taser? Was he advocating the police shoot me, or bludgeon me in the head with a baton for asking a question? On ABC, a reporter claimed, “Meyer has a reputation for practical jokes,” and “asked a series of obnoxious questions.” While the talking heads on TV assassinated my character in every way they could, the story of the incident exploded online. I doubt the media would have even covered my arrest if not for the phenomenon of interest seen online. Only a day after I was arrested, there were tens if not hundreds of thou‐ sands of t-shirts printed and shipped around the country bearing a catchphrase I hardly remembered saying. “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” While I was surprised the story went so viral, I was even more surprised that above anything else, this one line was what captured the nation’s attention. Not the issue of stolen elections, the Democrats’ complicity with the Republicans, or even the issues of free speech or police aggressiveness. For much of America, one line - “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” – symbol‐ ized or surpassed all of the issues involved. My Dad and I often wondered, would the story have gone as far had I said a word other then bro? “Don’t tase me, man!” Not as compelling, right? I think that single word, “Bro,” 58

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helped carry my story around the world for two reasons. The phrase gave casual followers of the news and hardcore politicos interest in the story through its wildly contrasting words, but it also carried an understated message. Don’t tase me, brother. You are my fellow human being and I have done you no harm. My email address was posted on my website, and when I accessed my inbox, it was full. I had 1,000 emails with messages from all over the world. Some of them were as nasty as anything you could imagine. I won’t reprint them here. But most of them were inspirational, and lifted my spirit. Subject: You did nothing wrong Dear Andrew, I am an elderly grandmother, and resent the way you were manhandled, cuffed and tasered. How dare the police do that to an American citizen. It is your right to ask questions. It is a sign of intelligence. You are the future. John Kerry should have respected that. He owes you an apology and much more. Also your grandmother, for upset‐ ting her. I have lost respect for Kerry. Is he forgetting it is people like you, your grandmother and me that pay his salary with our taxes? I also would like to know why G. Bush has not been impeached. Good Luck, young man and don't let anyone intimidate you. Stick up for yourself. -Grandmom Rita Subject: YOU ARE AN AMERICAN HERO The Facts remain: You asked Kerry very good questions and you let America know that Free speech is not always 59

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Free. Thank God for youtube, Ron Paul and people like you asking the important questions. Thank you Andrew Meyer, Mark Salom P.S.: ignore personal attacks, stay focused on the real issues regarding our freedoms and our liberties.

I also received about a hundred emails from Italy, like this one:

Subject: Hi there I read about you in the papers, I'm so sorry, I'm Italian, I'm so sorry for you and for your country, that is so sad! Let me know if we from here can do anything for you, protestmail to the police, or the government, let me know, please! We are with you! Fight the fascism in your country! What happened shows us the reality. You are living in a fascist country. Free it! Bye, Daniele del Grande

It’s been said that that when you look for inspiration from sources outside yourself, you can hear a million compliments 60

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yet it’s the negative comments that will still stick. Despite all the outpouring of support, I was somewhat paralyzed by reading all the negative comments about me in emails and listening to the hate on TV. At the time, I cared very much what people thought about me, one of the biggest mistakes you can make in life. Even though I knew the people sending me negative emails were misinformed and didn’t know the first thing about me, I felt very low after seeing so much hate directed my way. An empathetic person often reflects on criticism against himself. Yet it’s dangerous to take to heart words from people spewing poison that is often just a projection of their own psychological issues. Even with hundreds of letters calling me a hero and a champion, I was letting negative people affect my self-image with their venomous feedback. Reading too many positive comments also slowed me down, leading to a feeling of satisfaction and resting on my laurels rather than focusing on doing everything I could to channel the attention I was receiving towards sharing an important message. I placed the opinions of others over myself, allowing other people to affect my happiness, and the focus on what other people thought or would think became debilitating. While I was busy considering my own character and weighing the right and wrong of my actions, the mainstream media was still slinging arrows at me. The initial reporting of the event had generated sympathy from many in the public due to the crushing of free speech by overzealous police. The 61

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media made sure to skew their reporting against me on day two even more to turn supporters against me. In a move more despicable than I could imagine, The Gainesville Sun posted the conversation of my phone calls from jail to my parents on their website. A clip from that conversation was taken out of context on NBC, to emphasize the new fake news talking point: that I planned to get arrested. “I’m glad this happened,” I heard myself tell my Mom on NBC. The end of my sentence, “It will bring impor‐ tant issues to light,” was left out of the clip. By playing only half of my sentence (from a phone call he should have no access to) NBC reporter Kerry Sanders falsely portrayed me as an attention-seeker rather than a writer, a journalism student, and a truth-seeker. Another media talking point, echoed by John Kerry, is that I must have done something wrong, perhaps before the videos of the incident began, that justified the police reaction. “I don’t know what transpired,” Kerry said. “The police must have had a reason to make their decision.” To try and validate this point, CBS News published this lie: “Kerry was speaking at the University of Florida, when Andrew Meyer, a student, burst into the room and ran towards a micro‐ phone, attempting to ask Kerry a question.” The fake news media blatantly lied, claiming I “burst into the room” when in fact I had been standing in line. CBS was attempting to make me appear dangerous and the police justified. Even the police never claimed that I ran towards the microphone. How did 62

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CBS come to such a false conclusion? The answer is because the fake news was deliberately lying and misreporting to make me look bad. If I had done anything wrong before stepping out of line, such as “burst into the room,” the ACCENT camera in the back of the University auditorium, which was set up to record the whole event, would have caught my actions. As this tape would have buried many of the media’s lies, my lawyer and I very much wanted to get a hold of it. Unfortunately for us, and anyone else who would have liked to examine what really happened before I started speaking, we were told the ACCENT camera had mysteriously “malfunctioned” and their tape of the event was “destroyed.” What was released to the media, other than my phone calls from jail to my parents, was a video from inside the police car on my ride to jail, where I asked the officers if there were cameras at the jail. In my worried mind, cameras were a safety net saving me from possible brutality, not my ticket to fame and fortune. The media seized on this comment as another means of claiming I was insincere in questioning John Kerry, and merely wanted attention for myself. Fortunately, not everyone bases their opinions solely on what they see on TV. Many supporters emailed me saying I should sue the school and/or John Kerry, and I strongly considered the possibility. While many people advocated I take an aggressive public stand to fight the charges against me, my attorney and my parents counseled me to stay low-key 63

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and out of the media to get the charges against me dropped. I can’t know whether being more vocal for my cause would have helped me in long run, but in a situation with unknown outcomes, I respected my parents judgment. The university and the state attorney made me jump through some hoops, but both parties dropped their cases against me. While I questioned whether or not I should sue the university or the police, the people that most deserved a lawsuit were the news networks, for smearing my character and repeatedly getting the facts wrong about me. Winning a slander or libel lawsuit requires proving “reckless disregard for the truth.” The media certainly showed reckless disregard for the truth and damaged my reputation by baselessly calling me a “well-known prankster.” At the time, I hadn’t even considered the idea of suing the media, but I should have. When the media attacks, you need to compose yourself, stand up, counter their lies and make them pay. The media always wants an apology from the people they demonize. Don’t give it to them. When the media attacks, hit them harder both with the facts of their false reporting on you - and on other stories they have lied about in the past. For example, NBC’s Brian Williams was famously fired from NBC’s Nightly News after getting caught lying about being “forced down after being hit by an RPG” while in a helicopter in Iraq. Amazingly, despite being a known liar, Williams was later assigned to report the news for MSNBC. 64

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When NBC was lying about me, I should have called out their lies, and asking them why their company is willing to employ known liars as reporters is an excellent question. The media lies about me traveled around the world while I was busy dealing with legal issues for weeks. The fake news is pernicious and destructive, and the only way to deal with their lies is to stand up and tell the truth. When the legal and university cases were finally settled, I was ready to face the fake news live on national television.

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WAKING UP IN THE SPIN ROOM

How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again! — MARK TWAIN

The offers pouring into Rob Griscti’s office for an interview were from CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Fox – and every other news hustler you can think of, including Larry Flynt. We decided on NBC for a few reasons. For one, The Today Show was the biggest morning news outlet in the coun‐ try. With all the false reporting by the media, the chance to speak live on the biggest outlet was the best opportunity. The Today Show producers had also been the most persistent, and offered to print my unedited answers to a separate interview online before the show. 66

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We accepted offers from Matt Lauer and Keith Olber‐ mann, turning down all the other news networks. NBC flew myself, my parents, and my attorney to New York for the interviews. In New York, we also arranged to meet with Greg Palast, the journalist and author of the book I had held up while questioning John Kerry. Palast had publicly offered me a job working for him. My attorney Rob Griscti and my parents were still advising me to be cautious with the media, and we had arranged a meeting without cameras, just to discuss things. When we walked off the elevator at Greg’s offices, he had cameras rolling right away, and was acting as if we had agreed to record an interview. My parents were livid, and I personally was shocked. Palast had deliberately done the opposite of what we had asked and agreed to. Rob Griscti immediately demanded Palast stop his recording. While Rob forced Palast to destroy any recording, I was sitting at a desk, torn. I had come to work with Greg Palast, as I had great respect at the time for his journalism. But after a few solemn minutes of sitting and thinking about it, I realized I could never work with someone who had completely betrayed me - especially after just meeting me! With all the disgust I had towards the media, even I never would have imagined that a journalist I thought to be one of the good guys could stoop so low. We walked out of the office and went to the hotel. The night before the NBC interview, I was restless. My 67

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attorney had advised me to stay focused on the issues of voter disenfranchisement, and answering the inevitable questions relating to the media’s false narrative they had concocted about me. In the hotel room before the interview, I was torn. On the one hand, I wanted to maintain my composure and calmly answer the infuriating questions and lies the media had ginned up. On the other hand, I considered re-framing the entire interview by placing the focus on Matt Lauer, and asking him why he wasn’t investigating the questions I raised, and why the media failed so often to investigate the real issues. In the morning, I found a copy of the New York Times outside my hotel room door. The Times was promoting the candidacies of Rudy Giuliani, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama for president. Meanwhile, the only candidate I had seen people actually excited for on campus was Ron Paul, who wanted to minimize government power and end the wars. Paul was nowhere to be seen in the paper, and the Times was unofficially declaring their CFR frontrunners. I felt an even greater sense of urgency to help wake people up to the falseness of the media and their candidates. We walked over to NBC. My parents and my lawyer were going on the air with me, and we entered the massive building that houses the Today Show. That morning Jerry Seinfeld, Dr. Phil, and number of other famous faces were scheduled ahead of us. We waited in a guest area, and were finally brought to the Today Show couch. 68

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As Matt Lauer introduced me to Today Show audience, a graphic NBC fixed on screen said “Don’t Tase Me Bro Tasered Student Says He’s Sorry.” I couldn’t see this graphic as I sat there, but I knew Lauer would try to frame the inter‐ view as a referendum on my character, and completely avoid discussing my questions to Kerry. Lauer opened the interview with this: “Let me ask a question that so many people have asked over the last month and a half or so, and that is, what was your agenda, why did you go to that forum that morning, what did you hope to accomplish?” “I went there with serious political questions that you saw me asking,” I answered. “My only agenda was to raise the important issues that the media doesn’t talk about. The disen‐ franchisement of voters, and when I talk about disenfran‐ chisement, I’m talking about voters not having the right to vote and not having their votes count.” Instead of asking me a follow up question on what issues I was referring to that the media doesn’t cover, or about what voters were not having their votes counted, Matt Lauer asked a second question to refocus the interview on my character, not the issues I raised. Lauer: “When you say you wanted to cast light on that, shed light on that, had you thought, going into this event Andrew, that if that means that I have to get a little bit unruly, and I have to get the attention of Senator Kerry, and the police, and I have to be arrested, so be it.” 69

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“Not at all. I mean, I just wasn’t able to maintain my composure,” I answered. “I went there to try and ask these questions calmly, but even asking these questions in today’s environment, it causes a scene. I didn’t intend to create one.” Lauer: “People say, okay you brought a camera with you, you brought a video camera, so there was some intent on making sure this was captured. Was that for your own purposes or was that for the purpose that we would all be showing this on national news shows?” Again, Matt Lauer spends the interview trying to force me to dispel to rumors that his own program and other main‐ stream media outlets manufactured. I answered, “I brought my camera to document me asking these important questions, to put the answers on my website not that I thought ‘I’m going to suddenly have a giant news story.’ This is a big surprise to me that I’m sitting here to be honest.” Lauer: “So you didn’t go there thinking, okay I may arrested, I may get a taser gun stuck in my side, but as long as I shed on these issues, it’s okay.” “I wasn’t thinking that at all. I just went there having read this book. This is Armed Madhouse, the book by investigative journalist Greg Palast. He works for the BBC. I went there with this book, trying to raise the issues that he brings up,” I responded. With yet another opportunity to ask me what issues I am talking about, Matt Lauer again re-focuses the interview on 70

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me personally, with a question highlighting the problems I faced after questioning Senator Kerry. It seems the unstated message to the audience here is ‘This is a bad guy, he was wrong and look how much trouble he got himself into by questioning the status quo.’ Lauer: “You have since gotten into a lot of legal problems, you were arrested, you spent a night in jail, you were tasered as we’ve said, and now in the negotiations with police and university, you’ve written some letters of apology. Correct?” “You know, I did step out of line at the forum, I broke the forum rules, and I want to apologize for that. I also want to apologize for the negative light this whole incident has cast on the university. Nothing like this has ever happened at the university before, nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” I answered. Lauer is doing his best here to make me look bad. He brings up the apology letters I was forced to write, and when I answered by taking responsibility for the faux pas I made in breaking the forum rules, Lauer immediately smacks away my sincerity with a question posed to offer me two bad choices “So wait now let me make sure, were you wrong or were the police wrong, what’s your opinion on that?” Lauer has asked me to either trash myself, or blame the police, both moves which would turn a large amount of people against me, all the while steering the conversation away from the questions I raised exposing the false divide 71

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between Kerry and Bush, and the media’s refusal to cover these issues. “You know, I think the police were acting - they were doing their job, is what they were trying to do. I think that I’m here to talk about the important issues, not the sensation‐ alist issues, not the tabloid journalism that the media wants to cover about the taser, about me personally, I think it’s impor‐ tant that Americans realize that we have an election coming up, and your vote might not count. You need to realize that there’s important things in this country that aren’t being discussed,” I answered. Ironically, while I spoke about the more important issues in America and downplayed the taser, NBC was minimizing my face on screen, and enlarging a video of the police arresting and tasering me. Yet another dirty trick from fake news to try and make me look bad. After I brought up the media’s failure to ask questions about real issues, Lauer again spotlighted the apology letters, trying to use them as evidence to discredit me in the court of public opinion. Lauer: “And let me make sure, you didn’t write these, and your lawyer is sitting right across from me, probably staring at me right now, but you didn’t write these letters of apology to the university and the police simply to avoid prosecution, where in your mind you feel something else.” Of course I wouldn’t have written those letters had the police and university not demanded them, yet at the same 72

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time I did apologize sincerely for breaking the forum rules. But Matt Lauer wasn’t explaining that I only apologized for minor rule breaking, not for questioning John Kerry, and certainly not for being dragged away for asking a question. Lauer was again using the letters to try to discredit me as either inconsistent, wrong, or a liar. “No I wrote those letters of apology sincerely. There was rules in place, I did not follow the rules, and that’s my fault,” I answered. Lauer then asked me to speculate on whether John Kerry should have stopped the police - offering me a chance to trash Kerry, but on a lower ground than the issues I raised. “What was Senator Kerry’s reaction to this? When you get grabbed by the police, were you expecting to hear him yell, ‘Let him go, he has a right to ask these questions,’ and what response did you get from Senator Kerry?” “Well, you know, John Kerry did say that he wanted to answer my questions, you know I’d love to come back here with him on this side of the couch and we could go through my questions and get some answers from him, I would love to do that.” Matt Lauer, with no discrediting questions left to ask me, and certainly not wanting to draw attention to what I asked John Kerry, moved instead to ask my Dad a question. “Joel I spoke to you before, when this all happened, I spoke to you before you even had a chance to talk to Andrew who was being held in jail. When you saw the tape, when you 73

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saw what led up to the tasering, were you angry at your son or were you proud of your son?” My Dad answered with words that inspire me to this day. “Well, I was very proud of my son, for standing up for his rights basically. He was asking a question at a forum, a college forum, a college setting, where people are supposed to ask questions. This was a town forum, where people came to ask questions of Senator Kerry, and he asked the questions that maybe no one else had the guts to ask Senator Kerry.” Lauer then asked my Mom a ridiculous question. “And Judy as a mom, when you heard people say, ‘This is a trouble‐ maker, this is a guy who went there to cause trouble,’ how do you respond to that?” “Well I know that that’s not the case, he’s not a trouble‐ maker, he was there to discuss his beliefs,” my Mom answered. Turning to my lawyer Rob Griscti, Lauer wrapped up the interview by asking, “And Robert are you happy that this is all now behind us, and any other legal action?” “Of course I’m happy, I’m happy for this family. They’re a good family. They have stuck together through this. The case is over. The cases are over. We’re moving on, they’re moving on.” You could say Matt Lauer failed to ask me any questions about what I asked John Kerry. The reality is Matt Lauer chose not to ask my about my questions, because those ques‐ 74

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tions expose the entire mainstream media for what is: fake news and propaganda. We were supposed to do a second segment on The Today Show where the audience would get to ask me questions. Lauer even said immediately after the interview, “And Andrew’s going to answer some more questions a little later. If you have questions for him, go to our website.” NBC cancelled the second segment. After I went toe-totoe with Matt Lauer, there was no way they wanted to give me another chance to wake people up to the falsity of their reporting with an extended and open-ended question and answer segment. Rob and my parents thought the interview went so well they advised me to cancel with Keith Olbermann. I took their advice, considering Olbermann or his producers could spring some trap on me after I blasted the media on the Today Show. At the same time, I was doubtful that I had done enough to really get the message out there. The media cover-up of real news was the biggest issue in the country, and I badly wanted to do as much as I could to wake people up.

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OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD

You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level. — WILLIAM B. BADER, FORMER CIA INTELLIGENCE OFFICER, BRIEFING MEMBERS OF THE SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE

The Agency's relationship with [The New York] Times was by far its most valuable among newspapers, according to CIA officials. [It was] general Times policy ... to provide assistance to the CIA whenever possible. 76

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— CARL BERNSTEIN

After leaving New York, I went back to Gainesville to finish my degree. I was already disillusioned with journalism before the whole John Kerry incident thanks to my classes at the journalism college and the books I read outside of class. We were taught cliches like “if it bleeds it leads,” and provided with The New York Times as if it were the standard in journalism. The journalism college taught students how to report in the style of professional journalists, but did nothing to prepare students for the reality of the industry. I always saw journalism as discovering important stories affecting communities and getting the story out. As many of my friends in media today can attest, that type of journalism was nearly non-existent in the workplace they were about enter. The newspapers and local news stations hiring graduates from the journalism college largely assigned reporters to cover triviali‐ ties, or repeat and repackage the agenda of the people that owned the station. For most students, the journalism college was merely a propaganda training ground. The New York Times, held in such high regard at the journalism college, is owned largely by Wall Street and is used like most other mainstream newspapers as a tool to influ‐ ence the public on behalf of its owners. A 2011 report by Harvard’s Nieman Lab asked and answered the question: Who owns America’s newspapers? 77

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The report listed JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Merill Lynch, and other Wall Street banks and hedge funds owning large equity stakes in NYT Co., McClatchy, Scripps, News Corp., and others - the companies that own The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and dozens of other “mainstream” newspapers. This Wall Street ownership explains why the CIA has had such pervasive influence in the mainstream media. In 1977, Carl Bernstein published “The CIA and the Media,” after six months of investigating the ties between the press and the CIA. Bernstein revealed that top executives from CBS, Time, the New York Times, and staff at many other news agencies, including ABC, NBC, the Associated Press, Reuters, Newsweek magazine, and the Miami Herald were in cooperation with the CIA. Bernstein reported that more than 400 American journalists had secretly carried out assignments for the CIA, including editors, publishers, reporters, TV executives, columnists and TV commentators. The CIA itself has largely been a Wall Street controlled organization, and there is a ton of evidence that suggests the CIA was created to serve the interests of investment bankers. For example, former CIA director Allen Dulles, a Wall Street attorney, sat on the board of United Fruit Company. In 1954, a CIA operation deposed democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz, whose policies threatened the profits of United Fruit. It is this type of influence that former 78

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U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against in his historic farewell speech, where he said: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” This is far from the only CIA engineered overthrow. After nationalizing the oil industry in Iran, Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup orches‐ trated by the CIA and British intelligence. This incident changed the course of Iran’s history, and eventually what was a burgeoning Western-style democracy turned into the dicta‐ torial theocracy we see today. There are many such cases of unfortunate CIA intervention. Before his untimely assassination, many claim at the hands of the CIA, President John F. Kennedy famously said, “I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it into the wind.” To build support on Main Street for its criminal opera‐ tions benefitting Wall Street banks and military-industrial complex corporate owners, the CIA created Operation Mock‐ ingbird. Operation Mockingbird was the CIA operation of deliberately manipulating public opinion using CIA opera‐ tives in the media. Many claim Operation Mockingbird is still in effect today. Most famously, CNN anchor Anderson 79

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Cooper spent two summers interning at the CIA. The CIA also notably has a $600 million contract with the owner of the Washington Post, Jeff Bezos. In 2014, German journalist and editor Udo Ulfkotte said in an interview with Russia Today: “I’ve been a journalist for about 25 years, and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public. But seeing right now within the last months how the German and American media tries to bring war to the people in Europe, to bring war to Russia — this is a point of no return and I’m going to stand up and say it is not right what I have done in the past, to manipulate people, to make propaganda against Russia, and it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray the people, not only in Germany, all over Europe.” Ulfkotte has stated that the CIA and their German coun‐ terparts bribe journalists to write pro-NATO propaganda articles, and that failing to write such articles will result in being fired. While we don’t know how many members of the media work with the CIA today, the ownership of the media by Wall Street and CFR members ensures the media is little more than propaganda. It was this media environment that I stepped into after my graduation. I looked around, and saw only the chance to work as a parrot for the warmongers on Wall Street. I moved down to south Florida and lived at my parents house for a short while thinking about my next move. The Miami Herald reached out to me for an interview 80

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shortly after I moved down. The premise of the article was an update to my story on what I was doing after graduation. I arranged to meet with their reporter at a park. I was ready for this interview, and to ensure my words were not twisted or taken out of context and spun into a lie, I brought an audio recorder to record the interview. The Miami Herald reporter arrived, and before we began the interview, I pulled out the recorder and told her I was going to record the interview. She told me she could not do the interview if I was going to record her. She called her editor, told him I was going to record the interview, and they cancelled the interview. I guess without the ability to lie about what I said, the Miami Herald wasn’t interested in the story anymore. The mainstream media has a whole bag of dirty tricks to ensure only their version of reality sees print or makes the airwaves. Another media trick is the “pre-interview,” where a producer or anchor will interview a person before putting them on air, reviewing whether that person’s content matches the story they want to sell, and then refusing to put a person on TV if that person’s words don’t match the pre-arranged narrative the TV producers intended to sell. In this way, any credible person harmful to the media’s predetermined narra‐ tive is filtered from reaching the masses. The TV networks claiming to employ objective “journal‐ ists” never mention that they screen those disagreeing with their point of view. Networks like CNN famously blackball 81

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and cut “hostile” guests off the air for talking about informa‐ tion the network doesn’t want reported. News reports on a person the networks want to smear may also feature unset‐ tling music over footage of the person’s face, associating displeasure in the viewer’s mind with that person. The network may also use unflattering camera angles to make someone look bad, and then add in false reporting and/or negatively charged narration over the footage. It is impossible to overstate how far the fake news is willing to go to smear their target. In 1993, NBC News admitted to blowing up a truck for a fake news story making General Motors trucks appear dangerous. The NBC report “Waiting to Explode” claimed that the General Motors Chevrolet C/K-Series pickup trucks exploded upon impact due to the poor design of fuel tanks, and featured footage of a low-speed truck accident with the fuel tank exploding. In reality, NBC producers rigged the truck's fuel tank with remotely controlled model rocket engines to initiate the explosion. NBC later admitted they “put incendiary devices under the truck.” For those the fake news want to make look good, the networks are also willing to go to incredible lengths including completely fabricating positive stories for dictator‐ ships. Former CNN reporter Amber Lyon said CNN was often paid by the US government and foreign governments to omit stories and even falsely report on certain events. In covering the government of Bahrain, Lyon found that Bahrain 82

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tortures journalists, doctors, and patients, and abused prodemocracy protesters. Lyon’s report was never aired on CNN International, and Lyon left CNN and revealed the network was taking money from the government of Bahrain! The fake news on TV and in print is completely untrust‐ worthy, and it’s fair to assume every story being talked about is part of some agenda. Former CNN anchor and CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson has listed CNN, NBC, Jon Stew‐ art, New York Times, Politico, and other mainstream outlets as “astroturfers.” Astroturfing is how corporations and special interests fake support for their cause - or fake popular outrage at their target - by using their pawns in the fake news to spread the story. Perhaps the most dangerous example of astroturfing relates to the perversion of what is scientific fact. Attkisson sounded the alarm on “blogs that use words such as ‘science’ and ‘skeptic’ in their titles or propaganda in an attempt to portray an image of neutrality and logic when they are often fighting established science and serving pro-pharmaceutical industry agendas.” Even medical journals, according Dr. Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet, one of the most well respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, have “devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceu‐ tical industry.” According to Horton, “The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with 83

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small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness.” Despite corporations like Merck paying tens of millions of dollars in settlements after selling drugs they knew to be lethal, the mainstream media often ridicules people for “ques‐ tioning science” for challenging the validity of ‘science’ conducted by corporations with an interest in the outcome. The media routinely fails to print the evidence on both sides of a scientific debate. Instead, the media typically advocates the perspective of the advertisers in their political club, such as the pharmaceutical companies. In 1997, Merck funded a study by Garret FitzGerald of the University of Pennsylvania. FitzGerald found that Merck’s drug Vioxx interfered with a hormone that thins the blood and relaxes blood vessels. Merck asked FitzGerald to alter his findings, and when FitzGerald did not comply, Merck conducted follow up research without Fitzgerald. In their literature promoting Vioxx to doctors, the amount of heart attacks that occurred during Merck’s study of Vioxx use was drastically reduced from what actually occurred. After lying to doctors about the health risks and spending $160 million in advertising, Vioxx made Merck billions of dollars - and killed over 60,000 people. In a settlement, Merck was forced to pay $4.85 billion to victims and their family members. 84

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Despite the fact that Merck has paid billions for killing tens of thousands of people, the media often forbids and ridicules any discussion of whether pharmaceutical compa‐ nies like Merck could have created harmfully manufactured vaccines. Merck for one has faced multiple lawsuits for its shingles vaccine Zostavax, which has allegedly killed 80 people. Instead of asking the question of whether a vaccine like Zostavax has caused damage or Merck committed malfea‐ sance in their manufacturing, the media conflates the issue with the idea that an outlier group of people are against all vaccines. Focusing on fringe groups that believe all vaccines are dangerous allows the mainstream media to obscure the facts that like other pharmaceutical timebombs such as Vioxx, certain poorly manufactured vaccines have caused deaths. By ginning up outrage over people who are against all vaccines, the media aids the pharmaceutical companies in evading public anger even after defective and recklessly produced vaccines are exposed. To distort the heart of the issue and make the claim that “science” is on the side of their advertisers, the media turns to pro-pharma “experts” that Attkisson refers to as astroturfers. Named by Attkisson are ScienceBlogs.com and “vaccine inventor Dr. Paul Offit of The Children’s Hospital of Phil‐ adelphia who earned an undisclosed fortune from Merck pharmaceuticals.” “The language of astroturfers and propagandists includes 85

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trademark inflammatory terms such as: anti, nutty, quack, crank, pseudo-science, debunking, conspiracy theory, deniers and junk science,” Attkisson wrote. “Sometimes astroturfers claim to ‘debunk myths’ that aren’t myths at all. They declare debates over that aren’t over. They claim that ‘everybody agrees’ when everyone doesn’t agree. They aim to make you think you’re an outlier when you’re not.” One idea dismissed as “quackery” by the fake news media and their “science” cohorts is the allegation that fluoride in the water is harmful to humans. However, Dr. Dean Burk, PhD, who worked for 34 years at the National Cancer Insti‐ tute, said, “In point of fact, fluoride causes more human cancer death, and causes it faster, than any other chemical.” Why aren’t more public debates held with credible experts on both sides of a question of science? There are many areas of science where the media portrays reality as a “consensus” of scientists agreeing on an issue, when in fact credible scientists exist on both sides of more issues than the public is led to believe even exist. For example, why aren’t the ideas of the doctors and scientists that claim to have cured cancer given a fair public hearing by the mainstream media? Several Nobel Prize-winning scientists and many doctors have put forth the ideas that we already know the cause - and many cures - for cancer. The “medical establishment” calls these doctors quacks, but the “quacks” allege that the medical establishment is not interested in cures - only profits. Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Dr. Otto Warburg said, 86

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“Nobody today can say that one does not know what cancer and its prime cause be. On the contrary, there is no disease whose prime cause is better known, so that today ignorance is no longer an excuse that one cannot do more about prevention.” Another Nobel Prize-winner, chemist Dr. Linus Pauling said, “Everyone should know that the ‘war on cancer’ is largely a fraud and that the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society are derelict in their duties to the people who support them.” Pauling wrote that high doses of Vitamin C could treat and prevent cancer and a number of health issues. Physician Max Gerson also developed a therapy to cure cancer based on nutrition, prompting Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer to say, “I see in Dr. Max Gerson one of the most eminent geniuses in the history of medicine.” Yet the Amer‐ ican Medical Association drove Dr. Gerson’s practice out of the United States. “The knife of the AMA was at my throat,” Dr. Gerson said in 1956. It is difficult to discern whether the discoveries of the scientists claiming to have successfully cured cancer are true, but the media’s treatment of these scientists deserves a closer look. The fake news media, in bed with pharmaceutical companies and the “medical establishment,” seems to always take sides against innovation, labeling even Nobel Prize winners like Linus Pauling as “quacks.” The medical establishment’s auto response to the idea of 87

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cancer therapies like those of Pauling and Gerson are that they are unproven and unsafe. Meanwhile, there are studies done every years on the efficacy of cancer drugs. In fact, chemotherapy and other accepted cancer treatments often lead to death. The medical establishment cries “quack,” yet refuses to investigate and study the work of potential pioneers in cancer research - while no effective cancer cure is estab‐ lished and thousands and thousands of patients do not survive chemotherapy. For the media to weigh the evidence fairly, the failure of the medical establishment to test alterna‐ tives must be mentioned. “Most cancer patients in this country die of chemo‐ therapy,” wrote Alan Levin, M.D., in his book The Healing of Cancer. “Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon or lung cancers. This fact has been documented for over a decade. Yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumors. Women with breast cancer are likely to die faster with chemo than without it.” Why does the mainstream media fail to question the medical establishment or present both sides of such a fasci‐ nating topic? Some the media call “conspiracy theorists” argue it is because the same banking family that created the media overlord Council on Foreign Relations - the Rocke‐ fellers - also gave millions to establish the American Medical Association as the overarching authority on medicine. Sadly, the American Medical Association (AMA) has been found guilty of acting more like thugs than a benign board of objec‐ 88

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tive doctors. In fact, in 1987 the AMA was found guilty after conspiring to drive chiropractors out of business, in what was described as ''systematic, long-term wrongdoing and the longterm intent to destroy a licensed profession'' by the court. The AMA accused chiropractors of being ''unscientific cultists'' or worse. The AMA’s long-established willingness to destroy an entire profession begs the question of what other medical and scientific practices and discoveries might the AMA and the “scientific establishment” have destroyed through name calling with support by the fake news media.When doctors and Nobel Prize winning scientists are saying things like, “We have a multi-billion dollar industry that is killing people, right and left, just for financial gain. Their idea of research is to see whether two doses of this poison is better than three doses of that poison,” as oncologist Glenn Warner, M.D., once wrote, and the mainstream media refuses to investigate the claim, something is very, very wrong. Journalists and activists that discover the claims of these doctors and scientists and write or talk about them are called “conspiracy theorists” by the mainstream media. The media wants to equate presenting both sides of a story and asking questions of the establishment as a crazy thing to do, when asking those questions is exactly what an objective, unbiased media should be doing. In fact, the term “conspiracy theorist” itself was propa‐ gated by the CIA as a “psychological operation” to discredit 89

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those who questioned the government. The plan was hatched by the CIA and published in an internal dispatch following the assassination of John F. Kennedy. While the fake news media focus on stories and issues designed to distract and divide people, those who questioned open government and corporate collusion - like the legal protections for pharmaceutical companies and billions in corporate welfare given to companies like Exxon Mobil - have inevitably been smeared as conspiracy theorists by the CFR media. Graduating college, all I wanted to do was talk about real issues and expose the reality of the fake news mind control millions of Americans were tricked into believing. Living in south Florida, I saw no mainstream media outlets willing to investigate the government or their corporate masters. With nowhere for someone with my mindset to find work in sight, I set out to build a megaphone big enough to reach the masses.

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7

WE ARE CHANGE

Smart people don’t learn because they have too much invested in proving what they know and avoiding being seen as not knowing. — CHRIS ARGYRIS

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. — JIMI HENDRIX

You’re the guy that got tasered? Standing on the street corner in Miami, I was handing out flyers for my website. For me, sharing messages of truth was a necessary act. I printed a bunch of flyers for my website and 91

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handed them out at music festivals, book fairs, art festivals, you name it. In truth, writing about politics is far from my favorite pastime. I love to write about sports and music, and create stories and events. I know more about the NBA than most of the professional analysts on TV, and for years talking about sports is what I thought I might do for a living. As I passed out my flyers, I saw the world had given me a different purpose. People were excited to talk to me, and through meeting me learned about politics in ways they almost certainly never would have otherwise. The world provided me with a plat‐ form to help reach people, and I couldn’t focus on just writing about sports or promoting music when I saw the world controlled by warmongers and thieves ruining people's lives. I felt I had an ability and responsibility to wake people up by writing about politics. Most people want world peace I believe, but the media has clouded the minds of mankind and created enemies out of people that have been tricked into fighting each other. One big story mostly unreported by the mainstream media is that the U.S. under Bush and Obama funded and armed the terrorist groups in the Middle East, including al-Qaeda and ISIS. These terrorist groups likely would have few recruits if the U.S. had not bombed the Middle East for decades. While importing to western nations millions of Middle Eastern migrants that grew up despising the west for bombing their homelands is no solution, peace is possible 92

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especially if the U.S. ends the cycle of war for oil in the Middle East. Unreported by the media which had spent their time stalking my friends and calling me a prankster, I spent time shortly after the John Kerry incident registering students to vote. In 2007, I promoted both Dennis Kucinich the Demo‐ crat and Ron Paul the Republican because they were against the wars and independent of the establishment. There was significant evidence of media bias against both Kucinich and Paul, which reinforced for me that they were truly indepen‐ dent candidates. Both were crushed by the mainstream media’s lack of attention and name calling. Paul was called a “longshot” and a “kook” and excluded from the New Hamp‐ shire primary debate on TV despite higher polling numbers than other Republican candidates. Kucinich was criticized for his appearance, called an “elf” and also labeled “crazy.” Even with no media support, Paul went on to win a number of Republican straw polls. When he lost in 2007 amidst evidence of election fraud, I had hopes he would come back strong in 2011 with a bigger base as his movement grew, and fight the fraud the second time around. In the 2011 primaries, there was again a ton of evidence Paul was being cheated by election fraud. One Paul supporter was even arrested after being legally elected as a GOP committee chairman in Louisiana. When Paul took no significant action to fight the cheating, I began to lose hope in politics. We needed a candidate against the wars, not controlled 93

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by Wall Street, that was still well known enough to make it on TV and win the debates despite being opposed by the media. I pinned my hopes on Jesse Ventura, who had proven he could get on TV and win the debates, and was clearly opposed by the media. MSNBC had once signed Ventura to host a news show - and then cancelled the show, silencing Ventura’s anti-war voice with contractual “golden handcuffs.” As the candidates began to announce for the 2016 elec‐ tion, I knew Rand Paul was against the wars and hoped he was still against the establishment, but doubted he could make a big enough impact on TV. Ventura didn’t appear to be running. I saw Bernie Sanders speaking against the banks and the wars, but I was not a fan of his socialism, and when I saw two young women jump on stage at a Sanders rally and take over his microphone, I knew he would not fight the inevitable cheating in the Democrat primary. When Donald Trump announced his candidacy, I was curious. Trump had called the Iraq War a mistake, and in his early speeches he made a point to say the bankers on Wall Street would not be happy with him. Was he truly an independent? As the campaigns rolled on, the media left little doubt that Donald Trump was an enemy of the establishment. Trump was smeared as a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xeno‐ phobe, a misogynist, a narcissist, a clown, and every other insult you could think of. The New York Times ran a false story on their front page claiming Trump had abused a 94

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woman he dated, Rowanne Brewer Lane. Ms. Brewer Lane was on TV the next day telling people the story was false. I came to the conclusion that the media hated and attacked Trump because he was truly not willing to wage war for oil and military-industrial complex profits - and he was popular enough to win. Unlike Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush, and the vast majority of Republicans and Democrats running for President, Trump was not paid for by Goldman Sachs and other criminal Wall Street banks. He had not accepted millions from Goldman Sachs, the bank ripping off the American public for decades. Goldman Sachs, once described as the “giant vampire squid” wrapped around America, has drained the life out of the country through frauds like the one depicted in “The Big Short,” where Goldman sold the mortgage-backed securities it knew would fail to investors across America. When Goldman and other Wall Street criminal banks nearly imploded the economy in 2008 with their fraudulent actions, they were not jailed like the other criminal bankers were in Iceland, but rewarded by Congress with trillions in bailouts. Unlike the other candi‐ dates, Trump might actually police these criminal bankers. As Senator Durbin admitted in 2009, “The banks - hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” As the banks also own the media, I always take a close look at the candidates ignored and attacked by the media. The media 95

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picks “frontrunners” that their Wall Street owners want to win. To this day, criminal banks have paid for far too many of the politicians in Congress, and both Bush and Obama staffed their Cabinets with former employees of Goldman Sachs. When the mainstream media admitted Rubio and Clinton were “establishment candidates,” this is what that term really means. With the knowledge that a real candidate for the people could actually win, I took the position of Editor-In-Chief at We Are Change in early 2016. We Are Change is one of the largest independent media outlets in the world, with an audi‐ ence of over half a million on Facebook and nearly half a million subscribers on YouTube. The site, founded by legendary journalist Luke Rudkowski, is nonpartisan and strives for fairness. As the editor-in-chief, I managed a staff of over 20 writers, meme makers and social media contributors. Our staff also included Cassandra Fairbanks, a supremely talented independent journalist and writer. Within our staff, we housed Jill Stein supporters, anar‐ chists, libertarians, and a few Trump supporters. Whatever stories arose, I strove for us to write only the truth and never to slant our reporting. When Trump met with globalist envoy Henry Kissinger, we called it out as a sign of potential nega‐ tive influence. When Trump proclaimed his support for auditing the Federal Reserve, we covered that and explained why that would benefit the country. While some on the staff said I was too pro-Trump because I openly supported him on 96

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social media, when we would discuss the issues their prob‐ lems with my coverage of Trump lacked foundation. The blowups of some former We Are Change staff that hated being wrong and despised Trump were epic, and mirrored that of the growing mass of unhinged Trump haters across the country. What the whole We Are Change staff did see eye-to-eye on was that Hillary Clinton was a dangerous warmonger. Clinton was funded by Wall Street and threatened to invade Syria, criminalize her political opponents by having the government declare their words “hate speech,” and poten‐ tially start World War III by attacking Russia. Yet the media was not calling out Hillary on her destruc‐ tive policies at all. And no wonder - not only did the media bosses take orders from the same Wall Street bankers Hillary did, but some media commentators were actually being paid by Hillary. Stephanie Cutter, for example, appeared on multiple networks to discuss Hillary, and was often intro‐ duced as a former campaign official for President Barack Obama. What the networks failed to disclose was that Cutter’s consulting firm Precision Strategies was paid at least $120,049 by the Clinton campaign. The media was so incredibly biased against Trump and for Hillary, that one of ABC’s head reporters on the election was George Stephanopoulos, the former White House Communications Director for Bill Clinton. ABC actually allowed Stephanopoulos to interview Donald Trump on 97

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multiple occasions, even when Hillary was Trump’s only remaining opponent in the race, without disclosing to their viewers that Stephanopoulos used to work for the Clintons! When Bernie Sanders was eventually screwed by the Democratic Party in the 2016 primaries in favor of Hillary, the mainstream media refused to cover the story until Wiki‐ Leaks revealed leaked emails that DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was actively working to elect Hillary and crush Bernie. After the election, when Democrat Party lawyers argued that the DNC has the freedom to determine its nominees by “internal rule” rather than voter interests, the media still largely refused to cover the story. While I was no fan of Bernie Sanders, the absolute under‐ mining of democracy by the DNC was a major story, and We Are Change was on top of it while the media looked the other way. Ironically, the Washington Post listed We Are Change as “fake news” and “propaganda” in an attempt to smear the independent media after Hillary lost the election. The Wash‐ ington Post printed a list of sites alleged to be spreading “fake news” that was aiding Russia. The Post’s completely farcical article “now bears a humiliating editor’s note grudgingly acknowledging that the core claims of the story were fiction,” as journalist Glenn Greenwald put it. The Washington Post also had to retract a second fake news story about Russia shortly after that, where they claimed that Russia hacked the U.S. electrical grid. This second fake story - ironically after 98

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the Washington Post tried to label some of the best indepen‐ dent journalists as “fake news” - helped forever stick the “fake news” label on to the Washington Post and the rest of the lying mainstream media. Once President Trump was elected, it seemed there was no limit to the lies the mainstream media would tell. When President Trump referred to MS-13, a central American gang that rapes children, as “animals,” the mainstream media lied and said Trump was referring to all migrants. When CNN reported Congress was investigating alleged wrongdoing involving President Trump’s then advisor Anthony Scara‐ mucci and a Russian hedge fund, a subsequent investigation of the story resulted in CNN deleting the report and three CNN reporters being forced to resign. When ABC’s Brian Ross claimed Donald Trump had directed his eventual National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to contact the Russians while running for president as a candidate, that report turned out to be false and Ross was eventually fired. The way the media has covered the allegations of Russian election interference is the perfect example of how the media doesn’t play by their own rules and tries to limit what’s acceptable to discuss. “Conspiracy theories” like alleged Russian collusion were acceptable for the mainstream media to obsess over for two years, but stories that suspect establish‐ ment politicians are taboo. In May of 2017, the mainstream media and independent outlets were discussing two very different stories, each that 99

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centered on a conspiracy theory. While the mainstream media was discussing Russia, many independent outlets focused on Seth Rich, the former DNC employee who was murdered in the middle of the 2016 election, and who may have been the source of the leaked DNC emails to Wiki‐ Leaks. Stories were breaking with claims that Rich did in fact send the DNC’s emails to WikiLeaks. For years, many have discussed the phenomenon of a number of “coincidental” deaths surrounding the Clintons, such as the alleged suicide of former Clinton attorney Vince Foster, who was shot in the back of the head before he was scheduled to testify against the Clintons. The murder of Seth Rich had been reported by NBC and the mainstream media as "a robbery" - even though none of Seth Rich’s belongings, not even his wallet, were taken. Whether or not Seth Rich was the source, the leaked DNC emails proved the extreme bias in the mainstream media, and helped destroy Hillary’s campaign. One email revealed a secret meeting between Hillary’s advisors and reporters from ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, NPR, Reuters, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Politico, Bloomberg, People, Buzzfeed and more. Another email chain revealed Politico’s chief political correspondent Glenn Thrush was sending the Hillary campaign articles for review for approval before publishing. In an email to Hillary’s campaign chairman John Podesta, Thrush wrote, “Because I 100

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have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u. Please don't share or tell anyone I did this.” When this email came to light, the mainstream media offered ZERO outrage that a so-called journalist was colluding with the Hillary campaign. After the election, Thrush wasn’t fired - he was rewarded with a new position at the New York Times. CNN’s Donna Brazile was even exposed giving Hillary Clinton debate questions in advance by a leaked email. If the mainstream media had learned that Donald Trump was given a debate question in advance from FOX News, do you think that story would be been blasted nonstop for months by CNN, MSNBC, and the like? When Brazile finally admitted (after no pressure from the mainstream media) that she gave Hillary debate questions, again there was deafening silence from the fake news. In fact, the mainstream media never reported the contents of many of the leaked emails in the first place. CNN anchor Chris Cuomo even discouraged people from reading the leaked emails on air, falsely claiming - “Remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.” While the independent media was buzzing with specula‐ tion and reports on whether Seth Rich was the source of the bombshell DNC email leaks, the mainstream media was again refusing to talk about Rich at all. Instead, the paid-for 101

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media focused on yet another anonymously sourced Wash‐ ington Post story about Trump colluding with Russia, this time by claiming Trump gave classified intel to Russia. The fictional Trump-Russia stories began with the Demo‐ cratic National Committee (DNC) claiming its email system was hacked by Russia. This claim was later refuted, but real journalists asked the question: If the DNC was hacked by Russia, why didn’t the DNC let the FBI examine its email server? And why didn’t the FBI examine the server regardless of whether the DNC objected? In reality, the entire Russia hacking story was invented by the Democrats to try and sink Trump, and to take attention away from where those leaked emails really came from. In the book “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton's Doomed Campaign,” Jonathan Allen reports that within 24 hours of Hillary losing, her campaign head John Podesta hatched the plan of blaming Russian hacking. After the election, Podesta went to work for….The Washington Post. By creating and focusing on the latest Trump-Russia hysteria, the mainstream media ignored yet again the highly questionable death of Seth Rich, and fabricated a means with which to attack President Trump. If an RNC staffer turned up dead after possibly leaking Donald Trump’s emails, imagine how much scrutiny the media would give the story. Yet when WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange offered $20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Seth Rich’s killer, the mainstream media was shockingly quiet. And there in the 102

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Washington Post newsroom, the staff reportedly cheered the traffic their latest Trump-Russia concoction was getting as they moved national attention away from the death of Seth Rich yet again. For those that think a conspiracy theory like the death of Seth Rich is not fit for to be discussed on network news, it’s important to note that CNN is willing to engage in specula‐ tion of this exact type with even less foundation. When Washington Post op-ed writer Jamal Khashoggi was report‐ edly killed in a Saudi embassy, CNN allowed former Obama administration official Joaquin Castro to claim that President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner was partly responsible for arranging Khashoggi’s death. Should a guest on CNN suggest that Hillary Clinton was involved in the death of Seth Rich that guest would be cut off the air immediately. Castro was allowed to elaborate. The media is perfectly happy to air conspiracy theories, as long as the target is an enemy of their outlet. As famed Dilbert cartoonist and emerging political analyst Scott Adams wrote about the Russia allegations, “Would it be equally accurate to characterize it as a series of stories manufactured by the media, none of which have been confirmed to be a big deal?” The entire 2016 election and 2017 news cycles look very different as viewed through the lens of Adams, a trained hypnotist and student of the psychology of persuasion. In a series of columns on his blog, Adams explained to the world how Donald Trump was using 103

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persuasion techniques to win the election, including “pacing and leading” his audience, sticking “linguistic kill shots” like “Crooked Hillary” on his opponents, and making voters “think past the sale.” On the other side, the media used their own psychological tactics to make people afraid of Trump. Besides comparing Trump to the Nazis, at one point the media en masse began describing Trump’s actions as dark, because, as Adams explained, many people have a subcon‐ scious fear of the dark dating back to childhood. Many of the people that consume mainstream media are convinced they are well-informed, when in actuality they have been expertly manipulated. The trouble is, once a person believes he is well-informed and believes fake news, whatever the subject, it is incredibly hard to convince him he has been fooled. People are prone to cognitive dissonance, viewing reality through the lens they started with in the face of conflicting information and justifying their current posi‐ tion, rather than adjusting their opinion and admitting they were wrong. The stereotypical discussion between a fake news consumer and a truly well informed person has often ended with the refuted fake news consumer projecting insults on to the other person. The fake news consumer’s point of view can’t withstand the scrutiny of facts, and he or she will usually resort to anger and insults. Most people can’t with‐ stand the pain to the ego in finding out they have been fooled, 104

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especially when they are proven wrong in public, and so they will lash out instead. Many in the mainstream media themselves were the perfect example of this phenomenon. During an interview on CBS’s 60 Minutes, reporter Scott Pelley tried to call the reporting of inde‐ pendent journalist Mike Cernovich “fake,” especially because Cernovich had reported extensively on Hillary’s illnesses, while the mainstream media had claimed Hillary was in good health. “She had a seizure and froze up, walking into her motor‐ cade,” Cernovich accurately argued, referencing Hillary’s complete collapse at a 9/11 memorial event. “Well, she had pneumonia, I mean -” Pelley pleaded. “How do you know? Who told you that?” Cernovich retorted. “Well, the campaign told us that,” Pelley answered, exposing which of the two men was “fake news.” While Cernovich questioned politicians, Pelley sat there uncritically repeating whatever a political campaign told him as the truth. “Why would you trust the campaign?” Cernovich asked, visibly stunning Pelley, and striking a devastating blow against the mental stranglehold that “trusted news” like 60 Minutes held on the minds of many. The fact is, the mainstream media and their corporate owners are scared that real news is breaking through to people on a mass scale. The internet and social media has allowed people to bypass the corporate gatekeepers, and the 105

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military-industrial complex is fighting to shut those gates again. FA C T C H EC K ERS A N D SOC IA L MED IA

When independent media debunked mainstream media lies during the 2016 campaign, mainstream media consumers often looked to “fact-checking” websites for assurances. Unbeknownst to the mainstream media consumer, websites like Snopes and Politifact are exactly as objective and truthful as the mainstream media they try to defend - that is to say, the “fact-checkers” are also completely biased and willing to lie. When Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton wants “open borders,” PolitiFact deemed the statement “mostly false,” despite the fact that Clinton admitted in a 2013 speech to a Brazilian bank, “My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders.” Snopes “fact checker” Kim Lacapria describes herself as “openly left-leaning” and a liberal. Lacapria once tried to contradict the former Facebook workers who admitted that Facebook regularly censors conservative news, dismissing the news as “rumors.” In fact, Facebook was forced to fire employees that curated their “Trending” news tab after their bias against conservatives was revealed. Then, in order to shut down the independent media, Facebook hatched a plan to use “factcheckers” like Snopes and Politifact to label stories shared on Facebook as “fake news.” Facebook has repeatedly taken 106

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down pages like “God Emperor Trump” and “Disdain For Plebs” that supported Donald Trump. We Are Change found ourselves censored in various ways as well, with our stories limited in reach so that only a tiny fraction of our 500,000+ followers initially saw our posts. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was famously caught collaborating with German prime minister Angela Merkel to shut down the speech of Facebook users that spoke about the dangers of the two million Middle East migrants Merkel brought to Germany. It’s no wonder that Facebook cut the advertising completely for another page I started working on that discussed the criminal migrant crisis. After shedding light on so many issues for We Are Change, I was hired to make memes, write articles, and host news broadcasts for Mike Cernovich’s Facebook page. As the host of Cernovich News, one issue I often reported on was the epidemic of rape and violence caused by migrants in the Middle East. For daring to report on this forbidden subject, Facebook cut our ability to profit from their built-in “Instant Articles” advertising platform. Facebook and the other mainstream social media compa‐ nies are globalist-controlled tools that work to shut down “hate speech” and independent media. Twitter banned jour‐ nalist Milo Yiannopoulos, ostensibly for insulting and causing his followers to harass actress Leslie Jones. In reality, Yiannopoulos was banned for becoming incredibly popular, and influencing people to reject corporate media narratives 107

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and support Trump and independent media. Jones herself faced no punishment when she actually incited her followers to harass someone on Twitter, writing “Get her!” Twitter used Jones as a pretext to ban Milo, and establish its right to censor those it doesn’t agree with. When Twitter later banned several other popular Trump supporting accounts, the social media monolith barely pretended they needed a reason. Twitter also has a history of removing trending hashtags that put out messages that contradict the mainstream narra‐ tive. When Seth Rich trended on Twitter for example, Twitter removed it. Twitter, like the mainstream media, wants people to focus on anti-Trump stories like the fake Russian scandals. YouTube, which actually paid popular independent media outlets that allowed advertisements on their channels, quickly changed that policy after the election. Independent news analysts like We Are Change, Paul Joseph Watson, and Mark Dice swiftly saw our channels almost completely demonetized, in an effort to bankrupt independent media. YouTube ostensibly took their cues from a Wall Street Journal campaign that warned advertisers like Coca-Cola that their brands were being associated with “racist” videos. More likely is that Wall Street and the corporations in the CFR hatched an excuse to hurt the staying power of independent media by ginning up the “racism” charge eventually launched by the Wall Street Journal. The mainstream media and their 108

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owners do not want competition, especially from channels that offer an independent view of the news. Even entertainers like Pewdiepie were not safe from the Wall Street Journal’s fake news attack. Pewdiepie was the first channel accused of bigotry by the WSJ, which tried to label him a Nazi. Why? Because even independent enter‐ tainers are a threat to the military-industrial complex and their media. It’s well known that Wall Street and the CFR propagandize Americans through entertainment, and the CIA even has an official agent in Hollywood called the “Entertainment Industry Liaison.” Pewdiepie has the poten‐ tial to persuade his 55 million subscribers into following a message unapproved by the mainstream media. That makes him, and YouTubers like him, a threat. Over on the massively popular news and entertainment site Reddit, the Trump supporters posting real news on their dedicated subreddit The_Donald were continuously under‐ mined in many ways. The Reddit site administrators changed the site’s algorithm to prevent posts from The_Donald from reaching the front page of the website and converting even more Reddit users into part of the growing community and populist uprising building in The_Donald. The_Donald and Trump supporters on social media were one of the biggest driving forces behind the Trump campaign, behind the spread of real news and authentic grassroots movements. Most of all, The_Donald spread memes. The viral memes and high art made by meme makers out 109

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of videos like Donald Trump body slamming a wrestler labeled CNN, are in fact a shot across the bow of the military industrial complex and their mainstream media pawns. Entertaining pictures and videos promoting Donald Trump were not just memes – but a highly effective memetic warfare salvo. Meme warfare, as it came to be known in 2016, is no less than the front line of the newest generation of war - informa‐ tion warfare. In fact, “4th generation warfare” is defined as conflict characterized by a blurring of the lines between war and politics, combatants and civilians. Canadian professor and visionary Marshall McLuhan, who predicted the inter‐ net’s creation almost 30 years before it was invented, said “World War III is a guerrilla information war with no divi‐ sion between military and civilian participation.” No wonder Google and Facebook and the rest of the globalist Big Tech corporations are trying so hard to shut freedom of speech on the internet. I was watching a live video from the White House in November of 2018 when I saw something that blew my mind. During a press conference, CNN reporter Jim Acosta was told “that’s enough” by President Trump after Acosta had asked several questions. Instead of giving the microphone to a young female White House intern who approached him and reached for it, Acosta pushed the young woman’s arm down in what many called an assault. Leaving aside that Acosta was not tasered for asking questions, I was shocked at 110

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the CNN reporter’s conduct. Physically pushing off a young female aide was clearly over the line behavior, even for a CNN hack. In light of this incident, did Jim Acosta or CNN issue an apology? No. Instead, Acosta actually claimed he didn’t even touch the young female intern. “Obviously, you know, I didn’t put my hands on her or touch her as they are alleging,” Acosta said on CNN. “And it’s just unfortunate that the White House is saying this. You know, we all try to be professionals over there and I think I handled myself professionally.” This incident proved once and for all the media is willing to lie to our faces - even when hundreds of thousands of people were watching live video of the event. When millions more people watched the replay of the incident, the media doubled down and told another lie, claiming Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars had doctored the video. Without the power of free speech on the internet and an independent media pushing back against lies like this, the corporate media would have the power to make up anything they wanted and declare it as truth. As Malcolm X once said, “If you aren't careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” With the power to say whatever they want, the media could even cover up for the theft of elections. This ultimate power, and the challenge that popular online personalities present to the media’s monopoly, is the real motivation 111

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behind Facebook banning hundreds of independent media pages and Google rigging political search results. In 2018, when irrefutable evidence appeared that elec‐ tions were being stolen in Florida, independent activist Ali Alexander started a Twitter hashtag #StopTheSteal. His goal was to protect the integrity of elections by informing millions of people that Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes was taking illegal actions to try and steal the Senate and Governor races in Florida. Republican candidates Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis had defeated Democrats Andrew Gillum and Bill Nelson. Gillum even conceded. But the day after election day, Broward County elections supervisor Brenda Snipes somehow “found” an additional 46,000 ballots, enough to flip both races. Three days after the elec‐ tion, Snipes was still “finding” ballots and illegally counting thousands more votes. Worse still, an affidavit filed by a Broward elections employee provided eyewitness testimony that Broward elec‐ tions staff were filling in blank ballots. When this was reported, the employee was fired and told not to come back. In 2016, journalist John Cardillo also had proof of election fraud in Broward, including a sworn affidavit from an eyewit‐ ness who saw ballots changed. In a separate scandal, Brenda Snipes was found by a judge to have illegally destroyed ballots after the Democrat primary race in 2016 between the corrupt Debbie Wasserman Schultz and grassroots challenger Tim Canova. 112

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In 2018, Canova shared on social media a tape of people seemingly caught on tape loading ballots into a rented truck. While Broward County was still illegally counting votes in 2018, Congressman Matt Gaetz visited the Broward elec‐ tions office and, “was told it was ‘unsafe’ for me to video trucks moving things in and out of the Broward SOE office. Then, they block court-ordered access. It’s a banana republic down here.” In court, lawyers for Nelson and Gillum actually argued in Palm Beach that a ballot by a non-citizen should be counted! When a box of ballots was suspiciously discovered in the back of an Avis rental car at the Fort Lauderdale airport, the Democrat Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel reported the finding as a “suspicious package” and sent a bomb squad to the airport. When independent journalist Laura Loomer proved the “suspicious package” was a box of ballots left behind by a man that had been pictured with the Democrat candidate for governor, the media failed to report on what really happened. The Democrat Sheriff Scott Israel covered up for some kind of attempted election fraud or cover-up by illegally calling in a bomb threat to an airport! With all of this information being spread on Twitter with the hashtag #StopTheSteal, CNN’s Chris Cuomo claimed the Stop The Steal hashtag was being promoted by Russian bots. The false idea that a grassroots hashtag in support of fair elections is the doing of Russian bots is journalistic malfea‐ sance and borderline fraud. Instead of reporting the informa‐ 113

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tion on Snipes’s known scandals, CNN mischaracterized the protests of American citizens as the work of foreign intelli‐ gence agents. Others in the media, including my old friend Greg Palast, falsely reported that the Stop the Steal efforts which were led by black conservative Ali Alexander - were being run by a white nationalist. The possibility that America’s elections could be stolen with no real reporting done by the media that claims to report the news is an assault on the legitimacy of the government. When the media protects fraudulent elections officials by failing to disclose criminal actions, they allow discontent with the system of government to brew on both sides of the aisle. In this case, should Snipes’s schemes have succeeded in overthrowing elected officials, many Republicans would view the government as an illegitimate, unelected power. On the other side of the aisle, with the media reporting the Democrat narrative that “all votes must be counted” and presenting a one-sided view of Democrat votes being suppressed, should Snipes’s illegal scheme fail, many Democrats will view the government as an illegitimate, unelected power. That is dangerous territory. Thanks to the media failing to properly report the known illegality of a corrupt election supervisors, a large amount of voters will be extremely hostile to the govern‐ ment, no matter who wins. With dishonest reporting like that, how can we expect people to have faith in government or trust the media? Real journalists demand answers to these kind of ques‐ 114

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tions, and millions of people have taken to social media to ask these questions. The fake news doesn’t ask real questions. Instead, presstitutes manufacture false stories designed to create outrage and hysteria - dividing the people on the left and the right in America, who would find enormous common ground if only their minds weren’t consumed with the poiso‐ nous propaganda emanating from Wall Street newspapers and the TV. I questioned John Kerry because like most Americans, I want a candidate that wants peace - not to pillage impover‐ ished nations through warfare. The reality is Wall Street can afford to hire hundreds of phony actors and false champions to run for office and pretend they care about the American people. A candidate's positions - and whether he truly means them - are what really matter. Even Hillary pretended like she would police Wall Street when Bernie was beating her, but if a candidate is taking millions from Wall Street like Hillary did, you can be sure her stated positions are pure fiction. Politicians are not going to stand up and tell you, "I'm lying about my identity and what I would do in office!" The mainstream media is not going to expose the candidates they are paid to promote. You have to figure out the game yourself. Obama was funded by Wall Street. John Kasich worked at Lehman Brothers. Yet millions of people were fooled by the words and demeanor of Obama and Kasich and others, failing to see Wall Street’s puppet strings moving their lips. The U.S. economy has big problems that can only be 115

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solved by America uniting. Wall Street bankers and their cronies in Congress have created an environment completely hostile to growing a small business. Manufacturing has been outsourced to slave labor in China, while the U.S. has wasted trillions on endless wars. Miraculously, Donald Trump defeated the fake news media in 2016 and won the White House for the people. The revolution long expected in America has arrived, but only We the People can make it grow. We can not expect Donald Trump or any one man to bring peace to the world. We must do the work ourselves, each man doing his best to create a free world. Share the word about the independent media with your friends. I keep a list of the best real news sources on the sidebar of my website, TheAndrewMeyer.‐ com. With a truly free press, perhaps for the first time in over a hundred years, we can make America the shining defender of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that it was origi‐ nally intended to be. We can wake people up from the spell of the fake news media. We can elect honest representatives of the people to Congress. Thank God, we can end the wars, and usher in world peace.

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AFTERWORD

When the “Don’t Tase Me Bro” incident was making head‐ lines worldwide, I never wanted to use the infamy for anything other than to make a real change in the world. While Stephen Colbert and Dave Chappelle and others delivered their take on my questions to Senator Kerry, I deeply desired to wake people up to the horrors of senseless war and the many atrocities covered up for by the media. Being made into all kinds of memes and jokes was surreal and fascinating, but also horrifying because of the utter disregard the media showed for my honest questions. While the media spun a narrative that I was a “prankster” and an attention seeker, I turned down many offers to appear on mainstream media, and even a book deal, because these offers would have hurt my chances to deliver an authentic message to the world. The media has an appetite for war that ignores the 117

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horrors visited upon the majority of the population that endures such Hell on Earth. The calls even today for war or sanctions on countries like Syria and Iran fail to take into account the deaths of family members and starvation that has happened to innocent people abroad because of the blood‐ thirsty cheerleading of our media. Human consciousness can evolve to a level of loving for each other, but not when we are consumed by illusions cast by the most evil men in the world, using the media as their puppets to divide us. In writing this book, I have had to discard entire sections that included ideas I held for a decade, because research showed me that they were false. I find it to be a terrible tragedy that there are so many kind, brilliant individuals in the world who believe their political views are humane, when in fact reality has been hidden from them to make them support the most demonic evils. To that end, my goal for this book was to help people understand how they have been tricked by real life criminal masterminds, the sort that most people only allow themselves to believe exist in fictional movies about superheroes. Right now, there are people donning black outfits with the goal of hurting their fellow man because they have been fed disinformation. Media operatives like CNN’s Chris Cuomo have praised the violence by comparing so-called “antifascists” to American World War II veterans. The media is fueling a mindset of war that led to the shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise. The shooter was an avid viewer 118

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of corporate “liberal” media, and intended to shoot an entire field full of Republican congressmen. The “liberals” in America do not comprehend much of the arguments of the people they oppose. This is by design. While the media teaches “liberals” that their opponents are too evil to be listened to, globalist tech companies like Google and Facebook have essentially monopolized different sectors of the public square online and use algorithms to keep people divided. The tech companies themselves have often referred to themselves as a public utility, similar to a phone company. Their repeated attempts to ban independent media and anyone that opposes the mainstream media should be prevented by antitrust law, the way phone companies are not allowed to regulate speech. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have blocked reforms such as this that would help unite Americans, because politi‐ cians on both sides of the aisle do not care about the public good. People must raise awareness of the real issues in the country without devolving into taking sides as if either polit‐ ical party is blameless. Most importantly, people must care about their neighbors, and let that care drive them to only vote for candidates within their own party that actually stand for good. Not everyone can be reached with messages of good. Some people are lost in their victim mentality, and you would only waste your energy by trying to interrupt their process. For those that have at least somewhat of an open mind, it is 119

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crucial to speak with them generously. Avoid fighting with your friends and neighbors that are open to listening to what you have to say, and you just may help change their minds. I want to thank my spiritual teachers Benny Halfon, Rav Berg, and my Kabbalah Centre family that has helped me grow so much in the last ten years. I also want to thank Mike Cernovich, Luke Rudkowski, and Carlos Miller for the opportunity to work with them and their guidance through the field of independent journalism. Special thanks are also due to Jack Posobiec, Ali Alexander, Laura Loomer, and so many others for amplifying my voice, and for the amazing work they do to enlighten people and raise their awareness. Lastly I must thank my father, who wrote sections for this book before he passed away, and always encouraged me to write and follow my passions. God has given me many gifts, and none are greater than my wonderful parents.

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