Threats Facing Conservative Speech

Floor Speech

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Mr. BURCHETT. Mr. Speaker, I believe it is the Volunteer State. The Butternut State, I never heard that.

Dadgummit, Mr. Speaker, here I am again bringing attention to yet another example of our woke telecom companies targeting conservative speech. I am very glad though that they did not censor my good friend Mr. Buck's new book ``Crushed,'' which is actually on the best seller list, I have heard. I am fired up about that, brother.

DIRECTV, of course, is co-owned by AT&T and TPG, and they have taken ``Newsmax'' off the air as we have heard.

DIRECTV says this was purely a business decision, but nobody believes that, Mr. Speaker. Big media corporations don't exactly have the best record of protecting conservative speech.

Last year, Democrats in Congress wrote letters to AT&T and other telecom companies demanding they deplatform ``Newsmax''--which is really just a fancy way of saying we are going to deny your First Amendment rights, Mr. Speaker--along with ``Fox News'' and ``One America News'' because of so-called disinformation.

After these letters were sent, DIRECTV dropped ``One America News,'' and now it appears to be doing the same thing to ``Newsmax.''

This fits a disturbing pattern, Mr. Speaker, of these woke corporations using their market dominance to censor conservative networks to appease Washington politicians and further their demands on woketopia.

After receiving lots of criticism from the American people about this decision, DIRECTV announced it would launch a new conservative network. That is great, but it is still not an excuse for deplatforming another popular network, Mr. Speaker.

Our country was built on freedom of speech, and Americans benefit from having access to a wide range of viewpoints, not just the ones approved by the liberal Democrats.

Mr. Speaker, one day they will be coming after the liberal media, and then it will be too dadgum late.

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