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    Biden DHS Still Colluding with Big Tech to Censor Dissent

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Even as Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publicly shuttered its stillborn ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ (aka Ministry of Truth) after a huge outcry, new evidence shows that Team Biden is still trying to use DHS to collude with Big Tech to censor Americans on social media.

    The latest information uncovered through an investigation by The Intercept points to a Facebook-designed portal that government officials could use to flag content they deem objectionable and request that the platform remove it. 

    According to The Intercept:

    There is also a formalized process for government officials to directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At the time of writing, the “content request system” at facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined to comment.

    That the federal government believes it can directly help control what views and news can be disseminated online is beyond reprehensible.

    As The Intercept notes:

    How disinformation is defined by the government has not been clearly articulated, and the inherently subjective nature of what constitutes disinformation provides a broad opening for DHS officials to make politically motivated determinations about what constitutes dangerous speech.

    In other words, governments don’t decide what is valid information and what isn’t.

    Instead, that is what politics, a free media and the marketplace of ideas are for.

    But Big Brother, especially under Democrats, is relentless in its appetite for control. (RELATED: Congressional Leaders Expose Scheme to Pump Liberal Misinformation Network Into Classrooms)

    The Intercept continues to describe this Orwellian effort:

    Key Takeaways:

    * The work is primarily done by CISA, a DHS sub-agency tasked with protecting critical national infrastructure.

    * DHS, the FBI, and several media entities are having biweekly meetings as recently as August.

    * DHS considered countering disinformation relating to content that undermines trust in financial systems and courts.

    * The FBI agent who primed social media platforms to take down the Hunter Biden laptop story continued to have a role in DHS policy discussions.

    And all this has been corroborated by official documentation and other news reporting.

    Earlier, NewsBusters reported that:

    DHS continued its counter-“disinformation” work in a more cloaked fashion, and that the government specifically intended to target certain content areas including COVID-19, election security and “domestic violent extremism.”

    Considering how much ‘accepted’ information about COVID was later proven false or questionable and how the FBI and DOJ have been falsely hyping the otherwise minor ‘domestic violent extremism’ threat, this effort is highly concerning.

    Meanwhile, a DHS Office of Inspector General report recommended that DHS “develop a unified strategy to counter disinformation campaigns that appear in social media.”

    All this portends an extremely dangerous trend that must be stopped in its tracks. 

    It is critical that a GOP-controlled Congress investigate and help dismantle all these insidious DHS ‘disinformation’ efforts as soon as possible.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    MSNBC Abruptly Cuts Ties with Controversial Host After Berating Ron DeSantis

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    11
    Ron DeSantis via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Don’t mess with DeSantis.

    On Friday, MSNBC suddenly announced its decision to cut ties with controversial host Tiffany Cross over her “bad judgment.” According to sources familiar with the matter, executives decided not to renew Cross’s two-year contract after growing tired of the host’s controversial antics.

    “Repeated bad behavior on and off-air. Bad judgment,” a source close to the situation told Fox News.

    Cross, who hosted the weekend program “Cross Connection,” will be replaced by rotating guest anchors until a replacement is named.

    Cross was previously a fill-in host for Joy Reid’s weekend show “AM Joy” and got her own Saturday program in 2020. She has since made a name for herself over her vitriolic statements about conservatives, a move that would ultimately cost her job.

    The reporting thus far does not indicate that ratings were a factor. An internal MSNBC ratings memo obtained by Mediaite earlier this year said that “The Cross Connection is the highest-rated weekend show on MSNBC,” and that the show’s audience “skews 55% female and 35% African American.”

    Mere hours before being fired Cross raised eyebrows over her comments about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Sunshine state during an appearance with Comedy Central. She used her turn during the “One’s Gotta Go” segment to push for the release of Florida into the castration bin, attacking the governor and comparing his state to a set of genitalia that could use a trim.

    “I say Florida literally looks like the dick of the country. So let’s get rid of Florida. Ron…” Cross said.

    “Seriously, let’s castrate Florida. Here’s the problem, Ron DeStupid, Ron DeSantis, whatever you want to call Florida Man, he is so problematic,” she continued. “The people there passed Amendment Four, which gave returning citizens, those formerly incarcerated, the right to vote. He instituted a poll tax. He has done everything he can to keep Black and brown people from the ballot. He trafficks in stupidity and ignorance and I just think they are a problem for the rest of the country. Let’s get them out.”

    Trump Files Lawsuit Against New York Attorney General

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    3
    Alec Perkins from Hoboken, USA, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    On Wednesday, former President Donald Trump filed a new lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James as he seeks to halt her attempts to appoint a watchdog to review a revocable trust Trump uses to manage his assets.

    According to The Hill, Trump filed a 41-page lawsuit with Florida’s Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Court accusing AG James of embarking on a “crusade” against him as he seeks to stop the Democrat from imposing restrictions on his business and personal life. In the Florida lawsuit, Trump claims there would be a deprivation of privacy and property rights if James gains control over his personal revocable trust.

    Pending the outcome of the lawsuit, James asked a court to appoint an independent watchdog that would review the Trump’s financial procedures and disclosures, including for the movement of any assets.

    Last week Trump retaliated and filed a lawsuit in a Manhattan court seeking to stop AG James from appointing the monitoring agent, which he says would “nationalize his company” in violation of the constitution.

    “Crooked and highly partisan James now thinks it is the business of the State of New York to go after my revocable trust and pry into my private estate plan,” Trump wrote, “only to look for ways to recklessly injure me, my family, my businesses, and my tens of millions of supporters.

    “If I were not elected President of the United States, and now leading in the polls by substantial margins against both Democrats and Republicans, this would not be happening,” the former president wrote.

    A spokesperson for the Attorney General’s Office said “multiple judges have dismissed Donald Trump’s baseless attempts to evade justice, and no number of lawsuits will deter us from pursuing this fraud.”

    “We sued Donald Trump because he committed extensive financial fraud,” the spokesperson said. “That fact hasn’t changed, and neither will our resolve to ensure that no matter how powerful or political one might be, no one is above the law.”

    In September, James filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization and three of Trump’s children seeking $250 million for alleged tax fraud.

    Read Trump’s lawsuit below:

    160520052-complaintDownload

    Biden Learns the Reason Democrats Don’t Want His Support on the Campaign Trail

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    Don Lemon via Wikimedia Commons

    Joe Biden just got a brutal reality check from nonother than CNN host Don Lemon.

    While co-hosting his new morning show position, Lemon claimed Democrats are ashamed of Biden and are intentionally avoiding inviting him onto the campaign trail in the final days before Election Day.

    Lemon, whose words pack a punch considering his own well-documented support of Biden, says candidates are wary of the President’s low approval ratings and “don’t want to be seen with him.” Instead, candidates have opted to invite former President Obama on the trail in hopes of currying favor with undecided voters.

    “That’s a big factor in where Biden has been these last few days,” anchor and former Daily Caller reporter Kaitlan Collins said. “He is not going to the places that you’re seeing former President Obama go to. It’s because of that approval rating.”

    “A lot of people are not, you know, they don’t want to be seen with the president, quite frankly, and they don’t even want to answer the question about whether they should be running with him or having him on the campaign trail or whether he should be running in 2024,” Lemon added.

    According to The Daily Caller, a number of recent polls have signaled Biden’s downturn among Americans

    A recent CNN/SSRS poll found Biden’s approval rating at 41% among registered voters, the second lowest of presidential approval ratings ahead of the midterms. The poll surveyed 1,290 registered voters between October 26-31 with a 3.4 margin of error.

    Several polls throughout his presidency have consistently found the president’s approval ratings to stand between 30%-40%. More Americans continue to hold a negative view of Biden. Currently, 42% approve of Biden, while 53% disapprove, according to FiveThirtyEight.

    Democrats have been hesitant to publicly support Biden’s second term and a number of lawmakers have already signaled their plans to support other Democrats candidates.

    Ohio Democrat Senate candidate Tim Ryan hasn’t been shy about the fact he hopes Biden will abandon his 2024 plans. During an October debate against Republican opponent J.D. Vance, Ryan said Democrats need a “generational change.” (RELATED: Ohio Democrat Candidate Says Biden Should Not Run for President in 2024)

    “I’ve been very clear. I’d like to see a generational change,” Ryan at the time.

    “Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, the president, everybody,” the Senate candidate added. “We need a new generation of leadership.”

    Justice Department Mulls Immunity Deal for Trump Adviser Kash Patel

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    2
    Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Ramón Colón-López and the chief of staff to Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, Kash Patel, arrive at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Jan. 14, 2021. (DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando)

    The Justice Department is reportedly seriously contemplating offering former Trump adviser Kash Patel an immunity deal in exchange for his testimony about claims that highly sensitive government documents the FBI seized from the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort were declassified.

    According to sources close to the matter, the DOJ is considering the special deal because Patel was one of Trump’s appointed representatives with the National Archives and therefore could have knowledge of how Trump handled the records seized from Mar-a-Lago.

    According to The Guardian, Patel started the Trump administration by railing against the Russia investigation when he served on the House intelligence committee’s Republican staff and ended it as chief of staff to the defense secretary.

    During its August raid, the FBI seized thousands of pages of documents from the former President’s Florida residence. Throughout its investigation into whether Trump violated the Espionage Act, the DOJ has honed in on roughly 100 documents and whether they were-as Trump has claimed- declassified before leaving office.

    Trump, Patel, and other confidantes have made claims about the declassification of the documents but the former president’s legal team has yet to make the assertion in court.

    Justice Department officials are examining whether to allow federal prosecutors to seek an order from the chief US district court judge in Washington Beryl Howell granting Patel limited use immunity to compel his testimony on the declassification issue and other matters, the sources said.

    The justice department had sought testimony from Patel when he was summoned to testify before a grand jury in Washington hearing evidence about Trump’s potential mishandling of national security materials and obstruction when he appeared resisted requests for their return, one source said.

    But Patel asserted his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination to an array of questions at the 13 October appearance, the source said, though the basis for some was not clear; even if the documents were not declassified, making false public statements would probably not be a crime.

    The Justice Department is not prone to offering immunity deals because it can potentially make bringing charges against the person in the future more difficult. The approval must also come from the top echelons of the DOJ according to guidelines, and the preference for prosecutors to obtain testimony is to have defendants plead guilty and then have them offer cooperation for a reduced sentence.

    Rudy Giuliani’s Effort to Dismiss Defamation Suit Falls Flat in Court

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
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    1
    (Nova York - EUA, 24/09/2019) Presidente da República, Jair Bolsonaro, durante encontro com o senhor Rudolph Giuliani, ex-prefeito da cidade de Nova York. .Foto: Alan Santos/PR

    Rudy Giuliani was hit with bad news in court on Tuesday. A federal judge rejected President Donald Trump’s former attorney’s bid to dismiss a defamation suit from two Georgia elections workers who appeared before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack.

    According to The Hill, D.C. District Court Judge Beryl Howell said Giuliani contributed to “increasingly outlandish paranoia” by pushing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

    “Defendant Rudolph Giuliani—a current media personality and former politician once dubbed ‘America’s mayor’—propagated and pushed that false narrative,” Howell wrote.

    The suit comes from Shaye Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman, two witnesses who appeared before the Jan. 6 panel to describe how false claims from Giuliani, including a video repeatedly shared by him accusing the two poll workers of counting fraudulent ballots, upended their lives.

    Howell wrote that Giuliani “orchestrated and implemented a strategic plan” regarding faulty fraud claims and the allegations the campaign made against Moss, noting that the plan “provide[s] ample circumstantial evidence of a civil conspiracy between Giuliani and members of the Trump Campaign.”

    Moss and Freeman claimed that though election interference claims were eventually debunked they still received death threats.

    The judge’s ruling sends the lawsuit forward to its discovery phase, a process that will allow Moss and Freeman to demand more evidence from Giuliani.

    Giuliani is facing a separate defamation lawsuit stemming from his comments regarding the 2020 election results’ legitimacy from voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion Voting Systems.

    Judge Throws Out Mark Meadows Lawsuit Against Jan. 6 Panel

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    1
    Office of Congressman Mark Meadows, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    On Tuesday, federal U.S. district judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, dismissed a lawsuit from former President Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows against the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th Capitol riot.

    Meadows sought to block two subpoenas from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, including one to Verizon seeking his phone and text data.

    Judge Nichols found that the panel’s subpoenas were covered under the Constitution’s speech or debate clause, which he said protected them from civil suits as legislative actions.

    “The record makes clear that the challenged subpoenas are protected legislative acts,” Nichols wrote in the decision, according to The New York Times.

    Despite his decision, the judge said a number of matters raised by Mr. Meadows remained unsettled, including whether a senior aide to a former president can be compelled to testify before Congress; whether a former president can validly assert executive privilege; and whether a sitting president may override a former president’s claim of privilege.

    Judge Nichols’s ruling marks the latest chapter in Meadows’ nearly year-long saga against the committee. Last December, Meadows filed a lawsuit against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the committee, claiming the panel issued “two overly broad and unduly burdensome subpoenas” for his records.

    Before filing suit, Mr. Meadows turned over thousands of pages of documents to the committee, including more than 2,300 text messages that served as key evidence for jump-starting the panel’s investigation. But he refused the committee’s subpoena to sit for a deposition and withheld more than 1,000 documents he said were covered by executive privilege.

    The committee then recommended that Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina, be charged with contempt of Congress. However, the Justice Department ultimately decided against prosecuting the case.

    Meadows will likely seek to appeal Judge Nichols’s ruling but has yet to make any comments publicly about the case.

    The January 6th panel’s future is up in the air as Republicans are poised to will back control of Congress, likely meaning Meadows will avoid testifying before the panel altogether.

    Trump Asks Supreme Court to Intervene in Tax Docs Battle

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    5
    Duncan Lock, Dflock, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    UPDATE: Chief Justice John Roberts put a temporary hold on the handover of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee. Roberts’ order gives the Supreme Court time to weigh the legal issues in Trump’s emergency appeal.

    On Monday, former President Trump filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a lower court declined to reverse its ruling mandating that he turn over his tax records to the House Ways and Means Committee. 

    “No Congress has ever wielded its legislative powers to demand a President’s tax returns,” Trump argued to the high court, expressing outrage about the “far-reaching implications” of the D.C. Circuit’s ruling.

    “The Committee’s purpose in requesting President Trump’s tax returns has nothing to do with funding or staffing issues at the IRS and everything to do with releasing the President’s tax information to the public,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing according to The Washington Examiner. 

    The request was made to Chief Justice John Roberts, who has authority over such appeals stemming from the District of Columbia.

    Last week, Trump lost his latest bid to block the House Committee from accessing his records after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to reconsider a unanimous August ruling from one of the court’s panels ordering their release.

    Committee chairman Richard Neal(D-MA) celebrated the lower court’s ruling last week.

    “The law has always been on our side,” Rep. Neal said in a statement. “Former President Trump has tried to delay the inevitable, but once again, the Court has affirmed the strength of our position. We’ve waited long enough—we must begin our oversight of the IRS’s mandatory presidential audit program as soon as possible.”

    In December, federal court Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled that the Treasury Department must turn over the tax returns, holding that despite Trump’s claims that the pursuit of records by the House committee was politically motivated, the committee’s chairman, Democrat Richard Neal, held a “valid legislative purpose” with his request, according to The Hill.

    “The Chairman has identified a legitimate legislative purpose that it requires information to accomplish,” Judge David Sentelle, wrote in the panel’s opinion. “At this stage, it is not our place to delve deeper than this.”

    Democrats have engaged in a yearslong battle for Trump’s tax records, claiming they need to probe how the Internal Revenue Service conducts its routine presidential audits, however, Trump and his legal team have argued the matter is purely political. 

    New York Gubernatorial Candidate Under Investigation

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    14
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    New York Republican gubernatorial nominee Lee Zeldin has been targeted in a new investigation less than two weeks before the midterm elections.

    Zeldin is under investigation by the State Board of Elections over allegations that he coordinated with two super PACs supporting his campaign, according to The Hill.

    Michael Johnson, the chief enforcement counsel of the New York State Board of Elections, opened a preliminary investigation into Zeldin’s campaign after the allegations emerged.

    Johnson is now seeking subpoena authority from the State Board of Elections to compel cooperation with his investigation, according to the Times. 

    However, he was stymied when two Republican members of the board unexpectedly missed a business meeting on Tuesday, preventing the board from reaching a quorum to vote on the subpoena issue and likely delaying the issue until after the election, per the Times.

    The Albany Times-Union first reported in mid-October that there were several overlaps between Zeldin’s campaign and two super PACs supporting him — Safe Together New York and Save Our State New York.

    Days later, the New York State Democratic Party filed a complaint against Zeldin’s campaign over the alleged super PAC. Super PACs are legally allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to advocate for or against candidates but are barred from coordinating with the candidates they benefit.

    Zeldin has been rapidly closing the gap against New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in recent weeks.

    Musk Fires Twitter Employee Who Banned Trump First Move as Boss

    By
    Madeleine Jackson
    -
    6


    Elon Musk is wasting no time as Twitter’s new boss.

    The South African-born billionaire officially became Twitter’s new CEO Thursday evening and he wasted no time before addressing some concerns. As part of his first move as boss, Musk fired Twitter’s top lawyer Vijaya Gadde, who played an instrumental role in censoring the Hunter Biden laptop scandal and banning former President Donald Trump from the platform.

    Earlier this year after Musk announced his plan to buy Twitter, Politico reported that “Gadde cried during [a] meeting as she expressed concerns about how the company could change.”

    Musk also fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, and Sean Edgett, the company’s general counsel

    Musk released a statement earlier in the day explaining why he wanted to buy Twitter:

    “I wanted to reach out personally to share my motivation in acquiring Twitter,” Musk wrote. “There has been much speculation about why I bought Twitter and what I think about advertising. Most of it has been wrong.”

    “The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk continued. “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”

    “In the relentless pursuit of clicks, much of traditional media has fueled and catered to those polarized extremes, as they believe that is what brings in the money, but, in doing so, the opportunity for dialogue is lost,” Musk continued. “That is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.”

    “That said, Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!” Musk concluded. “In addition to
    adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”

    Musk’s first moves as the boss received widespread praise from conservative users.

    Musk, a free speech advocate, has vowed to address censorship and bias concerns on the platform.

    After officially becoming CEO, Trump released a statement praising Musk for the endeavor and urged him to reinstate his account.

    “Congratulations to Elon Musk on his purchase of Twitter. Many people are saying that change was needed, as the old management was too concerned with the woke agenda. I have been told that my account will be back up and running on Monday – we will see. Happy to be able to engage with African-American owned business!”

    In May, Musk said he didn’t agree with the decision to permanently ban Trump from the platform.

    “I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump, I think that was a mistake,” Musk said back in May. “I would reverse the perma-ban. … But my opinion, and Jack Dorsey, I want to be clear, shares this opinion, is that we should not have perma-bans.”

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