Month: October 2020

Twitter suspended White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany’s personal account on Wednesday after she tweeted copies of an email from a Burisma executive to former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

McEnany shared emails that were obtained and published by the New York Post on Wednesday afternoon.

“Email from Ukrainian executive to Hunter Biden asks Hunter to “use his influence” on behalf of the firm paying him $50K/mo in email with subject “urgent issue,” McEnany wrote.

She also shared a copy of the email earlier Wednesday morning.

“Hunter introduced Joe Biden to a top executive at the Ukrainian energy firm he received $50K/month from!” she wrote. “Joe Biden LIED. PERIOD!!”

Twitter removed both tweets and suspended her account, claiming that she broke the rules of sharing “hacked material” on the platform.

A screenshot of Twitter’s suspension notice to McEnany was shared by the Trump campaign.

Left-wing populists, who, along with right-wing populists, have long warned of tech corporations’ monopoly over social media, say voters are witnessing the “unaccountable power” of Silicon Valley’s elites three weeks out from the November 3 presidential election.

On Wednesday, the New York Post published a bombshell story about Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s apparent interactions with his son Hunter Biden’s business associates at Burisma — a Ukrainian energy corporation where Hunter sat on the board of directors — while his father was vice president in the Obama administration.

The Post story also revealed that the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating emails between Hunter and Burisma executives. In response, Twitter and Facebook are censoring users from posting the story.

Glenn Greenwald, a journalist famous for chronicling the Edward Snowden case, wrote that voters are witnessing in real time how a handful of billionaire tech executives are controlling information.

“You’re seeing the immense, unchallengeable, unaccountable power of Silicon Valley giants over the flow of information,” Greenwald wrote. “Imagine if Google joins in. What’s so amazing is that they never wanted this role. It was foisted on them by people, led by journalists, demanding they censor.”

Anti-monopolist Matt Stoller, who writes the newsletter BIG, urged Republican lawmakers to join House Democrats in their recent antitrust inquiry into tech corporations such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google for their alleged anti-competitive behavior.

“FB and Twitter doing a master class for conservatives on why their faith in libertarians and monopolistic corporations was the dumbest possible choice imaginable,” Stoller wrote.

Michael Tracey, an independent journalist, called tech corporations’ censoring of negative stories about the Bidens “creepy and authoritarian” and said many, including him, have been sounding the alarm for years over the power that Silicon Valley executives have obtained in a short period of time, with little-to-no consequences by Washington, D.C. lawmakers.

“Twitter is now warning that the NY Post story on Hunter Biden is ‘unsafe,’”Tracey wrote. “You don’t even have to defend the veracity of the story to recognize how creepy and authoritarian this is.”

Krystal Ball, who hosts The Hill’s Rising morning news show, said tech corporations’ censorship of negative stories about the Bidens will eventually help prevent structural changes to corporate consolidation and monopoly power.

“This is completely insane and will 100 percent come back to bite the left. Censorship always ends up being a tool for preserving the status quo. Mark my words,” Ball wrote.

A report by the Open Markets Insitute has detailed the monopoly power that tech corporations like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple increasingly enjoy, which allows them to dominate whole sectors of the American economy with no competition.

“Dominant technology companies are increasingly using their monopoly profits not to invest in new research and development, but to acquire or bankrupt their competitors, buy back stock, hire lobbyists, or simply hoard cash,” the report notes.

“… the same four tech companies — Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple — continue to dominate the country’s tech sector,” the report continues. “To regain the balance that led to so much innovation and broad prosperity during the mid-20th century, both patent and antitrust law must be reformed.”

Analysis by Bloomberg News last year showed how concentrated corporate power by monopolistic corporations is growing dominate in the American economy. The unchecked business practices have shifted billions in wealth to the nation’s coasts, outside of middle America.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) used the issue of school choice Wednesday to school Democrats on the constitutional role of the U.S. Supreme Court.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Cruz observed some Americans watching the proceedings might be tempted to conclude that both Republican and Democrat politicians want judges who will implement their pet policies.

Nevertheless, Cruz asserted, “As easy as that is to assume, I don’t believe that is accurate.”

The senator proceeded to point out what he looks for in a judge, using the example of school choice:

An issue that I am deeply passionate about is school choice. I think school choice is the civil rights issue of the next century. But I also think the right arena to fight for school choice is right here in the United States Senate. The right arena to fight for school choice is in the state legislatures. It is in the politically accountable elected legislatures.

Using the example of school choice, Cruz noted how much easier it would be for a lawmaker to simply use the Supreme Court, and willing activist justices, to set policy:

So, do I want to see a federal court issue an order mandating school choice across the country? It might be simpler if I could just convince five justices to order every jurisdiction in America, you must have school choice. It would be a lot easier than trying to convince 51 or 60 senators, trying to convince the House. We’ve gotten school choice legislation passed through this body that I’ve introduced, but it’s been hard fought. It’d be much easier if five philosopher kings could just mandate it. But, that would not be an appropriate judicial role. And I’m certainly not asking Judge Barrett to issue a ruling. Although I believe that policy is the right policy. It’s not a judge’s role to mandate it.

Cruz continued, however, his Democrat colleagues often have the opposite view:

You look at a case called Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. That was a case that was a challenge to an Ohio school choice program. Ohio school choice program gave scholarships to thousands of low-income children, mostly African American and Hispanic children trapped in failing schools. It gave them hope, it gave them a chance at a decent education, a chance to escape violence, a chance to have a shot at the American dream.

The case, however, the senator said, was “immediately challenged,” and ended up at the Supreme Court, where a five-to-four majority upheld the Ohio school choice program. Cruz remarked on the critical effects of that decision:

Four justices were prepared to strike down that program as unconstitutional. And with it, every other school choice program in America. To rule that the Constitution doesn’t let the elected legislatures decide to give scholarships to kids if they choose to go to a religious institution. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a radical and activist position. Four justices were ready to shut down school choice programs all across the country.

Cruz asserted the case serves as an example “of how one side wants the court to mandate their policy outcomes. The other side does not.”

“I don’t want school choice mandated,” he stated. “I want it to be left to the political process.”

President Donald Trump reacted to a new report from the New York Post showing evidence that former Vice President Joe Biden met with an adviser to Burisma while his son, Hunter Biden, was on the board.

“Joe Biden has been blatantly lying about his involvement with his son’s corrupt business dealings,” Trump said. “This is a big smoking gun.”

The president pointed to an April 2015 email published by the New York Post from Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden thanking him for helping arrange a meeting with his father, Vice President Joe Biden.  He also pointed to a 2014 email from Pozharskyi to Hunter asking, “We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence.”

“In other words, Hunter was being paid for access to his vice president father who was specifically put in charge of Ukraine and Russia,” Trump said.

He reminded his supporters that Biden had repeatedly claimed that he never spoke with Hunter about his business dealings overseas.

“These emails show that Biden’s repeated claim that he has never spoken to hunter about his business dealings were a complete lie; it was a total lie,” Trump said. “He lied to you over and over because he’s trying to cover up a massive pay for play scandal at the heart of his vice presidency.”

Trump also recalled Biden’s protest during the first presidential debate about Hunter Biden’s lucrative business deals overseas, calling the stories about it “totally discredited” and insisted that his son did nothing wrong.

“Now that turns out to be a total lie,” Trump said. “Now we can see clearly that Biden is a corrupt politician that should never be allowed to run for the presidency.”

He criticized the “corrupt lamestream media” for failing to cover the story published by the New York Post.

“They’re corrupt and they refuse to write the story,” he said.

Trump also criticized Facebook and Twitter for censoring the story from their platforms when they allowed disinformation and lies about him and his campaign to be shared.

“They take negative posts down almost before they even go up!” he wrote.

The president also reacted to the breaking news that Twitter suspended his press secretary Kayleigh McEany’s personal account.

“I don’t know this for a fact, but they say Kayleigh McEnany … they closed down her account. She’s the White House press secretary because she’s reporting the truth!” he said.

The president picked back up on his attack on Hunter Biden, repeatedly asking, “Where’s Hunter?”

“Where’s Hunter? Is Hunter here tonight? Hunter?” he asked. “Hunter, congratulations on making a lot of money last year.”

First lady Melania Trump said Wednesday that she suffered from difficult coronavirus symptoms after testing positive for the virus.

“I experienced body aches, a cough, and headaches, and felt extremely tired most of the time,” Melania Trump wrote in a statement posted to the White House website.

The first lady said in a statement that the coronavirus symptoms “hit me all at once” after she tested positive for the virus in what seemed to be a “roller coaster of symptoms” in the following days.

She praised the White House medical team for their care but said that she did not choose the same treatments for the virus that President Donald Trump did.

“I chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food,” she wrote.

President Trump was treated with an antibody-drug developed by Regeneron and also Remdesivir to help him recover from the virus, according to his physician Dr. Sean Conley.

The first lady said that the illness gave her time to reflect on the impact that the virus had across the country.

“We are in unprecedented times — and with the election fast approaching, it has been easy to get caught up in so much negative energy,” she said.

Melania Trump also thanked Americans for their prayers and support as she recovered from the virus and said she looked forward to resuming her public duties soon.

“I encourage everyone to continue to live the healthiest life they can,” she wrote. “A balanced diet, fresh air, and vitamins really are vital to keep our bodies healthy.”

President Donald Trump reacted Wednesday at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, to new evidence showing that former Vice President Joe Biden met with foreign interests represented by his son Hunter Biden.

“The Bidens got rich while Americans got robbed,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa.

The president cited the bombshell New York Post story uncovering emails sent from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Ukrainian energy company Burisma, to Hunter Biden, thanking him for helping arrange a meeting with his father.

Hunter Biden received between $50,000 and $83,000 a month from Burisma to sit on the board.

“The Biden family treated the vice presidency as a for-profit corporation flying around the globe collecting millions of dollars from China and Ukraine and Russia and other countries,” Trump said.

The president also referred to a Senate report revealing that the former Moscow mayor’s wife, Yelena Baturina, wrote a check to Hunter Biden’s firm Rosemont Seneca Thornton, LLC for $3.5 million in 2014.

“The wife of the mayor of Moscow wrote Hunter a check for 3.5 million dollars in cash while his father gave away the store to Russia, including Crimea – Remember Crimea?” Trump asked, referring to former President Barack Obama’s administration allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea in 2014.

Trump used the report to condemn “swamp” politicians like Biden, who spent 47 years in Washington.

“Politicians like Joe Biden keep bleeding this country dry,” Trump said.

He also referred to reports that Joe Biden’s brother James Biden’s construction firm received a contract worth more than a billion dollars to build houses in Iraq.

“Take a look at the whole family. It’s a corrupt family,” Trump said. “Joe Biden personifies the selfish and corrupt globalist who got rich and powerful at your expense.”