Tag: BREITBART NEWS

Richard Burr Walks it Back on Trump, Jr. Subpoena Agrees to Strict Limits on Scope, Length of Interview

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By Matthew Boyle

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) has relented regarding the subpoena he issued of Donald Trump, Jr., which was originally open-ended in terms of scope and topics, as well as without limits on the length of time for the interview.

Now, after a sustained pressure campaign from allies of the president and the first family, Burr has agreed to limit the scope and topics of the interview, as well as the length of time the president’s eldest son will be expected to appear.

Trump, Jr., will now, sources familiar with the deal that Burr and Trump, Jr.,cut early this week appear in early June sometime before the committee for between two and four hours–but no longer, terms that Burr originally opposed limiting. The scope of topics is also going to be limited. The deal that Burr has agreed to comes after last week the matter blew up in serious public fashion in Burr’s face–where an embarrassing amount of Republicans undercut Burr, including several members of his own Senate Intelligence Committee, several other committee chairs, and his own home state colleague.

While Trump, Jr. had been signaling that he might blow off the subpoena entirely, his intent sources close to him say has always been to be helpful. He had offered to answer more questions in writing, and even to testify in person again with a time and scope limitation–something Burr and Senate Intelligence Committee officials previously opposed. Now, after allies of Trump, Jr., and Republicans party-wide rejected Burr’s original subpoena, with a fierce public backlash, Burr has cut a deal to limit the time and scope of the subpoena–which allies of Trump, Jr., say was always his intention.

“This Don Jr. ‘compromise’ is classic Art of the Deal,” Cliff Sims, a former White House official who is close with Trump, Jr., told Breitbart News. “Take a hardline position, mount a PR campaign, throw out a ‘compromise’ you know the other side won’t accept, end up getting what you actually wanted all along while the other side thinks they’re getting a win.”

The New York Times summarized it similarly, laying out how what Trump, Jr., and his team did was very similar to his father’s political playbook.

“The move by the younger Mr. Trump’s associates was straight out of his father’s playbook — set the terms of the debate at the most extreme end of the discussion by saying he would not appear, then cut a deal and look gracious,” the Times wrote in its report on the matter.

Trump, Jr., is also, sources familiar with his thinking say, very pleased with the many Republicans party-wide who stood up for him during this process, and intends to help them in future political battles to come.

So, for now, the temperature on this fight comes down–but simmering tensions between Burr and the Trump universe are unlikely to fade forever, and this may foreshadow a bigger fight to come in the future sometime between the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Trump-world.

What’s more, it further clears Trump, Jr.–who did nothing wrong with regard to Russia, despite countless media and Democrat attacks on his character. “This compromise further proves that Don Jr. continues to be open and honest throughout this process,” another former White House official told Breitbart News. “He has nothing to hide and has graciously permitted the previous agreement to be reneged on in order to reiterate there was no collusion at all, just like the Mueller report found.”

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Senate Intel Committee Subpoenas Trump Jr… …Don Rebuffs Republicans Take on First Family

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By Matt Boyle

Donald Trump, Jr., President Donald Trump’s eldest son, is rebuffing a subpoena from the Senate Intelligence Committee attempting to compel him to testify again before Congress on the Russia hoax scandal, setting off a major internal battle inside the Republican Party.

The news was broken on Wednesday afternoon by Axios.

“The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr. to answer questions about his previous testimony before Senate investigators in relation to the Russia investigation, sources with direct knowledge told Axios,” Axios reported on Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s the first congressional subpoena — that we know about — of one of President Trump’s children,” Axios added. “The subpoena sets up a fight that’s unprecedented in the Trump era: A Republican committee chair pit against the Republican president’s eldest son.”

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This development is particularly significant because the Senate Intelligence Committee–chaired by Republican Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) and run by the GOP-controlled Senate Majority–pushing to subpoena Trump, Jr., comes in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluding his investigation. Mueller found no evidence of collusion, or conspiracy, between President Trump’s campaign and the Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election–or between the Russians and any American for that matter–and did not find evidence of obstruction of justice, effectively clearing the president on all counts.

It also comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who ultimately controls the Senate Intelligence Committee because he is the Majority Leader in the Senate, declared earlier this week regarding the Russia hoax that it was “case closed.” This effort by Burr flies in the face of what McConnell said, and threatens to seriously escalate differences between Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration at a time when the left seeks to create dissent among Republicans ahead of the critical 2020 presidential election.

“We do not discuss the details of witness engagements with the Committee,” the Senate Intelligence Committee spokesperson said in a statement to Axios. “Throughout the investigation, the Committee has reserved the right to recall witnesses for additional testimony as needed, as every witness and witness counsel has been made aware.”

Despite the Senate Committee’s claim that it does not discuss witness engagements with the media, Breitbart News is aware of several reporters who were told of this by the committee in an effort to push this into the news in the wake of McConnell’s claim that the case is closed on Russia. These reporters are aware of who they are, and more investigation into the Senate Intelligence Committee leaks on this front is likely.

Attorney General Bill Barr, who testified last week before a different Senate panel, has come under serious criticism by Democrats in Congress for the way he has characterized the report. Nonetheless, most of the report is public despite some redactions and Barr’s characterizations of it are essentially immaterial at this stage. Indeed, Mueller himself apparently was not happy with the initial media coverage of Barr’s first letter on the top-line conclusions of the Mueller report–he made that clear to Barr in a letter and phone call–but did not find Barr’s four-page letter to be inaccurate in any way. Mueller’s full report, with redactions for different reasons including protecting ongoing case matters and grand jury proceedings, has since been released publicly, so Mueller’s objections to the original coverage are essentially a moot point now, the Department of Justice contends.

The move on Trump, Jr., by Senate Republicans also comes as House Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday moved to hold Barr in contempt of Congress over his refusal to appear last week before the committee and his refusal to provide the full un-redacted Mueller report to Congress despite the need to protect sources and methods and classified information. Barr did testify, however, before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

While expectedly Democrats on Capitol Hill are continuing their fervor over Trump and Russia despite the complete collapse of the narrative, with even some pushing for impeachment of President Trump or worse, the fact that the GOP-led Senate would push to keep the hoax alive is particularly significant. Trump, a Republican, has gotten near-unanimous support from Republican lawmakers as the Russia collusion narrative died, but notably some more establishment-minded Republicans are holding out.

Chief among them is Burr, who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and has been in the wake of the Mueller report attempting to bring Trump, Jr., before his committee for more questioning. Trump, Jr., previously testified for more than 9 hours before the Senate Intelligence Committee, staying there until senators had no more questions to ask him and answering every single question senators had for him, while also producing hundreds of thousands of documents to Congress including more than 30,000 to this committee alone. Trump, Jr., also testified before two other congressional committees–totaling more than 22 hours of congressional testimony adding up to more than 1,000 pages of transcript. When it came to the Senate Intelligence Committee, too, Burr had previously agreed that Trump, Jr., would testify once–stay as long as senators needed answering all their questions until they had no more–and then that would be it and it would be over.

When Trump, Jr., and his attorneys–in light of all that substantial cooperation with Congress that found no wrongdoing by Trump, Jr., and the Special Counsel report clearing him of any allegations of wrongdoing–refused Burr’s requests for Trump, Jr., to appear again in contravention of Burr’s original promises that he would only have Trump, Jr., testify once, Burr moved to subpoena Trump, Jr. Burr’s behavior, a source close to Trump, Jr., told Breitbart News, will not be forgotten and will have deep wide-ranging consequences for all Senate Republicans.

“It’s outrageous that Senator Burr appears to be taking his marching orders from liberal Democrats intent on trying to take down the President and his family to harass a private citizen who has already spent nine hours testifying in front of the Senate Intel Committee,” the source close to Trump, Jr., told Breitbart News. “When Don agreed to testify to the Senate Intel Committee in 2017, there was an agreement between Don and the Committee that it would be a ‘one and done testimony’ and in return Don agreed to answer any questions for as long a time as they’d like. Don fulfilled his end of the agreement; clearly Senator Burr is not fulfilling his side of it. It’s bad enough that he has to deal with constant harassment from Democrats in the House, but it’s shocking to see Senate Republicans join them in this harassment campaign. Unfortunately for them, Don Jr. has a long memory and come the 2020 campaign season, when Senate Republicans are begging him to raise money and campaign for them, he will remember where every Senate Republican stood on this.”

McConnell, up for re-election in Kentucky next year, has framed himself as something of a warrior against the left’s forces in recent years. He did fight to get now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh confirmed amid the allegations against him and has pushed through other Trump priorities–but, if McConnell allows Burr to continue promoting the Russia hoax, he could lose all that good will quickly.

McConnell, who empowers Burr by allowing him to be the chairman but is up for re-election in 2020, may also face serious consequences for allowing Burr to do this. A longtime major donor to McConnell and top ally of the White House told Breitbart News that it is imperative that McConnell immediately remove Burr as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, full stop.

“What Burr’s doing isn’t just a slap in the face to the President and his family, its a slap in the face to Americans across the country,” the top McConnell donor said. “It’s incumbent that Leader McConnell steps up to the plate and strips Senator Burr’s Chairmanship of the Intel Committee. If he refuses to do that, then he shoulders just as much blame for this travesty of justice as the Senator from North Carolina.”

The Trump universe is furious with Senate Republicans over this, to the point where they blame every Senate Republican for Burr’s actions–and believe that Burr has now sparked a “civil war” inside the GOP, which was until now mostly unified after years of infighting.

“By doing this, Senator Burr just started a civil war in the Republican Party with someone who has undoubtedly become one of the biggest superstars in the eyes of the base,” a former high-ranking Trump White House official told Breitbart News. “If I were a Republican Senator up for reelection 2020, I would be furious with Senator Burr because he assuredly just made their reelection campaigns that much more difficult.”

It remains to be seen what happens next, but Senate Republicans under the guise of McConnell and Burr may have just reopened a Pandora’s Box of chaos inside the party moving into 2020.

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One in Five Salvadorans Now Live in US — Remittances Account for 20% of Country’s GDP – Democrats Support This

by Jim Hoft May 8, 2019

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According to Gallup five million third world migrants from Latin America to the United States in the next 12 months.

And according to Breitbart.com an estimated 42 million more say they want to enter the country.

One-fifth of El Salvador already resides in the US.

There currently are at least 1.1 million Salvadoran immigrants in the United States.

The number represents about one-fifth (19.1 percent) of the total population of El Salvador (5.7 million in 2007 according to the Salvadoran Department of Statistics and Censuses).

Remittances back home make up 20% of El Salvador’s economy.

Over 1% of Guatemala and Honduras entered the US since September.

This is an invasion.  And Democrats support this.

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Teen Cartel Hitman Allegedly Shot Mexican Border State Cop for $150

Murdered Transit Cop

By Cartel Chronicles

MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon — A 16-year-old working as a cartel hitman allegedly murdered a local transit cop to earn $150. The Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) faction of Los Zetas murders law enforcement in Nuevo Leon to pressure authorities away from interfering with organized crime.

Last month, 16-year-old identified as Juan Manuel “El Meme” shot and killed Transit Police Officer Lorena Montiel Ramirez as she directed traffic in a busy intersection. Breitbart News obtained court documents stating that the motive was an attempt by the CDN to further pressure law enforcement. For the hit, El Meme received $150 USD or ($3,000 pesos) from Cristian Roberto “El Chato” Trevino Zapata, who supplied the gun and transportation to the scene of the crime, records show.

On the day of the murder, the teenager rode a city bus from his home in Monterrey to downtown Apodaca, where he met with El Chato for a 9mm pistol and received instructions to not drop the gun at the scene.

The pair rode on a scooter to Pesqueria, where they found an easy target. El Chato ordered the teenager to shoot Officer Montiel while she was standing in a sidewalk, records say. According to court documents, the teenager approached Montiel from behind and fired twice before running back to the scooter.

In the subsequent investigation, Nuevo Leon’s State Investigation’s Agency tracked El Meme to downtown Monterrey and soon after arrested El Chato. El Meme is being held at a juvenile detention center while El Chato is in the Cadereyta State Prison.

The CDN recently carried out several attacks on law enforcement in Nuevo Leon, killing two state police officers, two transit officers, and two state investigators in 2019. In the neighboring border state of Tamaulipas, the CDN also killed one of the top prosecutors who led the anti-kidnapping unit.

 

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Report: Facebook Sets Up ‘War Room’ for European Elections

Zuckerberg to face pressure on taxes in meeting with Macron

By Lucas Nolan

Politico recently profiled Facebook’s new “European election war room” ahead of upcoming E.U. elections.

A recent report from Politico provides an insight into Facebook’s new “election war room” established ahead of the upcoming European election. Facebook has previously deployed a similar “war room” in the United States ahead of the midterm elections in November 2018. In October, Breitbart News reported on the war room providing an insight into the aim of the project. Facebook’s Product Manager of Civic Engagement, Samidh Chakrabarti, said in an interview that the war room is a physical room which will be used to “take quick and decisive action” against possible cases of foreign interference during the midterm elections.

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“We have many measures that we’ve put in place to try to prevent problems: the political ad transparency, blocking fake accounts, combating foreign interference, and preventing the spread of misinformation. But we know we have to be ready for anything that happens,” stated Chakrabarti. “And so that’s why we’ve been building this war room, a physical war room [with] people across the company, of all different disciplines, who are there. So, as we discover problems that may come up in the hours leading up to the election, we can take quick and decisive action.”

Now, Politico has reported on the company’s efforts to establish a similar project in Dublin, Ireland ahead of the upcoming European elections. Politico described the project writing:

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The group of twentysomething coders, engineers and content specialists sit hunched over multiple screens, scanning the platform for potential illegal behavior. Wall-mounted television monitors keep them up to date on the latest chatter on the world’s largest social network, Instagram and WhatsApp. A single European Union flag hangs on the wall, next to a poster emblazoned with the slogan “New Ways of Seeing.”

Yet despite Facebook’s  40-person European election “operations center,” which got underway on April 29, the tech giant is struggling to keep on top of the threats.
Political groups from Hungary to Spain have been able to circumvent Facebook’s new political transparency tools to quietly buy partisan social media advertising aimed at swaying potential voters, according to an analysis by POLITICO. That includes paid-for messages by Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, Verein Recht und Freiheit (Association for the Conservation of the Rule of Law and Civil Liberties), a support group for right-wing politicians in Germany and Petra De Sutter, a Belgian candidate for the Green Party.

It seems that Facebook is aware, however, of accusations of censorship and bias. The company’s chief lobbyist in Europe told Politico that Facebook is avoiding taking too harsh a line on the content allowed on the platform:

“We recognize that some people think we should remove everything,” said Richard Allan, Facebook’s chief lobbyist in Europe, in reference to the reams of political content now flooding the digital platform. “But we have concerns of removing everything during a political election.”

“We don’t believe it’s the right place to be for us to be the regulator of political campaigns,” he added. Facebook may not want the role, but its global reach puts it at the heart of the democratic process from France to the Philippines.

 

Politico described the new Dublin team tasked with monitoring misinformation, writing:

The team, which includes speakers of all of the EU’s 24 official languages, is split along national boundaries, with specialists — primarily men who would not look out of place in any startup office — monitoring activity on both Facebook’s social media platforms and those of rivals, notably Google and Twitter.

Facebook would not say how much content the group reviews daily, though each Facebook staffer had multiple screens open monitoring news events and other political discussions online.

Once an issue is flagged, Facebook’s engineers can then work with their counterparts across Europe and elsewhere to determine if the activity infringes the company’s standards, and then delete, play down or leave the content on the network, depending on the outcome. Topics for review include possible misinformation, voter suppression and hate speech, and the company said that it had investigated hundreds of incidents within the last week.

“Even though we’re a tech company, speaking face to face is invaluable,” said Sturdy, the Facebook executive.

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JAMES WOODS BANNED FROM TWITTER AMID SILICON VALLEY’S CONSERVATIVE BLACKLISTING CAMPAIGN

James Woods Banned from Twitter Amid Silicon Valley’s Conservative Blacklisting Campaign

Twitter suspended Woods for a tweet that read, “‘If you try to kill the King, you best not miss’ #HangThemAll.”

By Justin Caruso

James Woods, one of the few conservative stars in Hollywood, has been locked out of his Twitter account for over a week now for “abusive behavior,” once again demonstrating the double standard the tech giant holds when it comes to enforcing rules.

Twitter suspended Woods for a tweet that read, “‘If you try to kill the King, you best not miss’ #HangThemAll,” according to his girlfriend Sara Miller.

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The tweet was apparently in reference to the Mueller report, which found no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. The quote is from Ralph Waldo Emerson and has been used in various forms in movies and TV shows like The Wire.

Nevertheless, this post apparently met the threshold on Twitter for “abusive behavior.”

Twitter does not appear to have the same standard for leftists. As Breitbart News has reported, there are several examples of actual violent threats going unchecked by the social media company.

  • Twitter allowed a number of verified accounts to participate in doxxing and violent threats against teenagers from Covington Catholic high school in January.
  • Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) was on the receiving end of vicious sexist Twitter abuse after she defended Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
  • Actor Peter Fonda said that Barron Trump should be taken away from his Melania and put in a cage with pedophiles. Fonda also called for Kirstjen Nielsen to be whipped. He later apologized.
  • Hollywood star Jim Carrey posted a drawing of Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. getting bludgeoned to death by an elephant last year. The tweet is still up.
  • In 2016, various accounts called for and cheered on the shooting of police officers.

Woods has been locked out of his account before for posting a meme.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has previously claimed that while he is “more left-leaning,” his company does not target users over political views.

“I think the real question behind the question is, are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? We are not. Period. We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology. We look at behavior,” he said last year.

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Snoop Dogg Encourages Everyone to Post Louis Farrakhan Footage on Facebook and Instagram

Credit: Daniel Boczarski / Stringer Editorial #: 467066492 Collection: Getty Images Entertainment Date created: March 20, 2015

By Jerome Hudson

Rapper and game show host Snoop Dogg took to Instagram late Thursday and urged his 31 million followers to post and share videos of Louis Farrakhan to Facebook and Instagram. The antisemitic Nation of Islam leader was banned from both platforms for what the social media giant said was Farrahkahn’s decision to “promote or engage in violence and hate.”

“If you’re down with it like I’m down with it, post your favorite Mr. Farrakhan videos on your Instagram and Facebook page,” Snoop Dogg said in an Instagram video posted Thursday. “Show some love to a real brother.”

***Graphic Langauge***

Breitbart TV

View this post on Instagram

P. S. A. 👊🏿🎥

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“How the fuck y’all gonna ban Minister Louis Farrakhan for putting the truth out there?” Snoop asked in a separate video. “I stand with him. I’m with him. Ban me, motherfucker.”

Snoop Dogg encouraging his followers to post videos of Farrakahn on Facebook and Instagram appears to be in clear violation of the platform’s rules, which do not allow the promotion of “hate speech […] because it creates an environment of intimidation and exclusion and in some cases may promote real-world violence.”

As recently as October Farrakhan posted a video to Twitter in which he called Jews “termites.” Twitter removed Farrakhan’s “verified” blue checkmark for hate speech.

Facebook and Instagram’s purge of conservative personalities also included Infowars host Alex Jones, Infowars contributor Paul Joseph Watson, and journalist and activist Laura Loomer.

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POYNTER ‘BLACKLIST’ OF CONSERVATIVE NEWS SITES WAS CREATED BY SPLC EMPLOYEE

Poynter ‘Blacklist’ of Conservative News Sites Was Created by SPLC Employee

List contains sites such as Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Breitbart

By Joe Schoffstall

A journalism institute released a “blacklist” of media outlets they deemed as “unreliable” that was created by an employee of the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center and overwhelmingly contains conservative new media outlets.

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a Florida-based nonprofit journalism school, released the list on Wednesday and declared dozens of mainstream conservative sites such as the Washington Free Beacon, Daily Caller, Daily Signal, CNS News, and Breitbart as “unreliable” while listing few liberal sites,” Newsbusters reports. 

The study notes it trimmed the list “by removing several sites whose stories, though highly politicized, were mostly not fake: alternet.org, cato.org, heritage.org, nationalreview.com, thedailybeast.com, the intercept.com, thinkprogress.org, and weeklystandard.com.”

A majority of the removed sites lean left. Of the removed conservative sites, the Heritage Foundation, a think tank – and not in itself a news site — was taken off the list. However, the Daily Signal, which is hosted by the Heritage Foundation, is included on the list. Another conservative site that was removed from the list, the Weekly Standard, was shuttered in December.

While most of the sites are labeled as “unreliable”, “fake”, or “conspiracy” – or a combination of the three — the Free Beacon is listed as “bias”, a label that prompted further review of the sites that were ultimately removed from the list upon further review and before its release.

Barrett Golding, an employee at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left nonprofit embroiled in controversy over accusations of internal racism from its top management that led to its co-founder, Morris Dees, and president, Richard Cohen, being ousted from the group, created the list for Poynter.

Golding appears to have followed the SPLC “list” model in its creation of “unreliable” news sites, as many of the mainstream conservative sites on the list are thrown in with actual sites that push conspiracy theories. This mirrors the SPLC’s “hate group” list, which contains mainstream conservative organizations alongside racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. The SPLC’s “hate” list, which it is perhaps best known for today, has helped the controversial — and allegedly internally racist group itself towards its black employees – to garner more than $500 million in total assets, $120 million of which is parked overseas.

“These sites stood next to conservative organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented baker Jack Phillips in the Supreme Court case Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,” Newsbusters writes. “While the ADF is not a news site, it was likely targeted because Golding works for the SPLC. The ADF is considered a ‘hate group’ by the SPLC and is marked on the ‘hate map.’ The Washington Post even questioned SPLC’s ‘political activism’ and ‘bias.'”

“SPLC has been dropped by Twitter from its Trust and Safety Council and slammed by the mainstream media after multiple scandals rocked the organization. Its hate map even helped shooter Floyd Lee Corkins find the location of the Family Research Council, where he shot and wounded five people.”

Factcheck.org, Fake News Codex, OpenSources, and PolitiFact were also involved in the study alongside Golding.

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Leftist Activists Force Mastercard to Vote On Blacklisting The ‘Far Right’

By Chris Menahan

The ability to buy and sell goods and services may soon require folks to hold the “right” politically correct beliefs. 

From Tim Pool:

Activist group “The Sum Of Us” has successfully forced Mastercard to hold a vote that would see the creation of a “human rights committee” to oversee who uses the Mastercard service.

The goal of the leftist activist group is to shut down access for ‘far right’ groups as well as politicians and activists. They stress that stopping to flow of income will stop people they do not agree with.

This may be the most dramatic escalation in the Culture War we have seen yet, the targeting of major financial institutions to shut down opposition. While it sounds noble to ban certain groups we do not like it won’t end there. Massive multi national corporations should not have the right to sever access to basic services based on bad opinions.

Far left social justice activists have pushed for restrictions and censorship and this news marks the most dramatic escalation we have seen yet.

More from Breitbart:

In its supporting statement, ThisIsUs wrote:

Companies can face risks related to human rights even when they only perform support functions. Internet infrastructure companies like web host GoDaddy, social media platform Facebook and payments firm PayPal have come under pressure for doing business with or providing a forum for neo-Nazis and other hate groups. Mastercard has received negative publicity for processing of payments to white supremacist groups. “Organizers Catch Credit Card Companies Profiting From White Supremacy: Online payment companies are complicit in authorizing transactions related to hate groups,” AlterNet, August 22, 2017; and “Color Of Change Is Attacking Hate Groups At The Source: Their Funding,” Fast Company, August 21, 2017. According to the website bloodmoney.org (accessed on December 18, 2018), Mastercard continues to process payments for organizations such as American Border Patrol, League of the South, Proud Boys and Stormfront.

In response, the board of Mastercard recommended that stockholders vote against the proposal, stating that the company operates on the principle that consumers should be able to make “all lawful purchases.”

The Proposal focuses on the use of our products by certain organizations. We operate our network on the principle that consumers should be able to make all lawful purchases, and our franchise rules ensure compliance with the laws pertaining to the acceptable use of our payment processing services by merchants, acquirers and issuers. We regularly monitor activities involving our products and services for any alleged illegal use. When we process payment transactions, we do not have visibility into goods that are purchased or the use of those goods. When we are made aware of illegal activity or rules violations, we work closely with law enforcement and acquirers to shut down those activities.

Accordingly, because Mastercard has a committee with oversight over issues of corporate social responsibility and has disclosed its commitment to and oversight of human rights issues, the Board does not believe that establishing a separate human rights committee is necessary to properly exercise its oversight of this important area, nor does it add to Mastercard’s existing commitment to social responsibility and human rights.Therefore, our Board recommends that our stockholders vote AGAINST this joint proposal.

Although Mastercard’s board says it is committed to the principle of allowing “all lawful purchases,” online payments platform Patreon says that Mastercard asked it to withdraw service from Islam critic Robert Spencer, founder of JihadWatch.org, in August 2018.

Mastercard has yet to respond to a Breitbart News inquiry into why, if Patreon’s allegation is true, the company used its influence to cut off Spencer.

Multiple cases with Mastercard, Chase Bank and Bank of America suggest these megabanks are already doing a “belief check.”

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(CENSORSHIP) – Poynter Wants 515 Outlets Blacklisted, Including Breitbart Leaves Out All Corporate Media Behind Dangerous Hoaxes… …Vast Majority of Blacklist Compiled by One Assistant Prof

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By John Nolte

Poynter Institute claims on its “About” page that “it champions freedom of expression.” And yet, on another page, Poynter published a list of 515 media sites, including Breitbart News, that it wants blacklisted and shut down.

Poynter calls this list an “index of unreliable news sites” and is openly calling for advertisers to stop sponsoring these sites, to pull their sponsorship, to put these sites out of business.

If that’s not a blacklist, tell me what is [emphasis added]:

Advertisers don’t want to support publishers that might tar their brand with hate speech, falsehoods or some kinds of political messaging — but too often, they have little choice in the matter.

Most ad-tech dashboards make it hard for businesses to prevent their ads from appearing on (and funding) disreputable sites. Marketers can create blacklists, but many of those lists have been out-of-date or incomplete.

Aside from journalists, researchers and news consumers, we hope that the UnNews index will be useful for advertisers that want to stop funding misinformation.

This is straight-up McCarthyism. This is nothing less than the return of the 1950s’ blacklisting crusade against those who hold inappropriate, unacceptable, and unapproved opinions.

And what’s more, the lion’s share of the list cites a single source — “OpenSources,” a list curated by a single Assistant Professor from Merrimack College, Melissa Zimdars (pictured). She is the author of academic papers such as “Watching Our Weights: The Consequences and Contradictions of Televising Fatness in the ‘Obesity Epidemic’” and “Having It Both Ways: ‘Two and a Half Men,’ ‘Entourage’ and the Televising of Juvenile Postfeminist Masculinity.”

What is Zimdars’s methodology? Can’t say, exactly, as the OpenSources official site is totally blank. About two years ago, she gave an interview where she said that one of her criteria for blacklisting a site is “hate” — that is, she still believes the far-left SPLC is a credible organization whose “hate” labels should get you kicked out of public discourse.

Those of you who suddenly approve of blacklisting will argue, “Hey, this is how democracy works! A private company has the right to do or not do business with whoever they want!”

Well, how the hell do you think the 1950s’ blacklist worked? That was nothing more than private companies (movie studios, advertising sponsors) and private individuals (studio heads, producers) deciding all on their own whom they did and did not want to do business with.

Nevertheless, we rightly look back on this dark era with disgust, as an un-American era where people were persecuted and silenced (by private corporations and private individuals) for holding ideas and opinions the powerful establishment did not want shared or discussed.

And now, the 1950s’ blacklist has returned with a vengeance because the establishment media are fighting for advertising dollars and have lost their moral authority and ability to influence public opinion due to outlets like this one and the Media Research Center, Pajamas Media, Washington Examiner, The Daily Wire, The Blaze, Red State, Project Veritas, Newsmax, Zero Hedge, LifeSite, Judicial Watch, Frontpage, The Washington Free Beacon, The Daily Caller, and the Drudge Report — all of which are on Poynter’s blacklist — exposing their lies and biases, and…

Just as the blacklisters did during the McCarthy era, they are trying to silence us by targeting our advertising sponsors.

Sure, just as some of those people targeted in the 1950s were actual communists looking to do our country harm, there are some legitimate bad faith players on Poynter’s blacklist. But here’s where Poynter’s blacklist gets especially sinister…

There is no one on Poynter’s list of “unreliable news outlets” responsible for spreading the biggest, most irresponsible and dangerous lies of the last half-decade — lies that have caused race riots and destroyed innocent lives.

In other words, the outlets Poynter does not want blacklisted are every bit as revealing as those Poynter does want blacklisted.

There is simply no question that for over five years, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, ABC, CBS, PBS, NBC, MSNBC, Politico, BuzzFeed, etc., have relentlessly and deliberately misled the American people on the biggest stories of the day…

  • The Trayvon Martin Hoax

  • The Hands Up, Don’t Shoot Hoax

  • Donald Trump Can’t Win

  • The Russia Collusion Hoax

  • The Brett Kavanaugh Serial Rapist Hoax

  • The Covington High School Boys Hoax

And yet, every outlet I listed above that are part of Poynter’s blacklist either got these stories 100 percent correct, as Breitbart News did, or was at least skeptical of them.

But we are the ones these so-called “champions of free expression” are openly calling to be blacklisted, not those who have relentlessly and deliberately lied to the public for more than a half-decade.

Which proves this is not a blacklist targeting the unreliable, but a blacklist targeting those who hold ideas the un-American Poynter finds inappropriate and unacceptable.

How else to explain why Poynter wants the Media Research Center blacklisted for bias but not Media Matters?

The Poynter Institute is nothing less than a non-profit version of Joseph McCarthy, Father Coughlin, and Big Brother.

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