From my friends at Power Line Blog:
Monthly Archives: September 2020
In Case You Had Any Doubts About His Political Leaning
Just the News is reporting today that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have gifted a quarter of a billion dollars to an election activist group pushing major government voting initiatives in several Democratic strongholds in the battleground state of Wisconsin. They are legally entitled to do that, but it does confirm the theory that the founder of Facebook is definitely a Democrat. It also gives credence to the idea that Facebook might skew its site to limit conservative speech and promote liberal speech.
The article reports:
Notably, the CTCL has already poured a significant sum of money into a voting initiative in five Wisconsin cities. The organization announced in early July that it had partnered with the cities to implement the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan, a “vision for a safe, inclusive, and secure voting process in 2020 elections” proposed by the mayors of those cities.
The mayors of Green Bay, Kenosha, Madison, Milwaukee, and Racine requested and received a collective $6.3 million from the organization in order to facilitate their respective election machines. A plurality of those funds — about 40% — went to support both vote-by-mail and early voting efforts. Around a million dollars went to “voter outreach and education efforts.”
The Center for Tech and Civic Life last month also distributed a $10 million grant to the city of Philadelphia for a similar initiative. The city in its grant request pledged to spend over half of those funds on “mail-in and absentee and processing equipment,” along with roughly a quarter of the grant on “satellite election offices for in-person mail-in voting.”
The key to victory in the upcoming election will be getting out the vote. The problem is that there are elements of our political class who are intent on getting out both the legal and illegal vote. Because every illegal vote cancels out a legal vote, all Americans should be concerned about making sure that only those eligible to vote cast a ballot in the upcoming election vote.
Fighting The Propaganda
John Hinderaker at Power Line Blog posted an article today that is definitely a positive step toward re-uniting America.
The article reports:
Yesterday, OMB Director Russell Vought issued on behalf of the Executive Office of the President a memorandum to the heads of all federal departments and agencies. The memorandum bans all agencies from “training” their employees in critical race theory or white privilege. It is a thing of beauty. Here is the memo, in its entirety.
The memorandum includes the following:
It has come to the President’s attention that Executive Branch agencies have spent millions of taxpayer dollars to date “training” government workers to believe divisive, anti-American propaganda.
For example, according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that “virtually all White people contribute to racism” or where they are required to say that they “benefit from racism.” According to press reports, in some cases these training have further claimed that there is racism embedded in the belief that America is the land of opportunity or the belief that the most qualified person should receive a job.
These types of “trainings” not only run counter to the fundamental beliefs for which our Nation has stood since its inception, but they also engender division and resentment within the Federal workforce. We can be proud that as an employer, the Federal government has employees of all races, ethnicities, and religions. We can be proud that Americans from all over the country seek to join our workforce and dedicate themselves to public service. We can be proud of our continued efforts to welcome all individuals who seek to serve their fellow Americans as Federal employees. However, we cannot accept our employees receiving training that seeks to undercut our core values as Americans and drive division within our workforce.
The President has directed me to ensure that Federal agencies cease and desist from using taxpayer dollars to fund these divisive, un-American propaganda training sessions. Accordingly, to that end, the Office of Management and Budget will shortly issue more detailed guidance on implementing the President’s directive. In the meantime, all agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on “critical race theory/9 “white privilege,” or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. In addition, all agencies should begin to identify all available avenues within the law to cancel any such contracts and/or to divert Federal dollars away from these un-American propaganda training sessions.
The memorandum concludes:
The President, and his Administration, are fully committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals in the United States. The President has a proven track record of standing for those whose voice has long been ignored and who have failed to benefit from all our country has to offer, and he intends to continue to support all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed. The divisive, false, and demeaning propaganda of the critical race theory movement is contrary to all we stand for as Americans and should have no place in the Federal government.
I welcome anyone who believes that the majority of Americans are racist to find another country in the world with more equal opportunity for all of its citizens. If you can (and I doubt you can), please go live there.
Good Economic News
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the August Workforce Participation Rate was 61.7 (in July it was 61.4). This is good news. In February it was 63.4, so we are moving in the right direction after the coronavirus shutdown. Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about August manufacturing levels.
The Epoch Times reports:
U.S. manufacturing levels exceeded economists’ expectations in August, accelerating close to a two-year high as new orders increased beyond that of July, according to data from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released on Sept. 1.
The ISM’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), which gauges national factory activity, rose to 56.0 last month, marking the fourth straight month of economic growth for the manufacturing sector.
A PMI reading above 50 points indicates an expansion in the manufacturing sector, which makes up 11 percent of the U.S. economy. A Reuters poll of economists had forecast a more modest increase.
The index, which climbed from a reading of 54.2 in July, is now at its highest since November 2018.
I know this is just an incredible coincidence, but it seems that when a Republican is in the White House, good economic news always exceeds economists’ expectations.
The article also reports:
According to ISM Chair Timothy Fiore, the August data also “indicates expansion in the overall economy for the fourth month in a row after a contraction in April, which ended a period of 131 consecutive months of growth.” A PMI reading above 42.8 generally indicates economic expansion.
Fiore also said that the ISM’s New Orders Index had reached 67.6 percent—a 6.1 percentage point increase from July. The production index increased, as did the order backlog and supplier deliveries indexes. According to the ISM, inventory levels fell in August while prices, new export orders, and imports all increased.
The employment index for August continued to show factory workers losing their jobs, although at a slower rate than in July. The federal government’s employment report is due out on Sept. 4, and the Reuters survey of economists is expected to show that roughly 1.4 million jobs were created in August, after 1.76 million were added in July.
The economy is coming back, and statistically the virus is declining. That is a great combination.
More Good News From The Middle East
The Israel National News is reporting today that Serbia is going to move its Israeli Embassy to Jerusalem.
The article reports:
US President Donald Trump on Friday oversaw the signing of an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo that normalizes economic relations between the two countries and also includes Kosovo recognizing Israel and Serbia relocating its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The relocation of Serbia’s embassy to Jerusalem is expected to take place by July 2021.
“Truly, it is historic,” Trump said during the signing of the Belgrade-Pristina deal. “I look forward to going to both countries in the not too distant future.”
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke with Trump and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti as Hoti was meeting with Trump. The Kosovo Prime Minister, for his part, said that Kosovo, too, will open an embassy in Jerusalem.
“Kosovo will be the first Muslim-majority country to open an embassy in the city,” Netanyahu said. “As I have said in recent days – the circle of peace and recognition of Israel is expanding and more countries are expected to join it.”
Netanyahu also congratulated Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on his decision to relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem.
The article concludes:
A statement from Netanyahu’s office praised Serbia for being the first European nation to agree to move its embassy and said efforts continued to convince other European nations to do so as well.
Netanyahu said that following discussions held in recent days between the Foreign Ministry, National Security Council and others, it was decided that Israel will establish diplomatic relations with Kosovo.
Wow. President Trump has done amazing things in the Middle East.
We Need To Protect Our Children
Yesterday WND posted an article about a bill California lawmakers have sent to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature.
The article reports:
California lawmakers have sent a bill to the desk of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom that would reduce penalties for adults who have oral or anal sex with a “willing” minor child if the offender is no more than 10 years older than the victim.
The objective is to end “blatant discrimination against young LGBT people engaged in consensual activity,” according to its sponsor, Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who is openly gay.
SB 145, passed by the state Senate on Monday, would allow a judge to decide whether or not the offender should be registered as a sex offender, Breitbart News reported.
Wiener claims the bill “is about treating everyone equally under the law.”
The law aims at the particular sexual practices associated with the LGBT community. Senator Wiener claims that the current law discriminates against that community. For further details on that, follow the link to the article–I would rather not go into detail here.
The article notes:
Before talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh discussed the bill on his nationally syndicated show Thursday, he had to warn listeners to turn down the volume if there were any children nearby.
After describing the bill in detail, he addressed the problem with regarding children as “willing” participants.
“How do you get permission from an 8-year-old? How do you get permission from a 10-year-old? How is permission from a 10- or 12-year-old even valid?” he asked.
He predicted that “once this gets signed into law, that 10 years is gonna become 15 down the road, because, see, the way left operates, nothing is ever solved when they do legislation.”
“It’s just the beginning of the descent into even worse circumstance,” he said.
Limbaugh argued the bill has implications for the presidential election, because “this is who we’re up against.”
Does anyone remember that when sodomy was declared no longer against the law, some people who were labeled ‘right-wing extremists’ claimed that the ruling would lead to legalization of same sex marriage? We were told that we were crazy–they were just fixing an unjust law. What is happening in California will lead to things that many of us would be appalled by if we understood where this was going.
A Necessary Change
On Tuesday, Just the News posted an article about some changes being made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to prevent the kind of abuse of the Act that we saw during the 2016 presidential campaign.
The article reports:
Seeking to address massive failures during the Russia probe, FBI Director Chris Wray and Attorney General William Barr announced Tuesday sweeping new reforms to ensure future warrants targeting Americans under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act are accurate, legal and free from political influence.
The changes include the creation of a new audit office to review FISA applications and new vetting to ensure the accuracy of agents’ evidence when seeking to spy on U.S. citizens. The Justice Department also created new protocol governing when surveillance can be conducted on elected officials and candidates for office.
The changes, memorialized in two separate memos, are an outgrowth of a DOJ inspector general report last December that identified 17 instances of misconduct, erroneous evidence, factual omissions and mistakes in the pursuit of a FISA application targeting former Trump adviser Carter Page during the Russia collusion investigation. Last month, a former FBI lawyer pleaded guilty to falsifying evidence during the probe.
The article notes:
“FISA is a critical tool to ensuring the safety and security of Americans, particularly when it comes to fighting terrorism. However, the American people must have confidence that the United States government will exercise its surveillance authorities in a manner that protects the civil liberties of Americans, avoids interference in the political process, and complies with the Constitution and laws of the United States,” Barr said. “What happened to the Trump presidential campaign and his subsequent administration after the President was duly elected by the American people must never happen again.”
That’s fine, but when are all of the people who were involved in the misuse of FISA warrants going to be held accountable?
This Is Where The Candidates Stand
Yesterday The Epoch Times posted a summary of the stands taken by President Trump and former Vice-President Biden on various issues. Please follow the link to the article to read it in its entirety, but here are a few examples:
Economy
Trump
-
- Grant tax credits to companies that move manufacturing back to United States, tariffs on those that don’t.
- Continue improving trade deals after USMCA, China Phase 1, South Korea, and Japan deals.
- Continue to cut regulations for businesses.
- Fund on-the-job training, apprenticeships.
- Make major investment in infrastructure.
- Launched “opportunity zones” program in 8,766 distressed areas, which, so far, have attracted $75 billion in private capital.
- Build on becoming a net energy exporter.
Biden
-
- Increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour.
- Strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, and unions.
- Make major investment in infrastructure focused on reducing carbon emissions.
- Make racial equity part of the mandate of the Federal Reserve.
- Will insist on strong and enforceable standards for labor, human rights, and the environment in any future trade agreements
- Will ban anonymous shell companies, expand anti-money-laundering requirements, disclosure of beneficial ownership, and greater oversight of cross-border transactions.
Taxes
Trump
-
- Signed tax cut legislation.
- Cut capital gains tax to 15 percent.
- Increased the estate tax basic exemption amount from $5 million to $10 million.
- Proposes a cut to payroll tax.
Biden
-
- Greatly increase capital gains tax to same rate as income tax.
- Increase taxes by $4 trillion over 10 years, including raising taxes on people making over $400,000 a year.
Governance
Trump
-
- Restore balance and vertical separation of powers between the federal and state governments.
- Promote voter ID, urging all states to join program to keep voter rolls accurate.
- Supports apportionment and redistricting based on Census count of all citizens, and not including illegal immigrants.
- Appoint more federal judges.
- Make Puerto Rico the 51st state; keep the District of Columbia as a district.
- Pass congressional term limits.
- Directed federal agencies to move out of D.C. to opportunity zones.
Biden
-
- Make the District of Columbia the 51st state.
- Supports removing the Confederate flag and statues of Confederate leaders from public properties.
- Establish a national commission to examine slavery, Jim Crow segregation, and racially discriminatory federal policies on income, wealth, educational, health, and employment outcomes, and to study reparations.
- Opposes Voter ID laws and supports automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, early voting, and universal vote-from-home and vote-by-mail options.
- Supports apportionment and redistricting based on Census count of everyone, including illegal immigrants.
- Supports requirement for all federal office candidates to disclose at least 10 years of tax returns.
Health Care
Trump
-
- Rescinded the individual mandate in Affordable Care Act and supports repealing the entire act.
- Protect those with pre-existing conditions.
- Supports health care price transparency.
- Stop “surprise billing” by banning out-of-network charges when the patient doesn’t have control over provider choice.
- Drive down prescription drug prices. Allow purchases from abroad; cut out the middlemen who negotiate drug rebates; introduce “favored nation status” where Medicare pays the lowest drug price available globally.
- Accelerated generic drug approval.
- Signed the Right to Try bill.
- Anti-abortion—curbed federal spending that even indirectly supported abortion.
- Permanently expand telehealth through Medicare payments and preserve more rural hospitals through Medicare incentives.
- Enabled short-term insurance up to a year and is expanding the use of health savings accounts.
- Allowed employers to pay premiums for employees in individual market.
- Allowed small businesses to band together to access insurance plans available to large employers.
- Declared opioid crisis a national public health emergency and focused resources on supply, demand, and treatment.
Biden
-
- Introduce “public option” health insurance plans run by the federal government.
- Protect and expand the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
- Increase tax credits toward health coverage. Give the tax credits to higher-income people who currently aren’t eligible
- Provide free health care to illegal aliens.
- Expand Medicaid in states that rejected expansion offered by ACA.
- Stop “surprise billing”—ban out-of-network charges when the patient doesn’t have control over provider choice.
- Lower drug prices. Repeal law barring Medicare from negotiating lower prices with drug corporations; government-set prices for new drugs with no competition; allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries.
- Treat abortion as a constitutional right and restore federal funding to Planned Parenthood.
- Double the federal funding to community health centers.
- Target health care companies for antitrust violations.
- Exclude drug ads from tax deductible costs for pharma companies.
- Expand national and global vaccine programs.
These positions should be the basis of your decision on how you vote in November.
Who Is Kamala Harris?
A friend sent me this summary of information on Kamala Harris. For more information see Peter Schweizer’s book, Profiles in Corruption. There is an entire chapter of the book dedicated to Kamala Harris.
This is a summary of the information:
Read “Profiles in Corruption” by Peter Schweizer. He dedicates an entire chapter to Kamala Harris
Kind of enlightening, still trying to figure out how a Jamaican father and an Indian mother have an African-American child…..
“I watched an interview with her. She is very attractive, animated and absurd. She stated that she never had children; yet was a “Mother to her husband’s children.” And she “loved being a Mother.” She said the children called her
“Momela”. Anyway, she led her audience to believe that she mothered these kids. I looked her up. She married her husband when the boy was in his 3rd year of college and the girl was in 10th grade and they lived with the Mother except for normal visits with their father—so much for Mother hood. Right after hearing that, I knew she was a liar. She is already beating Pence in ratings.
I do remember Kamala Harris. I had just been elected to the State Assembly in 1994 and, at that time, the ultimate “power broker” that controlled every aspect of California’s state government was the Speaker of the House, Willie Brown. He ran Sacramento like it was his own personal fiefdom and handed out jobs to loyalists and fired people who were disloyal. He broke every ethical law in the book but was never held to account by anyone. He was married but openly had mistresses which he showed off by bringing to public events.
At the time I arrived in Sacramento, he was seeing a young girl who was in her 20’s. Willie was in his 60’s. She was his mistress and he showered her with gifts and appointed her to a number of State government jobs. Her name was Kamala Harris. Willie launched her political career because she was having sex with him. The idea that she is an “independent” woman who worked her way up the political ladder because she worked hard is baloney. She slept her way into powerful political jobs.
And now she is running for VP with a man who will be unable to govern due to his lack of mental clarity. In essence, she will function as the President of the United States should the Biden/Harris ticket prevail this November. Her views on guns, taxes, immigration, energy, etc. are far to the left of the average America but you watch, the media will ignore these positions.
For example, she believes illegal aliens are eligible to ALL government services, including education, welfare benefits, health care, you name it. In order words, she does NOT believe there is a difference between a citizen and a non-citizen. That view alone will cost us billions of dollars if acted upon. Her view of the constitution is frankly bizarre and dangerous and she is willing to enact laws restricting our 2nd Amendment rights even if such laws violate constitution.
She will be the most radical person to run for VP in American history but you won’t see any of this on the news. You will soon witness a massive campaign by the media to deceive you about who she is and what she believes. Don’t fall for it.”
The media plans to play a major role in this election. Their plan is to tip the scales in favor of Biden-Harris. Joe Biden also rates an entire chapter in Profiles in Corruption. I realize that a lot of people don’t like Donald Trump’s style, but you cannot honestly accuse him of using his office for personal gain. Unfortunately that cannot be said about either Joe Biden or Kamala Harris.
Violating The First Amendment
On Monday The Christian Post posted an article about a recent lawsuit in California. As you know, the coronavirus has allowed the governors of some states to exercise power that exceeds their constitutional authority. Governor Gavin Newsom did this when he closed down churches in his state. Grace Community Church, led by Pastor John MacArthur made a decision to hold indoor worship services amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The County of Los Angeles has taken an action that appears to be in retaliation for that decision.
The article reports:
Los Angeles County has notified Grace Community Church, led by Pastor John MacArthur, that it will soon be evicted from a parcel of land it uses as a parking lot — a move lawyers say is retaliation for the church’s decision to hold indoor worship services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a letter dated Aug. 28, the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Works informed the Sun Valley-based church that on Oct. 1, it is being evicted from a large portion of the parking lot of the church that has been in place continuously since 1975.
The county warns that if Grace Community Church fails to vacate the premise as required, “the District may enter the premises and remove Grace’s personal property in accordance with the Agreement and applicable law, and Grace will be responsible for any resultant expenses incurred by the District.”
Jenna Ellis, special counsel to Thomas More Society, said the move is clearly in retaliation for the church’s decision to fight Los Angeles County’s ban on indoor church worship services.
“Los Angeles County is retaliating against Grace Community Church for simply exercising their constitutionally protected right to hold church and challenging an unreasonable, unlawful health order,” Ellis said.
“In America, we have a judicial system to ensure that the executive branch does not abuse its power, and Grace Community Church has every right to be heard without fear of reprisal. The Democrats’ message to Americans is clear—if you don’t bow to every whim of tyranny, the government will come after you. The Church has peacefully held this lease for 45 years and the only reason the County is attempting eviction is because John MacArthur stood up to their unconstitutional power grab. This is harassment, abusive, and unconscionable.”
The First Amendment states:
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.
Governor Newsom has shown a total disrespect for that concept. The County probably does have the right to terminate the lease, but the decision to do that is petty and harmful to the community. Elections matter, and voters need to consider the actions of all the people involved in this when they vote.
How To Ensure A Rigged Election
Breitbart reported Monday that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging the practice of checking signatures on absentee ballots to make sure they match the signature the voter has on file.
The article reports:
Signature matching, a process whereby county election boards verify the authenticity of the ballot by matching the signature to that of the voter, is facing increased legal challenges from various voting rights groups.
In Indiana, for example, the board matches the signature “on a provided affidavit printed on the outside of a return envelope.” There remain countless instances of boards rejecting ballots due to discrepancies in the signatures. Over 550,000 ballots were rejected in the 2020 primaries alone for several reasons, one of which included mismatched signatures.
The practice is now facing legal challenges in states like Indiana, where a federal judge last week determined signature matching to be unconstitutional, as boards are not required to alert the voter, nor do they provide an option to address the suspected error.
Under U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker’s ruling, state election officials in the Hoosier State can no longer reject a ballot that contains a mismatched signature “without giving proper notice to the voter and without providing means to contest the decision,” as USA Today detailed.
Similarly, groups in Ohio, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and ACLU of Ohio, are lodging a similar challenge, asking the courts to end the signature matching process as it currently operates, referring to it as a “flawed” system. Voters, the groups contend, should have “sufficient notice of purportedly mismatched signatures and the opportunity to fix those mismatches when boards of elections mistakenly reject their ballots and ballot applications on the basis of signature mismatches.”
Ukraine Seemed To Have A Very Interesting Role During The Obama Administration
There are two important things to note about the post below (I know it is long, but it is important to read the entire Press Release.). First of all, the monitoring continued after President Trump took office–who directed the embassy to do this? Why aren’t the people who did this in jail–they broke the law.
Yesterday Judicial Watch posted the following Press Release:
Judicial Watch: State Dept Records Show US Embassy in Ukraine Monitored Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani, Journalists and other U.S. Citizens in Potential Violation of Federal Law
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch announced today that it received 372 pages of records from the U.S. Department of State that confirm prior Judicial Watch reporting that the Ukraine Embassy under then- monitored, in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma 2020”, and George Soros.
The documents list the targeted persons as Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rudy Giuliani, Dan Bongino, Sebastian Gorka, John Solomon, Jack Posobiec, Ryan Saavedra, Sara A Carter, Donald Trump Jr., Michael McFaul, Lou Dobbs and Pamela Gellar. The search terms that were flagged to be monitored by State Department officials on social media included Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros, Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma.
The emails show that Yovanovitch was aware of the social media monitoring program.
Additionally, a State Department contractor warned his colleagues that their monitoring of private citizens was potentially in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974.
“These new documents confirm Deep State officials at the Ukraine Embassy seemed to set up an enemies list to help illicitly monitor and report on the social media postings of President Trump’s family and lawyer, as well as journalists,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The State Department hid these smoking gun documents for months.”
The records were produced to Judicial Watch in a January 2020 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the State Department failed to respond to an October 2019 FOIA request for records tied to the alleged monitoring of President Trump’s family, lawyer, and journalists, as ordered by US Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00124). In October 2019, Judicial Watch began its investigation into the alleged monitoring, via CrowdTangle and other means, of journalists and persons linked to President Trump. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is alleged to have ordered State Department entities to conduct the monitoring:
This is not an obscure rule, everyone in public diplomacy or public affairs knows they can’t make lists and monitor U.S. citizens unless there is a major national security reason,” according to a senior State Department official. If the illicit operation occurred, it seems to indicate a clear political bias against the president and his supporters. Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who has also led American embassies in Kyrgyzstan and Armenia, was appointed ambassador to Ukraine by Obama in 2016. She was recalled by the State Department in May and remains a State Department employee in Washington D.C.
An email exchange on March 27, 2019, titled “monitoring developing U.S. social media narratives on Ukraine” concerns the monitoring of major conservative social media and TV commentators on their commentary on Ukraine, as well as Marie Yovanovitch and George Soros’ involvement in Ukraine and the Clinton Campaign. The persons involved in the discussion include then-Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George P. Kent; a digital media associate EUR/PD from the Kenjya-Trusant Group, the public diplomacy desk officer for Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus; and other redacted State Department officials.
In the discussion, a redacted State Department official writes:
“Hi [redacted]
Thanks very much for your notes. He English-language Twitter search phrases we’re currently using for this issue are:
Yovanovitch
Yovanovich (common misspelling)
Ukraine Ambassador
Ukrainian Ambassador
Ukraine Soros
We are also monitoring the tweets of roughly 10 high-profile U.S.-based social media users (verified accounts with large numbers of followers) who have already commented on this particular issue before, either on social media or television, to see if they have posted something new relevant to this issue that does not directly align with our search terms.
Happy to pass along that list of Twitter users if DC wishes, but even just keeping an eye on the search terms above during DC afternoon business hours would be a huge help so that Kyiv/Washington team members don’t miss out on new online narratives that are likely to generate new media inquiries.
I’m going to send around one more evening batch of social media content to Desk and Post colleagues in a few minutes on this topic.
Kent writes: “key thing is to get up to ramming speed from the get go.”
Other actual or proposed search terms include “Clinton campaign” and “Biden Burisma.” A redacted State Department Official writes on March 29:
We appreciate the crowd Tangle reports you have sent us. Can you confirm this tool in tracking content from the full list of influential social media users that [redacted] flagged (which included George’s suggestions as well)? Does this also track their posts if it does not include out key work “Ukraine?” We have seen some of these people comment obliquely without using the key words.
We appreciate the RSS suggestion, but we already have an effective automated search tool
[Redacted]
-
- US Diplomats in Kyiv Yovanovitch and Kent + NABU;
- Clinton campaign and Manafort 2016;
- Biden-Burisma 2020;
- Soros (ANTAC)”
On March 29, 2019, an email to Kent summarizing the monitoring activity shows that reports were set up at least twice a day. A redacted official writes to Kent: “I will have it set to recap at noon and 5pm. Will also try to have a separate report for you to provide info from the past 12 hours.
On May 15, 2019, a redacted Digital Media Associate for EUR/PD Keniya-Trusant Group warns the State Department of legal issues of monitoring private citizens:
Going to chime in here – so regarding the influencers, there are some legal implications of making a list of Facebook influencers of Twitter influencers since they are technically private citizens (even though they’re publicly on the internet) and we cannot compile them into a list and monitor what they are saying using a third-party application without their knowledge. To see what they’re saying, you unfortunately need to use the old school way and manually go to their feeds and view that way. Cumbersome but it’s in compliance with the Privacy Act of 1974.
Regarding automated emails, I’m not sure if you can set up feedback reports, I’ll look into that for you.
And on Instagram, shouldn’t be a problem to add the IG account. We would just need to create it as a separate list, which can then be added into the display.
I can take care of that for you if you’d like! On hashtags and influencers, I don’t believe CT has that capability unfortunately.
An email dated May 15, 2019, related to the use of CrowdTangle to monitor social media in Bosnia and Herzegovina indicates that the prohibition on monitoring US persons was understood:
[Redacted] – thank you so much. And now [sic] worries, I thought I have heard somewhere that that doesn’t apply to non-U.S. citizens, but wasn’t 100% sure, so thank you again for checking that for us.
I just went to our live display page and I don’t have any possibility of changing anything on it. The only option it’s giving me is to switch to Dark Interface <smile emoji>
Is there a way for someone to guide me through the process of adding the IG to our live display, and also, how to create the list adding the influencers we already know, which are not U.S.
citizens?
Later in the day, the redacted official in this chain writes: “Also, I’d like to correct something I said previously. Turns out I was incorrect on the influencers list. You can create lists of them so long as they are not U.S. Citizens. Happy to assist with that if you need and my apologies for giving you incorrect information.”
On March 27, 2019, at 3:50 pm a redacted public diplomacy desk officer writes:
Both [redacted] and I have talked with our fantastic social media team in our PD shop and they are familiarizing the team with our existing tools that will give them the reports they want and set this all up for them.
I’m happy to discuss more about these tools at our next meeting too.
This should greatly improve their ability to track and monitor stories/tweet, etc as it’s all automated these days.
Thanks!
At 9:11 pm, a digital media associate from the Kenjya-Trusant Group writes:
Great! Thanks so much. So I set up a Hootsuite Dashboard (which I can share with the team) and will have CrowdTangle searches set up that I can have sent to your inbox if you’d like.
Just let me know.
At 2:26 pm an email with the sender and recipients’ names reacted includes a list of individuals whose Twitter accounts were to be monitored, including the president’s s son and his personal attorney:
Hi [redacted]
Thank you! Below are some of the Twitter users with large followings whom we’ve seen tweeting on (and/or discussing on TV) Ukraine related issues over the past several days. They all have verified Twitter accounts that should be pretty easy to spot.
Sean Hannity
Laura Ingraham
Rudy Giuliani
Dan Bongino
Sebastian Gorka
John Solomon (of the Hill)
Jack Posobiec
Ryan Saavedra
Sara A Carter
Donald Trump Jr.
Michael McFaul
Lou Dobbs
Pamela Gellar
Thanks again very much,
At 8:08 pm on March 27 a Kenjya-Trusant Group member asks: “Would you be able to add those high-profile usernames with us too? Would be good to have as I set things up.”
On March 28, 2019, a redacted State Department official states, “P.s. Here is a sample of the monitoring report for U.S. social media (scroll down for specific tweets and photos). Make sure to click the link at the top to show photos”
A redacted State Department official emails a group of officials including Kent saying:
First I want to assure everyone that we understand the strain Embassy Kyiv and Ambassador for Yovanovitch are under. We definitely want to support Post and the EUR Front Office’s needs at this time. Full stop.”
The new records include an email written on March 28, 2019, with the subject line “Ukraine Twitter Report” features a “Rolling Two-Hour Twitter Digest” with the search “Most Recent Tweets in Yovanovitch, Yovanovich, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukranian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros (Saved Search)” The report includes tweets by numerous U.S. persons, including Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongino, Laura Ingraham, John Solomon, Sara Carter, Sean Hannity, Rudy Giuliani, and others. Many of the tweets have nothing to do with Ukraine and pertain to U.S. politics.
On March 29, 2019, Kent clarifies that the monitoring should focus on negative attacks on the work of the Department or Embassy and adds specific individuals who should be monitored:
I would suggest the direct recipient social media audience here includes [redacted] and me in the front office, for starters, as well as the desk. The attaboy (or attagirl) tweets in support of what we are doing are less of an issue to track, frankly, than the attacks…
The list of tweeters has many of the heavy hitting amplifiers we need to be aware of; Sara Carter should be added, since she often acts as an amplifying vanguard for issues that then get picked up on Hannity. Giuliani too.”
A redacted person responds to Kent: “Happy to add more people once we get the feed set up correctly. We will add Sara Carter and Guiliani to the list for monitoring.”
While leaving out the use of CrowdTangle, an April 1, 2019, email with all addressees names redacted has the subject line “Ukraine Twitter Report” and says, “Thank you so very much for alerting everyone to this issue. We appreciate you shutting down the automated report. [Redacted] We do not have, and have not had, any separate automated monitoring tools tracking specific individuals. We will continue to follow Ukraine-related news and commentary via simple internet searches.”
Included in the new documents are a CrowdTangle virtual training manual and a guide from CrowdTangle as to what “social listening” is.
On September 18, 2019, CrowdTangle, which had recently been acquired by Facebook, removed access to the platform “all Department users” effective October 2019.
On October 10, 2019, Congressman Devin Nunes told Sean Hannity on his program that, “What I’ve heard is that there were strange requests, irregular requests to monitor not just one journalist, but multiple journalists…” Hannity followed this statement by adding, multiple sources also told him that they, “believe there is evidence that government resources were used to monitor communications” of U.S. journalists and that Yovanovitch may have been involved. Yovanovitch was questioned on the issue during the impeachment proceeding in the House and seemed to deny any illegal monitoring took place.
In November 2019, Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the State Department seeking documents related to a reported “untouchables list” given in late 2016 by Yovanovitch to Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko. Lutsenko told The New York Times that Yovanovitch “pressed him not to prosecute anti-corruption activists.” Lutsenko reportedly said earlier the do-not-prosecute list included a founder of the Ukraine group Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC), which was funded by Soros foundations and the U.S. federal government, and two members of the Ukrainian Parliament who vocally supported the Soros group’s agenda.
Moving Our Supply Lines Out Of China
Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article reporting that American companies are moving away from relying on China as a single supplier.
The article reports:
The U.S.–China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic have forced companies to reduce their excessive dependence on China as a single supplier.
U.S. brands have started to explore sourcing options closer to home, with Latin and South America gaining significant traction in recent months, according to a survey by Qima, a Hong Kong-based supply chain inspection company.
The survey conducted in July among more than 200 businesses around the world found that respondents are increasingly moving their sourcing away from China. Ninety-three percent of U.S. respondents reported that they had plans to further diversify their supply chains. Meanwhile, less than half of EU respondents had a similar strategy.
The article notes that China is rapidly losing ground as the primary supplier of goods in the world:
For example, 75 percent of respondents globally named China among the top 3 sourcing geographies this year, compared to an overwhelming 96 percent in 2019.
The article concludes:
President Donald Trump pledged to end U.S. reliance on China and bring back 1 million manufacturing jobs in his second term. He recently proposed providing tax credits and allowing “100 percent expensing deductions for essential industries like pharmaceuticals and robotics” to incentivize companies to produce in the United States.
Trump also signed an executive order on Aug. 6 to ensure that essential medicines, medical supplies, and equipment are made in the United States.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, also pledged to “bring back critical supply chains.” He promised to “bolster American industrial and technological strength and ensure the future is ‘made in all of America’ by all of America’s workers.”
In the past two decades, China has become a crucial global supplier. According to the United Nations, China accounts for nearly 20 percent of global trade in manufacturing intermediate products, up from 4 percent in 2002.
It is interesting that former Vice President Joe Biden has also pledged to “bring back critical supply chains” when the policies of the Obama administration sent manufacturing and product sourcing to China. I don’t know if that pledge represents an understanding of the mistakes made during the Obama administration or is simply a politically expedient platitude.
How Voter Fraud By Mail Works
On Saturday, The New York Post posted an article exposing how mail-in voter fraud works.
The article reports:
Mail-in ballots have become the latest flashpoint in the 2020 elections. While President Trump and the GOP warn of widespread manipulation of the absentee vote that will swell with COVID polling restrictions, many Democrats and their media allies have dismissed such concerns as unfounded.
But the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State. Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.
“An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes — it can make a difference,” the tipster said. “It could be enough to flip states.”
The article explains the method used:
The ballot has no specific security features — like a stamp or a watermark — so the insider said he would just make his own ballots.
“I just put [the ballot] through the copy machine and it comes out the same way,” the insider said.
But the return envelopes are “more secure than the ballot. You could never recreate the envelope,” he said. So they had to be collected from real voters.
He would have his operatives fan out, going house to house, convincing voters to let them mail completed ballots on their behalf as a public service. The fraudster and his minions would then take the sealed envelopes home and hold them over boiling water.
“You have to steam it to loosen the glue,” said the insider.
He then would remove the real ballot, place the counterfeit ballot inside the signed certificate, and reseal the envelope.
“Five minutes per ballot tops,” said the insider.
The insider said he took care not to stuff the fake ballots into just a few public mailboxes, but sprinkle them around town. That way he avoided the attention that foiled a sloppy voter-fraud operation in a Paterson, NJ, city council race this year, where 900 ballots were found in just three mailboxes.
“If they had spread them in all different mailboxes, nothing would have happened,” the insider said.
…“You have a postman who is a rabid anti-Trump guy and he’s working in Bedminster or some Republican stronghold … He can take those [filled-out] ballots, and knowing 95% are going to a Republican, he can just throw those in the garbage.”
In some cases, mail carriers were members of his “work crew,” and would sift ballots from the mail and hand them over to the operative.
In 2017, more than 500 mail-in ballots in New York City never arrived to the Board of Elections for races that November—leaving hundreds disenfranchised. They eventually were discovered in April 2018. “For some undetermined reason, some baskets of mail that were bound to the New York City Board of Elections were put off to the side at the Brooklyn processing facility,” city elections boss Michael Ryan said at the time of discovery.
The article continues with details on how those intent on voter fraud target nursing homes and states without voter ID laws. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is frightening to know that this has gone on for years. It is time for voter fraud to end.
A Little Late, But A Good Move
Just the News is reporting today that the Justice Department is investigating the funding and organizing of the riots that have rocked some of America’s cities recently
The article reports:
The Justice Department is investigating the funders and organizers of far-left violent riots that have rocked America’s cities this summer, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf says.
Federal investigators are “targeting and investigating the head of these organizations, the individuals that are paying for these individuals to move across the country,” Wolf told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night.
“I wish that was in a little quicker fashion,” Wolf added while emphasizing “this president is committed to holding individuals accountable.”
…Wolf’s comments come after some GOP members of Congress, including Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, have increased pressure on DOJ to follow the money and organizers facilitating Britannicthe nationwide rioting.
Britannica reminds us:
Seattle WTO protests of 1999, in full Seattle World Trade Organization protests of 1999, also called Battle of Seattle, a series of marches, direct actions, and protests carried out from November 28 through December 3, 1999, that disrupted the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington. Comprising a broad and diffuse coalition of the American Federation of Labor–Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and other labour unions, student groups, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), media activists, international farm and industrial workers, anarchists, and others, the Seattle WTO protests are often viewed as the inauguration of the antiglobalization movement.
…Seattle was left with millions of dollars in property damage and lawsuits by protesters arguing civil rights violations. While many of the affiliations formed by divergent political groups dissolved within the next few years, the Seattle WTO protests did jump-start a series of international antiglobalization protests and helped progressive movements realize the power of the Internet for mobilization and coalition building.
I believe this is part of the root of our current problem. The protesters used our legal system against us–claiming that their civil rights were violated. If we don’t deal with the rioters harshly, more riots will follow. That is the lesson of Seattle in 1999. The article refers to the protests in 1999 in Seattle as antiglobalization. I believe that today’s protesters are actually working to further globalization. I am not sure that they are aware of this, but I believe many of the people supporting the riots are globalists.