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Washington Post Gives Nelson ‘Four Pinocchios’ for False Claim About Florida Election Hacking

The Washington Post gave Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.) "Four Pinocchios," its highest level for a falsehood, for his claim that Florida’s elections systems are currently under siege by foreign entities and that Russia has access to voter rolls in Florida.

Nelson made comments to reporters before a campaign event and in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times on Aug. 8 about Russians hacking into Florida election systems and purging voters from rolls.

When asked by the Times’ Steve Bousquet if Nelson meant Russia was meddling in Florida’s systems in 2016 or "right now," Nelson responded "right now."

He further said Russian operatives "already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about."

The Florida Democrat continued to speak about the issue at a campaign event on Tuesday.

"In June, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, a Republican, and the vice chair of the committee, a Democrat, Senator Burr and Senator Warner, came to Marco Rubio and me and said: ‘We have a problem in Florida, that the Russians are in the records. We think the two of you should warn the election apparatus of Florida.’ "

Nelson has not been able to back up his claims with evidence, however, and he appeared to backpedal slightly Wednesday on some of his more specific claims, saying instead it would be "foolish" to think Russians "are not continuing to do what they did in Florida in 2016."

The Post fact checker Salvador Rizzo noted top officials have questioned the basis for the senator’s claims.

The Department of Homeland Security, the top election official in Florida, and election officials in several of the most populous counties in the state have said they have no evidence that Russia has access to Florida election systems. Nelson said his information came from Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Neither senator has confirmed Nelson’s specific claim that Russia has access to Florida’s election system, though they have echoed his broader warning about the threat Russia poses to this year’s elections.

Nelson also has cited "classified" information. Although it’s possible that this information exists and proves his claim, it’s a tough proposition for The Fact Checker to accept, since the Department of Homeland Security has denied Nelson’s assertions, the FBI said as recently as Aug. 2 that there’s no sign of "efforts to specifically target election infrastructure," and U.S. officials probably would have shared this classified information in some form with the state of Florida, where election officials have contradicted Nelson’s claims.

Rizzo explained that while the Post doesn’t take issue with Nelson and Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), in the July 2 letter, warning "Florida election officials to be on high alert for Russian cyber-intrusions," Nelson’s "specific and alarming claim[s]" are another story. He said there is not "a single speck of evidence" to back up the claim that "Russia currently has access to Florida’s election systems and could purge voters from the rolls."

In his letter to Burr, Florida’s top election official said the state asked DHS and the FBI whether Russia had access to Florida’s election systems and was told "they have no information that corroborates Senator Nelson’s statement." Burr replied that "any briefings or notifications about ongoing threats would, rightfully, come from those agencies," meaning DHS and the FBI. Reading between the lines, Burr seems to be contradicting Nelson’s claim.

[…]

Making matters worse, Nelson misquoted his own letter from July 2 several times (it made no mention of an ongoing breach) and inaccurately said Burr, Rubio and Warner reaffirmed his assertion that Russia has access to Florida voters’ records.

"Without minimizing the threat of Russian interference in this year’s elections, we give Nelson’s claim Four Pinocchios," the Post concluded.

Nelson is being challenged for his Senate seat by Gov. Rick Scott (R.), and most polls show Scott in the lead. The governor responded last week to Nelson’s claims by saying elections "are not something to try to scare people about."

"In our conversations with federal officials, and in public statements including from our supervisors of elections, so far, no one seems to know what Nelson is talking about," Scott said in a statement. "This cannot be swept under the rug. Bill Nelson must come clean and provide a thorough explanation. Elections are not something to try to scare people about."

The post Washington Post Gives Nelson ‘Four Pinocchios’ for False Claim About Florida Election Hacking appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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Double Standard: Dem Candidate Uses Wildly Racist Language To Insult Asian Opponent

A minor Republican primary battle in metro Detroit, Michigan, has exploded into the national consciousness after a white candidate called her Asian challenger a “ching-chong” and belittled her supporters as immigrants who didn’t belong in this country, raising serious questions about the re-emergence of racism, anti-immigrant sentiment and the dark underbelly of ethnic animosity in the era of Trump.

Wait, wait, did I say Republican? Sorry about that one; what I actually meant to say was Democrat.

Oh, and I said “white candidate” too, didn’t I? She was actually black. Can’t believe I spaced on that one, as well.

And when I said that it “exploded into the national consciousness” and is “raising serious questions about the re-emergence of racism, anti-immigrant sentiment and the dark underbelly of ethnic animosity in the era of Trump,” what I actually meant to say was “literally nothing happened and nobody outside of Michigan even gave the slightest of craps about it.” It’s just a minor Freudian slip, after all. Could have happened to anyone.

Yes, even though Michigan state Rep. Bettie Cook Scott is apparently one of the most openly racist elected officials since the days when Robert Byrd would ask the dry cleaners to use extra starch on his hood because the point seemed to droop if he got too close to the burning cross, the only non-local coverage this awful human being has gotten in the past few days consists of minor write-ups in The Washington Times and other papers of that ilk.

TRENDING: Fox News Breaks New Viewer Record, Swamps CNN’s Entire Brand

According to the Detroit Metro Times, Cook called opponent Rep. Stephanie Chang a “‘ching-chang’ and “the ching-chong” to multiple voters outside polling precincts during last Tuesday’s Democrat state Senate primary.

“She’s also said to have called one of Chang’s campaign volunteers an ‘immigrant,’ saying ‘you don’t belong here’ and ‘I want you out of my country.’”

Mephitic nativism: It’s not just for Republicans anymore. And in fact, it was never for Republicans. It was mostly for racist Democrats like Rep. Scott. But that whole movie Dinesh D’Souza just released about the racist history of the Democratic Party and liberalism is complete bunk, at least as far as the mainstream media is concerned. Right.

Do you think Bettie Cook Scott should resign?

Just to make this even more disgusting, one of the people who heard Rep. Scott’s rants involving Asian people was Chang’s husband.

“The various off-color remarks were heard by multiple people connected with Chang, including Chang’s husband, who spoke with Metro Times,” the paper reported. 

“Sean Gray says after overhearing Cook disparage Chang outside a precinct on the east side of Detroit, ‘I … asked her not to speak about my wife in that manner.”

After realizing Chang’s husband was in earshot, Cook apologized and said she didn’t mean  … sorry, no, my mistake; why do I keep on getting these things wrong? She told Gray his wife could go back to China, the dirty interloper.

“At that time she said to the voter that ‘these immigrants from China are coming over and taking our community from us,’” Gray told reporters.

RELATED: #MeToo Dems Cheer as Accused Woman Abuser Easily Wins Election

I mean, at least you can give her credit for not going telling him, “Is she from Japan? Vietnam? Korea? Whatever, they’re all the same anyway.” Right?

Oh wait, no, you can’t, because she actually ended up saying worse stuff. “Gray, who is black, says Scott then went on to call him a ‘fool’ for marrying Chang.” Scott also said that it “disgusts her seeing black people holding signs for these Asians and not supporting their own people.’”

It wasn’t just Chang’s husband, either. Kalaya Long, a volunteer with Voices of Women to Win, says she heard Scott telling another voter, “Thanks for voting for me, you don’t need to vote for that ching-chang.” She would later allegedly tell Chang’s campaign staff, “I called them ching-chongs. That’s what they are!”

“As an African-American woman, I’ve been called the N-word before in my life and you never forget it,” Long said. “Each time it’s shocking and appalling and disgusting, so when you hear someone that’s a minority and a woman using slurs against another minority that’s a woman, it’s just mind boggling and it just felt dirty.”

“These comments are offensive to all Asian-Americans,” Rep. Chang told the Metro Times. “It isn’t about me. It’s about an elected official disrespecting entire populations, whether they be Asian-American, immigrant, or residents of Sen. District 1 or (Cook’s) own current house district.”

At least Cook won’t be getting a promotion. Chang easily won the primary with 49 percent of the vote. Scott, meanwhile, couldn’t muster enough racial animosity to get beyond 11 percent, good for third place.

Now, where’s my point in all of this — other than Democrats can be (and often are) flagrant racists, and that the popular theory that African-Americans can’t be racist is very clearly wrong?

To demonstrate, I’m going to come up with a hypothetical minor Republican politician who serves on the city council in Pocatello, Idaho. We’re going to name that hypothetical minor Republican politician Joey Buttafuoco, because I think the intervening 25 or so years has made us forget just how giggle-worthy the name Joey Buttafuoco is and I think that’s wrong.

Councilman Buttafuoco isn’t a racist. However, he goes to Bob Evans with his family one Sunday morning and receives terrible service. He gives no tip. The waiter happens to be African-American and posts about it online. All of a sudden, Councilman Buttafuoco is one of the most hated men in America. His support for Donald Trump comes under scrutiny and Chris Hayes openly wonders if this is the kind of thing we’re going to see more of now that Donald Trump has ripped the curtain away from America’s ugly racism. Vox releases at least four videos impugning the councilman’s motives. John Oliver devotes 22-and-a-half minutes to the scandal. The original Joey Buttafuoco expresses outrage that Councilman Buttafuoco has besmirched his brand and changes his name to James Gunn.

Rep. Bettie Cook Scott will almost certainly keep her position and you will never hear this woman’s name again after next week. This is in spite of the fact that she affects the entire state of Michigan and not just the people of Pocatello.

At least Rep. Scott apologized, because at this point why the heck not? However, see if you can notice the subtext in the passage I’ve highlighted below, because it adds to the inherent hilarity of this entire dumpster nuclear test.

“I humbly apologize to Representative Chang, her husband, Mr. Gray, and to the broader Asian American community for those disparaging remarks,” Scott (or one of her PR flaks) wrote. “In the divisive age we find ourselves in, I should not contribute further to that divisiveness.“

“I have reached out to Representative Chang to meet with her so that I may apologize to her in person. I pray she and the Asian American community can find it in their hearts to forgive me.”

“In the divisive age we find ourselves in, I should not contribute further to that divisiveness.” If you read between the lines in even the most desultory manner, you should be able to parse that pretty easily: The only reason Rep. Bettie Cook Scott is a racist is because Donald Trump and conservatives made her that way! Brilliant!

In closing, I’d like to point out that this is all fun and games until someone like Bettie Cook Scott is contributing unsigned editorials to The New York Times. That someone is Sarah Jeong, who we’ve all mostly forgotten about in relatively short order in spite of the fact that she tweeted, inter alia, that white folk “are only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.”

If Rep. Scott was a bit savvier, she could have just told all of us conservatives getting hyped up about her racism that we didn’t get the “context,” the same way that nobody got the fact that Jeong wasn’t really talking about “white people” when she said racist stuff about “white people.” After all, “ching-chong” is, to paraphrase Vox’s Zack Beauchamp, “the expressive way anti-racists and minorities talk about Asians.”

If only Rep. Scott had a little more foresight, forget about state senator — she could have been Michigan’s next U.S. senator. Instead, she’s just going to have to settle for not having anything happen to her at all. And isn’t that the real tragedy?

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Colorado is going after Jack Phillips again, this time because he won’t bake a transgender cake

Colorado is going after Jack Phillips again, this time because he won’t bake a transgender cake
Just in case you thought Colorado would stop attacking religious freedom because the Supreme Court told it to: Nope.

Mere weeks after being smacked down by the U.S. Supreme Court for its oppression of Christian baker Jack Phillips, the state is coming after Phillips again. The first time it was because he wouldn’t bake a gay wedding cake. This time it’s because, in an obvious setup, someone demanded that he bake a cake celebrating transgenderism.

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Pentagon: China’s army ‘likely training for strikes’ against US targets

China has increased its military spending and capabilities in recent years and is probably conducting exercises designed to train the army for strikes against U.S. targets, according to a report from the Pentagon.

What are the details?

On Thursday, the Office of the Secretary of Defense released its annual report to Congress regarding military and security developments involving the People’s Republic of China. The assessment states:

“Over the last three years, the [People’s Liberation Army] has rapidly expanded its overwater bomber operating areas, gaining experience in critical maritime regions and likely training for strikes against U.S. and allied targets.”

The Defense Department also warned of China’s efforts to expand its air strike range in the region.

“The PLA may continue to extend its operations beyond the first island chain, demonstrating the capability to strike U.S. and allied forces and military bases in the western Pacific Ocean, including Guam,” according to the report.

China is also focusing more on military spending, the report said. Currently, the country dedicates an estimated $190 billion to its annual defense budget, which is roughly a third of what the U.S. spends. DOD officials expect China to increase its defense budget to $240 billion over the next decade.

China is also rapidly expanding its space program “despite its public stance against the militarization of space,” according to the report.

Has China responded to the report’s claims?

An op-ed published in China’s state-run Global Times on Friday took issue with the Defense Department’s assessment. Titled, “U.S. report on China’s military reveals its guilty conscience,” the editorial states, “The U.S.’ technical analysis of the PLA capability is one thing, the Pentagon’s publication of the analysis to hype the ‘China threat’ is another.

“As big a power with by far the biggest defense budget in the world, the U.S. does not hold moral ground allowing it to hype the military threat of other nations. When the U.S. appears so bold to hype the threat, it proves Washington has totally lost its moral ground and conscience.”

But the piece also confirmed that China is working to expand its military prowess, saying “the PLA will surely develop its air force with long-range strike capability,” and “China is developing its strategic nuclear capability.”

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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Medical investigator confirms remains found at NM compound belong to missing Georgia toddler

The decomposed child remains discovered at the New Mexico compound last week have been identified as belonging to the toddler who went missing from Jonesboro, Georgia, last year.

“The Office of the Medical Investigator has positively identified the remains found earlier this month at the compound near Amalia, N.M., in northern Taos County as belonging to Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj,” according to the Taos County Sheriff’s Office.

Investigators discovered the child’s remains wrapped in a sheet inside a tunnel on the remote property last week, on what would have been the boy’s fourth birthday. Abdhul-Ghani’s mother, Hakima Ramzi, last saw her son in December.

On Dec. 1, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the child’s father, told Ramzi he was taking the toddler to the park but he never returned with the boy.

Two weeks ago, authorities arrested Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and four other adults, during a raid at the Amalia compound near the Colorado border. Eleven children, ages 1 to 15, were found starving and living in squalid conditions. Authorities also say they found evidence that the children housed there were being trained to commit mass murders at schools.

How did the boy die?

The cause of death has not yet been determined, according to the OMI at The University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.

“There is no update at this time on cause or manner of death. The Taos County Sheriff’s Office is the lead agency in this case and questions regarding the investigation should be directed to the sheriff’s office,” Alex Sanchez, public information officer at UNMHSC, said in a release.

“Our thoughts and prayers go to Wahhaj’s family. We certainly understand the heartbreak this news will cause and want to stress our commitment to investigating this death to serve the living. The condition of the body made identification difficult, and investigators had to use several means to finally make a positive identification,” the release said.

What did the boy’s mother say?

M. Khurram Baig, the lawyer representing Abdul-Ghani’s mother, issued a written statement to TheBlaze in response to the identification of her son’s body.

Ms. Ramzi is grateful for the efforts of law enforcement and the medical examiner’s office in providing her with some sense of closure in this matter.

Her attention will now turn toward giving her son a proper burial in accordance with Islamic traditions.

If called upon by law enforcement to assist in their investigation into how Abdul-Ghani passed away, she is prepared to cooperate

What else?

Authorities charged the five adults with 11 separate accounts of child abuse, among other charges. Some of the rescued children, who are now in foster care, had alerted investigators that Abdhul-Ghani had died earlier this year at the compound.

You can read more about the case here.

via TheBlaze.com – Stories

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WATCH: 100-Year-Old WWII Vet Gets Special Letter From The White House

Isaac "Ike" Fabela is a member of The Greatest Generation. And now a member of an even more exclusive club.
The Michigan native was born in 1918 and served in World War II from 1944 to 1946. He nearly saw action during D-Day — he was taken off a boat bound for Normandy on June 6, 1944, his 26th birthday, one of his eight daughters, Lolie, told Fox News.

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Federal Judge Flips Trump Order, Reinstates Obama’s ‘Waters Of The United States’ Rule

Pen and Phone Obama ‘governed’ largely unconstitutionally, by rule that violated the Constitution. Trump tries to correct it and he gets stopped by activist federal judges.

Via Daily Caller:

A federal judge in South Carolina issued an injunction against the Trump administration Thursday, lifting a stay on an Obama-era rule that expanded federal authority under the Clean Water Act.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the “waters of the U.S.” (WOTUS) rule in 2015, giving the agency the authority to regulate seasonal and relatively insignificant bodies of water as “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act. President Donald Trump issued an executive order in February 2017 to review and rewrite the WOTUS rule to constrict its application “consistent with the opinion of Justice Antonin Scalia in Rapanos v. United States.”

Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt followed up on Trump’s executive order in January, beginning the review process and staying the WOTUS rule until 2020. Thursday’s injunction lifts Pruitt’s order to stay the rule in 26 states, or every state in which a district judge has not already ordered the rule stayed, E&E News reports.

Keep reading…

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GOP Buys Cuomo One-Way Ticket To Canada After US Greatness Comment

Take off, eh. Update to this story.

Via Tristate:

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s political opponents on the right and left seized Thursday on his comment that America “was never that great,” with Republicans buying him a bus ticket to Canada and intra-party rival Cynthia Nixon accusing him of trying and failing to sound like a progressive.

The Democratic governor’s allies, meanwhile, rallied around Cuomo, saying his comment was merely an acknowledgement of the country’s history of racism, sexism and intolerance.

The remark was made Wednesday at a bill signing in Manhattan as the two-term governor was criticizing Republican President Donald Trump and his “Make America Great Again” slogan.

“We’re not going to make America great again – it was never that great” said Cuomo, who is running for a third term this November. “We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged.”

Cuomo’s staff later said that Cuomo does in fact think America is great, but that he was arguing the country must look forward to greater equality, not backward to a time of less opportunity for many Americans.

The explanation did little to stanch the flow of enthusiastic outrage from his critics.

“No matter what the governor’s radical leftist advisers want him to say, America was, is, and always will be great,” said state Senate leader John Flanagan, R-Long Island.

The state Republican Party bought Cuomo a $55 one-way ticket to Montreal – valid only for travel on Friday. Late Wednesday night, Trump himself tweeted that Cuomo was having a “total meltdown!”

Cuomo’s spokesman declined to comment when asked whether the governor’s remarks were a part of the prepared speech or an addition.

Nixon, the liberal activist and former “Sex and the City” star, said Cuomo’s remarks were an attempt to connect with his party’s liberal base – one that fell flat. Her campaign joked that Cuomo “makes America cringe again.”

Keep reading…

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Second Social Media Giant Blocks Republican Elizabeth Heng’s Ad — Because Her Family’s Story Contains “Inappropriate Content”

Second Social Media Giant Blocks Republican Elizabeth Heng’s Ad — Because Her Family’s Story Contains “Inappropriate Content”

Jim Hoft
by Jim Hoft
August 17, 2018

Elizabeth Heng is running for Congress in California’s 16th Congressional District as a Republican.

Elizabeth was raised in Fresno where her family instilled in her a strong work ethic. As a child, she worked at her parent’s Asian grocery store. She attended public school and was class Valedictorian at Sunnyside High School in Fresno, California.

Last week Elizabeth Heng posted a video describing scenes of horrific events her parents went through in Cambodia.
Her parents escaped the Communist regime in Cambodia to resettle in California.

THIS VIDEO IS PHENOMENAL! YOU MUST TAKE THE TIME TO WATCH IT—

Facebook rejected Elizabeth’s video because it was “too shocking.”

History is TOO CONTROVERSIAL for Facebook.

Elizabeth is a Republican.

THIS ONLY SEEMS TO HAPPEN TO REPUBLICANS FOR SOME STRANGE REASON?

Well after the national outcry against the biased social media platform Facebook unblocked Heng’s video.

Now this…

Twitter banned Elizabeth’s family story video this week saying the video contained “inappropriate content.”

Evidently, exposing communist genocide is too controversial for Twitter.

National Review reported:

According to Elizabeth Heng’s campaign, Twitter has determined that the Republican congressional candidate’s video advertisement is “ineligible to participate in the Twitter Ads program at this time based on our Inappropriate Content policy.” The company deemed the video’s content to be in violation of the site’s prohibition on “that which is offensive, vulgar, or obscene.”

The ad contains footage of the Cambodian genocide because Heng’s parents fled to the U.S. from Cambodia to escape communism. When the campaign asked for further explanation about how the video violated Twitter’s policies, Twitter responded with the same message, this time highlighting the word “obscene” in bold. The campaign followed up again but received only a message from the Twitter Ads Support team saying they could “no longer assist or support any further requests.”

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Andrew Cuomo tells crowd ‘America was never that great’ …and the 2020 ads write themselves


They just can’t help themselves. In any other era, you’d expect to see one or two back bench Republicans, and one or two obscure Democrats, make huge, embarrassing, gaffes. It’s just the nature of the beast. When neophytes spend a ton of time in front of cameras, stuff happens.

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