Category: KOCH BROTHERS

Report: Hollywood Trade Association Executive Fired from MPAA After Arrest

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By Matthew Boyle

Variety reports Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel Steven Fabrizio has been fired following his arrest last Friday by Washington, D.C., detectives. His apprehension was first reported by Breitbart News late Monday night.

Charles Rivkin, former President Barack Obama’s former ambassador to France and a former top State Department official under Obama who was Obama’s 2008 campaign co-chair and has since taken over the MPAA as its chairman, announced on Monday morning to the board of the MPAA that Fabrizio has been terminated as a result of the arrest.

Rivkin took over the MPAA from former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), a longtime top Democrat who ran for president and has deep connections in Washington. When he retired from the Senate in 2011 after 30 years, he took the job at MPAA as its chairman. Rivkin took over for Dodd in 2017, after the former Democrat senator stepped down to join a top D.C. law firm. Variety’s Nate Nickolai and Matt Donnelly wrote:

Steven Fabrizio, a top executive at the Motion Picture Association of America, has been fired following charges of second degree sexual abuse and blackmail. Fabrizio served as general counsel to the trade group, which represents the interests of Hollywood on Capitol Hill. He was charged on Saturday in Washington, D.C. On Monday morning, MPAA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin informed his board — which includes all of the major studios and Netflix — that Fabrizio was dismissed ‘for violating certain terms of employment.’ Daniel Robbins has been appointed interim general counsel as a replacement is found, Rivkin added.

Variety’s report follows Breitbart News’ publication of Fabrizio’s arrest, including details from a police report reviewed by Breitbart News detailing how detectives arrested Fabrizio after a relationship he struck up with a woman from an online “dating website” went awry.

As Breitbart News reported late Monday before this new report from Variety, the police allege the woman called for help after what the detectives describe as a series of encounters between the woman and Fabrizio, which she claims she attempted to end multiple times.  The report then describes messages sent by the woman to Fabrizio that “were largely composed and sent in consultation with members of the Metropolitan Police Department.” Detectives then orchestrated Mr. Fabrizio’s arrest outside the woman’s

The police report reviewed by Breitbart News reads.:

Once the Defendant had parked his vehicle, Detectives [redacted] and [redacted] pulled up behind the Defendant’s vehicle. Detective [redacted] approached the defendant’s vehicle and asked the defendant for his driver’s license to confirm the defendant’s identity. The defendant provided Detective [redacted] his driver’s license, and the defendant’s identity was confirmed by his Maryland Driver’s License to be Steven Bernard Fabrizio born on [date redacted here]. The defendant was asked to step out of his vehicle. The Defendant walked to the rear of his vehicle and was placed in handcuffs. Sergeant [redacted] was already on scene as Detectives [redacted] and [redacted] walked up. As Detective [redacted] approached the defendant the defendant was heard asking Detective [redacted] to retrieve his cell phone from inside the vehicle. Detective retrieved the defendant’s cellphone and placed it in the defendant’s left cargo pocket. The defendant asked why he was stopped and he was advised by Detective [redacted] that he was being arrested for Rape and Blackmail and that if there were something he wished to tell the Detectives they would take him to the Detectives’ Office, mirandize him and interview him. The suspect declined, and asked if he could call a lawyer. The defendant was informed that he could make a phone call once he was at the police station. The defendant, Steven Bernard Fabrizio, was placed under arrest and transported to the Second District for processing.

The MPAA, Fabrizio, and Metropolitan Police Department have still not replied to requests for comment, but now with Variety’s report that Hollywood’s man in Washington has been arrested–a report that confirms Breitbart News’ account of the arrest, and adds he was charged on Saturday in D.C. court and awaits prosecution.

The Variety report quotes more details from the police report on the matter:

According to a police affidavit, Fabrizio is accused of threatening a woman he met on a “sugar daddy” dating site. The police allege that Fabrizio and the woman had consensual sex once on Aug. 19, after which he paid her $400. After that, she did not want to see him again. According to the affidavit, Fabrizio sent numerous texts insisting on a second meeting, and threatening to expose her if she did not comply.

“I know where you live,” he allegedly wrote. “I know where you work. Don’t think — Hospital would be happy to know that it’s young nurses are having sexual for money / Same for your landlord.”

Fabrizio allegedly used those threats to coerce her into having sex again, according to the affidavit. The police allege that he then sent additional texts threatening to tell her parents if she did not continue to have sex with him a couple times a month. The woman called the police. After arranging for another meeting, Fabrizio was arrested outside the woman’s apartment on Friday morning, according to the document.

Variety also includes a background quote from an anonymous MPAA spokesperson who told the outlet of the charges against its own lawyer Fabrizio that “if true, are both shocking and intolerable to the association. We had no prior knowledge of this behavior before these charges were publicly filed.”

Fabrizio’s deep connections in Washington, D.C., especially to top Democrats around town, are only beginning to become clear publicly. He first took the job at the MPAA in 2013 as its in-house chief counsel after serving as its outside counsel for some time.

Trump allies in Washington quickly shared the news that a top leftist Hollywood ally had fallen in D.C.:

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Donald Trump, Jr., President Trump’s eldest son, also shared the news, commenting that Hollywood and the leaders of “the Resistance” against his father are “truly sick”:

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In a Hollywood Reporter story about his hiring, Dodd–the top Democrat former senator who was then running the MPAA–said he thought the world of Fabrizio.

“Steve has been one of the entertainment industry’s most effective advocates for years, and has the perfect blend of knowledge, skill, and experience to lead the MPAA’s already talented legal team,” Dodd said. “As the MPAA’s new Global General Counsel, he will continue to protect the rights of our industry’s creators and makers so they can do what they do best: tell stories that entertain audiences across the globe.”

Fabrizio later, in early 2014, sat for a major interview with the Hollywood Reporter in which he explained his plans for the industry to pursue in Washington, D.C. He laid out various litigation he already been involved in, and major policy fights ahead that Hollywood envisioned.

Fabrizio was very highly-paid, according to IRS 990 forms that the MPAA filed. Politico Influence reported on his salary–which was into seven figures at $1.1 million annually–back in late 2017, according to a report based on 2016 IRS 990 documents from the MPAA.

The organization in 2016, per these documents according to Politico raised $57.8 million and spent $66.7 million. Its highest paid staffers that year were Dodd, who made $3.4 million, and Fabrizio who made $1.1 million. Next up was MPAA’s COO Diane Strahan who made $1 million in 2016.

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REPORT: Tech Elite Building ‘Social Credit’ System Masters of The Universe to Track Everything You Do Zuckerscore: Points Control Your Freedom?

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By Allum Bokhari

Fast Company has caught on to what Breitbart News has been highlighting for some time: that the Big Tech Masters of the Universe are developing systems to monitor and regulate personal behavior that closely resemble China’s totalitarian “social credit” system.

The “social credit” system assigns all Chinese citizens a “social credit score.” A citizen’s score drops if he engages in a range of disfavored activities, ranging from littering to supporting political dissidents.

Citizens whose score drops low enough can find themselves subject to strict punishment, including bans from the use of public transport, exclusion from top jobs, and prohibitions on their children attending top-rated schools.

This may sound alien and Orwellian, but as Fast Company notes, Silicon Valley is bringing a version of this grim reality to America.

Via Fast Company:

Many Westerners are disturbed by what they read about China’s social credit system. But such systems, it turns out, are not unique to China. A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies.

The articles goes on to note a range of ways in which western citizens are being systematically rated, and in some cases excluded, by corporate America. These include insurance companies scanning the social media feeds of applicants, an app called “PatronScan,” that logs the face and name of troublesome bar and restaurant clientele, and the growing tendency of services like Airbnb, Uber, and WhatsApp to ban users for arbitrary reasons.

The comparison to China’s social credit system is similar to the one this reporter made on Breitbart News Daily in June:

In China, they have what’s called a “social credit system” — in which, if you engage in behavior that the regime doesn’t like, they’ll assign you a score, and when it drops below a certain point, they’ll exclude you from certain basic services, like transportation, they might not let your kids go to good schools — all sorts of basic services, they’ll cut you off from.

We have a corporate version of this already evolving. So if you don’t do the things that Facebook approves of, they’re going to cut you off from their platform, which is now essential for maintaining a social network, building a business, running for office. We rely on Facebook and other social media platforms for so many things. Uber and Lyft will also ban you now — they’ve started to ban people for political viewpoints, so you think China is the only one that’s going to cut you off from transportation for having the wrong opinions — well, Western corporations are now doing that, too. Airbnb, Amazon, they’re all doing it.

One other comparison from the Fast Company article deserves note — the Chinese communist government’s partnership with tech platforms like Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter. Far from aiding dissidents, Chinese social media companies like Weibo and WeChat aid and abet the government in the persecution of its citizens.

That too, has eerie parallels with the West, where social media platforms have become a means of extra-judicial censorship for politicians. Because America has the First Amendment, politicians can’t pass laws suppressing speech or punishing dissidents against the established order — but they can, and frequently do, bully tech companies into doing their dirty work for them.

 

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60 MILES OF NEW BORDER WALL ERECTED WHERE ILLEGALS ONCE STORMED AMERICA

60 Miles of New Border Wall Erected Where Illegals Once Stormed America

Border Patrol footage shows the difference one administration makes

By Kelen McBreen – August 26, 2019

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) unveiled 60 miles of new border wall near San Luis, Arizona on Saturday, showing before and after footage of the location.

In the “before” footage, dozens of illegals can be seen running into the United States, and in the “after” footage, a “triple-layered enforcement zone which includes an 18’ bollard wall” occupies the same space.

According to CBP, the Trump administration plans on building over 400 miles of wall in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas by 2020.

“CBP has constructed over 60 miles of new border wall system along the SW border since 2017 and expects to complete 450 miles by the end of 2020.”

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost tweeted out a time-lapse of the San Luis portion of the border wall being built, saying, “This new system improves impedance & denial of illegal entries, making the border safer for both my agents, & our nation.”

This is what Americans asked for when they voted for Donald Trump and this is what they can expect more of after he wins again in 2020.

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CNN host under fire after guest says Trump may cause more deaths than Hitler, Stalin and Mao

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Trump-bashing is nothing unusual at CNN, but when a guest told Brian Stelter that the president “may be responsible for many more million deaths” than the worst dictators of the 20th Century, even the host was left red-faced.

Speaking on Stelter’s ‘Reliable Sources,’ Dr. Allen Frances told the host that “Trump is as destructive a person in this century as Hitler, Stalin, Mao in the last century. He may be responsible for many more million deaths than they were.”

The segment went viral and Trump supporters were equal parts incredulous and furious. “Raise your hand if you don’t take CNN seriously anymore”quipped conservative pundit Jack Posobiec. “The only thing ‘Reliable’ about Stelter is that he is reliably a leftwing hack,”tweeted the president’s son, Donald Jr.

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Stelter, who has repeatedly questioned Trump’s mental faculties on air, didn’t interject when Frances compared the American president to a trio of mass-murdering dictators. Criticized later for this, he claimed to have been “distracted by tech difficulties,” and said that he “should have interrupted.”

Frances made his bold claim in a segment discussing the implications of analyzing the president’s mental health from a distance, a practice that the American Psychoanalytic Association frowns on. Frances, on the other hand has published a book doing just that, entitled ‘Twilight of American Sanity’.

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‘Crime does pay’: CNN hires disgraced ex-FBI director Andrew McCabe

Despite opening with a caution against “medicalizing politics,” Frances went on to turn that statement against Trump. “It stigmatizes the mentally ill,” he said, adding that comparing them to Trump is “an insult.”

“Second, calling Trump crazy hides the fact that we’re crazy for having elected him and even crazier for allowing his crazy policies to persist,” he continued.

With criticism flowing in at Stelter and Frances, Trump Campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told the Washington Examiner that “Trump Derangement Syndrome is real.”

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New Jersey Awarded $3.8 Million in Financial Aid to Illegal Aliens

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By TOM CICCOTTA

A local news report revealed that the state of New Jersey awarded $3.8 million in financial aid to illegal immigrants during the 2018-2019 school year.

According to a report from NJ.com, the state of New Jersey gave $3.8 million in financial aid to 749 illegal immigrant students in the last academic year. More than a quarter of the funding went to 328 illegal immigrants that attend Rutgers University.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed a law last year that allowed illegal immigrants to apply for financial aid. Prior to the signing, illegal immigrants were permitted to apply to pay in-state tuition at public universities but they were not eligible for financial aid.

Murphy, who supports the spending, hit back at Republican critics by arguing that giving financial aid to illegal immigrants is compatible with American values.

“I’d even invite any of those folks who have that attitude, beginning with our president, to come on into this room and allow me or any of us to say, ‘This is the United States of America,’” Murphy said at the time.

David J. Socolow, executive director of the state’s Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, defended the state’s decision to offer financial aid to illegal immigrants.

“This financial assistance offers these New Jersey students a life-changing opportunity,” Socolow said in a brief comment.“The successes of these first 513 students, who are now attending county colleges, state colleges and universities, and independent institutions around the state, will have a positive impact on countless additional lives.”

According to the report, there is currently no limit on the amount of illegal immigrant students that are permitted to receive financial aid from the state of New Jersey. State lawmakers forecast that they will spend approximately $5 million on financial aid for illegal immigrants each year.

 

 

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Deep State FBI Director Wray Fights to Delay Release of Strzok-Page Text Messages Until AFTER 2020 Election

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By Cristina Laila – August 21, 2019

FBI Director Christopher Wray’s FBI is fighting like hell to keep the thousands of outstanding text messages between FBI lovers Peter Strzok and Lisa Page under wraps until after the 2020 election.

Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch has been in court this summer fighting to get their hands on 13,000 pages of Strzok-Page documents.

The FBI wants over 2 years to “process” the Strzok-Page docs.

The Court in late July ordered parties to negotiate a solution to getting key docs more quickly, Judicial Watch said. The FBI is protecting itself on illegal abuses.

“Wray FBI wants to stall until well after next presidential election before completing release of emails/texts between corrupt FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page,” Tom Fitton said.

“26 months for 13,000 pages!? President Donald Trump should order the FBI to comply with law and stop the stonewalling,” he added.

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Recall, former FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok and his paramour FBI lawyer Lisa Page were removed from the special counsel investigation after DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz discovered they were having an affair and exchanging anti-Trump text messages.

Peter Strzok migrated from the Hillary Clinton email probe to the ‘get Trump’ Russian collusion investigation. Strzok protected Hillary Clinton from Espionage Act charges, then in July of 2016 opened up a bogus CI investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) into ‘Trump Russia’ with no valid reason other than to ‘stop Trump.’

The two FBI lovebirds text each other about an “insurance policy” to stop Donald Trump just in case he were to win the 2016 election.

The FBI was forced to hand over text messages between Strzok and Page, however, they claimed that they were unable to retrieve several months worth of texts because they were ‘missing.’

Mueller also scrubbed other text messages between Strzok and Page. Their phones were set to ‘factory settings’ when the two FBI officials turned in their phones to the FBI resulting in ‘lost’ data.

Judicial Watch has been fighting in court to obtain the outstanding Strzok-Page texts and FBI Director Wray is working to keep the documents hidden from public scrutiny.

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TRUMP TELLS OFF DENMARK: “YOU DON’T TALK TO THE UNITED STATES THAT WAY”

Trump Tells Off Denmark: "You Don’t Talk to the United States That Way"

President says he won’t allow the US to be treated the way it was treated under Obama

By Kit Daniels

President Trump says he cancelled his trip to Denmark because he felt its prime minister was disrespectful to the United States.

The president was referring to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s statement that the idea of Denmark selling Greenland to the US was “an absurd discussion.”

“I looked forward to going, but I thought that the prime minister’s statement that it was ‘absurd,’ that it was an ‘absurd’ idea was nasty,” he said. “I thought it was an inappropriate statement.”

“All she had to do is say we wouldn’t be interested.”

He said he won’t allow the US to be treated “the way they treated us under Obama.”

“I thought it was a very not nice way of saying something,” he continued. “She’s not talking to me, she’s talking to the United States of America.”

“You don’t talk to the United States that way, at least under me.”

Previously it was reported that Denmark subsidies Greenland with over a half-billion dollars every year.

“Danish subsidies keep its economy afloat,” reported The Economist. “Last year the annual block grant from Denmark was 3.8bn kroner ($610m), more than a third of Greenland’s budget.”

“Many Greenlandic politicians reckon that new revenue streams from mining and tourism can help to wean the territory off Danish handouts.”

The “new revenue streams” the article is referring to is actually from Chinese investment – and China has a strategic geopolitical interest in the Arctic, which explains why President Trump is interested in buying Greenland.

China claimed it’s an “near-Arctic state” in its official Arctic Policy released last year and aims to create a “Polar Silk Road” in a partnership with Russia that would grant China an economic boost in the region.

“China aims to participate ‘in the exploration for and exploitation of oil, gas, mineral and other non-living resources’ in the Arctic,” reported The Diplomat. “However, the white paper also places a particular emphasis on nontraditional energy sources: ‘The Arctic region boasts an abundance of geothermal, wind, and other clean energy resources,’ the paper said, ‘China will work with the Arctic States to strengthen clean energy cooperation.’”

US lawmakers have also declared that the Arctic “is a region of strategic importance to the national security interests of the United States.”

“…The Department of Defense must better align its presence, force posture, and capabilities to meet the growing array of challenges in the region,” reads Section 1099T of the proposed National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. “…Although much progress has been made to increase awareness of Arctic issues and to promote increased presence in the region, additional measures, including the designation of one or more strategic Arctic ports, are needed to show the commitment of the United States to this emerging strategic choke point of future great power competition.”

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(JUST IN TIME FOR THE 2020 ELECTIONS) – Facebook hiring editors to pick stories for ‘News Tab’, that didn’t work out well last time

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Facebook will hire a “small team” of journalists to select featured content for its much-hyped ‘News Tab’ section, which the platform will begin testing across its US user base later this year.

What could go awry with human editors in charge? Facebook should know, since the company was forced to fire its last team of human content-pickers over revelations of bias against conservative viewpoints.

READ MORE: Facebook tells Trump ads can’t appeal to ‘strong women LIKE YOU,’ caving in to ex-Clinton staffer

The platform said Tuesday that the new team — which will likely be fewer than 10 employees at the beginning — will choose the content for the ‘Top News’ section of the News Tab. Stories found in the other sections will be chosen by algorithms and determined by specific user interests, the New York Times reported.

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‘Trending’ no more: Facebook removing controversial news feature

Facebook said it made the decision to go after human curators after discussions with publishers convinced them that algorithms would not be capable of “news judgement” the way real journalists would and that it would take too long to train an algorithm to that level.

But there are pitfalls to consider with human editors, too. Facebook ditched its ‘Trending Topics’ section last year after being plagued by accusations that it was politically biased and amplified “fake news.” 

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An explosive Gizmodo story put the spotlight on Trending Topics in 2016, revealing that human editors, independently contracted by Facebook, were asked to suppress conservative news and even stories about Facebook itself.

The contractors were also told to artificially “inject” preferred stories into the trending module, even if they were not trending organically. Rather than relying on algorithms (as it claimed), Facebook was acting like a traditional news organization and reflecting the personal biases of its employees.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that Facebook is planning to pay publishers “millions of dollars” to include their content in its News Tab.

A source told Digiday that the new batch of curators will be given the option to include that content in the Top News section, but they will not be obliged to. The new hires will be full-time employees, unlike the contractors used for the doomed Trending Topics section.

As Facebook rolls out the News Tab, users will no doubt be waiting to see if it has learned its lesson after the last debacle.

READ MORE: Google is censoring political content? *Gasp!* Who knew?

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