Progressive’s Comprehensive Manipulation of Human Behavior

This is a rather long article but for your benefit and that of our nation.

For decades, slicing away at human rights and the protections of the Bill of Rights have been not only been happening but in recent years it has moved into a faster forward gear. The right to self protection is often bundled in the 2nd Amendment but consider self protection is also protected in the 1st Amendment and that means protecting ourselves with speech, rallies and peaceful protests.

Big media and big tech are grouping people that are for law and order, that are conservatives and are loyal Trump supporters because of his doctrine are under assault which is beyond dispute. Big media and big tech are on overt missions to terminate Fox News, NewsMax, OANN and even social media platforms such as Parler. Just turn on CNN and MSNBC for an hour if you can stand it and the proof is there.

All for the greater good….yeah sure….

Understand that the template for a national lock-down during the beginning of the pandemic, we behaved. We stayed home, we detached ourselves from society, we could not go to church, we could not go to doctor appointments, we could not go to the gym to maintain physical fitness. Dr. Fauci was the expert and we were told to trust the science of the virus. That science changed countless times. Since then, many mayors and governors have mandated closures and sequestration applying slippery facts and slanted science.

Empty street is seen on Times Square | in-cyprus.com an empty Time Square

We continue to suffer from fear across the nation for various reasons that altering our behavior and thought. We don’t want to be cancelled, but we are getting cancelled nonetheless. We are in a tidal wave of censorship meant to silence foes and settle old scores.

Thought, conversation and dissent is a human right, a civil right. Free movement is as well, a long look back at unalienable rights is your duty. This report from the U.S. State Department summarizes it well.

It goes beyond MSNBC.

On Wednesday night, a member of the Democratic National Committee ranted that everyone who voted for President Trump should be “deprogrammed.”

David Atkins, who wrote in his campaign for the DNC, “I currently serve as the Region 10 Director for the California Democratic Party,” tweeted on Wednesday a message reminiscent of the repressive Communist states around the world: “No seriously…how *do* you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook? We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South.” Read more here from the DailyWire.

But there is yet another nefarious global policy that is taking hold and you must beware. It is called The Great Reset. It is applying the same template that was used in 2020-21. Your behavior has already been altered, so it stands to reason the global elites and the Biden administration will push that action on all of America.

Now is the time for a 'great reset' of capitalism | World ...

Biden’s Build back better is a World Economic Forum plan to “reinvent capitalism” so that companies are more focused on the greater good, not profits, according to the WEF‘s own statements. How to accomplish that? By the “great reset.” Again, that’s according to the WEF‘s own words. source

Here is a summary for your use by Stacey Rubin, a lawyer and former litigator: (I interviewed her on my radio show)

At any anti-lockdown protest, you will see signs that say “Stop the Great Reset.” The New York Times calls this phrase “a baseless conspiracy theory.” Here is the problem. None of this is secret. There are books you can read about it and detailed websites describing it. Time Magazine even did a cover story. It’s the title of World Economic Forum head Klaus Schwab’s book on the lockdowns and the future. It was published July 9, 2020, and now has nearly 900 reviews on Amazon.

Proponents of “The Great Reset” argue that the pandemic proves our former society “doesn’t work,” so we need a tech-focused, “sustainable” future to reduce emissions and thereby “save the planet.” The Great Reset is a rebranded, tightened-up version of the UN’s decades-old “Sustainable Development” agenda (“Agenda 21”). The same policies and ideas are contained in “The Green New Deal,” which was defeated in 2019 in the US Congress.

It bears repeating: six months before “SARS-CoV-2” was discovered by China, the UN and the WEF signed a “Strategic Partnership” specifically to advance the “Sustainable Development” agenda, now known as “The Great Reset.” You can read all about this partnership online.

Schwab has been openly “fighting” (to use his own word) against Milton Friedman-style economics for decades, ever since Friedman published his famous 1970 essay: “The Social Responsibility Of Business Is to Increase Its Profits.” Schwab now predicts that the “COVID19 pandemic” — which he says will last at least until 2022 — will mark the final death-knell of “neo-liberalism,” which he defines as “a corpus of ideas and policies . . . favoring competition over solidarity, creative destruction over government intervention and economic growth over social welfare.”

Others would describe neoliberalism as “decentralized power and smaller government,” and Schwab’s preferred system as “China under Xi Jinping.”

How long has Schwab known that a pandemic could be used to advance his ideals? A while, if his publications and planning exercises are any indication. His book, COVID-19: The Great Reset contains lengthy discourse on how pandemics are known agents for major societal shifts. He asks, “Why should COVID-19 be any different?”

Then there is the fact that Schwab’s organization practiced a “high-level pandemic exercise” in October 2019, less than five months before “Covid-19″ came along. The WEF’s co-sponsors for this event were The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, both of which have actively promoted 2020’s unprecedented pandemic response —as Imperial College London’s Neil Ferguson recently explained, lockdowns were not recommended by any government until Xi Jinping “changed what was possible” by proclaiming “this worked for us in China.”

This extraordinarily fortuitously-timed pandemic planning exercise makes Schwab look like something of an oracle. Indeed, he openly brags about his foresight:

“For years, international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), institutions like the World Economic Forum and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI — launched at the Annual Meeting 2017 in Davos), and individuals like Bill Gates have been warning us about the next pandemic risk, even specifying that it: 1) would emerge in a highly populated place where economic development forces people and wildlife together; 2) would spread quickly and silently by exploiting networks of human travel and trade; and 3) would reach multiple countries by thwarting containment.”

In 2017, Anthony Fauci made a similar prediction, declaring that “there is no doubt” that Donald J. Trump “will be confronted with a pandemic” before the end of his term. Like Schwab, Fauci actively promotes lockdowns. Like Schwab, he declares that we can never again return to normal — if we do, we should expect diseases to constantly jump from animals to humans (because pandemics never happened until 2020, when the world grew “too industrialized”). To save ourselves, we must redesign society “in harmony with nature.”

Both Fauci and Schwab’s prose are littered with terms like “sustainability,” “inclusiveness,” “green,” “nature,” and “harmony.” Terms that are hard to disagree with, although the behaviors supposedly promoting them are a harder sell. Schwab reveals in his “Great Reset” book that our new germ-avoidant behaviors are seen as optimal to “the environment:”

During lockdowns, many consumers previously reluctant to rely too heavily on digital applications and services were forced to change their habits almost overnight . . . many of the tech behaviors that we were forced to adopt during confinement will through familiarity become more natural. If health [read: fear of germs] considerations become paramount, we may decide, for example, that a cycling class in front of a screen at home . . . is safer (and cheaper!).

The same reasoning applies to many different domains like flying to a meeting (Zoom is safer, cheaper, greener and much more convenient), driving to a distant family gathering for the weekend (the WhatsApp family group is not as fun but, again, safer, cheaper and greener) or even attending an academic course (not as fulfilling, but cheaper and more convenient).

Spelling this out for those too stunned to take it in: this is an open admission that it benefits Schwab and Fauci’s political agenda to continue lockdowns as long as possible. The same people who sell interminable lockdowns — by ignoring great science on pre-existing immunity, lack of asymptomatic spread, and flawed PCR tests — believe the lockdowns are the perfect agent to usher in the changes they desire. Will they succeed? Is their behavior remotely justified? Does the pandemic really prove our society is fatally flawed? Why can’t they use the political system to gain majority votes if their agenda is so good?

Covid-19 is the first major pandemic in six decades. Worse pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957, and 1968, when the population was exponentially smaller (1.8 billion; 2.8 billion; and 3.6 billion, respectively) and carbon emissions were not even on anyone’s radar. Because pandemics have always occurred, there is no logical basis — not even a flimsy one — to infer that “population growth,” “climate change” or “industrialization” caused this one.

People may or may not agree with Schwab that Zoom meetings are preferable to in-person work, that sitting in the same house every day of the week is preferable to commuting to an office, that local entertainment is better than international travel, that exercise classes are just as good over the computer screen as they are in a studio. But there is one thing most people agree with: being told that “germs” threaten your existence when they really do not is abusive.

Scaring people into their homes, making them fear their own family and friends, preying on their vulnerabilities, shattering their social existences— especially when you knowingly do this in hopes of making it permanent — is just about as bad as human behavior gets.

Just as bad, Schwab et al. know the lockdowns are “taking out” certain industries while sparing others: in a nutshell, the powerful survive. Anyone who has both this knowledge and the ability to influence lockdown duration has an unthinkable level of power and an unlimited ability to amass more of it by manipulating pretty much the entire global financial system. All of this is eminently predictable by the people encouraging, supporting, and imposing the restrictive orders.

“The [restaurant] sector of activity has been hit by the pandemic [lockdown] to such a dramatic extent that it . . . may never come back. In France and the U.K., several industry voices estimate that up to 75% of independent restaurants might not survive the lockdowns and subsequent social distancing measures. The large chains and fast-food giants will. This in turn suggests that big business will get bigger while the smallest shrink or disappear. A large restaurant chain, for example, has a better chance of staying operational as it benefits from more resources and, ultimately, less competition in the wake of bankruptcies among smaller outfits.”

Knowingly taking out small businesses — one of the last bastions of free speech and independence, distinguishable from the tightly-controlled corporate world — is evil. It is hard to believe anyone would do it, if they could avoid it. However, it is equally hard to ignore the fact that Florida, Georgia, South Dakota, Texas and Sweden (among many others) have fully open economies and average mortality to show for it.

Both public health ethics and the Siracusa Principles dictate that the “least restrictive means” must be used when “public health” is given as a justification for restricting basic human rights, such as the right to earn a living. Yet Schwab and Fauci both ignore Sweden and Florida, and claim that Covid-19 lockdown restrictions must continue until 2022 (or longer). How on earth do they justify it?

They seem to be telling themselves — and may even truly believe — that they are “saving the planet,” so the ends justify the means. In his book, Schwab poses the rhetorical question, “Is it okay to lie to the public for some greater good?” “Well,” I would respond, “who should we trust to decide what is the greater good?” There will never be unified agreement on which system achieves this end. Some will vote Milton Friedman, some Klaus Schwab. Most everyone, however, would agree that tricks like exploiting pandemics should not be used, even by “one’s own” side.

Reasonable people may well believe in the merit of Schwab’s “stakeholder economy.” But they undoubtedly expect to be persuaded of its merit, not to have the system foisted on them by ruse. The democratic process exists so ideas can be openly hashed out, debated, and settled by the public, each person allotted one vote. Schwab quite openly admits that he would like to dispense with this process — it is not producing the result he desires. Far from it: recent populist movements in the US (“Make America Great Again”) and UK (“Brexit”) have specifically rejected his collectivist ideals:

“Without greater collaboration, we will be unable to address the global challenges that we collectively face. Put in the simplest possible terms: if, as human beings, we do not collaborate to confront our existential challenges (the environment and the global governance free fall, among others), we are doomed.”

In his “Great Reset” marketing book, Schwab threatens that this rising tide of nationalism will prove “incompatible” with the United States dollar’s “status as global reserve currency.” He suggests that an alternative currency will be needed, that a global digital currency is eventually going to arrive, and that China is “years ahead of the rest of the world” in developing one.

Although he doesn’t say so directly, Schwab et al. undoubtedly dislike what Trump has been doing to defend the dollar. Schwab quotes Barry Eichengreen and European Central Bank representatives as follows: “The security premium enjoyed by the U.S. dollar could diminish” because “the U.S. is disengaging from global geopolitics in favor of more stand-alone, inward-looking policies.”

Predictably, Schwab makes the argument that these same nationalist policies proved disastrous during “the pandemic.” Echoing the WHO’s praise of China’s collectivist action in Wuhan — which Xi Jinping proudly declares “eradicated the virus” from the entire nation of China — Schwab writes that countries fared better during the pandemic when they share “a real sense of solidarity, favoring the common good over individual aspirations and needs.”

“Favorable societal characteristics [include] core values of inclusivity, solidarity and trust [which] are strong determining elements and important contributors to success in containing an epidemic.”

Support for these concepts is not a new feeling for Schwab. This did not spring organically out of the pandemic for him, like an epiphany. Rather, this is his long-held vision of utopia and his life’s work. He’s been talking about it for decades:

Earlier this year, Schwab told the Financial Times that his aim has been to beat back Friedman. “What was for me always disturbing was that Milton Friedman gave a moral reasoning to shareholder capitalism — [he argued] the role of business was to make business earn as much as possible and then the money would flow back from the company to the government in the form of taxes. I had to fight against the wave.”

In short, Schwab et al. are on a mission. The mission is to change society. They admire China’s and New Zealand’s governance. They practiced for a pandemic. Science has been thrown to the wind for months, censorship is rampant, Sweden and Florida are ignored, the rule of law is suspended, and certain governors seem determined never to release us from their declared “state of emergency.”

These circumstances are favorable to Schwab and his powerful allies, including technology companies, billionaires, the media, China, the UN, and others. They are detrimental to billions of less powerful, less organized people and small businesses. There is a lot we don’t know, because we aren’t being told.

Schwab and his ideologically-aligned allies think they are saving the world. It is not conspiracy theory to read their own books and listen to their own words, which target fundamental liberties and rights that the West has long taken for granted. At some point, it’s not unreasonable to observe that this is no longer about public health. It’s about a new political vision, one hatched by a private few in order to rule over the many. It is unlikely to be shared by most people, thus setting up what is likely to be an epic battle in 2021.

 

 

 

What is it with CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike, The DNC's Security Firm, Was Under Contract ... CrowdStrike was working on behalf of the DNC, the company was also under contract with the FBI for unspecified technical services. According to a US federal government spending database, CrowdStrike’s “period of performance” on behalf of the FBI was between July 2015 and July 2016. CrowdStrike’s findings regarding the DNC server breach — which continue to this day to be cited as authoritative by everyone from former FBI Director James Comey, to NBC anchor Megyn Kelly — were issued in June 2016, when the contract was still active. source

Some may believe this is all old news. It maybe years old, however it is remains unsolved. With a new Biden administration, it is important that many, many of those old players are now part of the Biden presidential operation, especially Susan Rice and the others that did unmasking. Beware of what comes.

Meanwhile…..when governments collude…especially intelligence agencies and operatives….

Real Clear Politics published in May of 2020 the following:
CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, privately acknowledged more than two years ago that it had no evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee’s server.

CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry’s admission under oath, in a recently declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee, raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public. The allegation that Russia stole Democratic Party emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and others and then passed them to WikiLeaks helped trigger the FBI’s probe into now debunked claims of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 election. The CrowdStrike admissions were released just two months after the Justice Department retreated from its its other central claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when it dropped charges against Russian troll farms it said had been trying to get Trump elected.

And the Crowdstrike CEO is proud of the work his company does with the FBI. Going back further, it is noted: Attorney Andrew Bagley has been employed by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike since January 2015; this company was involved deeply in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hacking debacle. In 2010, Bagley served as a visiting researcher at the Link Campus University in Rome; while there, his résumé notes that Bagley, “Conducted research and held discussions with Italian and American prosecutors, special agents, and intelligence officials about intelligence analysis, national security, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism policy.”

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According to Bagley’s online résumé, he served as the E-Discovery Technical Advisor to the FBI, conducting legal research, advising on technical issues, and drafting policy for the Discovery Coordination and Policy Unit within the FBI, from 2012 to 2015.

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.

Interesting: Despite the patent importance of the physical server system to the FBI and Intelligence-Community investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Bureau never examined the DNC servers. Evidently, the DNC declined to cooperate to that degree, and the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue a subpoena to demand that the servers be turned over (just like the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue subpoenas to demand the surrender of critical physical evidence in the Clinton e-mails investigation).

Instead, the conclusion that Russia is responsible for the invasion of the DNC servers rests on the forensic analysis conducted by CrowdStrike. Rather than do its own investigation, the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s lawyers.

Link International - Link Campus University of Rome Link University, Rome

As Senator Lindsey Graham published the now declassified documents/testimonies on RussiaGate, CrowdStrike comes into view again. Why? Well, the FBI has a long and comprehensive history with the Link Campus in Rome and now we learn more about Joseph Mifsud. He was on staff at the Link Campus in Italy. Remember how, AG Barr flew to Italy for some one on one interviews? Those he interviewed remain unknown.Could AG Barr have met with Vincenzo Scotti or maybe even Mifsud himself? As for Link Campus University, Italy: Mifsud, Scotti, and Frattini were all employed by this Italian university. ‘Enzo’ Scotti is Scotti is an Italian politician and member of Christian Democracy. He was Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs. And it could be that Mifsud is hiding in Russia….just a suggestion.

As intelligence expert Chris Blackburn notes on Twitter, leafing through the minutes, “the FBI knew that Joseph Mifsud was working with Italian intelligence figures-trainers at the Link Campus in Rome. Because the FBI worked there, too. Of course Mueller didn’t want to include it in his report.” Nothing but “Russian agent”, then. As RealClearInvestigations points out, after Mifsud was identified as the man who would talk to Papadopoulos, Mueller’s team described him as someone with important Russian contacts. This description of the Maltese lecturer, however, ignored Mifsud’s own ties to Western governments, politicians and institutions, including the CIA, FBI and British intelligence services. It’s really curious that, despite Mifsud’s central role in the investigation, the FBI conducted only a brief interview with him in an atrium of a Washington, D.C., hotel in February 2017. Mueller’s team later claimed that Mifsud provided false statements to FBI agents but did not charge him as happened with Papadopoulos. How could he be a Russian agent? And if he did, why wasn’t he questioned?
Then there is CrowdStrike and Ukraine, or is there?

FILE – CrowdStrike co-founder and CTO Dmitri Alperovitch speaks during the Reuters Media and Technology Summit in New York, June 11, 2012.

After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by “Fancy Bear,” a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

CrowdStrike’s claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.

On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.

The company removed language that said Ukraine’s artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS.

The original CrowdStrike report was dated Dec. 22, 2016, and the updated report was dated March 23, 2017.

The company also removed language saying Ukraine’s howitzers suffered “the highest percentage of loss of any … artillery pieces in Ukraine’s arsenal.”
***
Just a few months ago, in fact June of 2020, CrowdStrike on their website apparently felt compelled to put forth the following detail for reasons that may be coming clear.
June 5, 2020 UPDATE

Blog update following the release of the testimony by Shawn Henry, CSO and President of CrowdStrike Services, before the House Intelligence Committee that was recently declassified.

What was CrowdStrike’s role in investigating the hack of the DNC?

CrowdStrike was contacted on April 30, 2016 to respond to a suspected breach. We began our work with the DNC on May 1, 2016, collecting intelligence and analyzing the breach. After conducting this analysis and identifying the adversaries on the network, on June 10, 2016 we initiated a coordinated remediation event to ensure the intruders were removed and could not regain access. That remediation process lasted approximately 2-3 days and was completed on June 13, 2016.

Why did the DNC contact CrowdStrike?

The DNC contacted CrowdStrike to respond to a suspected cyber attack impacting its network. The DNC was first alerted to the hack by the FBI in September 2015. According to testimony by DNC IT contractor Yared Tamene Wolde-Yohannes, the FBI attributed the breach to the Russian Government in September 2015 (page 7).

Why did the DNC hire CrowdStrike instead of just working with the FBI to investigate the hack?

The FBI doesn’t perform incident response or network remediation services when organizations need to get back to business after a breach.

CrowdStrike is a leader in protecting customers around the world from cyber threats. It is common for organizations to hire third-party industry experts, like CrowdStrike, to investigate and remediate cyber attacks when they suspect a breach even if they are collaborating with law enforcement. As John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at The Department of Justice, testified before the House Intelligence Committee (cited from page 21 of his testimony):

“A lot of — outside of any political organization, companies, most corporations, they often would use these third party contractors, who they hired through their own counsel, and maximize the control from the point of view of the victim.”
What the heck is going on here for real? Outside of this little website of mine, is anyone else going deeper and seeking truths when it comes to CrowdStrike, Perkins Coie, Link University and the FBI…much less the all things DNC?
Other key citations for reference include:

https://www.voanews.com/usa/cyber-firm-rewrites-part-disputed-russian-hacking-report

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/scandals-collide-dossier-dnc-server-perkins-coie/

https://www.torial.com/satoshi.nakamoto/portfolio/355396

 

Biden Inauguration Donors

It is a cyber war of a financial order…against America..

Let’s begin here with Section 230 shall we? Full immunity…and never amended. Just how decent is big tech? Well on the heels of Alphabet, the parent company of Google giving exclusive assistance to then candidate Hillary Clinton and later as we find out that all big tech uses our data, which we are forced to approve is their terms of service as we are users, while they make big money off of us. Then we find out the conspiracy and collusion between all big tech operations against little and new Parler, much less thousands of other websites as competitors, big tech is more powerful than the Federal government.

Section 230 is a piece of Internet legislation in the United States, passed into law as part of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996), formally codified as Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 at 47 U.S.C. § 230.[a] Section 230 generally provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an “interactive computer service” who publish information provided by third-party users:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

The statute in Section 230(c)(2) further provides “Good Samaritan” protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the removal or moderation of third-party material they deem obscene or offensive, even of constitutionally protected speech, as long as it is done in good faith.

There has been hearing after hearing on The Hill in many committees where the CEO’s of big tech are called on their abuses and they simply defer to feeble apologies or blame algorithmic operations. As President Trump worked diligently to stop or amend Section 230….it ever happened at the congressional level…reading on, perhaps we know why…

Big Tech, Media, Fashion Exec.s Seek to Blackmail Pro-Life ...

Donations and donations and more donations.

Big tech colludes to protect Biden - Advance Australia Even Australia gets-it.

TheBlaze reports: The Biden Inaugural Committee released its list of donors, which included big tech companies Google, Microsoft, and Qualcomm. The Biden Inaugural Committee published the list of its top donors on Saturday, all of whom contributed “over $200 to the 59th Presidential Inaugural activities.”

Besides the big tech giants, other notable benefactors include multinational telecommunications conglomerate Verizon, cable television behemoth Comcast, mass media company Charter Communications, defense and aerospace manufacturer Boeing, health insurance provider Anthem, and medical technology company Masimo Corporation.

Several unions made donations, including the American Federation of Teachers COPE, United Food And Commercial Workers, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

The amount of the donations are not provided, but the committee will have to disclose that information within 90 days after Inauguration Day, according to FEC guidance.

“President-elect Joe Biden’s newly formed inaugural committee will accept donations from individuals up to $500,000 and from corporations up to $1 million,” CNBC reported on Nov. 30.

An organization can be named a chair of the inaugural if it gives $1 million, and an individual can be designated as a chair if they donate $500,000. The VIP chair package includes “an invitation to virtual events with the President-elect and Vice President-elect and their spouses with virtual signed photos, along with ‘preferred viewing’ for the inauguration, among other things,” according to Fox News.

A since-deleted “donor” page on the Biden inauguration website had stated the committee “does not accept contributions from fossil fuel companies (i.e., companies whose primary business is the extraction, processing, distribution or sale of oil, gas or coal), their executives, or from PACs organized by them.”

Biden’s campaign had also banned donations from lobbyists and the oil and gas industry. Employees of fossil fuel companies were allowed to donate up to $200.

Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20 is expected to be significantly smaller in scale because of the coronavirus pandemic. Biden’s inauguration will have a “virtual parade across America,” and feature “diverse, dynamic” performances.

“The parade will celebrate America’s heroes, highlight Americans from all walks of life in different states and regions, and reflect on the diversity, heritage, and resilience of the country as we begin a new American era,” the inaugural committee said in a press release.

“We are excited about the possibilities and opportunities this moment presents to allow all Americans to participate in our country’s sacred inaugural traditions,” said Presidential Inaugural Committee executive director Maju Varghese.

President Donald Trump has proclaimed that he will not attend Biden’s inauguration.

Is Anyone Taking a Long Look at Gab Sterling, Voting Implementation Mgr for Georgia?

His job was/is to supervise Georgia’s (new) voting system.

Gabriel Sterling in Georgia gives Trump a Joe McCarthy moment - Los Angeles  Times

So, here are some tips (facts) to consider.

Remember that consent decree where signatures and voter registrations were not to be verified? It is said that this agreement was between Stacey Abrams and Brad Raffensperger. Actually, those two are the conspirators but on the decree itself, neither of them signed the agreement. In fact, the agreement has the inferred signatures of Bruce V. Spiva of Perkins Coie (the law firm that Hillary Clinton and the DNC hired that later hired Fusion GPS) and Vincent R. Russo of Robbins Ross Alloy Belinfante Littlefield, LLC (Office of the Georgia Attorney General, /Counsel for State Defendants).

Vincent Russo:

Vincent has been appointed as a Special Assistant Attorney General for the State of Georgia and regularly represents Georgia officials in voting rights and election litigation. He has also been tapped to represent the Governor and the Secretary of State of Georgia in matters before the Committee on Oversight and Reform in the U.S. House of Representatives, including inquiries by the Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis. Prior to joining the Firm, Vincent was the General Counsel for the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office, where he served as the chief legal counsel in the administrations of Brian Kemp and Karen Handel.

Vincent’s practice regularly involves issues at the intersection of law, politics, and public policy. He also has significant experience advising federal and state campaign committees, PACs, and other political organizations, including representing clients in investigations by the Federal Election Commission and the Georgia Government Transparency & Campaign Finance Commission. Vincent served as legal counsel to Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s campaign committee in 2018. He is the General Counsel for the Georgia Republican Party and has represented the National Republican Congressional Committee in recent election cycles.

Josh Belinfante:

Outside of litigation, Josh has significant experience in in campaign finance and election law matters. He represents entities governed by federal and state campaign finance laws, including campaigns and political action committees.  He also has specific experience drafting laws governing Certificate of Need, gaming, the Georgia Lottery, restrictive covenants and non-compete agreements, and eminent domain.

Seems to have the hallmarks of a good ol boy network.

During Sterling’s time on the City Council, the city came under investigation by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office for possible violations in the way it ran an election. In 2016, the council approved the city running its own special election — rather than hiring the county to do it as usual — to fill a council vacancy. The election for the District 3 seat was held the same day as a county primary election, but at a separate polling place that was not within the district.

That confusing situation led to the state investigation about a possible polling place notice violation. But more than four years later, the case remains unheard by the State Election Board for unexplained reasons, a situation a local legislator once called “insane.” The case has dragged on so long that since it began, Sterling has left office, made the Fulton commission run, and joined the office that began the investigation.

Well not actually All good ol boys, as we have Jordan Fuchs, Deputy Secretary of State.

Fuchs was quoted in a Politico story in 2019 that reported a variety of groups were concerned that “Raffensperger and his staff are pushing ahead with a $150 million plan to switch the state to new voting machines (Dominion Voting Systems) that an array of experts warn would be susceptible to hacking.” That story says that Fuchs “scolded the tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks, which also opposes the machines,” by telling them, among other things, that they did not “fully comprehend the climate of our state, the demands of our communities, or the objectives of this office.”

Another press release reported that Raffensperger had appointed Fuchs to “serve on the Board of Directors for the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). Fuchs will serve as Georgia’s national representative within the organization’s governing body,” the release said.

“Our office has led the charge to reform Georgia’s elections with common-sense solutions that prioritize efficiency and promote integrity – and our immediate action to join ERIC was a major victory for all of Georgia’s voters,” said Fuchs. “I am honored to represent our state at the national level as we continue to aggressively pursue solutions that ensure a better experience at the polls for our voters and election officials alike.”

What is ERIC? “ERIC is a multistate partnership that uses a sophisticated and secure data-matching tool to improve the accuracy and efficiency of state voter registration systems. Through ERIC, states share voter registration information to improve the integrity of voter lists,” the release says. “The national non-profit uses cross-state data matches to flag voters who may have registered in multiple states, moved out of state, or passed away – alerting election officials so that they can update voter rolls accordingly, consistent with federal and state law.”

ERIC is a multistate partnership that uses a sophisticated and secure data-matching tool to improve the accuracy and efficiency of state voter registration systems. Through ERIC, states share voter registration information to improve the integrity of voter lists. The national non-profit uses cross-state data matches to flag voters who may have registered in multiple states, moved out of state, or passed away – alerting election officials so that they can update voter rolls accordingly, consistent with federal and state law. Exactly, how is that working out?)

“I have no doubt that Deputy Secretary Fuchs will continue to advance the best interest of our state and work with national stakeholders and industry leaders to make elections more secure, accurate, and accessible for every Georgia voter,” said Secretary Raffensperger.

Fuchs has been appointed as an ERIC board member for the 2019-2020 term and will continue to carry out her regular duties as Georgia’s Deputy Secretary of State for the duration.

A 2019 article by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution found that “the Georgia secretary of state’s office acknowledged…that a vendor had improperly redacted a purchasing document detailing security features of the state’s new $107 million voting system.” Fuchs is quoted in that article as saying, “Our new voting system, including new Poll Pads, are our most secure system to date.” The article notes that “the iPads will be provided by a company called KnowInk, which is working with Dominion Voting Systems to install the new voting technology statewide.” More here.

The consent decree is here. 

Now here is where it gets more interesting. The man who oversees Georgia’s voting system, Gabriel Sterling, negotiated a $200,000 per year contract for himself last year, quit his state government job and has worked as an independent contractor ever since.Under the arrangement, Sterling’s pay increased from his $114,000 government salary since November 2019, when he took on the role of project manager for the purchase and rollout of the state’s new voting equipment. State election officials say as a contractor, the government didn’t have to pay benefits, such as health insurance.

Sterling, a lifelong Republican, even drew praise from Democrats for his comments, and he received flowers and handwritten notes from voters across the country.

But his independent status prompted questions from state legislators and critics who have asked why oversight of the state’s voting machines is being managed outside Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s payroll.

Just a month before the November general election, there was a panel discussion, hosted by Gab Sterling on Georgia voting rights and elections. Really? Yes and imagine the panel roster…..Vasu Abhiraman, an ACLU of Georgia policy counsel; Josh Belinfante, an attorney specializing in election law at the Robbins Law Firm; and Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager for Georgia Secretary of State and a former member of the Sandy Springs City Council. The discussion, called “Fair Voting: Make It Count,” as part of its “Live Learn Lead” series.

Oh, did you know that Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger formed an election task force? Yup, the task force met weekly until the end of the year to “further the discussion on the election this Fall and to address the challenges in election administration.” Called, the Safe, Secure and Accessible Elections task force had bipartisanship and included figures such as Amb. Andrew Young, Georgia state NAACP President Rev. James Wooddall, and Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander. And, other members of the task force included Republican former U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, ACLU of Georgia counsel Vasu Abhiraman, Georgia Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Chris Clark, Georgia Tech professor Angelos Keromytis, MIT professor Charles Stewart, Center for Election and Innovation Research Founder and Executive Director David Becker, Jake Evans, the chairman of the Georgia chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association, Bartow County Elections Supervisor Joseph Kirk, DeKalb County Director of Voter Registration and Elections Erica Hamilton, Cobb County Director of Elections and Registration Janine Eveler, Fulton County Elections Director Rick Barron, Monica Childers of VotingWorks, as well as Sec. Raffensperger and Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs.

“Our teams are keeping Georgia voters the focal point of all of our elections,” Raffensperger said in a statement. “I am grateful that these leaders, from various professional and ideological backgrounds, are coming together to help meet that goal; not just for this election, or the next, but for elections in years to come. Improving the integrity of our elections and increasing voter confidence in their outcomes is vital.”

Thoughts?

 

Where are the FBI Reports for the 2020 Election Monitoring?

As a collection of Republican members of the House and the Senate are formally challenging the electors from the 2020 results, investigations continue by a wide and deep group of legal professionals for many states. The challenges are not just about the presidential results but certainly deal with all down ballot candidates and measures.
Some audits are complete while others are underway.
Consider all the varieties of voter, ballot and reporting fraud. In fact, while the State of Georgia is the most contested so far, should there even be a run-off senate race in the first place?
Meanwhile, no one is challenging the FBI on their assignments and work during the 2020 election cycle. Question is…where are those reports?
***

Election Crimes

Election crimes threaten the legitimacy of elections and undermine public confidence in our democracy. Election crimes fall into four broad categories:

  • Ballot fraud
  • Campaign finance violations
  • Patronage offenses
  • Civil rights violations, such as voter suppression or voter intimidation

While individual states and localities have the constitutional authority and responsibility to manage elections and have their own election laws, an election crime becomes a federal crime when one or more of the following occurs:

  • A ballot includes one or more federal candidates
  • Election or polling place officials abuse their office
  • The conduct involves false voter registration
  • The crime is motivated by hostility toward minority protected classes
  • The activity violates federal campaign finance law

Examples of federal election crimes include, but are not limited to:

  • Giving false information when registering to vote
  • Voting more than once
  • Changing ballot markings or otherwise tampering with ballots
  • Compensating voters
  • Threatening voters with physical or financial harm
  • Intentionally lying about the time, manner, or place of an election to prevent qualified voters from voting
  • Political fundraising by federal employees
  • Campaign contributions above legal limits
  • Conduit contributions
  • Contributions from foreign or other prohibited sources
  • Use of campaign funds for personal or unauthorized purposes

Distinguishing between legal and criminal conduct is critical for ensuring the integrity of U.S. elections. The following activities are not federalelection crimes; however, states have their own election laws. If you are concerned about a possible violation of a state or local election law, contact your local law enforcement.

  • Giving voters rides to the polls or time off to vote
  • Offering voters a stamp to mail a ballot
  • Making false claims about oneself or another candidate
  • Forging or faking nominating petitions
  • Campaigning too close to polling places

The FBI plays an important role in preventing violations of your constitutional rights, including your right to vote. Report any instances of potential election crimes to your local FBI field office as soon as possible.

According to the FBI website:

Election Crimes and Security

Fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, and the FBI is committed to protecting the rights of all Americans to vote.

The U.S. government only works when legal votes are counted and when campaigns follow the law. When the legitimacy of elections is corrupted, our democracy is threatened.

While individual states run elections, the FBI plays an important role in protecting federal interests and preventing violations of your constitutional rights.

An election crime is generally a federal crime if:

  • The ballot includes one or more federal candidates
  • An election or polling place official abuses their office
  • The conduct involves false voter registration
  • The crime intentionally targets minority protected classes
  • The activity violates federal campaign finance law

    Protect Your Vote

    • Know when, where, and how you will vote.
    • Seek out election information from trustworthy sources, verify who produced the content, and consider their intent.
    • Report potential election crimes—such as disinformation about the manner, time, or place of voting—to the FBI.
    • If appropriate, make use of in-platform tools offered by social media companies for reporting suspicious posts that appear to be spreading false or inconsistent information about voting and elections.
    • Research individuals and entities to whom you are making political donations.

    Voter Suppression

    Intentionally deceiving qualified voters to prevent them from voting is voter suppression—and it is a federal crime.

    There are many reputable places you can find your polling location and registration information, including eac.gov and usa.gov/how-to-vote. However, not all publicly available voting information is accurate, and some is deliberately designed to deceive you to keep you from voting.

    Bad actors use various methods to spread disinformation about voting, such as social media platforms, texting, or peer-to-peer messaging applications on smartphones. They may provide misleading information about the time, manner, or place of voting. This can include inaccurate election dates or false claims about voting qualifications or methods, such as false information suggesting that one may vote by text, which is not allowed in any jurisdiction.

    • For general elections, Election Day is always the first Tuesday after November 1.
    • While there are some exceptions for military overseas using absentee ballots by email or fax, you cannot vote online or by text on Election Day.

    Always consider the source of voting information. Ask yourself, “Can I trust this information?” Look for official notices from election offices and verify the information you found is accurate.

    Help defend the right to vote by reporting any suspected instances of voter suppression—especially those received through a private communication channel like texting—to your local FBI field office or at tips.fbi.gov.

    Stock image depicting a person placing a ballot into a ballot box with an American flag background

    Report Election Crime

    If you suspect a federal election offense, contact the election crimes coordinator at your local FBI office, or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov.