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Moderator For 2nd Trump-Biden Debate Worked As Intern For Biden, Staff Assistant For Ted Kennedy

The second presidential debate, scheduled for October 15, will be moderated by Steve Scully, the political editor at C-SPAN and host of Washington Journal, who once worked as an intern for Senator Joe Biden in college, later working as a staff assistant in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s communication office.

“While attending college, he served as an intern in the office of Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden, and later a staff assistant in Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s media affairs office,” Utah Valley University noted.

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NBC News Misrepresents Internal DHS Memo About Their Response to the Kyle Rittenhouse Case

NBC News misrepresented an internal memo given to Department of Homeland Security officials that was meant to brief them on the Kyle Rittenhouse situation the week it occurred in August. 

NBC News reported “officials were directed to make public comments sympathetic” about Rittenhouse and it included quotes from the document:

“Federal law enforcement officials were directed to make public comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with fatally shooting two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, according to internal Department of Homeland Security talking points obtained by NBC News.

“In preparing Homeland Security officials for questions about Rittenhouse from the media, the document suggests that they note that he ‘took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners.’

…

“The Rittenhouse talking points also say, ‘Kyle was seen being chased and attacked by rioters before allegedly shooting three of them, killing two.’

‘Subsequent video has emerged reportedly showing that there were ‘multiple gunmen’ involved, which would lend more credence to the self-defense claims.'”

Townhall has obtained the DHS memo and it is different from how NBC News described it. There are two sections of the memo, “Situation” and “Response,” a fact not included in their story.

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Serious questions remain about mysterious ‘PeaceData’ website blamed on Russian trolls

As political censorship escalates on social media, American spy agencies accuse Russia of running a fake left-wing news website called PeaceData. But there is no evidence for the FBI’s claims, and many questions remain unanswered.

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Trial Of Sept. 11 Defendants At Guantánamo Delayed Until August 2021

The setbacks keep piling up in the long-delayed 9/11 case in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

A new U.S military court judge has canceled all hearings in the case until next year and delayed the start of the trial of the five defendants charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks until at least August 2021.

Jury selection had been scheduled to begin in January 2021, but the new judge — Col. Stephen F. Keane, who began overseeing the case in September — said a delay is necessary due to pandemic travel restrictions and his need to familiarize himself with the case.

Many Guantánamo attorneys say even the revised start date isn’t realistic, given that legal proceedings there have been at a virtual standstill since February, when the coronavirus began limiting access to the island.

“I do not expect that the trial will begin in August of 2021 because there’s just too much ground to cover between now and then,” said James Connell, lead attorney for Guantánamo prisoner Ammar al-Baluchi, who is accused of funding the 9/11 hijackers.

Tuesday’s delay order by Judge Keane, the fourth judge to oversee the 9/11 case, is the latest stumbling block at Guantánamo’s problem-plagued military court and prison, which NPR found has cost U.S. taxpayers more than $6 billion since 2002.

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Is Critical Race Theory racist?

Critical race theory has been a central focus of news reports, op-eds and social media punditry ever since the Trump administration’s release of a memo condemning the federal funding of any training based on it.

In his debate with Joe Biden, Donald Trump claimed that critical race theory is racist and teaches people that America is a horrible place to which Biden responded weakly by claiming that Trump was the racist. Trump’s previous attacks on critical race theory produced a mass of conflicting claims about what critical race theory is, what precisely has been proscribed by the administration and what its motivations were for doing so.

The memo stated: “[A]ll agencies are directed to begin to identify all contracts or other agency spending related to any training on “critical race theory”, “white privilege” or any other training or propaganda effort that teaches or suggests either (1) that the United States is an inherently racist or evil country or (2) that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil.”

The memo also says that “employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that ‘virtually all White people contribute to racism’ or where they are required to say that they ‘benefit from racism’”. The memo describes critical race theory as “propaganda” five times, “divisive” five times, “unAmerican” twice, and “anti-American” once. Critical race theory is declared to be “contrary to all we stand for as Americans.”

This is an odd claim, since racial inequality and attempts to remedy it have been a constant in American history. Consequently, there have been two centuries of scholarship and activism by African-Americans and others in the realm of American race relations.

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Apple Removes RSS Feed Readers From Chinese App Store

Apple has reportedly removed two RSS feed reader apps from China’s App Store to comply with Chinese law. Fiery Feeds and Reeder both tweeted that their iOS apps had been removed in China over content that is considered “illegal” in the country.


Fiery Feeds quoted a three-year-old tweet from Inoreader, a similar RRS service that was banned from Apple’s Chinese ‌App Store‌ back in 2017 and had its entire service blocked in the country in April. Apple’s original message to Inoreader read:

We are writing to notify you that your application will be removed from the China ‌App Store‌ because it includes content that it illegal in China, which is not in compliance with the ‌App Store‌ Review Guidelines:

5. Legal
Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where you make them available (if you’re not sure, check with a lawyer). We know this stuff is complicated, but it is your responsibility to understand and make sure your app conforms with all local laws, not just the guidelines below. And of course, apps that solicit, promote, or encourage criminal or clearly reckless behavior will be rejected.

It’s not clear why Apple waited until now to block the additional feed readers, but the fact that it pulled these apps at all suggests RSS readers can sometimes circumvent China’s Great Firewall and pull in content from third-party websites that are otherwise on its blocked list.

Apple has faced increasing pressure from investors and human rights activists about its relationship with China and its tendency to comply with Beijing’s demands. Last year, for example, Apple removed the app of news outlet Quartz from China’s ‌‌‌App Store‌‌‌ after complaints from the government that it included content that is illegal in the country. The app was covering the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement protests at the time.

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