Category: Politics

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Politics Reprints from others. Social Venues-Twitter

All Us “Conspiracy Theorists” Were Right: Bombshell Leak Reveals Twitter Exec Met with Feds to Discuss Censorship Plans

“Responding to misinformation is my day job. My night job is RUNNING ELECTIONS.” – CISA document 6/22/22. Name redacted, emphasis added.

Here is a disturbing story. It demonstrates intrigue, corruption, and disdain for American principles at the highest level.

Perhaps the saddest thing about this story is that you probably won’t be surprised. Especially if you’ve been paying attention for the past few years.

The story is this: Twitter and other social media platforms have been cozy with the Department of Homeland Security to squelch what DHS calls “misinformation,” “disinformation” and “malinformation,” or “MDM,” according to an investigative report published Monday by The Intercept.

But you knew that.

And maybe Elon Musk did in his purchase of Twitter last week.

Misinformation?
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Job one for Musk was to not only fire CEO Parag Agrawal but also Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and the individual responsible for booting former President Donald Trump off the platform and for censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story in the run-up to the 2020 election.

You probably remember a few months ago when DHS rolled out what it called its Disinformation Governance Board, designed to go after “MDM” on social media. A firestorm of bad publicity meant the Biden administration had to quickly yank it offstage.

But the concept is still around and Gadde has been part of it.

Gadde is a member of an advisory committee of the DHS Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). In June, the committee put out a report that essentially outlined a need to get around the First Amendment to stop “MDM” since it “poses a significant risk to critical functions like elections, public health, financial services and emergency response.”

Also, The Intercept reported on DHS documents saying the agency is going after “MDM” on “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the nature of U.S. support to Ukraine.”

In other words, DHS wants to push the Biden administration’s line on many of the controversies Americans might be discussing on social media, and attack or suppress other views that oppose it.

And Twitter has been right there in the middle of it.

Lee Fang, one of the authors of The Intercept article, tweeted that Gadde had met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship and, along with Facebook, Twitter “created special portals for the government to rapidly request takedowns of content.”

In March, top officials of Twitter and JPMorgan Chase met with Laura Dehmlow, section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force. Dehmlow said subversive information on the internet could undercut support for the U.S. government, according to notes of the meeting reported by The Intercept.

In a statement for The Intercept report, a Twitter representative said the company does not “coordinate with other entities when making content moderation decisions,” following, rather, its own rules in such situations.

Still, Twitter joined other tech companies in monthly meetings with the FBI, CISA and other government agencies to determine how to handle misinformation leading up to the 2020 elections, according to NBC News.

In 2018, DHS began notifying social media companies of what it described as voting disinformation appearing on their platforms. The following year, DHS developed the Foreign Influence and Interference Branch which morphed in 2020 to track communication regarding COVID-19, The Intercept said.

Varied U.S. intelligence agencies moderated social media surrounding the 2020 election and leading up to the November voting there were regular emails among officials of Twitter, DHS and the Center for Internet Security regarding takedown procedures for social media postings.

And while the Disinformation Governance Board was scrapped, DHS in August published a document titled “DHS Needs a Unified Strategy to Counter Disinformation Campaigns.”

Screenshot of DHS Document. Written 6/22/22

Full document can be seen here

In it, DHS intones “such campaigns may aim to erode public trust in our government and the Nation’s critical infrastructure sectors, negatively affect public discourse, or even sway elections.”

Sway elections? You think? Hasn’t that been a major aim of Silicon Valley?

Of course, DHS does not address a key foundational principle which allows for pesky ideas that the Department of Homeland Security considers “MDM.”

It’s contained in the document that proclaims, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The Founders, ever conscious of man’s corruption, knew what’s now called “MDM” would be protected by the First Amendment, but, as in other parts of the Bill of Rights, they also knew liberty was more important than government convenience.

Twitter, as The Intercept report shows, clearly has been involved in the federal government’s attempts to outsource censorship and suppression of dissent.

Musk, Twitter’s new owner, has publicly declared himself to be a “free speech absolutist.”

Clearly, something has to give.

There’s no telling where the company will go now that Musk is in charge, but he was right about one of his first major personnel moves.

Booting censorship collaborators like Gadde is an excellent start.

Special thanks to Lee Fang for this report.

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Crime Elections Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others.

Thanks Joe Biden and White Progressives. NH Man Takes a Swing At Republican Candidate Don Bolduc

Attack on the retired Admiral. Boston 25 news photo.

Before yesterdays debate, a man took a swing at Republican Don Balduc. We have this from the website Debate Politics.

Prior to the debate, an individual in the crowd gathered outside attempted to punch the General and was quickly apprehended and arrested. We are grateful to the quick response from law enforcement on the scene,” said a Bolduc campaign manager.

We have this from the retired Admiral.

“As the General said on stage tonight, it’s time to lower the temperature of the political discourse in this country.”

The Bolduc campaign spokesperson referred further questions to the Goffstown Police Department. Boston 25 contacted the department but were advised to call back Thursday morning.

Nothing from Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH). Thanks Joe Biden.

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Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Economy Elections Links from other news sources. Politics Polls

Democrats Want Amnesty For The COVID Lockdowns! (Surprise, surprise!)

Lies supposedly educated folks tell. Image Credit: The Free Thought Project

Thanks to Emerald Robinson on substack for this article.

America’s corrupt political class — Democrat and Republican — are looking to put the last two years of mask mandates, school closures, mandatory shots, and COVID lockdowns in the rear-view mirror. They don’t want to be voted out of office for destroying your life. That would be called accountability and there’s nothing that America’s ruling-class-pretending-to-be-public-servants dislike more than accountability.

Instead, they want a truce without counting the costs. They want an amnesty without judgment — and certainly without hearings. They want you to grant them toxic forgiveness.

What’s toxic forgiveness — you ask?

That’s why the ruling class sent out its useful idiots — fourth-rate people like David French and Emily Oster — to see if, you know, the American public was in the mood to forgive them right before the next election. If you are ever asked the name of the very last person on earth to believe that the COVID vaccines work, you can tell them: it was David French.

Matthew J. Peterson at New Founding summed up the Democrats’ fake apology tour in four tweets:

Hey—sorry you lost your job b/c of the vax that doesn’t work and your grandmother died alone and you couldn’t have a funeral and your brother’s business was needlessly destroyed and your kids have weird heart problems—but let’s just admit we were all wrong and call a truce, eh?
It’s too bad we shut the entire economy down & took on tyrannical powers that have never been used before in this country—looking back, you should have been able to go to church and use public parks while we let people riot in the streets—but it was a confusing time for everyone.
Hey, I’m sorry we scared the hell out of you & lied for years & persecuted & censored anyone who disagreed but there was an election going on & we really wanted to beat Donald Trump so it was important to radically politicize the science even if it destroyed your children’s lives.
OK, yes we said unvaccinated people should die & not get healthcare while never questioning Big Pharma once but we are compassionate people which is why even though we shut down the entire economy we also bankrupted the nation & caused inflation. You’re welcome! Let’s be friends.

Needless to say, our politicians and public health officials really want you to forget that they took America right to the edge of the abyss.

In fact, they have turned America into the Banana Republic of Biden — where your civil rights might exist depending on which judge you get in your state, and what you last posted on your social media accounts.

It’s no surprise that these pleas for amnesty have been published after the midterm polls showed a “red wave” forming. If the polls had gone the other way, Biden’s FBI would probably be wrangling you onto a boxcar right now headed for a FEMA camp — and you know it.

Never forgive. Never forget.

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Crime Elections History Politics

BAM! John Fetterman’s Hometown Newspaper Endorses Dr. Oz

Please get off the stage.

You know you’re in trouble when your own hometown newspaper endorses the other guy.

John Fetterman’s hometown newspaper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has endorsed Republican Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania senate race.

Newspaper endorsements rarely count for much unless they make a surprising choice that makes people take notice.

This is one of those cases.

Mr. Fetterman’s life experience and maturity are also concerns. He has lived off his family’s money for much of his life. That has allowed him to do some good things, including mentoring disadvantaged young people and working to improve community policing and economic development in Braddock.

That work, along with his six-foot-eight frame, shaved head and tattoos, attracted national media attention. Still, Mr. Fetterman, despite his hoodies and shorts, has little experience in holding real jobs or facing the problems of working people.

In 2013, as the mayor of Braddock, Mr. Fetterman, after hearing gunshots, pulled a shotgun on an unarmed Black jogger. It was, we believe, an honest mistake. Still, it’s troubling that Mr. Fetterman never apologized for it. And during Tuesday’s debate, confronted with his 2018 statement that he didn’t support fracking, Mr. Fetterman still said, with a straight face, that he always supported fracking…

Unlike most Republican politicians, candidate Oz spent a lot of time in poor urban neighborhoods, talking to people and, most important, listening and learning. He is more moderate on some issues than portrayed.

We don’t believe he will be a stooge for the far right or Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. We hope that Mr. Oz will disappoint them and serve in the Pennsylvania tradition of moderate Republicans, such U.S. Sens. John Heinz, Hugh Scott, and Richard Schweiker.

How embarrassing for John Fetterman.
Oz has an excellent chance of winning this race.

Cross posted from American Lookout and The Gateway Pundit

 

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Daily Hits. Just my own thoughts MSM Opinion Politics

You think MSM is hostile now towards Republicans and Conservatives? Watch what happens when the House or Senate or both change from Democrat control to Republican.

resetyoureveryday.com

You think MSM is hostile now towards Republicans and Conservatives ? Watch what happens when the House or Senate or both change from Democrat control to Republican.You haven’t seen nothing.

If the polls are right and we see change, you will see all types of attacks from the left. Plus Joey boy will go off on wild tangents like we’ve never seen. MSM will do numerous articles daily. You’ll see weekly Progressive media become dailies. And I for one love it.

 

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Back Door Power Grab Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Medicine Politics

Winning. Judge Tosses NYC Vaccine Mandate – Reinstates all Fired City Workers, Orders Back pay

New York – In Richmond County Supreme Court, Judge Ralph Porzio, has ruled that the vaccine mandates issued by the New York City Health Commissioner are unconstitutional and violate the separation of powers.

The ruling permits city employees to return to work effective immediately and orders back pay.

According to attorney Chad Laveglia, the judge ruled “the commissioner’s order mandating private and public employees get vaccinated was arbitrary and capricious.”

“Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid-19,” the judge stated.

[Due to Rumble and the FV player we use here not speaking to each other, we cannot supply the accompanying video, but you can see it here: Judge strikes down nyc vaccine mandate for city workers ]

While Laveglia was representing members of the Dept. of Sanitation in New York (DSNY), this ruling will impact the FDNY, NYPD, Dept. of Corrections and all other city employees who were shut down and forced to resign for refusing to cave in to an experimental emergency use vaccine.  The Gateway Pundit has previously reported on closures of firehouses in New York City that couldn’t remain open due to personnel shortages.  The Gateway Pundit also reported on a mass exodus of NYPD officers; although this was not exclusively related to the vaccine, it does pose a serious problem when the department’s numbers were already impacted greatly by the forced resignations earlier on.

The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance.

The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance.

The defendants, of course, filed a Notice of Appeal.  In New York, there are 62 courts, one for each county, representing the Supreme Court.  Despite the name, the Supreme Court in New York is not the highest court.  That position reigns with the New York Court of Appeals.  It appears as though there is still the possibility of one last battle for the DSNY employees and Mr. Laveglia.

The City of New York is represented by the New York City Law Department.  This means that the tax-payers of New York City are funding the fight to take away their own rights to work despite their personal decisions not to take an experimental vaccine that has numerous documented health implications in comparison to all other vaccines since the VAERS system began tracking adverse events.

The tax-payer funded New York City Law Department writes in their appeal:

“Did Supreme Court err in granting the petition, granting declaratory relief, and denying respondents’ cross-motion to dismiss, where, among other things, the petition is time-barred and the underlying employee vaccination requirements are entirely lawful and rational, as multiple courts have held”

In the decision from the Richmond Supreme Court, Judge Porizio writes:

“An administrative agency usurps the authority of the legislative branch when it promulgates a rule that the legislature did not delegate it the authority to make in the first
instance“

As you read the following, specifically the bold print, remember that the New York City Law Department is expending tax payer dollars to appeal this decision while costing the DSNY employees exorbitant legal fees to fight the appeal.  New York is no longer under a state of emergency, Joe Biden declared the pandemic over, and CDC guidelines for vaxxed vs unvaxxed are the same.

“The punishment is the process.”

Judge Porizio continues in his Conclusion:

“It is clear that the Health Commissioner has the authority to issue public health mandates. No one is refuting that authority.

However, the Health Commissioner cannot create a new condition of employment for City employees. The Health Commissioner cannot prohibit an employee from reporting to work. The Health Commissioner cannot terminate employees. The Mayor cannot exempt certain employees from these orders. Executive Order No. 62 renders all of these vaccine mandates arbitrary and capricious. Being vaccinated does not prevent an individual from contracting or transmitting Covid19.

As of the day of this Decision, CDC guidelines regarding quarantine and isolation are the same for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.  The Petitioners should not have been terminated for choosing not to protect themselves. We have learned through the course of the pandemic that the vaccine against Covid-19 is not absolute. Breakthrough cases occur, even for those who have been vaccinated and boosted. President Joseph Biden has said that the pandemic is over.  The State of New York ended the Covid-19 state of emergency over a month ago. 

As this Court stated in its decision in the Rivicci matter, this is not a commentary on the efficacy of vaccination, but about how we are treating our first responders, the ones who worked day-to-day through the height of the pandemic.  They worked without protective gear. They were infected with Covid-19, creating natural immunity. They continued working full duty while their exemption requests were pending. They were terminated and are willing to come back to work for the City that cast them aside.

The vaccination mandate for City employees was not just about safety and public health; it was about compliance. If it was about safety and public health, unvaccinated workers would have been placed on leave the moment the order was issued. If it was about safety and public health, the Health Commissioner would have issued city-wide mandates for vaccination for all residents. In a City with a nearly 80% vaccination rate, we shouldn’t be penalizing the people who showed up to work, at great risk to themselves and their families, while we were locked down.

 

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Crime Elections Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Two Face Tim Ryan. Vance calls Ryan’s pledge to decriminalize ‘all drug possession’ a ‘slap in the face’ of victims’ families

Fentanyl drives surge in US overdose deaths in wake of nation's opioid epidemic

 

Thanks to the folks at FOX. The whole article is here.

FIRST ON FOX: Ohio Democrat Rep. Tim Ryan was slammed by his opponent, Republican Senate candidate J.D. Vance, over his pledge to decriminalize the possession of all drugs while simultaneously pushing to label fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction.”

Ryan wants to label the deadly opioid fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction” but previously made an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pledge to decriminalize “all drug possession.”

“If Tim Ryan wants someone’s vote, he will tell them whatever they want to hear,” Vance told Fox News Digital in an exclusive quote. “The fact that he would pledge to decriminalize the deadly fentanyl flooding our streets is a slap in the face to every family in Ohio that has faced this poison head-on.”

Ryan’s 2019 ACLU pledge while running for president to cut the prison population in half. The pledge also included a provision to decriminalize “all drug possession,” which would include illicit fentanyl.

The ACLU pledge also calls for bail reform “that reduces the number of people we lock up before trial, often simply because they are too poor to afford cash bail.”

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Corruption Crime How sick is this? Politics The Law

CEO Declares San Francisco Has ‘Descended Into Chaos’ as He Pulls Company from City

The San Francisco Police Department says people should stay away from Dolores Park.
SF crime wave — mapped in 3D

Another company is calling it quits in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home city.

Outdoor active-wear brand Cotopaxi is closing its San Francisco store after only a year following rampant theft that left the store’s staff “terrified.”

The company’s founder, Davis Smith, announced the closing in a LinkedIn post Tuesday.

“It’s sad, but San Francisco appears to have descended into a city of chaos,” he wrote. “Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction.

“One of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the world is now a place where many no longer feel safe visiting or living.”

Smith’s LinkedIn post featured two photos of broken and boarded-up windows.

Smith further outlined a pattern of property crimes, theft, and burglaries affecting his company’s San Francisco location in a Thursday interview with KABC-TV.

According to San Francisco Police Department data, overall crime in San Francisco is up 7.4 percent so far this year compared to the same period last year. But that number tells only part of the story.

In some districts of the city, crime was up over 20 percent. The data also includes only those crimes reported to the police; one would expect that as crime increases and law enforcement shows a general unwillingness or inability to act, reporting would die off even though crime is alive and well.

Moreover, the SFPD uses a “hierarchy rule,” so that in incidents involving multiple reported offenses, “only the highest offense is represented in the dataset.”

In other words, the only thing we can say for sure about crime in San Francisco is that the SFPD database doesn’t capture it all.

Smith’s post not only lamented the crime but the refusal of local officials to address it.

Smith is blaming city authorities and local law enforcement for inaction in the face of the neighborhood’s condition and is closing the store until the situation improves.

“Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction,” Smith continued.

“We opened a retail store a year ago on Hayes Street, the charming shopping district just blocks away from the famous Full House home,” he wrote. “Our first week there, our windows were smashed and thousands of dollars of product was stolen. We replaced the window, and it immediately happened again (four times). We replaced with window with plywood as we waited for a month+ to get a metal security gate installed (demand for those gates is creating huge delays).”

As a result, he said, the company was left with no choice but to shutter the location, one of 10 that had been operated by Cotopaxi. The company website lists the location as “temporarily closed,” but Smith didn’t sound optimistic about the chances that it would re-open any time soon.

Security guards don’t help because these theft rings know that security guards won’t/can’t stop them.

“As of today, we are closing the store due to rampant organized theft and lack of safety for our team. Our store is hit by organized theft rings several times per week. They brazenly enter the store and grab thousands of dollars of product and walk out. We started keeping the door locked and opening it only for customers, but even then, they’ll have a woman go to the door, and then hiding individuals rush into the store as soon as the door opens.

“Our team is terrified. They feel unsafe. Security guards don’t help because these theft rings know that security guards won’t/can’t stop them.”

The rule of law is fundamental to human flourishing. Without governmental authorities bearing their sword to the terror of bad actors, chaos ensues.

“For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad,” Paul tells us in Romans. “Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

That’s why, he says, we pay taxes — a point not lost on Smith.

“It’s impossible for a retail store to operate in these circumstances, especially when cities refuse to take any action (despite us paying taxes well above any other state we operate in),” he wrote. “The city recently announced a reduction of police presence in this neighborhood, despite mass-scale crime.”

Smith expressed his sorrow at closing a shop in a city he is fond of — but that’s when he made his most striking point:

“I grew up in Latin America and spent much of my adult life there, and I never felt this unsafe there. Something has to change in San Francisco.”

This comes from two separate articles in The Western Journal.

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How sick is this? Immigration Links from other news sources. Politics Reprints from others.

Why? Biden Pressured Democrat Border Mayor Not to Declare Emergency over Illegal Immigration

US President Joe Biden speaks Qian Weizhong/VCG via Getty Images/Al Drago/Bloomberg John Binder18 Oct 2022143

No one ( except immigration deniers ) believes that this administrations border policies are working. But a new low has been hit. President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly pressured El Paso, Texas, Mayor Oscar Leeser (D) not to declare a state of emergency over illegal immigration, even as thousands arrive in the small city every few days.

The Post reports:

At least three of the El Paso City Council’s eight members have urged Mayor Oscar Leeser to issue an emergency declaration in response to the thousands of migrants who’ve filled the city’s shelters and are being housed in local hotels, sources familiar with the matter said. [Emphasis added]

But Leeser admitted during a private phone conversation last month that he’d been directed otherwise by the Biden administration, one of the officials told The Post. [Emphasis added]

“He told me the White House asked him not to,” Council member Claudia Rodriguez said. [Emphasis added]

Last week, about 2,100 border crossers and illegal aliens were arriving every day in El Paso. Since April, the city has seen more than 62,000 border crossers and illegal aliens apprehended. The figure does not include those who successfully evaded Border Patrol.

Thanks Joe Biden.

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Corruption Elections Leftist Virtue(!) Politics Reprints from others.

Democratic Pols Desperate? Obama Now Telling Them to stop Focusing on Woke issues…

The Democratic Politicians are facing a potential shellacking in November and they know it. They are desperate to come up with a winning narrative to try and stem their potential losses.

So what is Obama proposing to help Democrats do this? He’s telling them to stop focusing on woke issues so much because they are alienating people and hurting them politically

In a podcast, Obama is literally telling Democrats to stop focusing on identity politics because people are tired of getting lectured that they are the bad guy, and it’s causing them ‘difficulties’:

I think where we get into trouble sometimes is when we try to suggest that because some groups historically have been victimized more, that somehow they have a status that’s different than other people, and we’re going around scolding folks if they don’t use exactly the right phrase; that identity politics becomes the principle lens through which we view our various political challenges.

To me, I think that for a lot of average folks that ends up feeling as if you’re not speaking to me and my concerns…

The less we’re leaning into an argument that says ‘we’re deserving of consideration and you guys are the problem’ – however you want to frame ‘you guys’ – yeah I think most people don’t want to be lectured to in that way and I think that can cause us some difficulties.

Democrats really turned on the woke-ism in the 2020 election and they haven’t looked back since.

But now that they are about to lose hold of their power in Congress, the prevailing wisdom is to dial it back so they can win elections again.

That may sound like a good strategy but I’m afraid that rabbit is out of the hat and it ain’t going back in. Democrat higher-ups are far too entrenched in wokeism to go back now. It would probably split the Democrat party if they tried.

But even so, it’s amazing that this is what their most popular leader in modern times is telling them to do, especially when he pushed them all in this direction.

Go woke, go broke.

Adapted from The Right Scoop