Author: MC

Master of Truth. A writer who has captured the imagination of many.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others.

Probe Biden Admin over Plan to Hide Classified Docs Scandal

Investigating the President and the DOJ. AP Photo/Alex Brandon, AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Probe Biden Admin over Plan to Hide Classified Docs Scandal.

Is it time for another special prosecutor? Thursday the WP ran a article where the DOJ and the WH were not going to go public with the information about the missing top secret papers found at the Penn Center or Biden’s home. All documents Biden had no right to have. Documents that were Top Secret.

According to the Washington Post on Thursday, the White House and Justice Department not only agreed to obscure the scandal from public view, but they also refused to divulge that the second trove of classified documents was already unearthed at Biden’s home in Wilmington when CBS News first contacted the White House about the initial leak of classified documents illegally stored at the Biden Penn Center.

“CBS News was the first news organization to learn of the matter, contacting the White House on Jan. 6 to ask about the Penn Biden Center documents,” the report continued. “White House officials confirmed the scoop, but since the investigation was ongoing, they decided not to offer any additional details — including the critical information that a second batch of documents had been discovered at Biden’s home.”

And a third. Who knows if more will be found?

 

Categories
Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

DeSantis Proposes Sunshine State Bans on Mask and Vax Mandates

Ban the masks and mandates. GettyImages

Thanks to Hannity.

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) released a policy proposal to ban mask and vaccine mandates in the Sunshine State; no passports, no forced masking in schools, and he wants to prohibit businesses from requiring masks and prevent “employers from hiring or firing based on mRNA jabs.”

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) released a policy proposal to ban mask and vaccine mandates in the Sunshine State; no passports, no forced masking in schools, and he wants to prohibit businesses from requiring masks and prevent “employers from hiring or firing based on mRNA jabs.”

“When the world lost its mind, Florida was a refuge of sanity, serving strongly as freedom’s linchpin,” the governor said in a press release. “These measures will ensure Florida remains this way and will provide landmark protections for free speech for medical practitioners.”

“As a health sciences researcher and physician, I have personally witnessed accomplished scientists receive threats due to their unorthodox positions,” said State Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. “However, many of these positions have proven to be correct, as we’ve all seen over the past few years. All medical professionals should be encouraged to engage in scientific discourse without fearing for their livelihoods or their careers.”

From the DeSantis Press Release:

In 2021, Governor DeSantis signed legislation to protect Florida jobs and parents’ rights to make health care decisions for their students, banning private employer vaccine mandates and mask mandates across the state. Governor DeSantis continues to safeguard Floridians’ freedoms and ensure no one is discriminated against based on their COVID-19 vaccine status or is subject to a two-tiered test and mask discrimination policy from employers.

The proposal includes the permanent prohibition of mandates that are continuously proven ineffective, including:

  • Permanently prohibiting COVID-19 vaccine passports in Florida;
  • Permanently prohibiting COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements in all Florida schools;
  • Permanently prohibiting COVID-19 masking requirements at businesses; and
  • Permanently prohibiting employers from hiring or firing based on mRNA jabs.

Included in Governor DeSantis’ proposal are first amendment rights guarantees for medical professionals, ensuring no one loses their job or medical license for voicing their professional opinions in Florida. The legislation will safeguard medical professionals from discrimination based on their personal religious views.

At an event on Tuesday, DeSantis said that legislators “will pass it this year,” adding, “I’ve already talked to the leadership.”

More over at The Daily Mail:

 

 

Categories
Links from other news sources. Reprints from others. The Law

You make the call. Atlanta: Protesters call for ‘violence’ against police after shooting leaves 1 dead, officer injured

State troopers stand with a DeKalb, Georgia, police officers on Constitution and International Park in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

We want to thank the folks over at FOX.

Protesters in Atlanta, are calling for violence against police officers and law enforcement entities following a police-involved shooting on Wednesday that left a state trooper wounded and one man dead.

The Twitter account Scenes from the Atlanta Forest calls for a “Night of Rage” on Friday to enact “reciprocal violence to be done to the police and their allies,” according to the Scenes from the Atlanta Forest Twitter account.

“Consider this a call for reciprocal violence to be done to the police and their allies. On Friday, January 20th, wherever you are, you are invited to participate in a night of rage in order to honor the memory of our fallen comrade,” the group wrote on Twitter, in an apparent violation of the platform’s terms and conditions.

The account claims to be a part of Defend the Atlanta Forest, one of the multiple groups protesting in an area where the city is set to construct the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.

GEORGIA STATE TROOPER SHOT BY PROTESTER AT ‘COP CITY’ NEAR ATLANTA

State troopers stand with a DeKalb, Georgia, police officers on Constitution and International Park in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.

State troopers stand with a DeKalb, Georgia, police officers on Constitution and International Park in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

The Defenders of the Forest said in a statement to Fox News Digital that it is “a broad, diverse, decentralized movement to defend the Atlanta forest.”  They went on to say they are only a “news aggregator for the movement” and “not affiliated” with Scenes from the Atlanta Forest.

In another tweet, posted several hours later, the group added: “The police will kill you if given the chance. Now is the time for bravery. Take care of each other. Be dangerous together.”

The group appeared to acknowledge the post was against Twitter’s rule not to incite violence as it said in yet another tweet that its account “is not long for this world.”

The upcoming event comes after a Georgia State Patrol trooper, wearing a bulletproof vest, was shot in the abdomen Wednesday morning. It happened as police tried to clear an encampment near the site where the $90 million Atlanta Police Department (APD) facility will be constructed.

Police at the scene where a Georgia state trooper was shot on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.

Police at the scene where a Georgia state trooper was shot on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (Fox 5 Atlanta)

The sweep was conducted as “an operation to identify people who are trespassing and committing other crimes on the property,” the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said.

placeholder

 

“At about 9:00 a.m. today, as law enforcement was moving through the property, officers located a man inside a tent in the woods. Officers gave verbal commands to the man who did not comply and shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper,” GBI said in a statement. “Other law enforcement officers returned fire, hitting the man.”

“Law enforcement evacuated the Trooper to a safe area. The man died on scene,” it added.

The bureau continued: “The injured Georgia State Patrol Trooper was taken to a local hospital where he underwent surgery. A handgun and shell casings were located at the scene. The GBI is working the officer-involved shooting and the investigation is still active and ongoing.”

The identities of the officer and the deceased have not yet been released. The officer was hospitalized and is in stable condition.

DeKalb, Georgia, and Atlanta SWAT members are pictured leaving the Gresham Park command post in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.

DeKalb, Georgia, and Atlanta SWAT members are pictured leaving the Gresham Park command post in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

"The individual who fired upon law enforcement and shot the trooper was killed in the exchange of gunfire," GBI director Michael Register said.

“The individual who fired upon law enforcement and shot the trooper was killed in the exchange of gunfire,” GBI director Michael Register said. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

During a press conference, GBI director Michael Register confirmed that the shooting was in self-defense after the now-deceased individual opened fire “without warning” on the trooper.

“An individual, without warning, shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper,” Register told reporters. “Other law enforcement personnel returned fire in self-defense and evacuated the trooper to a safe area. The individual who fired upon law enforcement and shot the trooper was killed in the exchange of gunfire.”

Four others were arrested at the scene and taken to the DeKalb County Jail. Charges are pending.

“They’re endangering the community and the citizens around this area,” Register said of the encampment and the protesters, FOX 5 Atlanta reported.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also commented on the shooting and said he and his family were praying for law enforcement officers.

“Marty, the girls, and I are praying for this brave Trooper and public safety officers across all law enforcement agencies today,” he tweeted Wednesday morning. “As our thoughts remain with him and his family, our resolve also remains steadfast and strong to see criminals brought to justice.”

FBI RELEASES NEW DETAILS ON POLICE USE OF FORCE AS PUBLIC GRAPPLES WITH DISTRUST

The joint task force formed to combat ongoing criminal activity at the APD site includes the GBI, Atlanta Police Department, Georgia Attorney General’s Office, DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office, Georgia State Patrol, FBI, DeKalb County Police Department, Department of Natural Resources, and the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA).

Georgia state troopers stand along Key Road in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023.

Georgia state troopers stand along Key Road in Atlanta on Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2023. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)

Defend the Atlanta Forest held a vigil Wednesday evening at the Little Five Points Square to “memorialize the forest defender” that was “murdered by the police,” it announced on Twitter.

“Today the police shot and killed a forest defender below the canopy of our beloved forest,” the group said. “No one can bring our friend back to us. An innocent life has been taken and the machines continue.”

“We will not go quietly into this dark night,” it added.

ATLANTA POLICE SEEK SUSPECT IN FATAL CHRISTMAS EVE SHOOTING

“Police killed a forest defender today, someone who loved the forest, someone who fought to protect the earth & its inhabitants,” the group continued in a tweet.

And: “This is why we organize to stop Cop City. And we will. In honor of their life, and the lives of everyone killed and imprisoned by the police.”

The group also announced another event on Jan. 21, where members are encouraged to “wear black in mourning” for the dead member.

These events come amid heightened tension between protesters and the police, involving several arrests over several months over the APD construction.

“The Atlanta Police Department seeks to turn 300 acres of forest into a tactical training compound featuring a mock city. This project was announced to the shock of community members who had been given no opportunity to weigh in on the proposal. The entire process has been shadier than the forest itself,” Defend the Atlanta Forest’s website reads.

According to the group, they are explicitly protesting the new “Cop City” as it will “hyper-militarize law enforcement” and “will serve as a national model of police militarization and budgetary bloat.”

The group names the 2020 death of George Floyd and others as its motivation to protest police violence.

A man holds up his hands while marching following the guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, in Atlanta, Georgia.

A man holds up his hands while marching following the guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images)

People march following the guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, in Atlanta.

People march following the guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin on April 20, 2021, in Atlanta. (Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images)

The group also claims it does not advocate for violence and that “no one has been harmed by participants in this movement.”

Last week, anarchists in Atlanta also targeted Brasfield & Gorrie, the general contractor of the police facility, and spray-painted graffiti on its buildings.

“B&G stop cop city,” the graffiti read, according to photos. “We have the numbers,” another spray-painted message read.

Also, last month, police arrested five people at the APD site location. They were also charged with domestic terrorism.

 

On Dec. 14, the GBI wrote: “Yesterday, December 13, 2022, our agents assisted APD and other local, state, and task force members in an operation to remove barricades blocking some of the entrances to the training center.”

“Prior to yesterday’s operation, APD and other agencies had made several arrests over the past few months for the ongoing criminal activity at the site location. Some of the criminal activities include carjacking, various crimes against persons, destruction of property, arson, and attacks against public safety officials. Law enforcement continues to address the criminal acts committed by the individuals that continue to occupy the area of the proposed training site,” it said.

Atlanta's authorities arrested Francis Carroll, age 22, of Maine, Nicholas Olson, age 25, of Nebraska, Serena Hertel, age 25, of California, Leonardo Vioselle, age 20, of Macon, Georgia, and Arieon Robinson, age 22, of Wisconsin, on Dec. 13, 2022.

Atlanta’s authorities arrested Francis Carroll, age 22, of Maine, Nicholas Olson, age 25, of Nebraska, Serena Hertel, age 25, of California, Leonardo Vioselle, age 20, of Macon, Georgia, and Arieon Robinson, age 22, of Wisconsin, on Dec. 13, 2022. (DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office/Georgia Bureau of Investigation)

The arrested individuals included Francis Carroll, age 22, of Maine, Nicholas Olson, age 25, of Nebraska, Serena Hertel, age 25, of California, Leonardo Vioselle, age 20, of Macon, GA, and Arieon Robinson, age 22, of Wisconsin.

“After police cleared the area of concern, which included makeshift treehouses, they found explosive devices, gasoline, and road flares,” the GBI said in its statement on Jan. 14.

 

DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston said those who were arrested had attacked firefighters and police officers with rocks and weapons as the officers removed barricades blocking some entrances to the site, according to FOX 5 Atlanta.

The investigation into the activities at the APD site is active and ongoing. Anyone with information is encouraged to contact local law enforcement or the GBI at 1-800-597-TIPS.

Fox News’ Paul Best contributed to this report.

Categories
Corruption Crime Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others. Uncategorized

DOJ tells FBI to stand down. Justice Department Considered but Rejected Role in Biden Documents Search

President Joe Biden’s Justice Department reportedly permitted the president’s personal attorneys to search for classified documents in separate locations without security clearances or the FBI present.

President Joe Biden’s Justice Department reportedly permitted the president’s personal attorneys to search for classified documents in separate locations without security clearances or the FBI present. I wonder if they realize that the DOJ folks who made this decision will be called to testify, and Biden will have to hire outside lawyers if this goes to a trial. Maybe a sitting President can’t be charged, but Biden’s lawyers can be charged. Tampering with Evidence.

We want to thank the WSJ and Breitbart for this.

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department considered having FBI agents monitor a search by President Biden’s lawyers for classified documents at his homes but decided against it, both to avoid complicating later stages of the investigation and because Mr. Biden’s attorneys had quickly turned over a first batch and were cooperating, according to people familiar with the matter.

After Mr. Biden’s lawyers discovered documents marked as classified dating from his term as vice president at an office he used at a Washington-based think tank on Nov. 2, the Justice Department opened an inquiry into why and how they got there. Mr. Biden’s legal team prepared to search his other properties for any similar documents, and discussed with the Justice Department the prospect of having FBI agents present while Mr. Biden’s lawyers conducted the additional searches.

Instead, the two sides agreed that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys would inspect the homes, notify the Justice Department as soon as they identified any other potentially classified records, and arrange for law-enforcement authorities to take them.

Those deliberations, which haven’t previously been reported, shed new light on how the Biden team’s efforts to cooperate with investigators have thus far helped it avoid more aggressive actions by law enforcement.

In the week since news reports first surfaced about the documents, the incident has drawn parallels to the discovery of a much larger number of documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, which federal agents obtained a warrant to search in August after more than a year of negotiations between Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the National Archives and the Justice Department and after Mr. Trump’s lawyers said all documents had been returned.

Mr. Trump’s supporters have accused the Justice Department of a double standard in treatment; Mr. Biden’s supporters have pointed to the president’s legal team’s cooperation and swift moves to inform the Justice Department of the documents’ discovery as a key difference. Mr. Biden has said he doesn’t know what the documents are or how they wound up at his office at the Penn Biden Center or his Delaware home. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was director of the Washington think tank from 2017 to 2019, told reporters on Tuesday that he was unaware that government documents had been stored there.

Biden ‘Cooperating Fully’ With DOJ as Garland Appoints Special Counsel

Biden ‘Cooperating Fully’ With DOJ as Garland Appoints Special CounselPlay video: Biden ‘Cooperating Fully’ With DOJ as Garland Appoints Special Counsel
President Biden said Thursday a “small number” of classified documents from his time as vice president were found at his home and in his personal library. Attorney General Merrick Garland outlined the decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

The discussions and the Justice Department’s willingness to let the Biden lawyers do the searches unsupervised also suggest federal investigators are girding for a monthslong inquiry that could stretch well into Mr. Biden’s third year in office.

One reason not to involve the FBI at an early stage: That way the Justice Department would preserve the ability to take a tougher line, including executing a future search warrant, if negotiations ever turned hostile, current and former law-enforcement officials said.

Representatives of the FBI and Justice Department declined to comment. In a call to reporters about the investigation, White House spokesman Ian Sams said the president and his team were cooperating fully with the special counsel review “so that it can proceed swiftly and thoroughly.”

The White House revealed on two separate days last week that documents had been located at the president’s Delaware residence, as well as those found at a garage there in December. Part of the reason the new documents were revealed separately is that Mr. Biden’s personal attorneys don’t have security clearances to handle classified documents and had to set aside any material that could qualify as such. Richard Sauber, special counsel to Mr. Biden, who has that clearance, accompanied Justice Department personnel to retrieve documents, when they discovered additional pages with classification markings.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week assigned a former top prosecutor in the Trump administration, Robert Hur, to serve as special counsel investigating the discovery of the documents in the locales associated with Mr. Biden. Justice Department officials were concerned that an FBI presence as the Biden team hunted for documents could complicate investigators’ ability to execute search warrants or subpoena documents as the investigation proceeds, some of the people said, in a sign that investigators are considering the possibility of a grand jury investigation into the matter.

Mr. Hur is expected to begin his job as special counsel by the end of the month, after he winds down his work as a defense lawyer at the law firm Gibson Dunn, people familiar with his appointment said.

Robert Hur has been appointed special counsel in the Biden documents investigation.PHOTO: MICHAEL MCCOY/REUTERS

Soon after the initial discovery in November, Mr. Garland tasked the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Chicago, John Lausch, with reviewing the documents, with an eye toward determining whether a special counsel should be appointed.

Mr. Lausch told Mr. Garland on Jan. 5 that he thought a special counsel was warranted given the many unanswered questions about the documents, and Mr. Garland quickly agreed, the people said.

Mr. Hur is expected to grapple with legally and politically thorny considerations that could be reminiscent of those from the last special counsel related to a sitting president, potentially including whether to pursue in-person testimony from Mr. Biden. During the 2017-19 special counsel inquiry led by Robert Mueller into Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign and any links between that effort and the Trump campaign, investigators tried for more than a year to interview then-President Trump before ultimately settling for written testimony.

Mr. Sams declined to say whether Mr. Biden would sit for an interview with the special counsel if asked.

Legal experts said an open-book strategy could help shorten Mr. Hur’s inquiry and keep it from dragging out over Mr. Biden’s presidency.

“My goal would be to get everybody interviewed by Robert Hur as quickly as possible—not throw up roadblocks, not assert privileges, and get this thing over with,” said Neil Eggleston, who served as White House counsel in the Obama administration.

The Justice Department investigation into the Biden documents comes as another special counsel is already deep into a parallel inquiry into the classified documents at Mr. Trump’s Florida home.

Former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida was searched by FBI agents last year.PHOTO: MARCO BELLO/REUTERS

The FBI in August executed a search warrant at the property, believing more such documents remained there based on witness interviews and security-camera footage. They removed dozens of boxes containing additional documents, many of which were mixed in with clothing and news clippings. Prosecutors later disclosed they were investigating whether anyone sought to obstruct their inquiry, in addition to whether anyone should be prosecuted for mishandling the documents. Mr. Trump has called the Justice Department’s moves a witch hunt and said he did nothing wrong.

The Justice Department has sought to keep the two inquiries separate by assigning them to different teams, according to people familiar with the matter. The Biden White House has highlighted differences between the two inquiries, stressing in particular how their cooperative stance compares to the Trump team’s resistance to turn over records to the National Archives after repeated requests. Mr. Trump’s legal team later clashed with the Justice Department over the appointment of an outside arbiter, known as a special master, to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago.

Yet the Biden team’s bumpy rollout of its discoveries—it only confirmed the document discoveries after news reports and has offered few new details—complicates its attempt to draw a hard distinction between Mr. Biden’s actions and those of Mr. Trump, said John Fishwick, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia during the Obama administration.

“He is the sitting president, there’s no reason for him to hold back anything about this,” Mr. Fishwick said. “It makes it harder to say it’s apples and oranges, and it undercuts the argument that you were different.”

—Sabrina Siddiqui contributed to this article.

Write to Aruna Viswanatha at aruna.viswanatha@wsj.com, Sadie Gurman at sadie.gurman@wsj.com and C. Ryan Barber at ryan.barber@wsj.com

Categories
Opinion Politics

Senator Johnson bitch slaps Chuck Todd down one end of the dial to the other.

"Part of the reasons are our politics are inflamed, is we do not have an unbiased media. We don't," Sen. Ron Johnson said. | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

IF you watched Sunday’s meet the press, you would have seen Chuck Todd taking the defensive position for the Biden cartel. The good Senator wasn’t having any of it. Todd wanted to talk about Trump and Trumps son in law. Todd seems to forget that it’s the Biden cartel that is under investigation.

We have this from Politico.

Sen. Ron Johnson said Sunday that media coverage of his proximity to 2020 election denial was a “smear” in a contentious interview with host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“This has been a complete smear job against me,” Johnson (R-Wis.) said. Todd had asked Johnson about a moment after the 2020 election in which Johnson allegedly considered helping to send an alternative slate of Wisconsin electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw1Cav72MnA

Categories
Corruption Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

CNN’s Andrew McCabe Says DOJ Should NOT Cooperate With GOP Biden Classified Docs Probe: ‘Take A Very Hard Line Against That’

McCabe asking the DOJ to ignore House Investigation. CNN Photo
CNN’s Andrew McCabe Says DOJ Should NOT Cooperate With GOP Biden Classified Docs Probe: ‘Take A Very Hard Line Against That’

Former FBI Deputy Director and CNN Senior Law Enforcement Analyst Andrew McCabe said the Justice Department should not cooperate with the House GOP’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s classified documents case.

Friday afternoon, Ohio Republican Congressman and Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan announced an investigation into  President Joe Biden’s classified documents issue with a letter that also offered a defense of ex-President Donald Trump. and attacked the Justice Department’s conduct in Trump’s case.

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, anchor Anderson Cooper asked McCabe what impact Jordan’s probe would have and McCabe emphatically urged the DoJ not to cooperate with it:

 

COOPER: Chairman Jim Jordan announced this House Judiciary Committee investigation, into the DOJ actions, related to the President’s handling of the classified documents, today. How much does that impact the DOJ ongoing investigation?

MCCABE: Well, I think that DOJ will likely – I certainly would advise them, if they were willing to listen to my advice, I would advise them to take a very hard line against that.

There is a clear precedent here of not sharing information, from an ongoing criminal investigation, with Congress. And I think the DOJ is in a very strong position, to resist, on those grounds.

Who knows what comes of that resistance? Maybe DOJ leadership starts getting subpoenaed. And ultimately, that fight will end up in the courts. And that could drag things out. That’s going to be an additional distraction to DOJ. But it shouldn’t disrupt the actual conduct of the investigation. So, that’s a – it’ll be a separate but related set of stressors that DOJ has to deal with.

COOPER: And, right now, I mean, you have a sitting President, you have a former President, who has already declared a candidacy, both under investigation, by separate Special Counsels, appointed by the Attorney General. This seems pretty unprecedented, no?

MCCABE: It’s absolutely unprecedented. I can’t think of another situation, even remotely like it.

I think it was a very astute move, by the Attorney General, to appoint a Special Counsel, in the Biden inquiry. I think it’s essential that these inquiries are treated exactly the same, at their inception, given the same sort of resources, and attention, and priority and, of course, special counsels.

But, at this point, Anderson, they become entirely different, and totally independent. The facts are very different. The way their respective teams are treating their interactions, with DOJ, will be very different. And they could come to very different results.

Watch above via CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

Categories
COVID Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

The White House Covid Censorship Machine – WSJ

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy at a White House press briefing
The White House Covid Censorship Machine – WSJ

From one of the other writers/Journalists at Substack.

 

Here’s the piece, originally published in the Wall Street Journal online yesterday and in the print edition today.

Newly released documents show that the White House has played a major role in censoring Americans on social media. Email exchanges between Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital media, and social-media executives prove the companies put Covid censorship policies in place in response to relentless, coercive pressure from the White House—not voluntarily. The emails emerged Jan. 6 in the discovery phase of Missouri v. Biden, a free-speech case brought by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana and four private plaintiffs represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance.

On March 14, 2021, Mr. Flaherty emailed a Facebook executive (whose name we’ve redacted as a courtesy) with the subject line “You are hiding the ball” and a link to a Washington Post article about Facebook’s own research into “the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy,” as the paper put it. “I think there is a misunderstanding,” the executive wrote back. “I don’t think this is a misunderstanding,” Mr. Flaherty replied. “We are gravely concerned that your service is one of the top drivers of vaccine hesitancy—period. . . . We want to know that you’re trying, we want to know how we can help, and we want to know that you’re not playing a shell game. . . . This would all be a lot easier if you would just be straight with us.”

On March 21, after failing to placate Mr. Flaherty, the Facebook executive sent an email detailing the company’s planned policy changes. They included “removing vaccine misinformation” and “reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable misinformation.” Facebook characterized this material as “often-true content” that “can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking.” Facebook pledged to “remove these Groups, Pages, and Accounts when they are disproportionately promoting this sensationalized content.”

In that exchange, Mr. Flaherty demanded to know what Facebook was doing to “limit the spread of viral content” on WhatsApp, a private message app, especially “given its reach in immigrant communities and communities of color.” The company responded three weeks later with a lengthy list of promises.

On April 9, Mr. Flaherty asked “what actions and changes you’re making to ensure . . . you’re not making our country’s vaccine hesitancy problem worse.” He faulted the company for insufficient zeal in earlier efforts to control political speech: “In the electoral context, you tested and deployed an algorithmic shift that promoted quality news and information about the election. . . . You only did this, however, after an election that you helped increase skepticism in, and an insurrection which was plotted, in large part, by your platform. And then you turned it back off. I want some assurances, based in data, that you are not doing the same thing again here.” The executive’s response: “Understood.”

On April 14, Mr. Flaherty pressed the executive about why “the top post about vaccines today” is Tucker Carlson “saying they don’t work”: “I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like,” he said. The exec responded: “Running this down now.”

On April 23, Mr. Flaherty sent the executive an internal memo that he claimed had been circulating in the White House. It asserts that “Facebook plays a major role in the spread of COVID vaccine misinformation” and accuses the company of, among other things, “failure to monitor events hosting anti-vaccine and COVID disinformation” and “directing attention to COVID-skeptics/anti-vaccine ‘trusted’ messengers.”

On May 10, the executive sent Mr. Flaherty a list of steps Facebook had taken “to increase vaccine acceptance.” Mr. Flaherty scoffed, “Hard to take any of this seriously when you’re actively promoting anti-vaccine pages in search,” and linked to an NBC reporter’s tweet. The executive wrote back: “Thanks Rob—both of the accounts featured in this tweet have been removed from Instagram entirely for breaking our policies.”

President Biden, press secretary Jen Psaki and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy later publicly vowed to hold the platforms accountable if they didn’t heighten censorship. On July 16, 2021, a reporter asked Mr. Biden his “message to platforms like Facebook.” He replied, “They’re killing people.” Mr. Biden later claimed he meant users, not platforms, were killing people. But the record shows Facebook itself was the target of the White House’s pressure campaign.

Mr. Flaherty also strong-armed Google in April 2021, accusing YouTube (which it owns) of “funneling” people into vaccine hesitancy. He said this concern was “shared at the highest (and I mean the highest) levels of the WH,” and required “more work to be done.” Mr. Flaherty demanded to know what further measures Google would take to remove disfavored content. An executive responded that the company was working to “address your concerns related to Covid-19 misinformation.”

These emails establish a clear pattern: Mr. Flaherty, representing the White House, expresses anger at the companies’ failure to censor Covid-related content to his satisfaction. The companies change their policies to address his demands. As a result, thousands of Americans were silenced for questioning government-approved Covid narratives. Two of the Missouri plaintiffs, Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, are epidemiologists whom multiple social-media platforms censored at the government’s behest for expressing views that were scientifically well-founded but diverged from the government line—for instance, that children and adults with natural immunity from prior infection don’t need Covid vaccines.

Emails made public through earlier lawsuits, Freedom of Information Act requests and Elon Musk’s release of the Twitter Files had already exposed a sprawling censorship regime involving the White House as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies. The government directed tech companies to remove certain types of material and even to censor specific posts and accounts. Again, these included truthful messages casting doubt on the efficacy of masks and challenging Covid-19 vaccine mandates.

The First Amendment bars government from engaging in viewpoint-based censorship. The state-action doctrine bars government from circumventing constitutional strictures by suborning private companies to accomplish forbidden ends indirectly.

Defenders of the government have fallen back on the claim that cooperation by the tech companies was voluntary, from which they conclude that the First Amendment isn’t implicated. The reasoning is dubious, but even if it were valid, the premise has now been proved false.

The Flaherty emails demonstrate that the federal government unlawfully coerced the companies in an effort to ensure that Americans would be exposed only to state-approved information about Covid-19. As a result of that unconstitutional state action, Americans were given the false impression of a scientific “consensus” on critically important issues around Covid-19. A reckoning for the government’s unlawful, deceptive and dangerous conduct is under way in court.

Ms. Younes, litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, represents the private plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden. Dr. Kheriaty is a senior scholar at the Brownstone Institute, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and one of the plaintiffs.

Categories
Elections Links from other news sources. Un documented.

The undocumented voting in DC.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - AUGUST 23: Empty voting booths are seen during Primary Election Day at PS 10 on August 23, 2022 in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn borough in New York City. Residents of NYC are voting in the second primary of the year due to the congressional redistricting process pushing back the congressional and State Senate primaries. The 10th District and 12th District races are two important congressional races happening in NYC. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The undocumented voting in DC. House and Senate Republicans are looking to stop a law that was passed in Washington DC. Here’s what we found from Breitbart.

In October 2022, the D.C. City Council voted 12-1 to advance a bill that will allow foreign nationals, regardless of if they have visas or are illegally in the United States, to vote in local elections such as school board races and mayoral elections.

About 50,000 foreign nationals and illegal aliens could be eligible to vote in local elections across D.C. if the measure is not thrown out by Congress before taking effect.

This week, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) introduced a joint resolution to effectively overturn the new D.C. voting law.

“Voting is a pillar of American democracy and a constitutional right that undeniably needs to be protected and preserved for citizens of this country,” Comer said in a statement:

The D.C. Council’s reckless decision to allow non-U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants the right to vote in local elections is an attack on the foundation of this republic. This move by the Council is irresponsible and will only exacerbate the ongoing border crisis, subvert the voices of American citizens, and open the door for foreign adversaries to peddle influence in our nation’s capital. [Emphasis added]

It should go without saying: only Americans should have the power to influence local policy and guide their hard-earned taxpayer dollars to important initiatives. All Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, should strongly oppose this radical effort by the D.C. Council and support this Joint Resolution. [Emphasis added]

If House Republicans are able to pass the resolution, it would advance to the Senate, where it would need to pass and be signed by President Joe Biden to prevent the D.C. law from taking effect.

Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Michael Cloud (R-TX), Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Pat Fallon (R-TX), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Clay Higgins (R-LA), Jake LaTurner (R-KS), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Ralph Norman (R-SC), August Pfluger (R-TX), Pete Sessions (R-TX), and Claudia Tenney (R-NY) originally cosponsored the resolution.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said he is preparing a similar resolution in the Senate.

“Allowing illegal immigrants to vote is an insult to every voter in America. Every single Democrat should be on the record about whether they support this insane policy,” Cotton said in a statement.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here. 

Categories
COVID Links from other news sources. Reprints from others.

But, but, their boosters had boosters. Was the Golden Globes a Vaccine Booster C Spreader event?

Jamie Lee Curtis Tests Positive for COVID After Golden Globes, And Fans Are Concerned Awards Show Was Super-Spreader Event © Provided by MovieWeb

So we have this shin dig called the Golden Globes and guess what? It may be the new thing with the booster vaccinated crowd. Get boosted and spread COVID. We have this from Movie Web.

Just days after presenting at Tuesday’s Golden Globes ceremony, Everything Everywhere All at Once star Jamie Lee Curtis shared that she tested positive for COVID-19.

Curtis took to social media to announce the results, posting a picture of three positive rapid antigen tests and sharing that she would be sitting out of some other upcoming award season events.

“F–k COVID! Sadly, this head cheerleader is not going to be at all the weekend festivities cheering on her friends and colleagues. Life on life’s terms,” the actress wrote in the accompanying caption.

View this post on Instagram

“I’m glad that there are all these home tests available so that I didn’t go to the @americanfilminstitute lunch and spread my germs. I was SO looking forward to going to the @bafta tea and the @criticschoice awards as a nominee and member of a motley crew. I’m so proud of these people, and I look forward to cheering them on through my TV set. Stay safe out there people,” she added.

With hardly anyone in attendance wearing a mask and over 11,000 reported cases in Beverly Hills (where the ceremony took place), the Golden Globes had all the makings of a “super-spreader” event, and some say it’s only a matter of time before more stars fall ill—especially as stars return to the social award circuit.

“Hoping for the best for Jamie Lee Curtis after testing positive for COVID,” one user wrote. “I think it’s clear the Golden Globes will have been a super-spreader event, and I wonder how many people are going to travel to Sundance knowingly or unknowingly with it?”

Others called for a return to widespread masking and virtual or limited award events.

“Jamie Lee Curtis was at the very maskless #GoldenGlobes and I’m just BEGGING people to 1.) wear a f–king mask (correctly! and preferably a high quality one),” another user wrote. “And 2.) stop going to these big a– gatherings. Find/advocate for another way!”

The Beverly Hilton has a capacity of 600 guests.

Categories
Reprints from others. Uncategorized

An unlikely threat to popular democracy in California

Dozens of fast-food workers from around the state, including Yolanda Meneses of San Diego, gathered outside the office of state Sen. Dave Mins, D-Irvine on Wednesday, July 27, 2022, asking for his support of AB 257. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Back in 1911, concerned that the Legislature was bowing to the special interests of the powerful railroad lobby, California voters heeded their governor’s call to take “the first step in our design to preserve and perpetuate popular government.”

They then took the historic act of enacting their right to bypass the Legislature by adopting the People’s right to enact legislation (the right to initiative), to approve statutes before they can take effect (the right to referendum), and to recall elected officers.

On Friday, a California court is expected to decide whether a state agency can nonetheless implement a law that is subject to a referendum before the voters have had an opportunity to approve it.

The law in question – Assembly Bill 257 – establishes a 10-member “Fast Food Council” which would have the authority to establish higher standards for wages, working hours, and working conditions for a select group of fast food restaurant workers.  Most significantly, the council could increase by 42% the minimum wage for certain fast food workers from the State’s current minimum wage of $15.50 per hour to $22 per hour in 2023, with further increases in subsequent years.

Such significant increases in minimum wages will necessarily raise the cost of fast food at many fast food restaurants to the detriment of all Californians solely to benefit the pocket books of some Californians.  And putting aside the Orwellian terminology of designating as a “minimum wage” a wage that far exceeds the minimum, a higher minimum wage for only some workers in the same community subject to the same cost of living as other workers constitutes political favoritism, not a solution.  Even the Governor’s own Department of Finance warned that the bill “could lead to a fragmented regulatory and legal environment for employers and raise long-term costs.”

In response to the new law, a coalition of restaurants timely collected over one million signatures in a referendum petition to suspend the law until Californians could vote on it.  That is over 60% more signatures than the amount necessary to trigger the right to a referendum.

Nonetheless, the director of the California Department of Industrial Relations, which will oversee the new council, said her department would implement the new law commencing January 1 while county election officials continue to verify the genuineness of the thousands of signatures on the referendum petition.

The director’s position conflicts with the very purpose of the People’s referendum power: to require that a law be approved by the voters before it takes effect.

Moreover, her position, if upheld, sets a dangerous precedent for the People’s right to hold a referendum on the hundreds of bills enacted at the end of each two-year legislative session on August 31 since signatures on a referendum petition are unlikely to be verified before the bills take effect on the following January 1.  That is because the governor has until September 30 to sign bills; referendum proponents then have 90 days to collect the required signatures (or as late as December 29); and those hundreds of thousands of signatures could never be verified as genuine by January 1.

Fortunately, neither the California Constitution nor its Elections Code requires the suspension of a statute to await the counties’ verification of the signatures, as argued by the director.  Under the California Constitution, the presentation of a referendum petition “certified” to be signed by the required number of voters suspends the statute. And the Constitution delegates to the Legislature “the manner in which a [referendum] petition shall be circulated, presented, and certified.”

 

The Legislature has specifically provided that the circulator of the referendum petition shall “certify” that “each signature is the genuine signature of the person whose name it purports to be,” and that the “Petitions so verified shall be prima facie evidence that the signatures are genuine and that the persons are qualified voters.”

 

In other words, once the California Secretary of State determined on December 9, 2022, that the referendum petition here had significantly more than the required number of signatures, it was presumed to contain the genuine signatures of qualified voters until demonstrated to the contrary, thereby suspending the legislation.

The director’s position fails to honor the People’s right to approve legislation before it becomes effective, and weakens their right to reject special-interest legislation.  If the director won’t change her position, the courts should stand up for popular democracy and require her to do so.

Daniel M. Kolkey, an attorney and a retired California judge, has advised four different state governors and chairs Pacific Research Institute’s California reform committee