Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former Chief Assistant DA at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office(under Cy Vance) dropped a bombshell on CNN’s OutFront show (03/13/23), telling host Erin Burnett that she expects former President Donald Trump to be indicted in Manhattan “in the next week or two”, for his role in the hush money case involving adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Interestingly, she added that Trump will also soon be hit with indictments from Fulton County Georgia(2020 election interference) and by the special counsel investigating the classified documents found at his Maralago residence.
Karen Friedman Agnifilo specifically told host Erin Burnett(0:49 ): “All indications are that he’s about to be indicted, I would say, in the next week or two.” She pointed to the statute of limitations, which is about to expire in May, as the reason why she believes an indictment from the Manhattan DA’s office is imminent.
As for other possible indictments against former President Trump, she said( ): “I think you’re going to see Alvin Bragg, who’s the Manhattan DA, bringing the Stormy Daniels’ case first, then I think you’re going to potentially see the Fulton County Fani Willis in Georgia case, then I think[Special Counsel]Jack Smith is going to bring either the Maralago documents case and/or the Jan 6th insurrection.”
Crucially, even though former Assistant DA Agnifilo appears confident that an indictment against former President Trump by the Manhattan DA’s office is imminent, she told host Erin Burnett that given Trump’s litigious nature, it will be at least a year before we see a trial in the case. As host Erin Burnett correctly pointed out, a year from now, we’ll be in the thick and thin of the 2024 presidential nomination primaries.
Will the said indictment(s) from Manhattan DA’s office help or hurt Trump’s chances of securing the 2024 GOP presidential nomination? As Trump famously says, “We’ll see what happens.” The popular wisdom out there is that candidate Trump will benefit from any such indictments, but Yours Truly will go out on a limb and predict that if Trump is indeed criminally indicted, he will not, I repeat, not secure the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. You can take that to the bank.
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The 2022 midterm election will not only go down in history as one which produced the most unlikely outcome for the party in power, but also, one where the pollsters got it totally wrong. As a matter of fact, the pollsters got it so wrong, that the public is convinced, they were deliberately misled with the “red wave/tsunami” predictions. It’s therefore only fair that the mainstream media journalists who got sucked into the red wave mass hysteria be named and shamed, and their actions memorialized for future reference–sort of a handy list, if you will.
MSNBC did an interesting, and quite frankly, hilarious mashup of the “red wave” mass hysteria that appeared to suck up even some well respected journalists from reputable networks. This shows how these faulty/fake polls can affect mainstream media coverage of elections, which can then have negative consequences, up to and including depressing voter turnout. This is therefore an issue that needs to be addressed head on as we approach the 2024 general elections.
Politicians are known to exaggerate, so they are not the subject of this naming and shaming. Our interest here is only on journalists, who ought to know better.
Fox News’ Steve Doocey(0:26): “You know, your predictions of a red wave are accurate.”
Unidentified Fox News Reporter(0:25):”…a red wave is coming.”
Fox News star Anchor Laura Ingraham(0:27): “Red Wave Rising.” This is the title of a whole segment Ingraham dedicated on the “red wave” on 10/18/22. Not a good look, Laura, not a good look.
Unidentified Reporter on NewsMax(0:34): “Sleepy Joe just guaranteed a red wave in Pennsylvania.”
Fox News’ Dana Perino(0:44): “Democrats are bracing for the worst case scenario, a red Tsunami.”
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld(0:48): “We are officially on a red Tsunami watch.” He was apparently referring to an Axios piece by Josh Kraushaar titled “RED TSUNAMI WATCH.” Not a good look Josh, not a good look.
Fox News’ Clay Travis(0:51): “Red Tsunami grows…that means red Tsunami.”
Fox News’ Stephen Miller(0:59): “Poverty, joblessness, critical race theory, crazy gender ideology in our schools, we are going to see a red Tsunami.”
Unidentified host of Fox News’ The Five show(1:19): “Up next, Elon Musk ready to ride the big red wave.”
Fox News’ Steve Doocey(1:21): “Elon Musk tweeted massive red wave.” For the record, Musk did indeed tweet about a red wave. Other Fox News personalities who used this Elon Musk tweet to proclaim a “red wave” were Tucker Carlson(biggest star on Fox), Maria Bartiromo, among others. Not a good look, Elon, not a good look.
Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro(1:26): “You’re about to see a red wave, that makes ‘Day After Tomorrow’ [the popular movie] look like nothing.”
Leading Podcaster Joe Rogan(1:30): “That’s going to be responsible for the red wave. I think the red wave that’s coming is going to be like the elevator doors opening up in ‘The Shining'[popular 80’s movie]”
Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro(1:38): “Rogan said that the red wave is going to look like the elevator doors opening, and the blood pouring out of the elevator in ‘The Shining’, that is correct, except it’s not going to be an elevator, it’s going to look more like ‘Deep Impact ‘[popular movie], the tsunami at the end, but colored red.” Good Lord have mercy!!
Fox News Contributor Dan Bongino(1:54): “Remember that Teo Leone ‘Deep Impact’ disaster movie? That’s the red wave tsunami that will come ashore.”
Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro(2:00): “It’s going to be a brutal week for the Democrats beginning on Tuesday.”
Fox News’ Clay Travis(2:05): “Frankly, I’ve already DVR-ed CNN and MSNBC for election night, not because I’m going to watch, but just because I want to enjoy the tears post-red tsumami.” Hope you’re enjoying those DVRs, Clay.
Fox News’ Jesse Watters(0:13): “It’s going to be a wave election, and you [Democrats] gonna lose the Senate, I’ll bet you $1,000 now.”
Fox News’ Lisa Boothe(0:20): “Democrats are going to be crushed on November 8th because a red wave is coming.”
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld(0:25): “Betting that Joy will learn two new words on Tuesday, red wave.”
Unidentified Fox Business host(0:29): “How big could that looming red wave get?”
Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo(0:31): “We begin this Sunday morning with expectations of a red wave this Tuesday.”
Fox News Contributor Marc Thiessen(0:37): “We’ve been hearing, ‘is it going to be a red wave?’, ‘is it going to be a red tsunami?’, I think it’s going to be a red hurricane.”
Fox News’ Pete Hegseth(0:51): “When the red wave comes, and it is coming, Joe Biden’s political utility is over.”
Fox News’ John Roberts(0:56): “Are we in for a red wind here, or a red wave?”
Fox News’ Martha MacCallum(0:59): “Red wave or red tsunami, what are you feeling today?”
Fox News’ Jesse Watters(1:02): “And don’t listen to the lies they are spewing, that this could take days…to know who won. This is total bs. A wave like this, we should know that night, basically, who won the Senate and the House, and even if it happens Wednesday into Thursday, it’s gravy.”
Unidentified Fox News Reporter reporting on an actual tropical storm approaching Florida(1:17): “Right out the back door, I’ve got a tropical storm brewing right now. I think they’re saying it could be a category one by the end of the day. However, let me tell you what is the storm, that red wave…” Oh boy!!
There’s also this clip from MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber which shows even journalists from CNN sucked into the “red wave” mass hysteria. Not a good look, CNN, not a good look.
CNN & ABC’s Alyssa Farah Griffin(7:29): “A red wave is coming. Republicans are going to win the midterms…”
New York Post’s Karol Markowicz(7:32): “Forget red wave, I’m rooting for a red tsunami. “
CNN’s Jake Tapper(7:35): “Politicos with whom I spoke today all agree, as of now, a modest red wave at the very least, seems to be building.”
Fox News’ Dana Perino(7:49): “Signs of a red wave are kind of getting bigger than ever, but not everybody in the media wants to hear that.” Dana is a former White House Press Secretary.
Fox News’ Jesse Watters(7:55): “It wasn’t looking like a red wave earlier in August, and now it looks like a tsunami.”
As MSNBC host Ari Melber aptly summarized it (8:00): “The point there is not that multiple news channels over there echo Fox and sound similar, as they make those predictions that have been proven false…It’s bigger than the media or polls. This is a larger effort to hack your mind, and the discourse, and shape the ultimate turnout for the results in our democracy itself…It is legal to be sure, but it’s also misleading with real consequences…If you really have a huge bankable lead, you don’t need to hype it. You just turn your voters out and win, but so many Republican leaders know their slate of MAGA candidates lately, is very weak…So Republicans concluded they needed to inflate their perceived support in the hopes that that might then create more support than they have actually have…”
Bottom line folks, this stuff is serious. New York Governor Kathy Hochul also addressed this fake poll issue, which featured prominently in her race. What Gov Hochul said about this serious issue lines up with the assessment by MSNBC’s Ari Melber.
Bottom line folks, voters have voters have a right to know which polling firms are credible, and those with a history of manipulating polls to aid campaigns. This will prevent reputable news channels from getting sucked into these “wave” hoaxes, as they report on elections.
For the record, Yours Truly never fell for the “red wave/tsunami” mass hysteria for one minute.
Can’t wait for doom & gloom MSMers with their “polls” next week.I know my Dems will kick @GOP’s a$$, especially in Senate races
Election officials in Georgia formally announced(11/09/22) that the U.S. Senate race between incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock(D) and his challenger Herschel Walker(R), will be headed for a runoff slated for December 6th, 2022. Prior to this formal announcement however, Gabe Sterling, the Chief Operating Officer at the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, appeared on CNN, where veteran Anchor John King, an authority in election result coverage, appeared to question the wisdom behind the decision to declare a runoff, when in his opinion, there were still enough outstanding votes to bring either candidate to 50%. I found that exchange quite interesting because it was John King, a very respectable figure, essentially arguing that a runoff decision was premature.
John King(0:46): “Why are you certain at this point, it will be a runoff? If you look at the results, there’s 49.2[Warnock] to 48.7[Walker] and we have the estimated outstanding vote here, maybe you have updated numbers. We have it at 96% estimated reporting, and you still seeing these circles, a decent amount of votes, a decent share of the votes still to come in in Fulton County and the suburbs around it, where Senator Warnock is doing well. You’re certain that there’s absolutely no possibility he gets to 50?”
Gabe Sterling: “At 2 AM last night I tweeted out it’s pretty safe to say we’re going to have that runoff. As we get closer and closer, more votes keep coming in. By our internal estimates, we have less than 10,000 votes to go into the election night reporting for the final counts. You know, I’ve seen some of these estimates of these votes and I’m like, I don’t know where the hell they are getting these numbers from, but we know there’s about less than 10,000, so there’s just not enough numbers out there still, to change the outcome of this race.”
Did CNN get the numbers wrong? Was Gabe Sterling’s answer satisfactory? Is this an issue the Warnock campaign needs to look further into? Hmm, lots of valid questions here, that’s all Yours Truly is saying.
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CNN pundit Ana Navarro, a longtime resident of Miami, Florida, appeared as a panelist on one of the network’s segments covering the midterm election results, where she gave her reasons for the shellacking Democrats got in the race for Florida Governor. One of the eye-popping reasons Navarro gave host Erin Burnett, was that Democrats essentially ran “a political corpse”, an obvious reference to Democratic candidate Charlie Crist.
Host Erin Burnett and her panelists struggled to contain an on-set outburst of laughter following Navarro’s remarks.
Ana Navarro specifically told host Erin Burnett: “You know I’ve been dying to talk about Florida, and I think it’s being completely misread, I think the narrative is all wrong…I told you he was going to win bigly, but listen, Ron DeSantis barely won in 2018 by 35,000 votes, by the skin of his teeth, against a Black Progressive, little known Mayor from Tallahasee, Florida. Yesterday he won by 20 percentage points. Why? Because he gamed the system, because he turned Florida into an unlevel playing field. He changed election laws, making it harder to vote by mail. They paraded a bunch of people, Black people that they arrested for voting fraud, and paraded them in front of national media. He created an election police. He also was very good at responding to Hurricanes and other tragedies. He also invested and laser focused on Miami-Dade.”
Navarro then delivered her bombshell hit saying(1:19): “What you had is that the press deflated the Democratic vote, and who can blame them when you nominate a corpse? Yes he [DeSantis] won bigly, but he won against a political corpse, and that’s an insult to corpses. I apologize to the voters everywhere.”
Now, Yours Truly has witnessed many political “post mortums”(no pun intended) after hard-fought elections, but this one by Ana Navarro, certainly takes the cake. It will be very interesting to hear what the good folks at Team Crist or the Dem establishment have to say about Navarro’s scathing attack.
Bottom line folks, Ana Navarro is absolutely correct on one issue, and that is, no statewide Democrat in Florida, should be getting blown out by 20 points in a crucial election. Florida Dems can absolutely do much better/be more competitive in statewide races. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama won the state both in 2008 and 2012, and Democrats can certainly do it again.
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New York Governor Kathy Hochul(D) appeared on MSNBC’s 11th Hour (11/04/22) to essentially make her closing argument against her Republican challenger Lee Zeldin in the election slated for this coming Tuesday(11/08/22). You’ll remember Hochul, then Lt. Governor, took over when former Governor Andrew Cuomo was forced to step down amid sexual harassment allegations. Hochul is now seeking election to a full term.
Asked to comment about her challenger, Lee Zeldin, Gov Hochul didn’t mince words, telling New Yorkers that Zeldin was “the architect of the big lie”, which formed the basis of former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. She specifically said(0:50): “This is something that needs to come out. Lee Zeldin was described by Donald Trump as a brilliant lawyer. You know why? Because Lee Zeldin had sent text messages right when the question of the presidential election was out there. He sent messages helping strategize on how to create the big lie. So you think about the architect of the big lie, actually undermining our democracy, as well as being out there supporting the insurrectionists, refusing to certify Joe Biden’s election on the same day as the attack on the seat of our democracy. He is so extreme, opposes women’s right to choose, doesn’t support a single bit of gun safety legislation, says he’s tough on crime, but boy, is he soft on guns, so people need to know, that’s who’s running for Governor, trying to hide all that now, like ‘Oh no, he would never do all these things’. Come on, voters in New York are smarter than that.”
Gov Hochul then touched on one of the biggest questions related to Zeldin’s quest for the governorship, and that is, whether it’s all tied to a possible Trump pardon. Gov Hochul specifically said(1:46): “Being so close to Trump though, you got to wonder, does Donald Trump raise money for him, associate with him…Donald Trump is probably sizing up saying, boy, this guy could give me a pardon if he were the Governor.”
Asked whether a Governor Zeldin could derail all the investigations into Trump’s businesses currently being conducted by New York Attorney General Letishia James, Gov. Hochul said(2:26): “Absolutely. Tish James is one tough prosecutor, she’s a great friend, and I know she’s going to go to the mat, but if there’s a conviction, that’s when a Governor has the power to pardon or grant clemency. Donald Trump knows this because he granted a pardon to a guy who went to jail who defeated me for Congress, Chris Collins, so he knows all about how this game is played. Let them do what they want, their dirty tricks, get convicted, but then you got a friend in the Governor’s office who can pardon you. That’s what Donald Trump is banking on, that’s why he’s so supportive of Lee Zeldin, and people need to know that close connection between the two of them. Lee Zeldin was called one of Donald Trump’s earliest and staunchest supporters. That should mean something to New Yorkers.”
The interview then shifted to probably the biggest topic in the New York Governor’s race, and that is, crime. Asked what she has done to combat crime in New York, Gov Hochul said(3:46): “Last January in my state of the state address, January 5th, this is not an election conversion here. January 5th, you can go look at the records, I was talking about how people are feeling insecure, we need to reduce crime, we need to get more guns off the streets. Since I’ve been Governor, we have 8,000 more guns off the streets. Why? Because I took my police force, state police, and said we don’t need to give out as many tickets, let’s get them stopping the guns from flowing into our streets, and for the first time in decades, you have the Governor of New York, working in partnership with the Mayor of New York City…No Governor has spent more money than I have on public safety in history.”
Gov. Hochul also addressed the contentious bail issue, that her challenger Lee Zeldin has used to cast her as weak on crime–criminals getting arrested, only to be released back on the streets due to a lax bail system. Gov Hochul told host Stephanie Ruhle(6:48): “You mentioned the bail laws. The reason the New York state budget, my very first budget was nine days late, I wanted it on time, but I said I’m not leaving here until we deal with the repeat offenders you mentioned, who will keep taking things off the shelves in the drug stores every day, the bail laws now cover them. Anything with a gun, the bail laws now cover them. I gave more powers and discretion to judges and district attorneys than they had before. We made those changes in our law, but they’ve only been in effect a short time.”
Asked whether she thinks the perception that she’s weak on crime is in any way related to her gender, a sexist perception based on New York’s history of “alpha male, macho men” Governors, she responded(7:44): “People ought to know I’m as tough as hell. I’m from Buffalo. My father and grandfather were steel workers, grew up in a big, Irish Catholic, rough and tumble family. There’s no one tougher than I am, and I’ve been through hell and back in this job, and I loved every minute of it. But there’s no one tougher than me, and if anyone thinks that I’m soft on crime, look at what we’ve been doing. We have been aggressive about this, and so I’m breaking the mold perhaps, people haven’t seen a Governor who looks like me, I want to make sure that this becomes the norm. We have the toughest, I am a mother, I’m actually a grandmother, so this is personal to me when people have that fear, so I have my own toughness, but also that compassion and the empathy that perhaps others don’t have.”
The interview then shifted to the “tightening polls” being parroted by Fox News and other rightwing media outlets. Gov. Hochul dismissed these bogus polls as gimmicks commonly employed by Republicans to raise more money for their candidate based on the false perception that they are on the brink of victory. Gov Hochul specifically said, regarding the “tightening polls”(10:43): “All you have to do is see the name Trafalgar. It’s going to show that we’re neck and neck , or that Lee Zeldin is beating me today. Our own polls show that that’s wildly wrong, but you’re making money. You’re getting super billionaire donors like Ron Lauder to dump millions ans millions and millions of dollars in negative ads against me to prop up your election because you gave them a fake poll. Democrats are too honest to do that, we’re not playing that game, and so that’s what’s going on here. I think that is having an effect, but I don’t care, I’m not intimidated by them, by their polls, their money, I have my faith in New Yorkers, and I know they’ll do the right thing. All I need to win on this election, is Democrats turning out. We have enough Democrats, but they get complacent…That’s when you get in trouble. We cannot let that happen.”
Gov. Hochul finished with this powerful message(11:17): “I’m calling on all New Yorkers to stand up, defend your democracy against a Trump-loving, climate change denier, election denier, abortion denier-denying abortion rights, that’s who’s on the ballot. It’s time people understand that.”
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Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appeared on MSNBC’s ReidOut show(11/01/22) to discuss among other things, the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the 82 year old husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at their San Francisco home. As host Joy Reid correctly pointed out, Hillary Clinton, like Nancy Pelosi, is a high-flying female political figure, who has also been the subject of numerous threats of violence from rightwingers, so she was the perfect guest to opine on this topic.
Asked how the attack on Paul Pelosi personally struck her, and whether this spoke to a larger general animus in America towards powerful women, Hillary Clinton responded(3:30): “There’s always been a streak of violence, of racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism…but I think what we’re seeing today, and it has certainly been thrown into very high relief by the horrific attack on Paul Pelosi, is not just an aberration where one or two people, or a small group engage in that kind of violent rhetoric, and urge people to take action against political figures like her, like me, like others, we’re seeing a whole political party, and those who support it, those who enable it, those who run under its banner, engaging in behavior that is so dangerous, and I find frankly, disqualifying for people who are running for office.”
Clinton then slammed Republicans, a lot of who are running on a “tough on crime” message this midterm election cycle, saying, “They don’t seem to be too bothered” by an 82 year old man being attacked in his own home by an intruder, because “that person is married to the Speaker of the House who’s of a different political party.”
Clinton then went all the way there, telling host Joy Reid that the kind of violent rhetoric we are currently witnessing from Republicans, is what leads to authoritarian regimes. She specifically said(4:54): “I just want your viewers, and really, I would like every American just to stop and think about that. This is the kind of violent rhetoric that leads to violent action, that props up authoritarians, and that’s unfortunately what we see the Republican Party today supporting.” She went on to single out Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s violent rhetoric directed at Speaker Pelosi as one example, adding(8:39), “This is a real threat to the heart of our democracy.”
The interview then shifted to the upcoming midterm elections, where Hillary Clinton urged voters to believe Republicans when they say they will gut social security and other entitlement programs. She specifically said(10:43): “Sometimes when I tell people that, they say. ‘Oh, they would never do that.’ Well, they told us for 50 years they were going to get rid of Roe v Wade, and turn abortion over to the states, where state legislators, local political officials could decide what your healthcare would be, why won’t you believe them, that they are going to go after social security and Medicare? I believe them, I take them at their word.”
A very interesting part of the interview came when host Joy Reid showed an old picture of then Senator Clinton with the late Senator John McCain(R-AZ), Senator Susan Collins(R-ME) and Senator Lindsey Graham(R-SC) during a foreign trip they had taken related to climate change. Host Joy Reid asked Clinton to compare and contrast the Lindsey Graham she knew back then, with the full blown Trumper he has since become.
Clinton said when they took the trip, Sen Graham was a believer in climate change, and that he continued to believe in it up until Senator McCain’s sad death. After that, he totally changed. Clinton(15:58): “There was no doubt that everybody, including Senator Graham, understood and believed in climate change, and while John McCain was still alive, he seemed to believe that. After Senator McCain’s very sad passing, Lindsey was unmoored, I don’t know how else to say it. In 2016 he was still somewhat of himself…and then when Trump ended up getting elected, Senator Graham threw his lot in with him…I find it bewildering that somebody who was always on the conservative side, don’t get me wrong, has so thrown his lot in with the cult that goes along with the big lie, and seems to be moving us in a direction that I think anyone with half a sense of American history knows, is going to hurt us.”
Clinton, a former U.S. secretary of State, was then asked to opine on the current volatile situation in Brazil after President Jair Bolsonaro, dubbed the “Brazilian Trump”, lost his quest for reelection. Clinton said(23:48): “I think what he did today sends a quite positive message…I think that he basically couldn’t bring himself to say that he lost, and so it wasn’t a formal concession, but he said he would follow the constitution, and he apparently gave the okay to his team to say they would start the transition. So we didn’t hear ‘big steal’, we didn’t hear, you know, ‘it was rigged’, ‘I didn’t really lose’, we didn’t hear any of that from him, like we heard from, and still hear today, from Trump, so I’m cautiously optimistic that Brazil will make this transition. I think it’s going to be quite difficult for Lula because the election was so close…but he has made it clear, again something we didn’t hear from Trump at his inauguration…he wants to be the president for all Brazilians, those who voted for him, those who did not vote for him, so as I said, I’m cautiously optimistic that he will be able to govern the country effectively and begin to deal with some of the very big problems that face Brazil.”
Asked about the Russia-Ukraine war, Clinton spoke very highly of President Zelensky and his “very impressive” administration, saying they are holding up very well under the circumstances, and that Ukraine will ultimately prevail if the West continues providing them with military assistance. She added(26:55): “I personally view their fight as our fight. They are fighting for democracy, they are fighting for freedom, they are fighting for their rights to make their own futures, and not be subjected to Putin’s whims and his imaginary history that they’ve never existed…”
Asked at the very end of the interview, about the return of Bibi Netanyahu as Israel’s Prime Minister, and specifically, how Iran’s cooperation with Putin as he attacks Ukraine, might affect his relationship with Putin(they seemed to get along fine while he was PM and Trump President), Clinton said(27:46): “Netanyahu is a very experienced politician, and he certainly has always paid attention to the threat from Iran. I hope he pays attention to it now because this partnership that Iran has with Russia should be of deep concern to Israel.”
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A very interesting segment on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson show(10/31/22) featured a bombshell Pulitzer-worthy report by The Intercept’s Lee Fang, which revealed that the Department of Homeland Security(DHS), has for five years now, been collaborating with Twitter, Facebook, and other social media companies, in determining whose speech needs to be suppressed. This of course flies in the face of the “private company” defense usually used to justify questionable speech infringement practices by the social media giants.
More importantly, Lee Fang’s bombshell also touched on the apparent “mission creep”(his words) of DHS, where over the last five years, the powerful agency had unilaterally(without congressional approval) shifted from its stated focus of combating terrorism and terrorist groups like Al-Qaida, to combating disinformation online.
Asked whether the Biden administration was working with tech companies to censor people, Lee Fang responded (1:10): “Yeah, that’s right Tucker. We looked at really hundreds of documents that paint a vivid picture of the FBI, the DHS, closely collaborating with top social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, to censor various forms of content under the banner of fighting disinformation, and the story shows a couple of things, one, it shows what you just mentioned, a very cozy relationship between the government and these tech giants. There’s those monthly meetings that you just mentioned, but also, just very cozy emails and texts, not a very adversarial relationship. We looked at one text where a Microsoft executive texts Jen Easterly, the top disinfo director at DHS, appointed by[President]Biden, basically saying that the private sector needs to get more comfortable with the government closely collaborating on reports, talking about the expanded role for DHS in censoring a really broad collection of topic areas of policy and political topics.”
Lee Fang then touched on what I believe is by far, the biggest bombshell from his piece, and that is, the “mission creep” aspect. Fang said(2:11): “Just broadly speaking, the story also just looks at the mission creep of DHS. This is an agency that was founded in the aftermath of 9/11 to combat foreign terror threats of Al-Qaeda and the like, but over the last five years, it’s kind of evolved in its mission, its move towards fighting disinfo, and their justification is disinfo radicalizes the homeland, it can lead to disruptions in public health, or political violence…”
Even given DHS’ understandable explanation for going after online disinformation, no reasonable person can ever conclude that Congress would have approved the same powerful tools/tactics used to counter terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, to be applied against U.S. residents for basically saying the “wrong things” on social media. Sadly however, this is exactly where we find ourselves today, with DHS’ speech police designating people they deem “misinformers” as terrorists, and then mercilessly destroying their lives and livelihoods using among other things, the military. This is shameful conduct which most Americans have always associated with third world dictatorships.
It is because of DHS’ mission creep, that Yours Truly believes Lee Fang’s bombshell piece deserves a Pulitzer. Simply put, DHS’ mission creep, which at the very least should have been run through Congress for approval prior to enforcement, has not only seriously impacted the lives and livelihoods of many U.S. residents who have nothing to do with terrorism, but has also robbed them of their rights under the first amendment.
Congress needs to immediately step in to not only address DHS’ mission creep, but also to hold the officials involved accountable, preferably, via referral for criminal prosecution given the way their unconstitutional actions upend innocent people’s lives
It’s also important to point out here what history has taught us, and that is, not everything the government labels “misinformation” is necessarily so. Often times, there are topics the government simply doesn’t want out there, being discussed in public. One recent classic example is directed energy weapons. For decades, government agents, and their surrogates in the mainstream media, went out of their way to label people who expressed concerns about these weapons as delusional conspiracy theorists. In 2022 however, we not only have the same directed energy weapons being openly discussed by the same mainstream media channels who denied their existence, but also, the government considers the threat so serious, that Congress swiftly enacted a handsome compensation scheme for victims of such attacks.
Bottom line folks, as host Tucker Carlson correctly stated, this bombshell piece by The Intercept is not only a great story, it’s also a huge public service for which Lee Fang deserves a lot of praise and reward. The only question now is whether Congress will do its job, and rein in Mission Creep DHS, and its unconstitutional speech police.
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The Independent challenger for the Utah U.S. Senate seat, Evan McMullin, appeared on NewsNation’s Cuomo show(10/18/22) to discuss his surprising campaign, which has left incumbent Republican Senator Mike Lee’s campaign in a state of total panic. In his appearance on NewsNation, McMullin essentially called Senator Lee a fake constitutional conservative, given his efforts to overturn the 2020 elections.
Prior to 2022, political observers on both sides of the aisle considered Senator Lee’s seat a “safe” seat, which Republicans would easily retain. Current polls however, have led Lee’s campaign to rethink that stance, with the Senator making regular appearances on Fox News begging for money, and even an endorsement from fellow Republican Utah Senator Mitt Romney. Not a good look.
The problems Senator Lee appears to be running up against, and which his challenger Evan McMullin has brilliantly exploited, are his well documented efforts in assisting former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections, and especially as they relate to the fake elector scheme. McMullin recently confronted Senator Lee with the charge at their televised debate, a charge which seriously upset the incumbent Senator, prompting him to demand an apology from McMullin for supposedly lying about him.
Asked about the debate incident by NewsNation host Chris Cuomo, McMullin doubled down saying(video at 2:15): “The public record is what it is…nobody has to take my word for it, in fact I encourage everyone not to take my word for it. Go ahead and google Senator Mike Lee, or Mike Lee’s text messages to Mark Meadows, and you can find them, and you can read them, and you can see that Senator Lee urged the White House to find fake electors to overturn the election. He thought that offered the greatest opportunity for success for that goal. He urged the President to keep fighting, those were his words, despite having lost the election. He urged the White House to make time for Sydney Powell, the legal quack who was advising the President on a bunch of conspiracy theories intended to overturn the election. Senator Lee then went and spent hours and hours by his own account, 14 hours a day, calling into swing states, trying to unravel the election for President Trump, and that’s a matter of public record. Anyone can read those texts, and I encourage everyone to do that, and then to ask yourself the question: Is this someone who sounds like he is committed to defending the constitution?”
McMullin went on to tell host Cuomo that despite Senator Lee’s known habit of carrying around with the U.S. Constitution in his pocket as a sign of his commitment to upholding it, “You can’t be a constitutional conservative if you betray the constitution, and that’s what Senator Lee did in trying to find fake electors to overturn the election. He betrayed his oath to the constitution, and betrayed even I think, the idea of America. It’s a very dangerous thing, and he needs to be held accountable for it.”
Bottom line folks, it appears that whether or not Senator Lee/Republicans get to retain the U.S. Senate seat in Utah this November, rests on one simple question, and that is, how the good folks of Utah feel about Lee’s efforts to assist Trump in overturning the 2020 election results. If I was in Team Mike Lee, I would be very worried about (1) the very fact that this safe seat is somehow in play this season, and (2) the reluctance by fellow Utah Republican Senator Mitt Romney to endorse Lee. Reasonable political pundits will agree that given these two factors, an upset win by Independent candidate McMullin is quite plausible, and some polls even have him ahead already. Nobody has to guess who Yours Truly is rooting for in this hitherto unforeseen blockbuster Senate race.
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Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge appeared on CNN’s Tonight show (08/22/22) to address recent media reports that show significant appraisal disparities between homes owned by people of color, as opposed to those owned by Whites. Secretary Fudge told CNN host Laura Coates that the appraisal problem, which was initially relegated to homes in redlined districts, is now “systemic, and intentional to some degree.”
The latest example which has stunned many, involves two Black Johns Hopkins University professors, Nathan Connolly and Shani Mott, who live in an affluent Maryland neighborhood. The Black couple’s home was initially appraised at $472,000, but after they “whitewashed” their home and let their White friend pose as the home owner, their house was appraised at a staggering $950,000, almost double the initial value.
Asked for her response to the outrageous Maryland incident, Secretary Fudge said(2:23): “I think professionally and personally, it is an absolute violation of the law. It is a violation of the fair housing law, it is a violation of the lending law, so what HUD is doing, and what we have done already is, we were tasked by the president to look at appraisal bias, because what we know is that it used to be that these things happened only in redlined communities, but now it is pervasive. It is happening everywhere, and we determined that part of the problem was how appraisers are trained, who is in the appraisal industry, and how they are governed, and so what we did in March was to present a report that showed how deeply this whole bias situation is across this country. It is systemic, and it is intentional to some degree…What we’ve already done is have the appraisal sub committee say to every single state in this country, the test that you use is no longer valid because it is a violation of the fair housing law.”
Secretary Fudge clarified her remarks regarding the test saying she was referring to the test to become an appraiser, adding(3:53), “What we have looked at is how data is collected. That’s part of the problem, it’s the data. So they collect data, and the data is not what it should be, they then use the data in a way that it should not be used, and so they come up with these biased appraisals. But as well, when you look at an industry that is more than 95% White, you find that people of color are treated differently because there is an inherent bias with a lot of them, and because they collect the data, the data is not good data.”
Secretary Fudge also made a startling acknowledgement regarding HUD, saying no previous administration has ever attempted to address the home appraisal bias problem, which is now evidently systemic. She said(5:05): “It has not happened before. This is the first of it’s kind report, this is the first if it’s kind subcommittee. It’s called Property Appraisal Valuation Equity. What the president has said is that we have to look at everything through a lens of equity. What we have realized is that people selling homes, just as the persons you were talking about, and even people buying homes, if their appraisal is not correct, what we find, especially as Black people and communities of color and underserved communities, is we lose great wealth just through the appraisal process. If those homes are appraised the way that they should be, then we look at being able to pass down significantly more resources and more wealth to generations that follow. But if we are constantly undervaluing communities of color, either because they are communities of color, or that the person themselves is in a community that they don’t think that we should be in, then we consistently lose wealth in our communities, and that’s why this is so important from an equity situation.”
Secretary Fudge concluded with her personal home appraisal story, telling host Coates that her house , which is in a Black community, is literally two doors away from an all-White community. She has a bigger lot size and house than the one two doors away from her, yet her house is valued at $25,000 less than that house in the White community.
Bottom line folks, the problem of biased home appraisals is a major one, and needs to be confronted head on. As Secretary Fudge correctly pointed out on CNN, “If those homes are appraised the way that they should be, then we look at being able to pass down significantly more resources and more wealth to generations that follow.” This issue is especially important to communities of color.
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Rep Liz Cheney(R-WY) sat down for an interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, three days after her landslide primary loss to Trump-backed challenger Harriet Hageman, to discuss her future political plans. The interview aired on ABC’s This Week show (08/21/22) and as many expected, Cheney’s lopsided loss was in no way shape or form, an end to her political career, but rather, a beginning of a new political chapter.
Rep Cheney said this moments after her loss to Hagenan on 08/16/22: “We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face, and about what is required to defeat it. I have said since January 6th, that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office, and I mean that.”
Asked whether she regretted the fact that her staunch opposition to former President Trump had cost her a leadership position in the House and eventually her seat, Rep Cheney responded (2:51): “No regrets. You know, I feel sad about where my party is, I feel sad about the way that too many of my colleagues have responded to what I think is a great moral test and challenge of our time, a great moment to determine whether or not people are going to stand up on behalf of the democracy, and on behalf of our republic.” Rep Cheney added that she has heard from several prominent leaders after her primary loss, thanking her for putting the country over her party. One such call, she said, came from President Biden.
Asked what Trump’s continuing grip on the GOP says about the party, Rep Cheney said the party, both at the state and national level, “is very sick.” She specifically said(4:11):“I think one, it says that people continue to believe the lie, they continue to believe what he’s saying, which is very dangerous. I think it also tells you that large portions of our party, including the leadership of our party, both at the state level in Wyoming, as well as on a national level with RNC, is very sick, and that we really have got to decide whether or not we are going to be a party based on substance and policy, or whether we are going to remain as so many of our party are today, in the grips of a dangerous former president.”
Asked about the argument by former President Trump and others, that her landslide primary loss is proof that the principles she is fighting for are not shared by the GOP, Rep Cheney responded (5:03): “Well, doesn’t that tell you something? What I’m fighting for is the Constitution. What I’m fighting for is the perpetuation of the republic, what I’m fighting for is the fact that elections have to matter, and that when the election is over and the courts have ruled, and the electoral college has met, that the president of the United States has to respect the results of the election, and if Donald Trump’s spokesman says that those are principles that are inconsistent with Donald Trump’s views, and inconsistent with the Republican Party’s views, I think that ought to give every American pause about who Donald Trump is, and about what the Republican Party stands for today.”
Asked about what her new political organization is going to focus on, Rep Cheney said one of her primary objectives will be to campaign against “election deniers”.
Asked about her views on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and specifically, whether he should become Speaker if the GOP takes over the House, Rep Cheney said (6:22): “My views about Kevin McCarthy are very clear. The Speaker of the House is the second in line for the presidency. It requires somebody who understands and recognizes their duty, their oath, their obligation, and he’s been completely unfaithful to the constitution, and demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the significance and importance of the role of Speaker, so I don’t believe he should be Speaker of the House, and I think that’s been very clear.”
Asked whether she would support Trump’s acolytes like Senator Ted Cruz(R-TX) or Josh Hawley(R-MO) if one of them secured the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, Rep Cheney responded (9:50): “It would be very difficult when you look at somebody like Josh Hawley, or somebody like Ted Cruz, both of whom know better, both of whom know exactly what the role of Congress is in terms of our constitutional obligations with respect to presidential elections, and yet both of whom took steps that fundamentally threatened the constitutional order and structure in the aftermath of the last election, so in my view, they both have made themselves unfit for future office.”
Asked about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who many view as the number two contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination after Trump, Rep Cheney said(10:28): “DeSantis is somebody who is right now campaigning for election deniers, and I think that is something that people have to have real pause about. Either you fundamentally believe in and will support our constitutional structure, or you don’t.”
Asked whether if she runs for president in 2024, it will be out of a genuine desire to win, or simply sending a pro-democracy message, Rep Cheney responded in relevant part(10:59):“Any decision that I make about doing something that significant and that serious, would be with the intention of winning, and because I think I would be the best candidate.” She punted when asked whether running as an Independent remained an option for her saying(11:19), “I’m not going to go down that path anymore in terms of speculating.”
Bottom line folks, Rep Liz Cheney is not going anywhere. Her primary loss will free her from the bondage that is Trump’s GOP, and allow her to pursue loftier goals–the fight for democracy. She said one of her primary goals will be to defeat “election deniers”, which Yours Truly hopes includes one Senator Ted Cruz, who is up for reelection in 2024. We’re going to need you Liz, in the Lone Star state.
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