Arrested Democratic Megadonor and Anti-Israel Activist Among Those Missed by Elizabeth Warren Campaign Vetting Team

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White House bids are known to be a good way to prepare for the Oval Office’s rigors, which includes vetting by West Wing staff to prevent problematic people meeting with the president.

But the Washington Examiner has found several cases in which the campaign of 2020 Democrat Elizabeth Warren failed to flag people whom her rivals’ teams would have likely avoided.

This month, Warren, 70, boasted an endorsement by an alleged serial predator who was mistakenly included on a list of more than 200 Obama alumni backing her for president. Ed Buck, 65, was arrested in September over accusations that he preyed on black men by offering them free drugs before sexually assaulting them at his Los Angeles home. Buck, a Democratic Party megadonor, was charged with three counts of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine, and maintaining a drug house. Federal authorities also charged him with one count of distribution of methamphetamine resulting in death.

“This was a mistake considering Ed Buck was not staff or an alum. This was put together via Google Docs by some Obama alums, and they caught some nonstaff that populated the list, but obviously, they missed one. They are removing it,” Warren spokesman Chris Hayden told the Washington Examiner.

Buck joined Anoa Changa in supporting Warren. Changa, a regular on Russia propaganda network Sputnik during 2016, announced her backing of Warren last month via a collective endorsement from Black Womxn For. The Atlanta-based liberal activist and political commentator, who is also a fan of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and had show support for Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein, was the subject of a 2018 Atlanta NPR-affiliate profile that suggested she was unwittingly helping “Russia’s effort to create chaos in the U.S.” She has also voiced skepticism over Kremlin interference in the 2016 election cycle. (Read more from “Arrested Democratic Megadonor and Anti-Israel Activist Among Those Missed by Elizabeth Warren Campaign Vetting Team” HERE)

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Texas Church Shooter Had Massive Rap Sheet – With Almost No Prison Time

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Keith Thomas Kinnunen, the shooter who killed two people at the West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas on Sunday, was not allowed to own a gun. Under current law, it was 100 percent illegal for him to own or carry any firearm. He had a massive rap sheet dating back to 1998, including gun felonies. Yet he wasn’t locked up. That is why he was able to kill two people in the church. Thank God, Texas allows citizens to carry concealed weapons, so he was stopped before he could shoot and kill more. But the ugly fact is that most mass shooters are repeat offenders and known to law enforcement. If we actually had criminal control, almost all of these attacks would be prevented.

If the Left really wants to prevent most mass shootings, how about we bring back and reinforce mandatory minimum sentencing on gun felons? Throughout Americans cities, so many violent offenders have rap sheets full of gun violations, yet they are not seriously punished. How about we start “doing something” about mass shootings by punishing people like Keith Thomas Kinnunen and not deterring heroes like Jack Wilson who stopped the shooter before he could kill dozens of others?

A quick glance at Kinnunen’s criminal record shows at least a dozen arrests dating back to 1998. Here is what I was able to piece together from his arrest and court records in several states, as well as from some local news reports:

May 4, 1998: Arrested in Tucson for carrying a firearm without a license. He was found guilty, but given no jail time.

June 25, 1999: Arrested for misconduct involving weapons in Tucson. Charges dismissed.

August 6, 1999: Arrested for theft and endangerment in Tucson. Found guilty on theft charge.

August 18, 1999: Arrested for spilling load onto highway in Pima County, AZ. Found guilty.

2000: Convicted for driving without a license in Arizona.

August 25, 2004: Arrested for disorderly conduct in Tucson. Charges dismissed.

December 3, 2008: Arrested in Fort Worth, Texas, for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. He was found guilty the next year but was sentenced to just 90 days.

August 12, 2009: Arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Tucson.

December 8, 2010: Charged with theft in Tucson and numerous failures to appear in court. Never served any new prison time.

August 11, 2011: Charged with assault, disorderly conduct, and failure to appear in Tucson.

November 29, 2011: Arrested in Grady County, Oklahoma, for domestic violence and felony aggravated assault. Plead guilty to misdemeanor assault and served 90 days with credit for time served.

February 9, 2012: A warrant for his arrest was issued for arson in Grady, Oklahoma. He was eventually arrested for lighting tampons on fire and burning a cotton field. He paid a $4,500 fine.

December 10, 2013: Arrested for theft in Fort Worth, Texas. Found guilty.

March 25, 2014: Charged with assault knowingly causing injury in Tucson and illegally possessing a weapon.

June 16, 2015: Arrested in River Oaks, Texas, for unpaid parking tickets.

September 12, 2016: According to MyCentralJersey.com, he was arrested in Linden, New Jersey, for possession of a 12-gauge shotgun while he was taking pictures of an oil refinery. At the time, New Jersey police also found a contempt of court warrant stemming from an aggravated assault case in Oklahoma.

Notice that despite numerous charges and convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and felony possession of a weapon, this man barely served time and was out on the streets to commit this horrible attack on the church this week. This is what should be the subject of a national debate – why there are so many people with serious violent felonies and firearms violations who are not punished in a meaningful way, and what can be done about it.

Criminals like Kinnunen are the rule, not the exception, in the system. Even the most violent criminals barely serve time. Just last week, an Oregon man who pleaded guilty to raping three teens was sentenced to just 14 months in prison, and with early release programs, he will be out even earlier. It used to be that violent criminals were held before trial in jail, serving as a deterrent. But across the nation, we are seeing judges release the most egregious repeat violent offenders on low bail. Last week, a previously convicted rapist with weapons and robbery convictions was arrested for torturing and raping a 21-year-old woman in the Minneapolis area, a beacon of jailbreak policy. He was released on just $20,000 bail.

Why are politicians not speaking out about the epidemic of under-sentencing and parole violators rather than complaining about too much incarceration? As Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute observed last week at the New York Post, the most violent cities like Chicago and Baltimore are revolving doors for serious gun felons. “A third of Baltimore homicide suspects in 2017 committed their alleged offenses while on probation or parole, despite having an average of nearly 10 prior arrests. In Chicago, those arrested for shootings or homicides in 2015-16 had an average of 12 prior arrests.” (For more from the author of “Texas Church Shooter Had Massive Rap Sheet – With Almost No Prison Time” please click HERE)

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Attack on U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Exposes the Farce of Our Support for the Baghdad Government

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The Iraq war was a colossal mistake that strengthened Iran beyond belief. There was never any realistic chance of installing a pro-American government in Shiite-dominated Baghdad. Our forces are eternally on the hook both for the Iranian-backed Shiite attacks and the Sunni insurgencies, in response to the Shiite hegemony threatening our forces and assets in the country. This is the enduring lesson our policymakers refuse to understand as they continue to grope in the darkness, perpetuating policies in the Middle East based on illusions. In the case of Iraq, there is this illusion that Baghdad is somehow our ally, when in fact it is perpetually an ally of Iran. This is painfully obvious from the developments today in Iraq.

Our continued presence in Iraq and support for the Baghdad regime are actually harming our deterrent against Iran and preventing us from countering it directly in the Straits of Hormuz and through more robust sanctions. Because of our fear that Iran will retaliate against our forces in Iraq, our government has largely held back from destroying Iran’s naval piracy operations in the Persian Gulf, which, unlike the Iraq nation-building mission, actually affects our strategic interests.

This fear came to fruition last Friday when an Iranian-backed Shiite militia attacked our base in Kirkuk with rockets, killing one contractor and wounding several U.S. soldiers. U.S. forces responded by launching air strikes against the Kata’ib Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades) militia in five locations throughout Iraq and Syria, killing dozens of their fighters. This set off a protest/attack against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad today that is close to spiraling out of control.

While everyone is focusing on the actual sacking of the U.S. embassy, the most important observation is the fact that these militias were able to breach the Green Zone security perimeter controlled by the Iraqi government. It’s evident that the Baghdad government itself is not just unreliable, but is controlled by these very forces.

Thus, once again, we are paying for the rope to hang ourselves in the Middle East. We fought together with some of these same militias in 2016 to bail out a Shiite pro-Iran government from the Sunni insurgency, aka ISIS. Now they are attacking us. How about we finally step outside the dumpster fire of tribal warfare and take a more holistic approach to the Middle East? We should draw a security perimeter around our maritime assets, zap anything that challenges them with our air and naval assets, and leave the land-based tribal wars to the Islamists.

This notion that we must remain in Baghdad to fight off Iranian influence is the most circular argument imaginable. The Shiite population is already going to side with Iran in perpetuity, and it will forever spawn endless rounds of Sunni insurgencies. We will never be able to fix the constituencies that these terrorist actors represent. The best we can do is free ourselves from this entanglement, so that we can confront Iran directly from a position of strength.

We have pumped endless funds into the “Afghan government,” the “Iraqi government,” and the “Lebanese armed forces.” In the case of the latter two, we as may as well hand the checks straight to Iran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just signed off on $115 million in aid to Lebanon’s armed forces, even as a Hezbollah member, Hassan Diab, was chosen by the Hezbollah-dominated parliament to be the new prime minister.

Our policies are built on the illusion of governments in the Middle East distinct from the terrorist actors or the insufferably fractured constituencies they represent. That fantasy is getting our people killed and harming our deterrent in the theaters that actually matter in the Middle East.

Foreign policy hawks will call for a robust response to Iran for attacking our embassy. But we need to also think strategically in the long term. On behalf of whom are we fighting in Baghdad? Why are we backing a government led by Adil Abdul-Mahdi, a man who worked closely with Iran while in exile under Saddam Hussein? That question must finally be answered after two decades of failure. We have nothing to show for the war other than tens of thousands of dead and wounded Americans, Iranian hegemony, the Sunnis fueling more terrorism, and 200,000 unvetted immigrants we’ve taken in from Iraq – equally divided between Sunnis and Shias.

What our policymakers refuse to understand is that the Middle East is not like a game of Risk with different pieces on the board representing different leaders or terror groups. There are multiple warring tribes of Islamists in all of these countries, and in places like Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, there really is no “country” to speak of. The State Department said yesterday, “We are standing with the Iraqi people.” But who are those people? Which ones? On behalf of which government over which territory that can be held, and in what way?

To recognize that the Baghdadi government is an enemy of the United States is to acknowledge that not only was the Iraq war a mistake, but that its outcome was a boon for Iran. The same failed generals and civilian leaders who led us into this are not going to readily admit that. Trump himself must finally rectify these mistakes and make this coming decade an America-first decade, where we only fight and die for our own interests at our own border and for strategic assets elsewhere. It’s time to fight to our own strengths rather than to the strengths of our enemies. (For more from the author of “Attack on U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Exposes the Farce of Our Support for the Baghdad Government” please click HERE)

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Over 30 Cadets Fired for Nazi Salute Photo

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Governor Jim Justice (R-WV) has approved a recommendation that over 30 members of the correctional officer trainee group “Basic Training Class 18” be fired after a photo of the cadets engaging in a Nazi salute was distributed inside graduation materials.

“As I said from the beginning, I condemn the photo of Basic Training Class 18 in the strongest possible terms,” says Justice, according to a press release. “I also said that this act needed to result in real consequences — terminations and dismissals. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated on my watch in any agency of State government.”

According to an investigation conducted by the Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety, Division of Corrections, “the hand gesture was found to have started in the second or third week of the Academy session as one that the cadets have described as a ‘sign of respect’ for [the instructor, Karrie Byrd]. The gesture was started by one of the class members, and other class members began using it as well.”

“Several cadets recognized it for its historical implications and refused to go along with the class. Others who knew the implications of the gesture felt pressure to fit in and joined in,” continues the report. “Some of these class members voiced their concerns to classmates. Those voicing concerns were assured by those comfortable with the gesture, that since there was no racial motivation on their part, the gesture was acceptable.”

Byrd, who feigned ignorance about the meaning of the salute and was fired in December, was explicitly told about the connotations by other corrections officers, according to investigators. Byrd also allegedly told a secretary who reviewed the photo for the graduation materials that the cadets were making the salute “because [she is] a hard-a** like Hitler.” (Read more from “Over 30 Cadets Fired for Nazi Salute Photo” HERE)

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Trump’s Biggest Wins of 2019; Here’s Who Trump Tied With For Most Admired Man in 2019

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By Daily Caller. President Donald Trump’s third year in office is coming to a close after a very eventful 2019.

While impeachment dominated the news headlines over the past several months, the administration also managed many accomplishment throughout the year. To wrap up the year, we’ve created a list of Trump’s biggest wins of 2019. . .

President Trump has managed to reshape the judiciary branch in his image by nominating an unprecedented number of federal judges to the bench. The Senate has confirmed 187 Trump-nominated judges in just under three years. This means 20% of the federal judiciary is now made up of Trump appointments. . .

Trump green-lighted a U.S. Special Forces raid in late October that led to the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS and one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists. Al-Baghdadi was reportedly chased into a dead-end tunnel by a special forces canine, where the ISIS leader is believed to have detonated a suicide vest that killed himself and three children. . .

The U.S. and China are set to sign a “phase one” trade deal next week in early January, the result of pressure from tariffs and negotiations between the two countries. Trump made standing up to China one of the main components of his presidency, promising American farmers that he would work out a better deal for them. The “phase one” deal includes some tariff relief, more Chinese purchases of American agricultural goods, and further protections on intellectual property. (Read more from “Trump’s Biggest Wins of 2019” HERE)

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Obama, Trump Tie as Most Admired Man in 2019

By Gallup. Barack Obama and Donald Trump are tied this year as the most admired man. It is Obama’s 12th time in the top spot versus the first for Trump. Michelle Obama is the most admired woman for the second year in a row.

Each year since 1948, Gallup has asked Americans to name, in an open-ended fashion, which man and woman living anywhere in the world they admire most. This year’s results are based on a Dec. 2-15 poll.

Americans’ choice for most admired man this year is sharply divided along party lines: 41% of Democrats name Obama, while 45% of Republicans choose Trump. Relatively few Democrats choose Trump and relatively few Republicans pick Obama, while independents’ choices are divided about equally between the two men.

After Obama and Trump, no other man was mentioned by more than 2% of respondents. The remainder of the top 10 for men this year includes former President Jimmy Carter, businessman Elon Musk, philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Pope Francis, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Rep. Adam Schiff, the Dalai Lama, and investor Warren Buffett. (Read more from “Obama, Trump Tie as Most Admired Man in 2019” HERE)

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Beto Gets Brutally Mocked for Saying Church Shooting Shows Texas Gun Laws ‘Clearly’ Don’t Work; Leftists Celebrate on Social Media After Shooter Identified as White Man

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By Pluralist. Failed Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke reacted to a weekend church shooting in White Settlement, Texas by criticizing the state’s gun laws.

O’Rourke, a proponent of stringent gun control measures who has called for national confiscation of firearms, said on Sunday in a tweet that the shooting shows “Clearly what we are doing in Texas, what we are doing in this country, when it comes to guns is not working.” . . .

Commenters on social media, especially gun rights advocates and conservatives, pushed back against O’Rourke’s remarks, arguing that the White Settlement shooting was an example of firearms measures working as they should.

A number of new laws designed to ease restrictions on firearms for Texans went into effect in September.

One of the bills, Senate Bill 535, enabled licensed handgun owners to carry in churches and other places of worship.

(Read more from “Beto Gets Brutally Mocked for Saying Church Shooting Shows Texas Gun Laws ‘Clearly’ Don’t Work” HERE)

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Leftists Celebrate on Social Media After Shooter Identified as White Man

By Pluralist. Some users on social media appeared to welcome the news that the gunman who perpetrated a weekend church shooting in Texas was identified as a white male.

The victims of Sunday’s shooting, identified as Anton Wallace, 64, of Fort Worth and Richard White, 67, of River Oaks, were also members of the security force at West Freeway Church of Christ, the state’s attorney general said.

Jack Wilson, the head of the security detail, fired a single shot that took down the gunman, identified as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, of River Oaks. . .

Commenters on social media floated the idea of Kinnunen being motivated by white supremacy.

(Read more from “Leftists Celebrate on Social Media After Shooter Identified as White Man” HERE)

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U.S. Soldier Receives Approval to Sport Beard Due to Pagan Beliefs

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U.S. soldier who is serving in Afghanistan has received a uniform religious exception to sport a beard based upon his Norse pagan beliefs.

The Nevada Army Guard said that Sgt. 1st Class Benjamin Hopper is the first guard soldier to receive a religious accommodation approval for a beard, according to a news release from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.

The U.S. Army prohibits facial hair and instructs all soldiers to remain clean-shaven, but Hopper, 34, has continued to sport a “full, reddish-brown beard” since his deployment to Afghanistan in the summer.

Hopper, of Madison, Alabama, said he has been practicing his Norse pagan faith for about 20 years and maintains that his beliefs complement the Army Warrior ethos. Norse paganism is a polytheistic religion based on ancient beliefs and practices associated with region of Scandinavia. (Read more from “U.S. Soldier Receives Approval to Sport Beard Due to Pagan Beliefs” HERE)

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Hunter Biden Fires Back After PI Claims Secret Bank Records ‘Verify’ $156m Counterfeiting Scheme

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Hunter Biden’s attorneys fired back Monday after a private investigation firm again attempted to stage a highly unusual intervention in his ongoing child-custody dispute in Arkansas, this time claiming its investigators have lawfully obtained access to Biden’s bank account records and confirmed his involvement in a massive, $156 million “counterfeiting scheme.”

In a motion to strike, Biden’s legal team unconditionally denied the unverified claims, and called the effort by the Florida-based D&A Investigations another obviously bogus “scheme by a non-party simply to make scandalous allegations in the pending suit to gain media attention without any material or pertinent material.”

D&A claimed in its most recent filing Dec. 27 with the court in Independence County, Ark., that it has provided attorneys for Lunden Alexis Roberts, who was seeking custody over the child she said Hunter Biden fathered, “access to [Hunter Biden’s] bank account records subject of known felonies including fraud and counterfeiting.” D&A was seeking to be added as a party to the case, claiming it could support Roberts’ accusations and prove that Biden was involved in illegal activity while dodging discovery quests.

D&A alleged that the “bank account records bear exhibit identifier(s) known by [Hunter Biden] as the subject of criminal investigation(s) both adjudicated and ongoing, of which he is a party to.” The firm also claimed the bank records “provide the source and destination bank account numbers of Burisma Holdings Limited, PrivatBank, Bank of China, [Hunter Biden’s] business partners, Rosement Seneca Bohai,” and others. . .

The bank records “verify the counterfeiting scheme accumulating $156,073,944.24 with an average account value (monthly balance) in the amount of $6,785,823.66.” Burisma, the filing claimed, financed “Atlantic Council (Ukraine) and associated rogue operatives from the [U.S. State Department], FVEY, and CrowdStrike in Ukraine, suing PrivatBank.” (Read more from “Hunter Biden Fires Back After PI Claims Secret Bank Records ‘Verify’ $156m Counterfeiting Scheme” HERE)

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‘I’m Thankful to God’: Hero Security Guard Speaks out on Texas Church Shooting; Anti-Gun Leader: The Security Guards Shouldn’t Have Been Armed

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By Townhall. Jack Wilson has been identified as the heroic security guard who killed the shooter that attacked West Freeway Church of Christ during one of its Sunday morning services.

Wilson, who is running to be county commissioner in Hood County, shared on Facebook that while he is sad he lost “two dear friends and brothers in CHRIST,” he thanks God for being able to protect the congregation because evil does exist in the world.

“I just want to thank all who have sent their prayers and comments on the events of today. The events at West Freeway Church of Christ put me in a position that I would hope no one would have to be in, but evil exist and I had to take out an active shooter in church,” Wilson wrote.

“I’m thankful to GOD that I have been blessed with the ability and desire to serve him in the role of head of security at the church. I am very sad in the loss of two dear friends and brothers in CHRIST, but evil does exist in this world and I and other members are not going to allow evil to succeed,” he added. “Please pray for all the members and their families in this time. Thank you for your prayers and understanding.”

(Read more from “‘I’m Thankful to God’: Hero Security Guard Speaks out on Texas Church Shooting” HERE)

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Anti-Gun Leader on Texas Church Shooting: The Security Guards Shouldn’t Have Been Armed

By Townhall. . .Yet, even if armed security wasn’t there, the congregation had more than a few people with concealed carry permits in the church. The point is simple: a good guy with a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun. Or in this case, multiple good guys with guns were ready to defend themselves and others in the church. It’s a no-brainer position that the anti-gun Left mocks or ignores because real life has slapped them so hard, they’re intellectually disabled. Good people with firearms defend their lives and the lives of others on a daily basis. While it’s not the Second Amendment’s intent, the self-defense aspect that comes with it is a popular position, hence the bunker mentality anti-gunners have for situations like this. Yet, it wouldn’t be the Left to just let this tragedy slide without offering their own garbage takes. Enter Shannon Watts, a Bloomberg lackey:

(Read more from “Anti-Gun Leader on Texas Church Shooting: The Security Guards Shouldn’t Have Been Armed” HERE)

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Here’s How Impeachment Obsession Is Allowing Big Tech to Build a China-Like Surveillance State

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Lawmakers are too busy wrestling with matters related to President Donald Trump’s impeachment to address issues related to the government’s deployment of facial recognition technology.

Big tech is selling such technological know-how to police agencies and embedding it in smartphones while lawmakers remain distracted, Politico reported Monday. Other issues are also taking precedent, namely the death of one lawmaker who led efforts to regulate artificial intelligence. . .

“We don’t want any more money being used, no money used to expand what we have or to purchase any new ability to impact or use this technology,” GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio told Politico. “I’ve been all focused all on impeachment,” so working with Republicans on sticky parts of such a bill is difficult, he noted.

Meanwhile, San Francisco officials are taking matters into their own hands. The city’s Board of Supervisors voted 8-1 in May to make San Francisco the first American city to block police from using the tool.

Facial recognition technology is not without its supporters, who say it can be a useful tool to nab criminals. Authorities, for instance, used a similar piece of technology to identify a person who shot and killed several people in 2018 at the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland. (Read more from “Here’s How Impeachment Obsession Is Allowing Big Tech to Build a China-Like Surveillance State” HERE)

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