Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, the section 1260H list maintained by the Department of Defense was created by the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act and intended to identify any Chinese military companies operating directly or indirectly in the United States.
Section 1260H is a part of a largely bipartisan, years-long effort to name and shame CCP companies operating in our Nation.
While the Biden administration has made important additions to this list, including military companies such as ChemChina and China State Construction Engineering, the administration has still fallen short of a full commitment to countering the malign influences of the CCP.
Earlier this year, we saw Secretaries Yellen, Blinken, and Raimondo take trips to China as part of a diplomatic overture.
Many of my colleagues would undoubtedly agree that the CCP could care less about diplomacy and that these trips have very little, if any, bearing on how China chooses to behave on the international stage.
One could argue that these trips only serve to demonstrate the limits and the lack of American resolve to confront the PRC's obviously petulant behavior.
For instance, it is a daily occurrence to see the PRC infringe on Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone. The PRC regularly makes threats to wage war against Taiwan.
They manipulate international organizations to do their bidding. They entrap developing countries into contracts that make them de facto vassal states. They construct dual-use ports across the world, and it goes on and on and on, Mr. Chairman.
In the face of the CCP's belligerent escalatory actions, the gut reaction of the American administration ought not to be for the Secretary of the Treasury to fly to China and consume psychedelic mushrooms. Yet, that is what we saw from Janet Yellen.
Before Secretary Raimondo's visit to China, the Department of Commerce, acting through the Bureau of Industry and Security, unilaterally removed 27 CCP entities from the bureau's so-called unverified list.
Our Department of Commerce literally chose to make a concession to an aggressive state in order to get the CCP to meet with our Secretary of Commerce.
It is clear that this President's judgment cannot be trusted. This administration's assessment of China has only emboldened our Nation's foremost enemy. Appeasement has long failed as a strategy, and it continues to fail today.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, I urge adoption of my amendment. I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, it would appear that many in the Democratic Party have taken it upon themselves to offer their talents and considerable abilities to help determine which information is reliable and which isn't. Thanks, but no thanks.
Mr. Chairman, in September 2021, the Department of Defense offered NewsGuard, a self-proclaimed fact-checker, a $750,000 grant to effectively censor conservative viewpoints and opinions.
Want proof of NewsGuard's censorship efforts? I am more than happy to provide undisputed facts.
NewsGuard has given extremely subjective and clearly biased ratings to several conservative news outlets, including The Federalist, a 12\1/ 2\ percent accuracy and credibility score; Newsmax, 15 percent; The Epoch Times, a 17\1/2\ percent score; and OAN, 17\1/2\ percent.
I am sure these conservative news outlets have lost out on crucial ad revenue from these ratings. It is censorship.
It is fundamentally pathetic that this administration thinks they can sideline conservative viewpoints and demonize conservative platforms without the American people finding out about this.
All this is happening while Politico, NPR, and The New York Times have previously received a perfect 100 percent; CBS, 95 percent.
Mr. Chairman, we are supposed to have an open and free press. There should be no censorship. This is the United States of America. The fact that we are funding an organization that is censoring viewpoints and news is untenable.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, it should be noted that Newsmax TV is more than just online. CBS isn't just online. The New York Times isn't just online.
These are news outlets with multiple platforms, so it is not about censoring online. It is about censorship.
The irony here is abundant, especially when considering that these leftist news outlets parroted the lie promoted by 51 intelligence officials and our disaster of a Secretary of State that the Hunter Biden laptop story was a production of Russian disinformation.
Only in America could a guy who helped steal an election and undermine our democracy be promoted to oversee our Nation's policy on Ukraine, but that is the story of Antony Blinken in a nutshell.
The Hunter Biden laptop debacle was literally the biggest story of the 2021 election, and a story, if taken seriously, that might have resulted in a different outcome.
Instead, our government is subsidizing a self-identified fact-checker who completely whiffed on the biggest story of a Presidential cycle.
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Mr. OGLES. Mr. Chairman, while I appreciate my colleague's perspective, it should be noted that when conservative versus other news sources are compared with similar metrics that the more liberal- leaning news outlets are ranked 27 points higher.
This has a direct impact on revenue streams. To say that they are somehow unbiased literally defies the facts that I have laid out before you and that you have conservative news sites on the bottom end of the spectrum, whereas the more mainstream, liberal-leaning news sites are at the top.
Mr. Chairman, it should also be noted that NewsGuard is known to be reliant on and working with the WHO, the World Health Organization, which is known for disinformation and lying and is unduly influenced by the CCP.
This is a grant that should not be authorized, it should not be continued, and they should not be relied upon.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.
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