Category Archives: Presidential campaign

Re. Gaetz Files Criminal Referral Against CEO Zuckerberg

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Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz (FL-01) filed a criminal referral against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for making materially false statements to Congress while under oath during two joint hearings in Congress on April 10th, 2018 and April 11th, 2018.

During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and also a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Mr. Zuckerberg repeatedly and categorically denied his company engaged in bias against conservative speech, persons, policies, or politics and also denied that Facebook censored and suppressed content supportive of President Donald Trump and other conservatives.

In June of 2020 however, Project Veritas published the results of an undercover investigation featuring two whistleblowers who worked as Facebook’s “content moderators,” revealing that the overwhelming majority of content filtered by Facebook’s AI program was content in support of President Donald Trump, Republican candidates for office, or conservatism in general.

“Oversight is an essential part of Congress’ constitutional authority,” Congressman Gaetz states in the letter. “As a member of this body, I question Mr. Zuckerberg’s veracity, and challenge his willingness to cooperate with our oversight authority, diverting congressional resources during time-sensitive investigations, and materially impeding our work. Such misrepresentations are not only unfair, they are potentially illegal and fraudulent.”

The letter refers Mr. Zuckerberg to the Department of Justice for an investigation into the false statements made to Congress while under oath.

Full text of the letter sent to Attorney General William Barr may be found PDF iconHERE and below.

 

VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION

The Honorable William Barr

Attorney General of the United States

United States Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20530

 

Dear Attorney General Barr:

 

I write to urge you to investigate the conduct of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, Inc., before the United States Congress.

On April 10, 2018, Mr. Zuckerberg testified in a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee. The next day, Mr. Zuckerberg testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On both occasions, members of Congress asked Mr. Zuckerberg about allegations that Facebook censored and suppressed content supportive of President Donald Trump and other conservatives. In his responses, Mr. Zuckerberg repeatedly and categorically denied any bias against conservative speech, persons, policies, or politics. Mr. Zuckerberg also dismissed the suggestion that Facebook exercises any form of editorial manipulation. However, recent reports from Project Veritas, featuring whistleblowers who worked as Facebook’s “content moderators,” have shown ample evidence of such bias and manipulation.

Two content moderators, Zach McElroy and Ryan Hartwig, both worked on the Facebook content review flow generated by Facebook’s artificial intelligence (AI) program for flagging questionable content. McElroy worked at the Facebook-Cognizant facility in Tampa, Florida and Hartwig worked at the Facebook-Cognizant facility in Phoenix, Arizona.

On June 23, 2020, Project Veritas published the results of an undercover investigation featuring the aforementioned whistleblowers. Their report revealed that the overwhelming majority of content filtered by Facebook’s AI program was content in support of President Donald Trump, Republican candidates for office, or conservatism in general. This alone is already an indication of bias within the platform.

Once flagged by Facebook’s AI, moderators reviewed the filtered content, and adjudicated whether it qualified as removable. According to the Veritas report and undercover footage, the adjudicators were outspoken about their political bias against Republicans, and actively chose to eliminate otherwise-allowable content from the platform and from public view simply due to its political orientation. This arbitrary and capricious behavior is not done in good faith, and falls outside of the express intent of §230 of the Communications Decency Act, which affords Facebook liability protection as long as the platform moderates content in “good faith.”

Additionally, these facts are in direct contrast to Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress where he stated under oath that Facebook is a politically-neutral platform, and that he personally is working to root out any employees who are restricting speech based on Silicon Valley’s overwhelmingly leftist culture.

Project Veritas’ undercover footage shows that a great deal of “political speech” supporting the President was labeled “hate speech,” or was considered in violation Facebook’s “Community Standards.” At the same time, speech promoting violence against the President and his supporters was labeled as merely “political,” and was thus allowed to stay on the platform. For example, McElroy captured a shot of a Facebook corporate ruling that an illustration of a hand holding a knife slashing the throat of the President, captioned by “Fuck Trump,” would be allowed as political speech, despite being in clear violation of Facebook’s guidelines. In this case, the guidance to content moderators instructed them to watch for hostility directed at the gallery that posted the image.

Facebook’s AI screening content is not politically neutral. Neither are the moderators hired to review content flagged by the AI program. This stands in opposition to Mr. Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony, and violates the “good faith” provision of Section 230(c)(2)(A) of the Communications Decency Act.

Accordingly, I respectfully refer Mr. Zuckerberg to the Department for an investigation of potential violations of 18 U.S.C. §§1001, 1505, and 1621 for materially false statements made to Congress while testifying under oath.

Oversight is an essential part of Congress’ constitutional authority. Customarily, Congress is grateful to citizens who come forward with relevant information in good faith, as the aforementioned whistleblowers have done. As a member of this body, I question Mr. Zuckerberg’s veracity, and challenge his willingness to cooperate with our oversight authority, diverting congressional resources during time-sensitive investigations, and materially impeding our work. Such misrepresentations are not only unfair, they are potentially illegal and fraudulent.

 

I hope you will give this referral full and proper consideration. If you need further clarification, please contact my chief of staff, Jillian Lane-Wyant..

 

Sincerely,

 

Matt Gaetz

Member of Congress

*** Reference: Project Veritas has a history of hidden camera “stings” that use deceptively-edited video to fuel outrage against YouTube executives, CNN, George Soros and other liberal boogeyman. (Notably, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges in 2010 after being arrested for trying to tamper with a Senator’s phone.) More here

DNC Platform Mentions ‘whites’ 15 times, all Damning

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Just being born white appears to be a basis for ridicule and shaming. Imagine that.

The draft 2020 Democratic National Committee platform being circulated in Washington aims to reinforce the view that liberals are best situated to battle for minorities seeking higher wages, better housing and jobs, and more money for schools.

With the August convention coming on the heels of the Black Lives Matter protests, it features support for the movement and an expanded pledge to root out racism.

The preamble says, “We will give hate no safe harbor. We will never amplify or legitimize the voices of bigotry, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or white supremacy.”

In promising change, it sets up one group that has it too good and is holding minorities back: whites.

In more than 80 pages in the draft platform published by Politico, whites are mentioned 15 times, all critical, including three references to white supremacy or supremacists and one to white nationalists. The document doesn’t capitalize white as it does Black, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans.

In most mentions, the reference is to how whites are better off at the expense of others. And the promise often is to “close the gap” between minorities and whites, though no solutions are offered.

While the nation elected its first black president in 2008, racial issues still rage, and that is a huge factor in former Vice President Joe Biden’s consideration of a running mate in time for the Democratic National Convention, where the platform will be confirmed.

As part of the preamble to the DNC 2020 draft:

Democrats will fight to repair the soul of this nation. To unite and to heal our country. To turn this crisis into a crucible, from which we will forge a stronger, brighter, and more equitable future. We must right the wrongs in our democracy, redress the systemic injustices that have long plagued our society, throw open the doors of opportunity for all Americans, and reinvent our institutions at home and our leadership abroad. We do not simply aspire to return our country to where we were four years ago. We know we must be bolder and more ambitious. We must once again stop another Republican recession from becoming a second Great Depression. President Trump and the Republican Party have rigged the economy in favor of the wealthiest few and the biggest corporations, and left working families and small businesses out in the cold. Democrats will forge a new social and economic contract with the American 1people—a contract that creates millions of new jobs and promotes shared prosperity, closes racial gaps in income and wealth, guarantees the right to join or form a union, raises wages and ensures equal pay for women and paid family leave for all, and safeguards a secure and dignified retirement.

The full draft text is found here.

A sample of how this ‘whiteness’ thing has spread around the nation, enter Rutgers University. Without much press….

Rutgers University: Acceptance Rate, SAT/ACT Scores, GPA source

H/T: The College Fix has uncovered a fascinating change in programming plans for the English Department and Writing Center at Rutgers. You see, teaching all of the rules of grammar, sentence structure and where to put the nouns, verbs and adjectives is apparently insensitive. To whom, you might ask? Well, the title of the memo detailing all of the proposed changes is, “Department actions in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.”

Titled “Department actions in solidarity with Black Lives Matter,” the email states that the ongoing and future initiatives that the English Department has planned are a “way to contribute to the eradication of systemic inequities facing black, indigenous, and people of color.”

One of the initiatives is described as “incorporating ‘critical grammar’ into our pedagogy.”

It is listed as one of the efforts for Rutgers’ Graduate Writing Program, which “serves graduate students across the Rutgers community.

***

This should be added to yet another item that also too got almost no press and that is the Smithsonian Museum. There is a unique separate wing called National Museum of African American History and Culture. It is not only funded by private donations of which Oprah Winfrey is a top donor with more than $30 million but Congress also provided funding. Why is this a big deal you ask?

National Museum of African American History & Culture | NMAAHC

There is a specific portal and ‘whiteness’ here too is a political target.

Phase one of the portal features eight foundational subjects including:

  • Being Anti-Racist: a conscious decision to make frequent, consistent, equitable choices daily.
  • Bias: the inclination or prejudice toward or against something or someone.
  • Community Building: connecting and engaging with others doing anti-racism work and exploring issues of race.
  • Historical Foundations of Race: how race, white privilege, and anti-blackness are woven into the very fabric of American society.
  • Race and Racial Identity: how societies use race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, disenfranchisement, and oppression.
  • Self-Care: caring for one’s mental, emotional, and physical health to sustain the work of dismantling racism.
  • Social Identities and Systems of Oppression: systems built around the ideology that some groups are superior to others.
  • Whiteness: an ideology that reinforces power at the expense of others.

 

Rep. Gohmert Resolves to #CancelDemocrat Name/Party

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Primer: The political enforcement of Jim Crow was entirely in Democratic hands. The Ku Klux Klan functioned as the paramilitary wing of the Democratic party, and it was used to drive Republicans out of the South after the Civil War. Before he took up the cause of civil rights as president, Lyndon Johnson acting as Senate majority leader blocked the GOP’s 1956 civil-rights bill, and gutted Eisenhower’s 1957 Civil Rights Act. Democratic senators filibustered the GOP’s 1960 Civil Rights Act. More here.

Frankly, Texas Congressman Louis Gohmert’s resolution is brilliant. Since we are in the midst of a cancel culture, changing the name of the ‘democrat’ party falls in line with what the Democrats led by Speaker Pelosi are supporting by even voting to remove selected statues from the halls of Congress.

Actually, last week, DailyWire reported the following:

Official Portrait : U.S. Congressman Louie Gohmert

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) introduced a bill Thursday on the floor of the House of Representatives that would ban the Democratic Party due to the party’s history of having supported slavery and the Confederacy, saying “that is the standard to which they are holding everyone else, so the name change needs to occur.”

“Whereas on June 18, 2020, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ordered the removal from the capital portraits of four previous speakers of the House who served in the Confederacy, saying that these portraits ‘set back our nation’s work to confront and combat bigotry,’” Gohmert said. “The men depicted in the portraits were Democrat Robert M.T. Hunter, Democrat Howell Cobb, Democrat James L. Orr, and Democrat Charles F. Crisp.”

“Resolved that the speaker of the House of Representatives shall remove any item that named symbolizes or mentions any political organization or party that has ever held a public position that supported slavery or the Confederacy from any area within the House wing of the Capitol or any House office building and shall donate such item or symbol to the Library of Congress, and two, that any political organization or party that has ever held a public position that supported slavery of the Confederacy shall either change its name or be barred from participation in the House of Representatives,” Gohmert concluded. “With that, I would yield back.”

“As outlined in the resolution, a great portion of the history of the Democratic Party is filled with racism and hatred,” Gohmert said in a statement. “Since people are demanding we rid ourselves of the entities, symbols, and reminders of the repugnant aspects of our past, then the time has come for Democrats to acknowledge their party’s loathsome and bigoted past, and consider changing their party name to something that isn’t so blatantly and offensively tied to slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, and the Ku Klux Klan.”

“As the country watches violent Leftists burn our cities, tear down our statues and call upon every school, military base and city street to be renamed, it is important to note that past atrocities these radicals claim to be so violently offensive were largely committed by members in good standing of the Democratic Party,” Gohmert continued. “Whether it be supporting the most vile forms of racism or actively working against Civil Rights legislation, Democrats in this country perpetuated these abhorrent forms of discrimination and violence practically since their party’s inception.”

Gohmert concluded, “To avoid triggering innocent bystanders by the racist past of the Democratic Party, I would suggest they change their name. That is the standard to which they are holding everyone else, so the name change needs to occur.”

Proposed President Biden’s Administration

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Just consider, based on all that the nation has been through in recent days and weeks based on law suits, protests and defunding of law enforcement. Consider what you have seen of Joe Biden in press settings and his possible list of Vice Presidential candidates. Have you recently viewed the 2016 Democrat National Committee platform recently? How about remembering things like the lies told about Border Patrol and ICE. What about that Green New Deal? We have had attacks on conservatives while dining in a restaurant and we have released documents regarding RussiaGate. Then there was the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and the 1619 Project not to mention the Lincoln Project or the Thousand Currents. You want those people leading you into 2024 and beyond?

Howie Carr: Joe Biden needs a nap source
It is certain you have your own list of names that you are not only wary of but terrified of and rightly so. Pull out your list and fill in below as you apply some strategic thinking for what could be ahead.
Below is only a suggested look at a Biden Cabinet/administration. You’re invited to plug in your own names.
Here goes:
Vice President: Susan Rice
Press Secretary: David Corn
Secretary of Agriculture: Saikat Chakrabarti
Attorney General: Kamala Harris
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency: Andrew Weissman
Secretary of Commerce: Eric Garcetti
Secretary of Defense: Wendy Sherman
Secretary of Education: Nicole Hannah Jones
Secretary of Energy: Cenk Uygur
Director of the Environmental Protective Agency: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Justin Cooper
Director of Health and Human Services: Bernie Sanders
Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security: Luis Gutierrez
Director of Housing and Urban Development: Kirsten Gillibrand
Secretary of the Interior: Gretchen Whitmer
Secretary of Labor: Julian Castro
Director of the Office of Management and Budget: Maxine Waters
Director of National Intelligence: Adam Schiff
Director of the Small Business Administration: Zack Exley
Secretary of State: Ben Rhodes
Secretary of Transportation: Ed Markey
Secretary of the Treasury: Susan Rosenberg
Trade Representative: Victoria Nuland
Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs: Mark Kelly
Chief of Staff: Lori Lightfoot
Director of the Securities and Exchange Commission: Elizabeth Warren
National Security Advisor: Anita Dunn

Of course, much like the Obama administration, Biden will have advisory councils and czars. This is where hundreds of other progressives and Marxists will work the major influence and policy channels.

Rather terrifying right? Don’t hesitate to fill in your own names, those like John Brennan, Don Lemon, Peter Strzok, James Comey, Loretta Lynch, John Kerry, Lois Lerner, Jim Acosta, Sidney Blumenthal, Bruce Ohr and Eric Holder. Go ahead, plug in a few names too.

Imagine all the new regulations, the further degradation of the 1st Amendment much less the 2nd Amendment. Consider how much more education will fail and how sovereignty will evaporate to a total border-less nation. Taxes? Yikes, too hard to even describe and small business will fail under $15/hr minimum wage nationwide. No more E-Verify, no more doctors of your choosing and we could end up with 12 or 15 Justices on the Supreme Court while George Soros has his own permanent White House office in the West Wing.
It is a nightmare….

Law Enforcement Surveillance of BLM/Protests Goes Tech AI

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Meet Dataminr, the leading artificial intelligence platform for real-time event and risk detection. In a world characterized by unexpected and rapidly moving events that can impact operations in innumerable and unforeseen ways, relevant information can surface anywhere at any time. Dataminr discovers, distills and delivers alerts from the increasingly diverse and complex landscape of publicly available information—including social media, blogs, information sensors, and the dark web—ensuring that businesses have the knowledge they need to act with confidence.

Build the Movement to Defeat Racism!/¡Construir un ... source

Back in January, The New York Post had a short article on how the NYPD on Monday was ordered to respond to a request for records related to its surveillance of Black Lives Matters protestors’ cell phones and social media.

The secret police documents were among a Freedom of Information Law request by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Millions March NYC, an activist group affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement.

But, the Glomar response kicked in. What is that? It is used often actually. It is where an agency refuses to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records. The term “Glomar” originates from a case related to the CIA’s classified Glomar Explorer project, in which the agency sought to recover materials for military and intelligence purposes from a sunken Soviet submarine in the Pacific Ocean.

George Floyd protests: Trump blames 'antifa' for violence ... source

It is not just about Black Lives Matter, add in ANTIFA, The Youth Liberation Front and Boogaloo among others, perhaps even MS-13.

Okay, circling back to Dataminr.

Leveraging close ties to Twitter, controversial artificial intelligence startup Dataminr helped law enforcement digitally monitor the protests that swept the country following the killing of George Floyd, tipping off police to social media posts with the latest whereabouts and actions of demonstrators, according to documents reviewed by The Intercept and a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

Dataminr helps newsrooms, corporations, and governments around the world track crises with superhuman speed as they unfold across social media and the wider web. Through a combination of people and software, the company alerts organizations to chatter around global crises — wars, shootings, riots, disasters, and so forth — so that they’ll have a competitive edge as news is breaking. But the meaning of that competitive edge, the supercharged ability to filter out important events from the noise of hundreds of millions of tweets and posts across social media, will vary drastically based on the customer; the agenda of a newspaper using Dataminr to inform its breaking news coverage won’t be the same as the agendas of a bank or the FBI. It’s this latter category of Dataminr’s business, lucrative government work, that’s had the firm on the defensive in recent years.

In 2016, Twitter was forced to reckon with multiple reports that its platform was being used to enable domestic surveillance, including a Wall Street Journal report on Dataminr’s collaboration with American spy agencies in May; an American Civil Liberties Union report on Geofeedia, a Dataminr competitor, in October; and another ACLU investigation into Dataminr’s federal police surveillance work in December. The company sought to assure the public that attempts to monitor its users for purposes of surveillance were strictly forbidden under its rules, and that any violators would be kicked off the platform. For example, then-VP Chris Moody wrote in a company blog post that “using Twitter’s Public APIs or data products to track or profile protesters and activists is absolutely unacceptable and prohibited.” In a letter to the ACLU, Twitter public policy chief Colin Crowell similarly wrote that “the use of Twitter data for surveillance is strictly prohibited” and that “Datatminr’s product does not provide any government customers with … any form of surveillance.”

Dataminr continues to enable what is essentially surveillance by U.S. law enforcement entities, contradicting its earlier assurances to the contrary, even if it remains within some of the narrow technical boundaries it outlined four years ago, like not providing direct firehose access, tweet geolocations, or certain access to fusion centers.

Dataminr relayed tweets and other social media content about the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests directly to police, apparently across the country. In so doing, it used to great effect its privileged access to Twitter data — despite current terms of service that explicitly bar software developers “from tracking, alerting, or monitoring sensitive events (such as protests, rallies, or community organizing meetings)” via Twitter.

And despite Dataminr’s claims that its law enforcement service merely “delivers breaking news alerts on emergency events, such as natural disasters, fires, explosions and shootings,” as a company spokesperson told The Intercept for a previous report, the company has facilitated the surveillance of recent protests, including nonviolent activity, siphoning vast amounts of social media data from across the web and converting it into tidy police intelligence packages.

Dataminr’s Black Lives Matter protest surveillance included persistent monitoring of social media to tip off police to the locations and activities of protests, developments within specific rallies, as well as instances of alleged “looting” and other property damage. According to the source with direct knowledge of Dataminr’s protest monitoring, the company and Twitter’s past claims that they don’t condone or enable surveillance are “bullshit,” relying on a deliberately narrowed definition. “It’s true Dataminr doesn’t specifically track protesters and activists individually, but at the request of the police they are tracking protests, and therefore protesters,” this source explained. There is much more detail here from The Intercept.

So, if law enforcement in various locations has a partnership with Dataminr, it puts to question why destructive protests of an ongoing basis continues to happen costing lives, injuries and ruining business and livelihoods. Ah that is a question for governors, mayors, prosecutors and judges but you can be assured that in many cases arrests have been made and investigators have additional tools for build cases against alleged criminals.

So, if there is to be law and order and any kind of restoration to community peace or civil society, tools such as Dataminr are valuable that is if the unlawful acts are prosecuted in the first place.