Twitter Censors Trump Tweet About North Carolina Voters

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Twitter again flagged President Trump for encouraging voters in North Carolina to both vote by mail, then show up at the polls on Election Day. . .

The social media platform put a warning label on Trump’s Saturday tweet and limited its circulation for violating rules on election integrity by “encouraging people to potentially vote twice.”

Twitter didn’t remove the tweet, but added the warning and said it would ban users from retweeting, liking or replying to the Trump post. Only retweets with comments would be permitted. . .

Twitter has taken a harsher stance on Trump and his ongoing contention that mail-in voting is rife with fraud. “These claims are unsubstantiated,” Twitter wrote accompanying earlier Trump tweets, citing news sources. “Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.”

Trump has been laying the groundwork to cast doubt on the validity of the presidential election that will rely increasingly on the U.S. Postal Service during the coronavirus pandemic. Twitter earlier this month flagged Trump’s tweets on North Carolina that urged voters to test the accuracy of the mail-in voting process by heading to the polls to potentially vote again if their vote had not yet been tabulated.

(Read more from “Twitter Censors Trump Tweet About North Carolina Voters” HERE)

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Former Facebook Employee Makes Explosive Claims That Tech Giant Ignored Worldwide Political Manipulation

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By Fox News. A whistleblower claims Facebook ignored evidence that fake accounts were used to undermine elections and political affairs around the globe, with overwhelmed junior-level employees left to arbitrarily police malevolent activity, according to BuzzFeed News.

Citing “an explosive memo sent by a recently fired Facebook employee,” BuzzFeed News reported on Tuesday that now-former Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang has “concrete examples of heads of government and political parties in Azerbaijan and Honduras using fake accounts or misrepresenting themselves to sway public opinion.”

The bombshell report, headlined, “’I Have Blood on My Hands’: A Whistleblower Says Facebook Ignored Global Political Manipulation,” was written by reporters Craig Silverman, Ryan Mac and Pranav Dixit after they obtained Zhang’s memo.

“In countries including India, Ukraine, Spain, Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, she found evidence of coordinated campaigns of varying sizes to boost or hinder political candidates or outcomes, though she did not always conclude who was behind them,” the report said. . .

Zhang reportedly wrote that she found “multiple blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse our platform on vast scales to mislead their own citizenry” and “caused international news on multiple occasions.” (Read more from “Former Facebook Employee Makes Explosive Claims That Tech Giant Ignored Worldwide Political Manipulation: Report” HERE)

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A Fired Facebook Employee Wrote a Scathing 6,600-Word Memo Detailing the Company’s Failures to Stop Political Manipulation Around the World

By Business Insider. A recently fired Facebook employee wrote a memo on her last day at the company accusing the tech giant of routinely ignoring or otherwise not prioritizing fake accounts’ efforts to manipulate elections and political climates around the world, according to a Monday BuzzFeed report.

The 6,600-word memo was written by Sophie Zhang, a data scientist whose job at the company was to identify fake accounts attempting to manipulate political outcomes. The mid-level employee said she was tasked with exercising her own judgment without managerial support while choosing which crucial matters to prioritize that pertained to Iraq, Indonesia, Italy, India, El Salvador, and countless more nations. . .

Zhang said she found a series of inauthentic accounts — a term used to describe engagement on the site involving bot accounts — used in an opposition campaign to promote Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Zhang said in the memo that Facebook did not launch an investigation into the activity until more than a year after she first reported it. She also said it took the company nine months to take action on a coordinated inauthentic campaign to influence public opinion and promote Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. Zhang said a similar pattern occurred in Bolivia and Ecuador.

Overall, Zhang wrote that she and her team removed “10.5 million fake reactions and fans from high-profile politicians in Brazil and the US in the 2018 elections,” according to BuzzFeed. She said she had “blood on my hands by now,” blaming herself at least in part for some of the political strife that erupted in many of these nations. She described her role as highly stressful, a common characterization among content moderators for large tech firms. (Read more from “A Fired Facebook Employee Wrote a Scathing 6,600-Word Memo Detailing the Company’s Failures to Stop Political Manipulation Around the World” HERE)

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Biden’s Campaign App Inadvertently Allowed Anyone Access To Millions Of Voters’ Information

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Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign inadvertently allowed access to millions of Americans’ private information, including their home addresses, date of birth and gender, according to a security researcher.

A Biden campaign app, Vote Joe, allows people to upload their phone contact lists and see if friends and family are registered to vote ahead of the November election, TechCrunch reported Monday, citing research from mobile expert App Analyst. The app uploads and matches user contacts with voter data through a firm called TargetSmart.

The app displays a voter’s name, age and birthday, and which recent election they voted in when a match is discovered through TargetSmart, TechCrunch noted. The technique helps users “find people you know and encourage them to get involved,” according to the app. TargetSmart claims to have access to files on more than 191 million Americans, the report noted.

The App Analyst discovered users could create fake phone contacts with random names and access any corresponding information.

The app collects much more data than is publicly shown, App Analyst told TechCrunch. Users can see home address, date of birth, gender, ethnicity and party affiliation, the report noted. (Read more from “Biden’s Campaign App Inadvertently Allowed Anyone Access to Millions of Voters’ Information” HERE)

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CDC’s Plan For ‘Critical Race Theory’ Training Leaks, President Trump Immediately Cancels

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After it was exposed Monday, President Trump ordered the immediate cancellation of a “critical race theory” training program planned by the Centers for Disease Control that violated his executive order.

Christopher Rufo, the director of the Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth and Poverty in Seattle, obtained leaked documents that outlined the plan to have employees “examine the mechanisms of systemic racism” and address “White supremacist ideology.”

The final session was to teach the CDC employee how to become activists, Rufo said in a thread Monday on Twitter.

On Tuesday, however, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, announced on Twitter that Trump ordered that the program be canceled “immediately.”

(Read more from “CDC’s Plan For ‘Critical Race Theory’ Training Leaks, President Trump Immediately Cancels” HERE)

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President Donald Trump Expands Executive Order Defunding International Planned Parenthood

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President Donald Trump took another step to defund the abortion industry Monday through a new proposed rule to expand the Mexico City Policy.

The pro-life policy has been in place during Republican presidential administrations since Ronald Reagan, defunding the International Planned Parenthood Federation and other abortion groups of hundreds of millions of tax dollars.

But Trump has done more to protect life than other Republican presidents. In 2017, he expanded the policy to cut off more streams of revenue to international non-governmental agencies (NGOs) that promote and/or provide abortions. The rule defunded Planned Parenthood’s international arm of about $100 million and the British abortion chain Marie Stopes International of about $73 million in U.S. tax dollars.

The new proposed rule could lead to even more cuts to pro-abortion groups.

Released Monday in the Federal Register, it would require all groups that receive global health aid contracts to agree not to promote and/or provide elective abortions, The Hill reports. Those that refuse would not receive taxpayer funding. (Read more from “President Donald Trump Expands Executive Order Defunding International Planned Parenthood” HERE)

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How Detroit’s Police Chief Saved His City From Black Lives Matter

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Detroit Will Breathe, the Motor City’s BLM franchisee, won a hollow victory last week when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that bars Detroit police from using certain non-lethal tactics on “peaceful protesters.”

Detroit police chief James Craig responded to the TRO with a shrug. It changes nothing, he told reporters, because that’s how his department always handles peaceful protesters. “Every time we’ve had to use less-than-lethal force, it’s been to address violence by protesters, resisting arrest, or when they’ve tried to take over an intersection in violation of the law.” . . .

A few weeks ago, bored with peacefully marching all over without a news crew in sight, DWB decided to try occupying a major downtown intersection. After an hour of demonstrators defying orders to disperse, police moved in and arrested 44 DWB members, encountering the predictable violent resistance. When the inevitable hue and cry was raised over how rough some of the arrests were (“I’ve never seen a use of force that looks good,” Craig remarked), the chief stood his ground. “I am not going to let any group set up a Seattle zone of lawlessness here in the city of Detroit,” Craig said. “That is non-negotiable.” . . .

t the news briefing the day after the failed occupation, Deputy Chief Todd Bettison’s message for the group was also short and to the point: “Detroit Will Breathe, you are not welcome. Go.” Area leftists, who called Bettison’s message “blunt, if not anti-democratic,” took issue with the suggestion that most Detroiters weren’t happy with DWB’s agenda. The Metro Times, the area’s pinkish entertainment tabloid, argued illogically that Detroiters must support the protests because they’re “organized by Detroit activists.”

Because even the activists didn’t believe that, they quickly ran to federal court and filed a lawsuit against the police department, the city, Craig, and about a hundred officers, alleging they’d been victims of “excessive force,” arrested “en masse” without probable cause, and variously maltreated for no other reason than their peaceable stand against systemic racism. Federal lawsuits are a surefire way to attract media attention, at least for one news cycle; and even if you’re sure to lose in the end, you can demand an injunction on the first day, pleading all sorts of ugly stuff the other side must be immediately stopped from doing. If the judge grants your injunction (they’re temporary, and this one is for only two weeks), you get to claim victory. (Read more from “How Detroit’s Police Chief Saved His City From Black Lives Matter” HERE)

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Over 1,600 Ballots Discovered in ‘Mislabeled’ Bin From July Primary

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Over 1,600 primary ballots hailing from New Jersey’s Sussex County were discovered in a “mislabeled” bin last week and subsequently added to the final tally of the state’s July 7 primary results, according to Board of Elections Administrator Marge McCabe.

Last week, officials discovered 1,666 ballots in a “mislabeled bin,” which remained in what the New Jersey Herald described as a “‘secure area’ at the board office.” Officials promptly alerted the state Attorney General’s office, and the ballots — which did not alter the outcome of the election — were included in the previous results:

It was not immediately known how many of the misplaced ballots belonged to each local race. However, according to the Board of Elections, the newly tallied votes “did not change the outcome of any Sussex County primary election in any race for any office, Republican or Democrat.”

“The Board of Elections is confident that all ballots received have been processed and the security of all the ballots has remained in place,” McCabe said in a statement. Officials have yet to explain how the ballots were misplaced, although the Herald added that the mistake “was perhaps the result of a unique election process caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a majority of county residents voting by mail and the Board of Elections temporarily relocating to count the votes.” (Read more from “Over 1,600 Ballots Discovered in ‘Mislabeled’ Bin From July Primary” HERE)

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Demand for Guns Overwhelming FBI Background Check System

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The current demand for guns in America is so great that the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Checks System (NICS) is giving a higher number of delays and, in many cases, allowing the sale to be completed because time for the check expires.

A NICS check is designed to take only minutes, ideally being “instant.” However, there are cases where the FBI reviewers do not immediately find the records they need so they have an option to delay the check, giving reviewers three business days to complete it. If, after three days, they still have not found incriminating records on the would-be buyer, the sale is allowed to proceed.

This means there are three possible outcomes to an NICS check: 1. Pass (good to go). 2. Delay (three business days added for check). 3. Fail (can either occur instantly or during the three day extended review).

Reuters reported there was a “54 percent increase in the number of background checks that were delayed past three days in … March through July.” And over five percent of those delays lasted longer than three days.

Overall, the number of NICS checks conducted March 2020 through July 2020 was up 93 percent, when compared to the same time period in 2019. (Read more from “Demand for Guns Overwhelming FBI Background Check System” HERE)

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Republicans Sound off on Pelosi’s Response to Trump’s Middle East Peace Deal

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President Trump took part in a historic Israel-Arab peace deal signing at the White House on Tuesday that will normalize relations between the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Israel. It’s the first such agreement between Israel and a major Arab country since 1994. . .

Most everyone celebrated the moment as a key step toward peace in the Middle East. Everyone except House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who recently called the agreement a “distraction” from the coronavirus pandemic.

“Good for him for having a distraction on a day when the numbers of people who are affected and the numbers of people who are dying from this virus only increases,” Pelosi sarcastically said.

The House GOP regretted that the speaker was so “consumed by politics” that she couldn’t celebrate this bipartisan achievement. . .

(Read more from “Republicans Sound off on Pelosi’s Response to Trump’s Middle East Peace Deal” HERE)

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DHS Intel Reveals: Antifa Organized Portland Violence; PA Protesters Held on Whopping $1 Million Bail Each After Alleged Riots

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By WND. The Department of Homeland Security has “overwhelming intelligence” that the nightly violence in Portland, Oregon, was “organized” by members of Antifa.

An email obtained by CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge by Brian Murphy, former acting under secretary for intelligence and analysis at DHS, said in July that the violence had reached a level at which it could not longer be classified as “opportunistic.”

Murphy said the violence was “organized” by individuals with an ideology categorized as “Violent Antifa Anarchist Inspired,” or VAAI.

“We have overwhelming intelligence regarding the ideologies driving individuals towards violence and why the violence has continued,” Murphy said. “A core set of threat actors are organized, show up night after night, share common TTPs [tactics, techniques and procedures] and drawing on like minded individuals to their cause.” (Read more from “DHS Intel Reveals: Antifa Organized Portland Violence” HERE)

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A Protesters Held on Whopping $1 Million Bail Each After Alleged Riots

By Fox News. A Pennsylvania judge threw the book at several protesters – setting their bail at $1 million each – for allegedly rioting in the wake of the police shooting of a knife-wielding Lancaster man.

Lancaster police nabbed a dozen people and one juvenile for staging the riots around 3 a.m. Monday in clashes that culminated in police deploying tear gas at the crowd.

The overnight violence came on the heels of the death of Ricardo Munoz, the mentally ill 27-year-old who was seen on body cam footage charging at a cop with a knife in hand. The officer shot and killed Munoz Sunday afternoon outside his mother’s house in downtown Lancaster. . .

Twelve adults – Jamal Shariff Newman, 24; Barry Jones, 30; Frank Gaston, 43; Yoshua Dwayne Montague, 23; Matthew Modderman, 31; Talia Gessner, 18; Kathryn Patterson, 20; Taylor Enterline, 20; T-Jay Fry, 28; Dylan Davis, 28; Lee Alexander Wise, 29; Jessica Marie Lopez, 32 – face a slew of felony and misdemeanor charges, including arson, riot, institutional vandalism and criminal conspiracy.

A 16-year-old boy was also busted on riot, disorderly conduct, possession of instruments of crime, possession of a small amount of marijuana, propulsion of missiles onto a roadway and institutional vandalism. (Read more from “PA Protesters Held on Whopping $1 Million Bail Each After Alleged Riots” HERE)

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