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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Leftist Virtue(!) Polls Privacy

Report Critical of Group Managing Voter Rolls in 33 States & DC

A voter fills out his ballot in Palos Hills, Illinois, on primary day June 28, 2022. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)

Visits: 11

By Beth Brelje for Epoch Times Aug. 21, 2022 Updated: Aug. 23, 2022

Personal information of 56 million voters shared

Your voter registration shouldn’t be used by another person to cast a ballot.

When someone moves or dies, their name should be removed from the registered voters’ roll so it can’t be used to vote. The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993 requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible people from voter rolls.

It’s usually handled at the county or state level, but today, 33 states and the District of Columbia, are outsourcing parts of this task to the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).

According to a report by Verity Vote, ERIC, which claims that it’s nonpartisan, is actually connected to left-leaning backers and engages in a host of troubling practices that could sway elections across the nation.

Verity Vote is a group of citizen volunteers with professional data research and investigation backgrounds who examine election integrity throughout the country.

New Jersey and Massachusetts joined ERIC in August. The other ERIC member states are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, plus Washington, D.C.

In a July 13 letter, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin gave notice that the state was officially dropping its ERIC membership. This followed a January statement in which Ardoin announced that Louisiana was suspending participation in the voter registration agreement “effective immediately,” citing concerns about questionable funding sources and the possibility of partisan actors having access to ERIC data for political purposes, potentially undermining voter confidence.

The Epoch Times has reached out to ERIC and a connected organization, the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), for comment. Neither of the nonprofit organizations responded.

Partisan Leanings

David Becker is CEIR’s director and founder. He also founded and is still a board member of ERIC. Becker didn’t respond to a request for comment.

According to its website, “CEIR’s mission is to restore trust in the American election system and promote election procedures that encourage participation and ensure election integrity and security.”

But CEIR leans to the left with its assertion dismissing the election integrity concerns of many Republicans over the 2020 election, saying: “The 2020 general election was the most secure in American history.”

It calls claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent “The Big Lie,” and the CEIR website states that the majority of the GOP and Trump supporters see conspiracies—some of which U.S. media outlets had previously raised concerns about—assume the worst about election integrity, and are pushing harmful, unnecessary new election laws.

Before forming ERIC and CEIR, Becker was a senior staff attorney at the left-leaning People for the American Way and director of election initiatives at Pew Charitable Trusts, according to Influence Watch.

In 2020, CEIR received nearly $70 million from the left-leaning Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and distributed $64 million in grants to fund “urgent voter education assistance” in 23 different states, with the largest amounts going to Pennsylvania ($13.2 million) and Michigan ($11.9 million).

On its tax-exempt 990 form, ERIC describes itself as working to improve the accuracy of U.S. voter rolls by providing member states with information on voter registration records that are inaccurate because of voters moving or dying. ERIC provides lists of possible ineligible voters, then states may contact them by mail to verify the information, then adjust the voter rolls.

Verity Vote found that states are slightly better at this than ERIC. While non-ERIC states removed an average of 2.3 percent from voter rolls, ERIC states removed an average of 1.9 percent.

Using the data that states provide, ERIC also runs a get-out-the-vote operation, giving lists of eligible but unregistered (EBU) residents to states a minimum of every 425 days. As per the ERIC agreement, states must contact every person on the list and inform them how to register to vote.

This results in a significant swelling of voter rolls. The report shows EBU additions consistently exceed suggested removals—by 10 times.

Sharing Private information

Member states give ERIC more than voter registration records. By agreement, they also hand over all records of individuals who went to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and other places where people are given a chance to register to vote.

In Pennsylvania, that includes state offices that provide public assistance or services to people with disabilities, armed forces recruitment centers, area agencies on aging, county mental health/mental retardation offices, centers for independent living, and the county clerk of court. It’s similar in other states.

In the right hands, personal information gleaned from these agencies could predict which political party a person may belong to.

Since voter registration is offered in these places, all personal information is shared with ERIC, even if the individual didn’t register to vote, Verity Vote found.

“This appears to violate federal law,” the report reads. “The NVRA prohibits states from sharing any records that relate to a declination to register to vote, or to the identity of a voter registration agency through which any particular voter is registered.”

ERIC’s website states that it has handled 56 million voters.

Although ERIC is required to protect personally identifiable information, the report documents how ERIC shares the data with CEIR.

“CEIR is creating the lists of voters who should be targeted for voter registration efforts and laundering the lists back through ERIC for distribution to the states,” the report reads.

In September 2021, Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers investigating the 2020 election subpoenaed the Department of State, requesting detailed voter lists including name, date of birth, driver’s license number, last four digits of Social Security number, address, and, date of last voting activity.

The Democratic governor, state lawmakers, and secretary of state went to court to block access, citing the protection of voters’ personal information.

In court papers, the Department of State stated that it couldn’t provide the information to investigators because “bad actors who gain access to this information would have all the data they need to control the voters’ registrations, and even their votes.”

Verity Vote noted in its report that the Department of State “was comfortable sharing data about voters and citizens who have chosen not to register to vote with Zuckerberg funded CEIR but went to court to keep that data from the Pennsylvania Senate.”

Targeted Communication

Imagine the power to text targeted voters on election day. CEIR is launching a free service for election officials called REVERE, aimed at combating disinformation in real time, according to the report.

It’s unclear who gets to define what constitutes disinformation.

In a communication from Becker to an official in Georgia, Becker describes REVERE’s power.

“REVERE will enable states to draw on phone numbers and email addresses contained in the voter file, and send texts, emails, and even voicemails to any set of voters (a particular precinct or county, older voters, etc.) rapidly. This will allow states to proactively communicate with voters about how to vote effectively (deadlines, early voting, etc.), send links to official websites (drop box and early voting locations), and rapidly respond to disinformation,” he wrote.

In its report, Verity Vote asks if it’s proper to entangle the private motivations of CEIR and ERIC with the governmental role to execute elections, placing the power to judge what’s disinformation—and whom to distribute it to—in the hands of this public/private partnership.

 

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Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Drugs Faked news Leftist Virtue(!) Reprints from others.

D.C.’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate will hurt those its meant to protect

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It would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school

By Pierre Kory – – Tuesday, August 23, 2022

OPINION:

While the attention was focused on Mar-a-Lago, Denmark made major news by banning the COVID-19 vaccine for children under age 18. You read that correctly: The Scandinavian nation, often heralded by pro-vaccine liberal politicians as a health model for the United States, issued a policy declaring it “no longer be possible” for young people to get vaccinated, citing the low risk posed by the virus.

Meanwhile, back home, the Biden administration, whose inner circle includes secret consultants for Pfizer, is for the most part letting states move forward with a similar laissez-faire attitude toward vaccination requirements with one notable exception: Washington, D.C., which is requiring all students over the age of 12 receive a vaccine.

The discrepancy between the treatment of children in our nation’s capital and the rest of the country reflects a deeper disconnect ripping our nation apart. It also undermines President Biden’s commitment to racial equity. On the campaign trail, Mr. Biden, who owes his 2020 victory to Black voters in South Carolina, turned heads by declaring, “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump then you ain’t Black.” On Inauguration Day, he signed an executive order outlining his “comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all.”

Yet when Team Biden moved back to Washington, they found a region moving away from its “Chocolate City” roots. In 1977 when Mr. Biden was a first-term senator, D.C. was 77% Black. Today, that number has been cut nearly in half to just 41%.

The city’s gentrification has deepened inequality. Every latte shop or yoga studio in the Navy Yard or Logan Circle pushes lower-income Washingtonians east of the Anacostia River, where Wards 7 and 8 remain nearly 80% Black and with average income less than half its counterparts across the river.

If enforced, Washington’s vaccine mandate would bar nearly two-thirds of Black adolescents from attending school, creating another obstacle for a population government should be empowering. The elite ruling class is happy to plaster “Black Lives Matters” stickers on their Teslas while supporting policies that hold back the next generation mere miles away.

Over socially distanced glasses of chardonnay, well-to-do Beltway residents cling to their COVID-19 narrative where vaccines funded by the big pharmaceutical companies offer the only hope. In their world, no one — not even children — is safe without a vaccine. Anyone who dares deviate from the company line is dismissed as a backwater Trump-supporting conspiracist, even lifelong Democrats like me.

They ignore data that challenges their point of view, including data finding 70% of U.S. public schools reported an increase in students seeking mental health services since the start of the pandemic, or a Harvard University study showing “remote instruction was a primary driver of widening achievement gaps.”

These districts are not in places where parents can earn their six-figure salaries from Zoom, ordering Uber Eats and enjoying a steady diet of Netflix.

As a medical doctor who has helped more than 700 patients recover from COVID-19 and its complications, I have treated numerous adults and children injured by the vaccine and can assure you that there is a significant cause for concern. I’ve outlined the large and growing body of data on the injury risks of COVID-19 vaccinations — particularly among healthy children — which you can read in a vaccine exemption letter that I provided to concerned parents who wanted to send their children to summer camp without exposing them to these risks.

Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64

The true scope of harm is difficult to grasp because our public health agencies refuse to engage in the debate for fear of undermining their preferred narrative. But there are plenty of signals. Consider the large, unexplained rise in U.S. life insurance claims among working Americans of ages 18-64 beginning in early to mid-2021, when the vaccination campaign began. A similar trend is evident in German health insurance claims data — and the CEO of one of the country’s largest health insurance companies was fired for releasing data suggesting the government was concealing the extent of vaccine injuries.

Two years ago, candidate Joe Biden pledged to “shut down the virus.” Now, with more deaths on his watch than his predecessor’s, he and his allies still refuse to change course. Instead, they are clinging to a failed political agenda, sacrificing the next generation at its altar. Washington’s vaccine mandates will hurt Black children the most, undermining Mr. Biden’s equity agenda. In November, let’s hope a reckoning is brewing for those who have suffered the most from a failed public health response. Our children, especially the most underserved, depend on it.

 Dr. Pierre Kory is president and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance.

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Uncategorized Biden Pandemic COVID Faked news Leftist Virtue(!) Medicine Opinion Politics Reprints from others. Science

Dr. Fauci’s Legacy

Dr. Fauci testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing. (Tom Williams via Getty Images)

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A reprint from one of the writers from substack.

Anthony Fauci is ending his long and celebrated government career by being widely lauded for getting so much so very wrong on Covid-19.

Now 81 years old, Dr. Fauci has spent 38 years as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. He has been rightly honored for his many contributions over the decades, most notably during the fight against AIDS, for which he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. But to Covid-19 he brought a monomaniacal focus on vanquishing a single virus, whatever the cost—neglecting the damage that can follow when public health loses sight of the public’s health.

As the lead medical authority to two administrations on Covid-19, Dr. Fauci was unwavering in his advocacy for draconian policies. What were the impact of those policies on millions of Americans? And what would the country look like now had our public health experts taken a different approach? As Dr. Fauci is preparing to leave his post, those are a few of the questions worth asking as we consider his various Covid-19 legacies.

Dr. Fauci attends the National AIDS Update Conference in San Francisco on Oct. 12, 1989. (Deanne Fitzmaurice via Getty Images)

On Children:

Very early on in this pandemic, we knew that there was an extremely stratified risk from Covid. The elderly and those with co-morbidities were especially vulnerable, while children were extremely unlikely to get dangerously ill.

Instead of acting on the good news for children—or drawing on the ample experience in Scandinavian and European countries where schools were open and students were without masks—American kids were seen as vectors of disease. Young children were forced to wear masks inside school and out, affecting the language and social development of many. The effects of school closures will play out for decades, but we already know that children suffered major learning loss, and many left school never to return. Throughout the pandemic, Dr. Fauci supported the most oppressive restrictions for children, including school closures and mandatory cloth masking.

Yesterday on Fox Neil Cavuto asked Dr. Fauci whether Covid restrictions “went too far” and if they “forever damaged” the children “who couldn’t go to school except remotely.” Dr. Fauci replied: “I don’t think it’s forever irreparably damaged anyone.”

Parents know otherwise.

A generation is coping with learning loss, and the impact has been the worst in poor and minority communities. According to the Brookings Institute, test-score gaps between students in low-poverty and high-poverty elementary schools grew by approximately 20 percent in math and 15 percent in reading over the pandemic. Meantime, anxiety and depression have hit record highs among young Americans, and the surgeon general has described a youth mental health crisis. Of all of Dr. Fauci’s legacies, this might be the gravest.

On Research:

Dr. Fauci let basic research questions about the nature of the Covid-19 virus go unanswered. Somehow, despite the NIH’s more than $45 billion budget, only 2 percent of grants went to basic Covid research while billions of federal money was invested in developing vaccines, according to a study conducted by my colleagues at Johns Hopkins and I.

The federal government failed to conduct timely studies on the following: masks; the susceptibility of people in nursing homes; natural immunity; wastewater data; vaccine-induced heart injury in young people; and the optimal interval between the first two vaccine doses.

In short, Dr. Fauci didn’t deliver the basic research we needed so that public policy would be shaped by the best science. Because policymakers lacked good evidence to support their dictates, political opinions filled the void. So Covid-19 became a highly politicized health emergency—to all of our detriment.

On Natural Immunity:

One of the most inexplicable decisions by Dr. Fauci and his team was to ignore natural immunity—that is, the immune response generated by contracting Covid-19.  As the evidence mounted that having had the virus was as good as—perhaps even better than—a vaccine, Dr. Fauci and his circle ignored it.

When Dr. Sanjay Gupta asked Dr. Fauci in the Fall of 2021 on CNN: “As we talk about vaccine mandates, I get calls all the time, people say I already had Covid, I’m protected, and now the study says even more protected than the vaccine alone. How do you make the case to them?” Dr. Fauci answered: “I don’t have a really firm answer for you on that.”

Hundreds of studies have now shown that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and that the level of protection vaccines have against severe disease is at the same level of natural immunity alone.

But Dr. Fauci didn’t talk about it.

Americans had circulating antibodies against the virus, but they were antibodies that Dr. Fauci seemed to ignore. The upshot was that thousands of Americans lost their jobs for their choice not to get vaccinated. Some of those Americans were nurses, pilots, truck drivers, and dock workers central to the American supply chain of food, medication, and other essential products. This summer, more than 60,000 National Guard and Reserve soldiers who refused the Covid-19 vaccine were not allowed to participate in their military duties and lost pay and benefits. All of these people should have their jobs reinstated.

On Dissent:

Any physician who has met Dr. Fauci will agree that he is one of the kindest, most charming human beings you will ever meet. That’s why it was so jarring to witness the way that he and Dr. Francis Collins, his close friend and former director of the NIH, denigrated dissent on Covid-19.

Just ask the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration—the open letter published in October 2020 that called for focused protection of the most vulnerable instead of blanket shutdowns of schools and businesses. It was authored by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford, Dr. Sunetra Gupta of Oxford, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, then of Harvard, and it was signed by tens of thousands of doctors and scientists.

Drs. Fauci and Collins never talked to these prominent authors to discuss their differing points of view. Instead, they criticized them.

Four days after the Great Barrington Declaration was published, Dr. Collins sent an email to Dr. Fauci in which he called the authors “fringe epidemiologists.” “There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” Dr. Collins wrote. “I don’t see anything like that on line yet—is it underway?” Dr. Fauci replied: “Francis: I am pasting in below a piece from Wired that debunks this theory.” Soon after, big tech platforms like Facebook and Google followed suit, suppressing their ideas and falsely deeming them “misinformation.”

The ultimate irony is that federal officials are now endorsing many of the policies the Great Barrington Declaration authors suggested, insisting schools stay open and quietly ending isolation and quarantine requirements. In the end, Sweden, which adopted many principles in the Great Barrington Declaration, had roughly half the Covid deaths as Michigan, despite having the same population, percent of elderly, and climate.

If dissent had been welcomed from the start—which is what science demands—a lot of suffering could have been avoided.

On Science:

Here’s what Dr. Fauci and other public health authorities could have been saying from the start: We strive to provide you with the best information and recommendations, but in the face of an emergency we will surely make mistakes. We will sometimes change our minds. We may even reverse our guidance. But we will always own up to our mistakes, explain our policy changes and strive to do better. Instead, Dr. Fauci admitted to telling noble lies.

Covid brought us the concept of “The Science.” Dr. Fauci famously said last year: “Attacks on me, quite frankly, are attacks on science.” But no person embodies science. To suggest as much betrays a cast of mind that is entirely at odds with science itself.

On Leadership:

George Washington was onto something when he decided to limit his presidency to two terms. New leaders don’t just avoid the risk of too much power concentrated in the hands of one person or group, they also bring new ideas. New perspectives are especially important to accelerating scientific inquiry by challenging deeply held assumptions. In his long tenure, Dr. Fauci made tremendous contributions, but during this crisis we needed someone at the top who took a broad view of how to fight a novel virus, and made recommendations based on weighing the direct and indirect consequences to society.

How to Regain Trust:

We now face the threat of a future pandemic in a country in which a large number of people no longer trust public health authorities. What happens when we have a novel, highly contagious, airborne virus with a much higher fatality rate than that of Covid-19?

We desperately need to rebuild public trust now. That begins by having public health officials apologize for being dogmatic in their pronouncements, when the correct answer should have been: “We don’t know.” One lesson we should all learn from Covid-19 is that we should not put our entire faith and trust in one physician.

Dr. Marty Makary is a public health expert, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the author of the bestselling book The Price We Pay.

His last piece for Common Sense was about top doctors and scientists at the NIH, FDA and CDC who are alarmed at the direction of those institutions. Read it here.

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Categories
History Leftist Virtue(!) Opinion Politics Progressive Racism Reprints from others.

What can happen when you go after hate speech leftists and race baiters?

Visits: 33

A bizarre string of events is unfolding at the American Historical Association (AHA). Last week, AHA president James H. Sweet published a column in the organization’s magazine on the problem of “presentism” in academic historical writing. According to Sweet, an unsettling number of academic historians have allowed their political views in the present to shape and distort their interpretations of the past.

Sweet offered a gentle criticism of the New York Times’s 1619 Project as evidence of this pattern. Many historians embraced the 1619 Project for its political messages despite substantive flaws of fact and interpretation in its content. Sweet thus asked: “As journalism, the project is powerful and effective, but is it history?”

Within moments of his column appearing online, all hell broke loose on Twitter.

Incensed at even the mildest suggestion that politicization is undermining the integrity of historical scholarship, the activist wing of the history profession showed up on the AHA’s thread and began demanding Sweet’s cancellation. Cate Denial, a professor of history at Knox College, led the charge with a widely-retweeted thread calling on colleagues to bombard the AHA’s Executive Board with emails protesting Sweet’s column. “We cannot let this fizzle,” she declared before posting a list of about 20 email addresses.

Other activist historians joined in, flooding the thread with profanity-laced attacks on Sweet’s race and gender as well as calls for his resignation over a disliked opinion column. The responses were almost universally devoid of any substance. None challenged Sweet’s argument in any meaningful way. It was sufficient enough for him to have harbored the “wrong” thoughts – to have questioned the scholarly rigor of activism-infused historical writing, and to have criticized the 1619 Project in even the mildest terms.

New York Times columnist and 1619 Project contributor Jamie Bouie jumped in, casually dismissing Sweet’s concerns over the politicization of scholarship with contemporary “social justice” issues. 1619 Project creator Nikole Hannah-Jones retweeted the attacks on Sweet, even though she has previously invoked the “journalistic” and editorial nature of her project to shield it from scholarly criticism by historians.

Other activist historians such as the New School’s Claire Potter retorted that the 1619 Project was indeed scholarly history, insisting that “big chunks of it are written by professional, award-winning historians.” Sweet was therefore in the wrong to call it journalism, or to question its scholarly accuracy. Potter’s claims are deeply misleading. Only two of the 1619 Project’s twelve feature essays were written by historians, and neither of them are specialists in the crucial period between 1776-1865, when slavery was at its peak. The controversial parts of the 1619 Project were all written by opinion journalists such as Hannah-Jones, or non-experts writing well outside of their own competencies such as Matthew Desmond.

The frenzy further exposed the very same problems in the profession that Sweet’s essay cautioned against. David Austin Walsh, a historian at the University of Virginia, took issue with historians offering any public criticism of the 1619 Project’s flaws – no matter their validity – because those criticisms are “going to be weaponized by the right.” In Walsh’s hyperpoliticized worldview, historical accuracy is wholly subordinate to the political objectives of the project. Sweet’s sin in telling the truth about the 1619 Project’s defects was being “willfully blind to the predictable political consequences of [his] public interventions.” Any argument that does not advance a narrow band of far-left political activism is not only unfit for sharing – it must be suppressed.

Within hours of the AHA’s original tweet of Sweet’s article, the cancellation campaign was in full swing. Predictably, the AHA caved to the cancellers.

One day after the offending article went live, the AHA tweeted out a “public apology” from Sweet. It reads like a forced confession statement, acknowledging the “harm” and “damage” allegedly caused by simply raising questions about the politicization of scholarship toward overtly ideological activist ends. It did not matter that Sweet’s criticisms were mild and couched in plenty of nuance, or that they even came from a center-left perspective that also criticized conservative historians for politicizing the debate around gun rights. Sweet was guilty of pointing out that partisan political activism undermines scholarly rigor when the lines between the two blur, because the overwhelming majority of that activism inside the history profession currently comes from the political left. And for that, the very same activists extracted an obsequious apology letter. Its text, reproduced below, reads like a “struggle session” for academic wrongthink.

Sweet’s apology excited the activist wing of the profession, though it did little to placate their ire. The resignation demands continued, because Sweet’s apology was “insincere” and because his argument would be used by the “wrong” people – i.e. anyone who dissents from a particular brand of progressive activist orthodoxy. Simply criticizing the 1619 Project would play into the tactics of “Right-wingers, Nazis, and other bad-faith actors” who could use Sweet’s commentary “in the service of white supremacism and misogyny” announced Kevin Gannon, a historian who’s primarily known for scolding other scholars on twitter when they deviate from the profession’s far-left orthodoxies.

In this branch of academia, it does not matter whether the 1619 Project was truthful or factually accurate. The only concerns are whether its narrative can be weaponized for a political cause or used to deflect scrutiny of the same. As is often the case in the pseudo-moralizing political crusades of academia, the loudest demands against Sweet also came from the least-productive academics – historians with thin CVs and little in the way of original scholarly research to their names, although they do maintain 24/7 Twitter feeds of progressive political commentary.

Lora Burnett, one of the more vocal cancellation crusaders after the initial article posted, scoffed at Sweet, announcing “this apology was basically, ‘sorry I made you sad but I’m still right.’” She continued: “lamenting ‘inartful expression’ is apparently easier than admitting to flawed argument, unsupported claims, and factually incorrect assertions.” Note that Burnett and the other detractors never bothered to explain how Sweet’s argument was flawed or unsupported. Nor did they attempt to pen a rebuttal, which could have produced a constructive dialogue about the role of political activism in shaping historical scholarship. It was sufficient to denounce him as guilty for holding the wrong opinions. No matter the apology that Sweet made, the campaign to eject him from the history profession’s markedly impolite company would continue.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world began to take notice of the bizarre spectacle playing out at the main professional organization for a major academic discipline. As criticisms mounted on the AHA’s twitter feed, the organization moved to shut down debate entirely. They locked their twitter account, and posted a message to members denouncing the public blowback as the product of “trolls” and “bad faith actors.”

Keep in mind that only 24 hours earlier, the AHA had no problem with hundreds of activist historians flooding their threads with actual harassing behavior by bad faith actors. It tolerated cancellation threats directed against its president, calls to flood the personal email accounts of its board with harassing messages and denunciations of Sweet, and dozens of profane, sexist, and personally degrading attacks on Sweet himself. There were no AHA denunciations of those “trolls” or their “appalling” behavior, and no statements calling for “civil discourse” while the activist Twitterstorian mobs flooded the original thread with obscenity-laced vitriol and ad hominem attacks on Sweet.

Sadly, this type of unprofessional belligerence is now the norm on History Twitter. It would never be tolerated from any other perspective than the far-left, but it is valorized in the profession as long as it serves that particular set of ideological objectives.

The final irony is that the AHA only shuttered its twitter feed from the public when it could no longer restrict the conversation to the activist mob calling for Sweet’s cancellation. It’s the same brand of intellectual closure that Sweet’s offending column warned against in its final passage: “When we foreshorten or shape history to justify rather than inform contemporary political positions, we not only undermine the discipline but threaten its very integrity.”

Phillip W. Magness

Phil Magness

Phillip W. Magness is Senior Research Faculty and Research and Education Director at the American Institute for Economic Research. He is also a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He holds a PhD and MPP from George Mason University’s School of Public Policy, and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (Houston).

Prior to joining AIER, Dr. Magness spent over a decade teaching public policy, economics, and international trade at institutions including American University, George Mason University, and Berry College.

Magness’s work encompasses the economic history of the United States and Atlantic world, with specializations in the economic dimensions of slavery and racial discrimination, the history of taxation, and measurements of economic inequality over time. He also maintains active research interest in higher education policy and the history of economic thought. In addition to his scholarship, Magness’s popular writings have appeared in numerous venues including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, Reason, National Review, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Faked news Corruption Elections Leftist Virtue(!) Politics The Courts

Pretext of “Nuclear Documents” to Attack Trump Is Quickly Blown Up

Why were they looking through Melania's lingerie?

Visits: 42

From Multiple sources:

According to the Washington Post (albeit a discredited newspaper but a reliable shill for the Washington political elite), the FBI was looking for nuclear documents in the Presidential collection Donald Trump stored at his Palm Beach estate. This speaks to the frantic desperation of the anti-Trump crowd, especially the corrupt officials that infest the leadership of the FBI and the Department of Justice. They used this ludicrous pretext to obtain a search warrant with the help of a credulous, cretinous Judge, Bruce Reinhart.

The nuclear secrets at Mar-a-Lago tale was more desperate than usual.
It lasted less than 12 hours.

U.S. federal agents were looking for documents relating to nuclear weapons when they searched former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida this week, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Having failed to produce any evidence that Trump was working with good old Vladimir Putin to destroy America’s democracy with Russiagate 1.0, the anti-Trump crowd apparently has decided to trot out another Russia-tainted meme, the ultimate red herring, to portray Donald Trump as a 21st Century Dr. Strangelove. We now know the truth.

Donald Trump was trying to build a nuclear weapon in his wine cellar at Mar A Lago.

Seriously, the theory was that Trump was building a bomb for Putin, because — you know — Russia is a technologically backward country and needs outside help. Really???

And if you believe that, I have some oceanfront property located just outside Winslow, Arizona for sale. Cash only and small bills.

Maybe we now know why the FBI was pawing through Melania Trump’s lingerie. Did they intercept a text from Trump telling his wife that she looked like a nuclear tipped cruise missile in her red Teddy. Of course, the FBI had to assume that was code word for something far more nefarious. I had to wonder why the FBI spent so much time handling and sniffing Melania’s panties and negligees.

(Maybe they are members of a “J. Edgar Hoover Cross Dressing Club,” and were looking to upgrade their outfits before their next Monkey Pox rave.)

The Deep State-Fake News cabal needs to work harder on their conspiracies.

Scott Adams, the cartoonist and author behind the Dilbert comic strip, posted a list of the most prominent deep state-fake news lies and conspiracies attacking President Donald Trump.

Here is a list of 11 previous fake news conspiracies that fell flat.

If only there were 51 principled former intelligence officials who could verify the authenticity of the latest claim.

Here is the common thread in all of the fake news hoaxes.

What this whole episode shows us is that Kamala Harris is no longer the dumbest member of the Biden team. Nope. That honor goes to Merrick Garland. He apparently believed that this scheme would discredit Trump and elevate Garland as the Clausewitz of the Biden Presidency. Warner Brothers may file a copyright infringement lawsuit against the mad Attorney General for adopting a Wile E Coyote plot. Garland strapped himself to the tip of the missile before activating the fuze that ignited the rocket. He failed to recognize that he would be riding a political nuclear bomb to his own political demise. Maybe he is just a secret admirer of Slim Pickens and wanted to recreate Pickens’ iconic moment in Dr. Strangelove.

Alright, back to serious. Trump may be right that someone may have planted a document related to nuclear weapons or nuclear technology in the boxes he had locked up. That does not incriminate Trump and is no crime. The prosecutors would have to show that Trump instructed someone on his staff to put such a document in one of the boxes. Trump may be a lot of things, but stupid and reckless are not how he became a billionaire and beat the dickens out of Hillary in 2016. Is there another Alexander Vindman lurking in the shadows keen on helping create a pretext to discredit Trump?

Trump may be a lot of things, but stupid and reckless are not how he became a billionaire and beat the dickens out of Hillary in 2016.

If Trump really was trying to hide such information why would he have instructed his attorneys to negotiate with the National Archives on getting an agreement to return the records to the Feds? In fact, if he had mens rea*, do you really think Trump would keep something so figuratively radioactive on his estate?

[*mens rea Latin, literally ‘guilty mind’; in the law “criminal intent”.]

Merrick Garland, despite his Harvard education, is not a smart man. He signed off on a warrant rather than ask Trump and his lawyers if he had such documents in his possession. Are they going for the old – he lied to me tactic that they used on General Michael Flynn? Lying to Federal Agents is a crime unless you are former FBI Chief Andrew McCabe.

Instead of doing the reasonable, lawyerly thing, Garland chose the nuclear option. It will come back to haunt him.

Trump lawyer Christina Bobb said in interviews Thursday night (8-11) that President Trump and his family in New York watched the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago Monday via closed circuit TV security cameras. Bobb said the FBI had ordered staff at Mar-a-Lago to turn the cameras off but that Trump lawyers had the cameras turned back on. [Now we know why the FBI wanted them turned off. — TPR]

CBS News reported Thursday night the Trump legal team is considering releasing video and photos of the search (excerpt):

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team is weighing whether to release the search warrant and inventory of material seized at Mar-a-Lago before a federal judge rules on the matter, according to a Florida-based attorney for Trump, Lindsey Halligan.

Earlier Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Justice Department had filed a motion to unseal the warrant and related documents, “absent objection from the former president.” Trump has until 3 p.m. Friday to respond.

His legal team is also discussing whether to release video and photos of the search, Halligan said. Two sources familiar with Trump’s legal strategy said that before FBI agents executed the warrant, they asked that Mar-a-Lago’s private security cameras be turned off. Trump’s team refused to comply.

The U.S. Secret Service, which maintains a permanent presence at the former president’s home, was not a party to the dispute over the cameras because the private club owns and controls the cameras, not the government.

It isn’t clear what any video that may have been captured by Mar-a-Lago’s cameras would show. According to Halligan, there were security cameras in Trump’s office, but not in all of the areas that were searched. She also said that there are photos of FBI personnel on the grounds.

Why does the fake news insist on lying to the American public?

Why does anyone listen to them anymore?

 

 

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Corruption Elections How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Stupid things people say or do.

MSNBC Guest: “I’m Willing to Believe in Hell Just So That Trump Has Some Place to Go in the Next Life”

MSNBC guest Elie Mystal: 'I want pitchforks and torches outside trump donors house in the Hamptons

Visits: 31

I guess this moron didn’t realize that he admitted he only believed in Hell so he (!) could consign Trump there. Does this mean he’s an atheist as well as a far-left loon? No truly religious person would say something like that.
Elie Mystal pontificating on Trump’s final destination.
This is totally normal.

A toxic, far-left MSNBC guest suffering from a severe case of TDS said he would be willing to “believe in hell” so that Trump “has some place to go in the next life.”

Elie Mystal appeared on MSNBC’s “The Cross Connection” Saturday morning with host Tiffany Cross and obsessed over Trump.

The lefty media is still obsessing over Trump.

They just can’t quit President Trump.

Elie Mystal and Tiffany Cross discussed the January 6 hearings even though nobody outside of the beltway cares about the J6 Committee.

“Will we ever see Trump held accountable for all the things that have come out in the January 6 hearings?” Tiffany Cross queried.

“Look, I’m willing to believe in Hell just so that Trump has some place to go in the next life to be held accountable,” Elie Mystal said as Tiffany Cross smiled.

He continued, “In this life it’s still up in the air.”

Joe Biden’s America is a dumpster fire.

The main reason why far-left networks like MSNBC and CNN continue to obsess over Trump is because Joe Biden’s America is a dumpster fire.

Biden tested positive for Covid the second time on Saturday as his poll numbers crater.

Inflation is at 40-year highs.

Gas prices are more than $5 a gallon in many states.

Americans are waiting in bread lines as food banks run out of food.

A record container backlog is developing on the East Coast.

The US is now experiencing shortages of baby formula, tampons, peanut butter, Halloween candy and other important commodities thanks to Joe Biden.

But MSNBC is talking about the January 6 hearings and fantasizing about Trump spending an eternity in hell.

Previously, in 2019, again on MSNBC, he also said:

‘I want pitchforks and torches outside’ Trump donor’s house in the Hamptons

A real nice guy. A thoughtful, respectful speaker. Graduate of Harvard. [Explicative, deleted]

 

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Corruption Leftist Virtue(!) Politics The Courts

Dems Driving Badly – Part Two: Lori Lightfoot

Why were they interested in Melania's lingerie?

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Lightfoot Wants Chicago Drivers Under Constant Surveillance, But Look at What a Camera Caught Her SUV Doing

Chicago drivers are increasingly subjected to speed limit and red-light cameras that automatically send out millions in fines every year, and if they don’t pay, they can lose their driver’s license.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s motorcade reportedly has racked up hundreds of dollars in fines that she has refused to pay — without any consequence at all.

According to a review of public records by CWB Chicago, Lightfoot’s police-driven SUVs have been recorded exceeding the speed limit and going through red lights by the city’s traffic camera system several times in the last year — and none of the fines has been paid.

Several other cars registered to her motorcade also have had fines assessed but never paid, the report said.

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CWB Chicago even found that one of the vehicles is now eligible for booting and being impounded because the fines are so far in arrears.

Worst of all, two of the speeding incidents occurred while Lightfoot’s SUVs were driving through school zones while exceeding the speed limit.

The report said none of the $658 in fines accumulated by the mayor’s motorcade since May 2021 has been paid.

But this is not just a recent habit. Her motorcade cars have a long history of breaking traffic laws, getting tickets and fines, and never paying them. It has been so bad that the city has gotten in a habit of just forgiving them because they never get paid anyway, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2020.

The mayor’s office released a statement after this latest news claiming that Lightfoot’s motorcade sometimes breaks the law for the mayor’s “safety.”

“The Mayor’s Detail is responsible for the safety and security of Mayor Lightfoot. Members of the Mayor’s Detail are trained in a variety of safety and security techniques to keep the Mayor safe and that includes both vehicles staying in formation while en route,” the statement said, according to CWB Chicago.

The office said fines are often paid late because the tickets go through an “administrative process to review if City vehicles were in use for safety or security reasons.”

Fines are paid after that process, and the detail’s drivers are responsible to pay them, Lightfoot’s office said.

Of course, even as she refuses to pay her traffic fines, the mayor has fought to make sure her constituents aren’t allowed any breaks from paying theirs.

Recently, for instance, a Chicago alderman tried to push through a rule giving drivers a 10 mph buffer in driving over the limit before tickets are sent in the mail. But Lightfoot fought against that idea because she wants more revenue from tickets.

“The last thing we need is to give people who are breaking the law the license to go faster,” the mayor said last month, according to the Chicago Tribune. “No one likes speed cameras. I get it. But this is life or death that we’re talking about here, and we’ve got to step up as a city and address this.”

Lightfoot also mined the Democrat’s favorite excuse for more rules by claiming it’s “for the children.”

“It makes no sense for us to increase the speed around the parks and schools when we know what the horrific consequences are for pedestrians and other drivers,” Lightfoot said, according to WBBM-TV.

But it’s for the children, don’t you know?

The conservative Illinois Policy Institute reported that since the threshold was lowered to 6 mph last year, Chicago has issued an additional 3.8 million tickets that have brought the city $80 million in revenue. But it’s for the children, don’t you know?

All this is nothing new. Chicago in particular and Illinois in general have had a long, dirty history with red-light cameras. As Chicago Sun-Times columnist Phil Kadner wrote in 2020, “Red-light cameras have been one of the slickest scams ever perpetrated on citizens by their own government.”

The state’s traffic cameras have been rife with corruption, with public scandals, bribery charges and criminal indictments of the red-light camera industry in Illinois that make a mockery of the typical Democratic claim that these cameras are unbiased arbiters of traffic laws.

In 2016, a Chicago official was sent to jail for corruption in the city’s red-light camera program. More recently, Martin Sandoval, who was an Illinois state senator, pleaded guilty to taking $250,000 in bribes for a red-light camera company, the Illinois Policy Institute noted.

Meanwhile, Illinois drivers continue to lose billions of their hard-earned money to these electronic surveillance state devices.

Between 2008 and 2018 alone, drivers were forced to pay $1.1 billion in fines — which amounts to $100 every 33 seconds, the institute said.

In the end, though, it appears that only the little people have to pay these fines, with Lightfoot and others seemingly exempt from the laws they force upon others.

Do you think Democrats feel their political office exempts them from following the law?
Yes: 99% (2831 Votes)
No: 1% (18 Votes)

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Leftist Virtue(!) Politics The Courts

Dem’s Driving Badly – Part one

Elected Dems Driving Badly

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Shocking Video: Democrat Official Smashes SUV Into Cyclist, Speeds Away Without Stopping

Imagine finding out that the hit-and-run motorist that injured you is your Democrat city council representative.

Jersey City Councilwoman Amy DeGise allegedly left the scene of a car crash that sent a cyclist flying earlier this month.

DeGise appeared to have the right of way when she collided with delivery cyclist Andrew Black on July 19, according to the New York Post.

However, video footage of the crash shows a Nissan Rogue driving on after the collision, seemingly not stopping after what could’ve been a fatal accident.

Street camera footage also shows an intensely violent collision between Black and the vehicle.

At least one Jersey City councilman has called for DeGise to resign from the Jersey City Council over her involvement in the incident. Denise has been charged with failure to report an accident and leaving the scene, according to New York WCBS.

Black, a devout Mormon, is pointing to his lack of physical injuries as a sign of divine

In an interview with hudpost.com, the delivery cyclist has said the collision has left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Black was surprised to learn that the motorist that drove away from the accident was a Jersey City elected official.

“Someone of prestige [who is] demanding to uphold and clean our streets or whatever they’re calling it… can’t even do it themselves,” said the 29-year-old man. “It really upset me.”

DeGise identifies herself as the chairwoman of the Hudson County Democrats on her Twitter page.

The councilwoman, who is the daughter of longtime Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise, declined to get into specifics of the accident in a statement provided to the Hudson County View.

“I acknowledge this unfortunate event yesterday and I’m thankful that no one was seriously hurt.”

“While the traffic summons that was issued is dealt with in court I will not be able to make any additional comment at this time.”

When asked about the incident, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop criticized DeGise’s actions without calling on her to resign.

“You should never leave the scene of a crash. I think the responsible thing is to wait for law enforcement and follow the law,” said Fulop, according to the New Jersey Globe.

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Crime How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Progressive Racism

Maybe the family who was shot at is the victim here?

Minneapolis police shoot, kill man after 6-hour standoff in apartment building Minneapolis police shot and killed a man following an hours-long standoff at an apartment building in the Seward neighborhood where multiple shots were fired. FOX9 Video

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Last weekend we had a situation where Minneapolis PD had to take down ( good shoot ) a person who was firing away. A woman was in fear for her life and two sons because bullets were coming through her apartment wall. After a six hour standoff police snipers took the man out.

So what happens is that a group of protestors show up to defend the shooter. SMH.

Protestors gathered to express their rage that police shot Andrew “Tekle” Sundberg, a black man who was shooting into his neighbors apartment where Arabella Yarbrough and her children live, leaving bullet holes in their kitchen. As Yarbrough stands outside trying to get the crowd to disperse, protestors scream at her: “You’re alive, shut up!” When she says, “there’s bullet holes in my kitchen,” a protester shouts back: “Not in you, though!”

I can’t do this one justice. Watch this remarkable video:

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Child Abuse Crime Education How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Reprints from others. Sexual Abuse

Growing Number of K-12 Teachers Charged With Child Sex Crimes in Recent Months

Final destination for these sleezes?

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By Jack Phillips for EPOCH TIMES — July 20, 2022
Anessa Paige Gower, a 35-year-old former biology teacher at Making Waves Academy in Richmond, California, was charged with 29 counts of child molestation on April 8. 

Anessa Paige Gower, a 35-year-old former biology teacher at Making Waves Academy in Richmond, California, was charged with 29 counts of child molestation on April 8.  (Richmond Police Department)

140 of the arrests, or 77%, involved alleged sex crimes against students

At least 181 K-12 teachers, principals, and staff have been arrested for child sex crimes in the United States so far this year, according to an analysis of reports.

At least 181 educators been arrested between Jan. 1 and June 30. The analysis conducted by Fox News Digital looked at local news stories week by week featuring arrests of principals, teachers, substitute teachers and teachers’ aides on child sex-related crimes in school districts across the country. Arrests that weren’t publicized were not counted in the analysis, meaning the true number may well be higher.

The analysis found that at least 181 have been arrested between January 1 and June 30, which works out to exactly an arrest a day on average

Four principals, 153 teachers, 12 substitute teachers, and 12 teachers were arrested on a litany of charges, including sexually assaulting students and possessing child pornography. About 140 of those who were arrested carried out alleged crimes against students.  Men also made up the vast majority – 78% – of the arrests.

Many of the arrests involved especially heinous allegations.

Roger Weaver Freed, the 34-year-old former principal at Williamsport Area High School in Pennsylvania, was arrested in June and charged with sexual contact with a student, corruption of a minor, furnishing liquor to a minor, sexual assault and aggravated indecent assault without consent. Freed is accused of having a years-long sexual relationship with a male student. (Too close for comfort for me — TPR)

An educator in Delaware, identified as High Road School teacher James Garfield, was arrested last week for allegedly assaulting a 15-year-old student. He was charged with two counts of felony rape and related charges, according to local media.

Days before that, another teacher in Warren, Pennsylvania, was arrested and charged after he allegedly sexually assaulted a 15-year-old student. He was charged with aggravated indecent assault, institutional sexual assault, and other charges, it was reported.

Weeks before that, a Hoboken, New Jersey man admitted to raping two 17-year-old girls while he worked as a gym teacher in two different public school districts in Hudson County, New Jersey. In late June, 45-year-old Francisco Realpe pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault, prosecutors said.

Shannon Hall, a 31-year-old former teacher at Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences High School in New York City, was arrested in June and charged with forcible touching, endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated harassment. Hall is accused of grabbing a 14-year-old female student’s breast inside his classroom and of sending texts to a 16-year-old student that said he wanted to have sex with her and threatening to kill her if she told anyone.

Norman Merrill, a 45-year-old former teacher at Green Mountain Union High School in Vermont, was arrested in May and charged with production of child sexual abuse material and possession of child sexual abuse material.

Merrill is accused of secretly video recording female students walking past him at school and of producing videos showing nude children.

Anessa Paige Gower, a 35-year-old former biology teacher at Making Waves Academy in Richmond, California, was charged with 29 counts of child molestation on April 8. (see lead off photo)

Gower is accused of sexually abusing seven students between 2021-2022 when she was a teacher at Making Waves, with allegations including forcible sodomy of minors and sharing sexually graphic photos over online platforms.

John Doty, a 35-year-old former biology teacher at Career Academy South Bend in Indiana, was charged with two counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and six counts of child seduction on Feb. 9.

John Doty, a 35-year-old former biology teacher at Career Academy South Bend in Indiana, was charged with two counts of rape, one count of attempted rape and six counts of child seduction on Feb. 9.(La Porte County Sheriff’s Office) Doty is accused of repeatedly raping a 16-year-old female student and threatening to kill her. He is scheduled to stand trial in January 2023.

Christopher Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute an activist who has battled the spread of critical race theory in classrooms, called for a new study on child sex abuse in schools.

“This is a scandal that the political Left is doing everything in its power to suppress,” he said in a statement to Fox News. “The basic fact is incontrovertible: every day, a public school teacher is arrested, indicted, or convicted for child sex abuse. And yet, the teachers unions, the public school bureaucracies, and the left-wing media pretend that the abuse isn’t happening and viciously attack families who raise concerns.”

In an article published in April, Rufo noted that the Department of Education last released a report in 2004 (pdf), which said nearly 9.6 percent of students have been targeted by teachers for sexual misconduct in K-12 classrooms.

“The most comprehensive report about sexual abuse in public schools, published by the Department of Education in 2004, estimates—on the basis of a 2000 survey, conducted by the American Association of University Women, of 2,065 students in grades eight through 11—that nearly 10 percent of K-12 students have been victims of sexual misconduct by a public school employee,” he wrote.

If that figure is correct, he noted that it would “translate into an approximately 4.5 million children nationwide suffering sexual misconduct by public school employees, with an estimated 3 million suffering physical sexual abuse.” That figure, Rufo said, could be “more than 100 times greater than the physical abuse committed by Catholic priests, who, at the time the report was published, were undergoing a reckoning for the crimes within their ranks.

The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Education for comment.

This article also contains material produced by FOX News Digital.

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