Category Archives: Federalist

The Facebook whistleblower thread has been pulled, and now the facade wont stop unraveling to the point that Frances Haugen has been revealed as part of the team of Big Tech censors at the center of 2020 election meddling, The Post Millennial has found.

Haugen was a member of Facebooks civic integrity unit, which was tasked with countering so-called misinformation (read: throttling politically disfavored content) about the 2020 election. In October, that entailed censoring The New York Posts reporting on Hunter Bidens laptop, which incriminated the Biden son and his father for corruption in the run-up to the highly contested election.

Just weeks before the November election, The New York Post reported that a laptop containing evidence implicating then-presidential candidate Joe Bidens son for engaging in shady overseas business dealings had surfaced after Hunter Biden abandoned it at a computer repair shop in Delaware. Documents from the shop appear to show a signed receipt from Hunter for the repairs, and text messages, videos, and emails recovered from the device point to a pay-to-play scandal involving the current president.

Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter, however, censored the story. Both Facebook policy comms director Andy Stone on Twitter and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in congressional testimony admitted to the company suppressing the bombshell report.

Haugen, who joined Facebook in 2019 on the condition of being tasked with censoring misinformation, was assigned to the 200-member civic integrity unit, where she worked until after the 2020 presidential election. Haugen and four other people, according to the New York Post, were tasked with building a system to track misinformation targeted at specific groups of people in just three months, and after their efforts were successful and Biden won the election, Facebook dissolved the unit.

The so-called whistleblower has already been confirmed to be a left-wing activist. Soon after Haugen came forward with stolen documents, lamenting that Facebook isnt doing enough to censor hate speech and political dissidents, financial records revealed that she regularly donates to Democrats, including radicals such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Haugens attorneys are also deeply steeped in left-wing corruption. Her lawyers were part of the legal team that represented the fake whistleblower whose complaint about then-President Donald Trumps Ukraine phone call (a call about which the whistleblower did not have firsthand knowledge) led to a sham impeachment. Now shes receiving strategic communication guidance from former Obama aide Bill Burtons public relations firm Bryson Gillette, which is run by Democratic operatives. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was a senior adviser there until September 2020.

On Tuesday, Haugen testified before a congressional hearing at least in part to gain lawmaker support for more Big Tech censorship. She accused Facebook of putting profits before safety by amplifying so-called misinformation which she said is killing people, a talking point you might recognize from the Biden White House.

The result has been more division, more harm, more lies, more threats, and more combat. In some cases, this dangerous online talk has led to actual violence that harms and even kills people,testified Haugen, who has also made woke statements about inclusion and bias in her previous tech jobs, which have included Google and Pinterest. At the latter, she reportedly drove the company toward giving users the ability to filter searches to specific skin tones.

Haugens lawyers have filed eight complaints about Facebook with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including lamenting that the company doesnt remove enough hate speech and didnt deploy lasting counter-measures or sufficiently fight so-called misinformation, right-wing extremism, and violence regarding the 2020 election and Jan. 6 riot.

The Facebook whistleblower news comes amid widespread Big Tech censorship campaigns and partisan calls for crackdowns on what Democrats call misinformation.

In July, Psaki announcedthat due to12 unnamed people on social media posting what the Biden administration considered to be misinformation, the White House is actively flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation and helping to boost trusted content. Nothing is off the table when it comes to using Big Tech to quiet opposing views, she said.

When a reporter asked Biden that same week what his message is to sites such as Facebook, the president replied, Theyre killing people.

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Facebook 'Whistleblower' Was On Team That Nuked Hunter Biden Story - The Federalist

If you asked President Joe Biden right now where we are in the pandemic, how confident are you that you would get an even slightly intelligible answer?

What if you asked media sex god Dr. Anthony Fauci?

No one at this point can possibly expect that they would get a meaningful response. Biden was elected with the expectation, thanks to an image generated by the media, that he would competently address the pandemic, follow the science (which the left swears is settled, right up until they change their minds), and shut down the virus.

Nearly nine months in, the results are indecipherable guidance from his administration about masks, vaccines, booster shots, and group gatherings. Thats nothing to say of the averages of 100,000 new infections and almost 2,000 new COVID-related deaths reported each day, which has been the case for going on two months.

Back in March, Biden said that if we do our part there was a good chance that families and friends could have small groups for an Independence Day outdoor barbecue. Fast-forward to this month and Fauci, Bidens top COVID adviser, is telling people hes not sure they can gather for Christmas. But then, never mind, they can!

Who knows if a vaccine booster shot is a good idea for themselves? In mid-August, Biden said at the White House that there was a plan for booster shots to every fully vaccinated American adult American and that those shots would be available the week of Sep. 20. Then the Food and Drug Administration said, Nah!

Just a couple of days before Bidens Sep. 20 deadline, the FDA declined to approve boosters for most adults, instead stating that only adults over 65, plus anyone deemed high risk, should get an additional shot.

Unfortunately, that wasnt any less confusing. Are you high risk or not? It turns out to not really matter. If you want a shot, you can get one. Plenty of people are doing it, regardless of risk status. Best of luck!

By the way, if you want or need to travel outside the United States, the Biden administration makes no promises about your return. Whether youre vaccinated or not, a negative COVID test is needed for re-entry. Have fun figuring that one out.

And what about the godforsaken masks? Biden didnt wait a moment after being sworn in to tell the public that he was asking them to mask up for 100 days. And yet, here we are, still told by his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that regardless of whether a person has received a vaccine, he should be wearing a mask when in public.

We are rapidly approaching Day 300 of Bidens 100 days. In that time, his administration went from telling the vaccinated to continue wearing masks to then saying that wasnt necessary, to going back to advising face coverings again.

This is precisely the kind of instability we were told not to expect from Biden. He was the remedy to his predecessors supposed chaos.

Now look where we are. Bidens handling of the pandemic has been a complete catastrophe, and were only just now coming down from the second-biggest wave of infections since this whole thing began.

Things are no better off than they were before Biden got into office. Theyre arguably a lot worse.

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Joe Biden Has Created More COVID Chaos Than Ever - The Federalist

Twitter censored the obituary of a mother whose family said she died of complications induced by the COVID-19 vaccine.

An obituary in Oregon Live detailed how Jessica Berg Wilson, an exceptionally healthy and vibrant 37-year-old young mother with no underlying health conditions, died from COVID Vaccine-Induced Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia.

When user Kelly Bee posted the link to the Seattle womans obituary on Twitter, the big tech company labeled the tweet as misleading and prohibited other users from interacting, liking, or sharing the post. The label led to a page that explained why health officials consider COVID-19 vaccines safe for most people.

The obituary described Wilson as a devoted wife and mother but said the last weeks of her life, however, the world turned dark with heavy-handed vaccine mandates.

Local and state governments were determined to strip away her right to consult her wisdom and enjoy her freedom. She had been vehemently opposed to taking the vaccine, knowing she was in good health and of a young age and thus not at risk for serious illness. In her mind, the known and unknown risks of the unproven vaccine were more of a threat, the obituary stated. But, slowly, day by day, her freedom to choose was stripped away.

These mandates, the obituary stated, cost Jessica her life, cost her children the loving embrace of their caring mother, cost her husband the sacred love of his devoted wife, and cost Gods Kingdom on earth a very special soul who was just making her love felt in the hearts of so many.

After facing pushback from multiple users for the censorship, Twitter eventually removed the label. The Silicon Valley giant did not respond to The Federalists request for comment or questions about why it censored the post in the first place.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Twitter Censored Obit Of Mom Who Reportedly Died After COVID Vaccine - The Federalist

The Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech hosted Ryan Holiday, author and host of The Daily Stoic, on Fox Newss The Ben Domenech Podcast on Monday. Holiday discussed his newest book Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave, and how the virtue of courage plays into questions of politics and culture today.

Holiday is writing on each of four stoic virtues: courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. The idea is that these are sort of four pivotal virtues that the good life depends on, he said. A lot of people are struggling precisely because they dont have a core set of values.

How do you think about courage as being, not just standing up for something, but standing up for the right thing? Domenech asked.

The virtues are inseparable, Holiday concluded, because courage in the pursuit of an unjust aim, it might be courageous but its not virtuous. He referenced the infamous Charge of the Light Brigade as an example of courage that we do have to respect, but then as individuals we have to always think about, Well, why am I doing this and does it really matter?'

Holiday also cited the importance of courage in daily actions. We can find ourselves in a position where a lack of day-to-day courage puts us in a desperate moment where we have to be courageous, that had we just been a little braver a year earlier, five years earlier, we never would have been in such desperate straits.

In the context of the current pandemic, there is a real dynamic of the language of courage being embraced and afforded to people who are either refusing to follow government orders or who are taking stands against it that are essentially costing them their jobs, Domenech noted.

Obviously we need people like that in society, we need people who are resistant to the pressures of an overwhelming majority, Holiday agreed, but added, I think we can both acknowledge the lonliness of the stand and question the validity of the stand.

Holiday and Domenech also discussed the interaction of courage and cancel culture.

Tell me a little bit about the courage that it takes to stand up against that mob, because thats not something that I feel like weve had historically to the degree that we have it today because of the immediacy and the audience involved with social media, Domenech asked. Talk to me about the degree to which that has changed the demands of courage on the average American citizen.

I actually think cancel culture goes way back and was probably worse in the ancient world in the sense that today maybe you lose your job but in the past you got exiled, Holiday argued. I think cancel culture is real, its certainly alarming; as individuals, the idea of participating in calling for peoples jobs or piling on is sort of shameful and embarrassing. I also think as creators or as thought leaders or whatever you want to call it, thats a reality of the profession and you have to proceed despite it.

Listen to the full interview here.

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Ryan Holiday On How To Courageously Stand Up To The Mob - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, Niels Jorgensen, a retired New York City firefighter and host of the 20 For 20 podcast, joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky and Senior Editor Christopher Bedford to discuss his quest to document the stories of 9/11 heroes so that younger generations never forget.

One of our main missions with 20 For 20 is to tell the stories of these beautiful, wonderful, selfless people that gave everything that day. And many of them have never returned to their families, Jorgensen said. As we like to say, were willing to give up every one of our tomorrows so you can finish your today and my beautiful, brave friends did that and Im now on a little bit of a mission to get that out there because I feel like we truly have forgotten.

The people who sacrificed their lives for others, Jorgensen said, are true heroes who deserve recognition every day of the year.

Thats the beauty of America. There are strangers out there willing to give their lives for us and they dont even know us, Jorgensen said. Thats powerful. Thats what were doing. Were trying to get the stories of these heroes out there.

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After 20 Years, The Stories Of 9/11 Shape America Every Single Day - The Federalist

Leftist squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., admitted on Wednesday that she was only wearing a mask for theatrical reasons, not scientific ones.

Tlaibs confession came during a joint event with Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge in Detroit. Video shows the masked politician gathered in a circle with several other people and shaking the hand of a maskless attendee who approached her. When Tlaib moved across the gathering away from him, he began to apologize for being the one unmasked guy. Tlaib, however, quickly reassured him that her face covering was just for the cameras.

Oh, no, oh, not you! Im just wearing it because Ive got a Republican tracker here, she told the man while pulling her mask away from her face to speak and pointing at the person recording the exchange.

Tlaibs mask theater comes just a couple of months after she was caught on camera partying without a mask at an indoor wedding reception in Wayne County, Michigan. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines at the time suggested that regardless of vaccination status, people should mask up, especially in areas such as Wayne County, which was considered at substantial risk for community transmission.

On the same day as the wedding, Tlaib publicly scolded Republican Sen. Rand Paul for telling Americans to disregard the CDCs ever-changing COVID-19 guidance.

The KY Senator is throwing a tantrum as his state is being swallowed whole by this virus, again. People are getting sick and dying, Tlaib wrote on Twitter. He needs to put politics aside, and put people first. Start resisting the virus.

The representative also repeatedly urged her constituents to mask up while retweeting suggestions to double-mask.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Rep. Rashida Tlaib Admits Her Mask Is All Theater - The Federalist

Americas military used to unite us, but now its leaders are tearing us down, said Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech while hosting Fox News Primetime on Wednesday night.

Nothing has been more unifying in American history than our flag and the men who defended it. Whether at the Veterans Day parade or atop Mount Suribachi, Americans respect for our men in arms and the symbol they defend was an extraordinary object of universal approval. It was extraordinary because this respect endured even as every other institution in American life shuttered and collapsed in the public eye, he explained.

This unifying symbolism when the Armed Forces of the United States grasped its purpose and its place lasted for a two-decade period, Domenech said.

America wasnt built on a streak of easy wins and golden handouts. This country was won through suffering, through pain that preceded any triumph. And the men who won were those who knew, its a cliche but its true, that freedom isnt free, Domenech said. In this moment, the armed forces represented something important: the core truth. And it was nearly the only civic institution to speak that truth. That truth about ourselves, that America requires sacrifice renewed with every generation, had the effect of making the military of the United States nearly the sole bearer of our national identity and civic virtue.

It was when military leaders decided the armed forces were the front for American civic virtue that Domenech said things went downhill. The once-universal trust in the military decayed not just because it lost a war in Afghanistan but because its leadership decided that [it is] the font of American civic virtue.

This is a shocking turn upending, without public debate and with even less public notice, the proper relationship between our republic and its military. That relationship predates the Constitution itself, Domenech noted.

The military has now decided, Domenech said, that it makes policy.

The men who run todays military are no longer in the business of defending America. That would, of course, require winning a war some time. Instead, they are in the business of ruling it. They rule it hand-in-hand with the bureaucrats and ideologues who control the commanding heights and government and the economy alike. They are of the same class, Domenech explained.

Domenech said these military leaders embrace wokeness and are even happy to be partisans of themselves, to join the elite who are grinding down the remnants of the American spirit.

Why do you think they spend so much time talking to the media and playing the Washington blame game? They care more about branding than winning, he said.

Domenech said all hope, however, is not lost.

We used to find greatness in our generals. For now, those days are over. But we can still find greatness somewhere else: in the young recruit, on the yellow footprints of Parris Island, in an airman who volunteers for deployment, and in those brave 19-year-olds thrust into history at the Abbey Gate, Domenech said through tears. These men and women without stars are not our rulers and do not seek to be. They are our brothers and our sons, our sisters and our daughters, our neighbors and our friends. The challenge for us now, as a people, is to reclaim the fullness of the armed forces, top to bottom, for its real purpose. Not as the font of American civics, but as its bearer. Not over the people, but of us, by us, and for us. Not led by men who profit, but by those who serve and win for the flag.

Watch Domenechs full monologue here:

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Domenech: The Military Used To Unite Us, Now Its Brass Tear Us Down - The Federalist

Federalist Publisher Ben Domenech called the United States abortion culture one of the most radical abortion regimes in the world on Fox News Primetime Friday night. Yet, our countrys hostility toward the unborn has fostered an energy in the pro-life movement unlike anything we have ever seen before, Domenech said.

Twenty-seven European countries limit elective abortion to 12 weeks gestation, where as the United States ranks only with countries like China and North Korea where abortion is legal up until moments before a child takes their first breath.

For that, you have to look at our moral equals in nations like China or North Korea. Why is it that America has persisted in this extreme regime even as the rest of the world woke up to the moral reality of what abortion does to families and societies, Domenech said. Its a complicated story but its also very simple, really. Many of us have been willing to look the other way in a vast industry of powerful forces in our country and have worked very hard to make sure that we do.

Abortion is at the very top of the lefts priorities, an item of faith they are wedded to stronger than any religious conviction, Domenech said.

Since the moment Roe v. Wade short-circuited the legal conversation about abortion, the pro-abortion left has worked to gaslight the country into believing things that just arent true, Domenech said.

They pretended they wanted abortions to be rare. They claimed they didnt profit from them. They denied they sold organs. They refused to acknowledge the science of what we know about unborn babies, utterly unknown to the authors of Roe by the way. They ignored the terrible and tragic impact on the poorest and most vulnerable families and on the black community in particular. More black families are aborted than born in New York City every year and thats fine with them, he said.

Domenech blasted corporate media for their coverage of the issue as indistinguishable from Planned Parenthood press releases, and for being not just universally pro-choice but obviously pro-abortion.

But despite the darkness, Domenech said he believes there has been a shift in energy behind the pro-life movement.

The energy in the pro-life movement is like nothing we have ever seen before. Abortion is no longer accepted as an unobjectionable good. The shout your abortion movement where women are encouraged by the abortion lobby to boast about kill their children comes across as desperate and sad. Decades of ultrasound pictures on refrigerators and women brave enough to talk about miscarriage and loss have a way of changing minds. When Iceland says they have eradicated down syndrome, good people cringe because we know what that really means.

It is through the determined work in law and politics of pro-life activists that America is at a crossroads on the issue many once thought impossible. The host then emotionally concluded by asking his audience to reflect on what they know to be true about human life.

What we are discussing tonight is the most fundamental question for us, whether the unborn lives that take root here in America are unique persons with the right to draw breath and blossom or whether they are nonpersons, lives unworthy of life, human weeds as planned parenthood Margaret Sanger called them whose destruction is a public good, Domenech said.

The mission that tells us to destroy a life is to destroy a whole world. The worlds that would have been with that life meant. Look to your heart, you know this to be true, he concluded.

Reagan Reese is an intern at The Federalist and a student at Hillsdale College studying rhetoric and public address and journalism. She plays on the varsity softball team and you can follow her on Twitter @reaganreese_.

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Domenech: The War On The Unborn Is Stronger Than Ever, But So Is The Pro-Life Movement - The Federalist

On this episode of The Federalist Radio Hour, the Daily Wires Ian Haworth, host of the Ian Haworth Show and a former Facebook software engineer, joins Culture Editor Emily Jashinsky to discuss hisarticle Facebook Releases Content Distribution Guidelines, Will Target Untrusted News and his time on the fact-checking and misinformation teams at Facebook.

The whole point of the fact-checking organization or arm of the company was to add a layer of truth to things. Whether or not you agree with fact-checking it at all, the goal was to push something forward as is this true or not true? and give people more tools to handle information. But now if theyre demoting things via the fact-checking arm without actually fact-checking, then its really just an abuse of power in another way thats going to impact conservatives even harder, Haworth said.

Haworth said its right to be skeptical of Big Techs influence and inclination towards censorship but he is optimistic about change.

I think there are a lot of people who just want their tools to be used for people for the good. And I think if we can create a culture that mirrors what we believe to be a bit more moderate than what we have right now, I think some elements of Big Tech will follow suit. Id like to be slightly optimistic in that manner, Haworth said.

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Former Facebook Engineer On Censorship And The Future Of Big Tech - The Federalist

President Biden smiled for the cameras actually who knows if he was smiling, because he had a mask on last week as he received his COVID-19 booster shot in a televised stunt from what appeared to be the Oval Office. Except it wasnt the Oval Office, it was a movie-like set in an auditorium inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, mere steps from the West Wing.

The elaborate set included what appeared to be hardwood flooring, molding on the walls, and windows with (gasp!) greenscreens showing fake scenes of trees, and set off a flurry of remarks on social media making the warranted observation that the set might not be the only fake in the Biden White House.

But dont worry, Facebooks anti-misinformation team which, if the Democrat operative posing as a whistleblower this week has her way, will only get more aggressive flagged the memes as part of Facebooks efforts to combat false news.

But wasnt it true that the White House created a fake set of the Oval Office? No, PolitiFact fact-checkers were quick to reassure us, the White House didnt create [a] fake set just for Joe Bidens booster shot.

The backdrop behind Biden as he was getting his booster shot wasnt created for that event, the fact-checkers explained, it had been used five days earlier for a global coronavirus summit. Politifact rated the Facebook post in question false.

But what they didnt do was answer the question of why a fake set might have been created farther away from the presidents typical work environment. Is the Oval Office under repairs? Was the lighting from actual windows causing problems for the videographers?

You might think this is a trivial question, but the president using a deceptive backdrop is actually a very serious scandal, possibly the kind that causes Democracy to Die in Darkness. Just ask The New York Times and other media figures that pulled off the impressive feat of imagining such a scandal into existence even though it never actually happened in October 2020.

Remember when President Trump gave a video speech from the South Lawn of the White House, and the corporate media and Twittersphere suggested with horror (and no apparent reason) that the president was using a greenscreen?

The New York Times, in a now-scrubbed article coauthored by Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, claimed, Mr. Trump was shown on the South Lawn of the White House hundreds of feet away from the mansion, but it appeared to be a digital backdrop as leaves blowing in the wind behind him could be seen repeating on a loop.

Did Donald Trump Record His Latest Twitter Video in Front of a Green Screen? Mother Jones asked, just above the standard blip entreating readers to Fight disinformation Sign up for the freeMother Jones newsletter.

Trust in our public institutions has been so degraded that its not completely out of bounds to wonder if the White House is releasing manipulated videos of the president to prove hes in good health, answered reporter Nathalie Baptiste.

I think its pretty clearly a green screen. The sharpness of the outline and the lighting. Also its a very long way to bring a sick president to shoot something when you have the Rose Garden, said MSNBCs Chris Hayes in a now-deleted tweet.

https://twitter.com/aravosis/status/1314272947817852929

The Washington Post thought the completely made-up scandal deserved not one, but two headlines. Trumps video prompts green screen speculation, online skepticism, the Post blared. People speculate that Trump used a green screen for this Twitter video, it reported a day later.

The controversy, which was quickly debunked and backtracked, was used to stir concerns about the presidents health as he recovered from COVID-19. But you wont see the same concern from corporate outlets about 78-year-old Bidens health, despite his numerous physical and mental tumbles.

Why is the Biden White House using a fake Oval Office? Who knows. You probably wont hear much about it, because it probably isnt newsworthy and probably isnt a scandal.

But Bidens fake set actually exists, which already makes it newsier, and more scandalous, than the Trump greenscreen that wasnt.

Elle Reynolds is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. You can follow her work on Twitter at @_etreynolds.

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Biden's Fake Oval Office Is The Scandal Media Invented About Trump - The Federalist