Tag: election interference

YouTube Says It Has a “Responsibility” To Manipulate Algorithms Leading Up to the 2024 Election

“Responsibility” is a good word. It’s even better as an actual thing. But even just as a word, it’s a positive one. It signals that reliable people/entities are behind some project, or policy.

So no wonder then, that the thoroughly disgraced Google/YouTube – as far as censorship and biased political approach – are trying to use the word “responsibility” as a narrative fig leaf to cover what the giant platform is actually up to – and has been, for a long while.

Enter, YouTube’s newest chief product officer, Johanna Voolich. What are the priorities here? It could be summed up as, four R’s and One C – namely, YouTube’s “remove, raise, reward, reduce” content approach – that’s as per a blog post published by YouTube itself.

And then, C would be speculative, for “censorship” – which is what these supposedly fair and “uplifting” actions in reality end up achieving.

If you thought any of this could be achieved by YouTube without “boosting authoritative content” – think again. That is still a solid pledge, regurgitated by Voolich.

And if you thought somebody would finally come out and clearly spell out how, and according to whose definition, content gets to be dubbed “authoritative” or otherwise – just don’t hold your breath.

The sum total is that YouTube has a new product manager, but that nothing has changed.

Certainly not in this year of election.

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The CIA & the Russian Fascists Who Fight Russia

In the days leading to the Russian presidential election that concluded on Sunday, a network of three Russian paramilitary organizations working under the auspices of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, or GUR, launched a series of attacks on the territory of the Russian Federation.

The purpose of the attacks was clear — to disrupt the three-day Russian presidential election by creating an atmosphere of weakness and impotence around President Vladimir Putin designed to undermine his authority, legitimacy and appeal at the voting booth.

The operation was months in the planning, and involved the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), the Freedom of Russian Legion (LSR), and the Siberia Battalion. All three of these organizations are controlled by the GUR, whose spokesman announced the attacks.

Left unsaid is the degree to which the C.I.A. was involved in what amounts to an invasion of the territory of the Russian Federation by forces operating under the umbrella of what is openly acknowledged to be a proxy war between the United States and its NATO allies against Russia.

While Ukraine maintains the attacks by the RDK, LSR, and Siberia Battalion are the actions of “patriotic Russians” opposed to Putin, the involvement of the GUR in organizing, training, equipping, and directing these forces makes their attack on Russian soil a direct extension of the proxy war between Russia and the West.

Given the extensive involvement of the C.I.A. in the work of the GUR, it is highly unlikely that an action of this scope and scale could have been executed without the knowledge of the C.I.A. and in the attacks, including its goals and objectives.

Indeed, the presence of high-end U.S. military equipment, including M-2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs), in the order of battle in the attack by Russian insurgent forces points to a direct U.S. role, as does the political nature of the mission of election disruption, which has been a long-term objective of the C.I.A. in Russia stretching back decades.

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Why CISA’s Censorship And Election Interference Work Is The ‘Most Insidious Attack on American Democracy’

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner last month eviscerated the Big Brother censorship operation known as the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

“When we have our own federal agencies lying to the American people, that’s the most insidious thing that we can do in elections,” the election integrity champion told officials from the FBI and CISA on a panel at the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) in Washington, D.C., according to Wired’s Eric Geller. While Geller did his best to defend the federal agency — under the suggestive headline, “How a Right-Wing Controversy Could Sabotage US Election Security” — its history of censorship and election interference validate Warner’s concern.

The agency’s work, particularly the extracurricular business CISA has conducted in recent years, has been rightly criticized for its massive overreach. A report released last fall by the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government details just how CISA “Colluded With Big Tech And ‘Disinformation’ Partners To Censor Americans.”

“Although the investigation is ongoing, information obtained to date has revealed that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—an upstart agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—has facilitated the censorship of Americans directly and through third-party intermediaries,” the congressional report states. 

The report goes on to assert that the shadowy agency has “metastasized into the nerve center of the federal government’s domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media.” 

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Supreme Court rules Trump cannot be kicked off ballot

The Supreme Court on Monday handed a sweeping win to former President Donald Trump by ruling states cannot kick him off the ballot over his actions leading up to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — bringing a swift end to a case with huge implications for the 2024 election.

The court in an unsigned ruling with no dissents reversed the Colorado Supreme Court, which determined that Trump could not serve again as president under section 3 of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

The court said the Colorado Supreme Court had wrongly assumed that states can determine whether a presidential candidate is ineligible under a provision of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.

The ruling makes it clear that Congress, not states, has to set rules on how the 14th Amendment provision can be enforced. As such the decision applies to all states, not just Colorado.

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Ohio Senate Republican Candidate Frank LaRose Took Over $1 Million in ‘Zuck Bucks’ to Help Run 2020 Election

Ohio Senate Republican candidate and Secretary of State Frank LaRose took more than $1 million in funding from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s election nonprofit to help run the November 2020 election.

LaRose announced his Senate bid on Monday, making him the third prominent Republican hoping to unseat Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).

LaRose actively sought more than a million dollars in funding from Zuckerberg’s Center for Election Innovation and Research as some Republican officials questioned whether or not to take the grants. A local outlet reported in September 2020:

But Ohio lawmakers on Monday without debate approved accepting $1.1 million from the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a Washington D.C. nonprofit. That money will pay for radio, TV and digital ads describing absentee voting procedures, combatting misinformation, poll worker recruitment and other items, according to a request submitted by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican.

Ray Weber, a local Republican, said, “I just have a real problem with private organizations getting involved with funding and dictating what we’re supposed to do.”

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‘Significant Problem’: Ex-CIA Analyst Warns Intel Agencies Will Meddle in 2024 Election to Stop Trump

A former CIA analyst is sounding the alarm about plans by intelligence agencies to get politically involved in the 2024 election to stop the Republican candidate.

Dr. John Gentry, a Georgetown professor who spent 12 years as a CIA intelligence analyst, said the politicization of intelligence agencies in the age of Trump has become a “significant problem” and is confident they will interfere in the 2024 election.

“My guess is that the the proverbial Deep State within the intelligence community will reemerge because presumably a Republican candidate will again be seen as a threat to the internal policies that many intelligence people like,” Gentry told Fox News.

Gentry pointed out how the CIA in a “clearly political” move days before the 2020 election with the “intent to help the Biden campaign” approved a letter penned by 51 former intelligence officials falsely claiming the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop published by the New York Post was “Russian disinformation.”

Gentry said he expects intelligence agencies to resume similar political ploys ahead of the 2024 election.

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Karine Jean-Pierre and top Biden spokesman inappropriately used their roles to influence elections with attacks on ‘MAGA’ Republicans, government watchdog rules

White House spokespeople Karine Jean-Pierre and Andrew Bates violated the Hatch Act when they had been warned against using the word ‘MAGA’ to describe certain Republicans, a government watchdog agency said on Friday.

The independent Office of Special Counsel said the two took actions ‘contrary’ to official guidance on the law when they slammed ‘MAGA’ Republicans’ budget plan this year.

In their letter, first reported by NBC News, the office notes the violations came days after Jean-Pierre was warned she had violated the law intended to prevent federal employees from using their offices to influence elections.

This summer, the Office of Special Counsel notified government officials that ‘MAGA’ and similar terms were effectively off-limits for use as they were seen as campaign-related slogans. 

The ruling came after OCS’s June finding that Jean-Pierre was in violation of the Hatch Act when she repeatedly referred to ‘MAGA Republicans’ in the run-up to the 2022 midterm election. No action was taken against Jean-Pierre.

‘MAGA’ is the campaign slogan for former President Donald Trump. The OSC did say that the use of ‘MAGAnomics’ is permitted.

‘We take the law seriously and uphold the Hatch Act,’ a White House official told DailyMail.com.

Jean-Pierre, Bates and other officials repeatedly cite the Hatch Act in press briefings when declining to answer reporters’ questions about President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign or about Trump’s candidacy. 

But Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, and Bates, who is deputy White House press secretary, have used the word ‘MAGA’ repeatedly when talking about ‘extreme MAGA Republicans’ and their agenda.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Banned by Major Social Media Site, Campaign Pages Blocked

Twitter owner Elon Musk invited Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a discussion on his Twitter Spaces after Kennedy said his campaign was suspended by Meta-owned Instagram.

“Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening?” he wrote on Twitter. An accompanying image shows that Instagram said it “suspended” his “Team Kennedy” account and that there “are 180 days remaining to disagree” with the company’s decision.

In response to his post, Musk wrote: “Would you like to do a Spaces discussion with me next week?” Kennedy agreed, saying he would do it Monday at 2 p.m. ET.

Hours later, Kennedy wrote that Instagram “still hasn’t reinstated my account, which was banned years ago with more than 900k followers.” He argued that “to silence a major political candidate is profoundly undemocratic.”

“Social media is the modern equivalent of the town square,” the candidate, who is the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, wrote. “How can democracy function if only some candidates have access to it?”

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Churches’ role in local election prompts calls for investigations

Voters in West Texas have decisively rejected three conservative Christian candidates who campaigned on infusing religious values into local decision-making. But the support the candidates received from local churches during the race has prompted calls for state and federal investigations and triggered a local political reckoning.

“I think there should definitely be some penalties,” said Weldon Hurt, a two-term Abilene City Council member who won his race for mayor against one of the candidates. “I don’t know how severe it should be, but I think there has to be a way to curtail this from happening again,” he added. “I think there should be some discipline to these churches.”

ProPublica and The Texas Tribune reported a day before the May 6 election that three churches had donated a total of $800 to the campaign of Scott Beard, a pastor who was running for City Council. That was a clear violation of the Johnson Amendment, a law passed in 1954 by Congress prohibiting nonprofits from intervening in political campaigns. The IRS can revoke the tax exemption of violators, but there’s only one publicly known example of it doing so, nearly 30 years ago.

Beard, a senior pastor at Fountaingate Fellowship, said the donations were a mistake and that he would be returning the money. But within days after Beard’s defeat to retired Air Force Col. Brian Yates, a national group that espouses the separation of church and state demanded that the IRS revoke the churches’ tax exemptions.

“Beard is insisting that he has returned the donation checks, but his belated attempt at contrition doesn’t mitigate the initial transgressions” of the churches making the donations, the Freedom from Religion Foundation wrote in a news release. The group has sued the IRS in the past “to force it to take steps to enforce the law against tax-exempt entities from engaging in partisan politicking, and is prepared to sue again if necessary.”

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