Riot Victim Widow Ann Dorn Makes Devastating Appeal: ‘This Isn’t a Video Game’

Ben Sellers
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Riot Victim Widow Ann Dorn Makes Devastating Appeal: ‘This Isn’t a Video Game’

The widow of slain St. Louis police veteran David Dorn devastated viewers by telling his story on the fourth and final night of the Republican National Convention.

Her poignant story captured the emotions even of Meghan McCain, whose mother spoke at the Democratic convention last week on behalf of longtime family friend Joe Biden.

But many others responded the same way, saying that Dorn’s speech was a “tipping point,” and even that it was the nail in the coffin for Joe Biden’s campaign.

Dorn’s story has been something of a rallying cry for the Right in the face of race riots that claim to be advancing the singular precept that “black lives matter.”

But instead, the riots have only compounded death and destruction within the black community and seem more catered toward a cynical political outcome than for any genuine social-justice causes.

As an African American and a 38-year law-enforcement veteran, Dorn represented both sides in the current divide over law-and-order versus alleged police brutality and systemic racism.

But with nary a mention of the racial politics, his wife delivered a heart-rending, gut-wrenching account of his final night.

It was not uncommon for Dorn to respond at any hour when an alarm went off at the pawn shop owned by his lifelong friend. Most of them were false alarms, said his wife.

But “the alarm that went off the morning of June 2 was for real, she said, as the city was consumed by rioting a few days following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody.

Ann Dorn worked with the same police force that her husband had only recently retired from after 38 years.

“I was keenly aware of the rioting and spent the evening getting ready to mobilize support,” she said.

But she returned home and had gone to sleep by time the call came.

“This time, he didn’t wake me up to tell me,” she said. “He probably knew I would have stopped him.”

Horrifically, Dorn’s sleazy assailants showed no regard for humanity—not even an upstanding member of their community. They not only murdered him, but broadcast the event on social media.

“They shot and killed David in cold blood and then live streamed his execution and his last moments on earth,” Ann Dorn said.

To make matters worse, David’s grandson happened to see the broadcast in real time, “not realizing he was watching his own grandfather,” she added. 

As a new crop of rioting threatened to consume Kenosha, Wisc., a picturesque lakefront town halfway between Milwaukee and Chicago, Dorn made an appeal to those who were taking to the streets to perpetuate the senseless violence.

“I relive that horror in my mind every single day,” she said.

“My hope is that having you relive it now will help shake this country from this nightmare,” she continued. “This isn’t a video game where you can commit mayhem and then just hit reset and bring all the characters back to life. David’s never coming back to me. He was murdered by people who just didn’t know and didn’t care.”

She also rejected the Left’s notion that the best solution was to defund the police.

“We cannot heal amid devastation and chaos,” she said. “President Trump knows we need more Davids in our community, not fewer.”

Dorn’s was not the only speech of the convention’s final night to tug at the emotional heart strings.

Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of murdered ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller, spoke of their harrowing ordeal and of being abandoned by the Obama administration, saying that if Trump had been president Kayla would still be alive.

But continuing on a note of hope and optimism, particularly for bridging racial differences, Trump also featured Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and recently freed inmate Alice Johnson, both of whom shared their inspiring stories of rising up through faith and determination to triumph over adversity.

PELOSI: Cancel the Debates

Ben Sellers
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PELOSI: Cancel the Debates

Shrugging off the obvious concerns that Democrats are trying to guard their candidate, Joe Biden, from any unscripted challenges prior to the November election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., declared that there should be no debates between the two presidential candidates, Breitbart reported.

Pelosi often has tried to play the media and manipulate the framing of unpopular policy stances, including her blatantly false claims last year that she did not wish to pursue a “divisive” impeachment of President Donald Trump unless there was clear, smoking-gun evidence of crimes.

House Democrats pushed forward nonetheless, even though neither of their two impeachment articles alleged a crime. Trump, as expected, was ultimately acquitted and received a popularity bump from the ordeal.

Pelosi again faltered in playing hardball during recent negotiations over a coronavirus economic stimulus bill.

Although House Democrats sought to include more than a trillion dollars in extra pork spending to help fund financially insolvent blue states, the White House scoffed following protracted negotiations and proceeded to implement relief measures without Democrats’ support.

Biden’s surrogates and allies already have begun floating the idea that the bunkered-down candidate might bail on the three debates scheduled for September and October.

Many have noted that after Biden’s constant gaffes on the campaign trail—and even when conducting remote interviews from his basement—it appears the soon-to-be-78-year-old may be in a state of advanced cognitive decline.

But Pelosi—herself seeming rather unhinged while instructing a reporter on camera, “don’t tell anybody, especially Joe Biden”—claimed that it would be Trump who was hurt by the refusal to let Biden on the stage.

“I do not think that the president of the United States has comported himself in a way that has any association with truth, evidence data, and facts,” she said. “I wouldn’t legitimize a conversation with him nor a debate in terms of the presidency of the United States.”

Republicans have put forth a strong, optimistic, policy-driven convention this week in response to the glorified infomercial for Trump-bashing Democrats staged last week, and the cracks in the leftist veneer may now be showing.

The Biden campaign acknowledged recently that Trump may, indeed, “over-perform” with black voters, long considered crucial to a winning Democratic coalition.

And Biden weighed in on the debate over debates by claiming to NBC’s resident left-wing pundit and cheerleader Andrea Mitchell that he would seek to install far-left “fact checkers” on the floor if and when he debated the president.

Paralyzed GOP Candidate’s Campaign Responds to Rant from Unhinged PBS Reporter

Ben Sellers
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Paralyzed GOP Candidate’s Campaign Responds to Rant from Unhinged PBS Reporter

Democrats responding to the uplifting stories from the Republican National Convention have tread a precarious line in their efforts to bash many of the speakers who have triumphed in the face of adversity.

The RNC’s push for diversity has exposed deep insecurities—or worse, bigotry—in those who had once proclaimed themselves the arbiters of wokeness, now forced to share their privileged demographic status with dissenting ideological viewpoints.

Media have seethed with envy, accusing some of the many speakers of color with pejoratives like “Sambo” and “Uncle Tom.”

But following the Democrats’ hate-filled infomercial/telethon/convention last week, the clamor has done little more than expose their true colors.

And in some cases, the backlash has been severe.

Madison Cawthorn, the 25-year-old GOP candidate to replace White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was one of the highlights of the RNC’s third night on Wednesday.

Cawthorn’s age is not the only thing that sets him apart; he also was paralyzed in a car accident when he was 18.

“My accident has given me new eyes to see and new ears to hear,” said the wheelchair-bound Cawthorn, who once stood 6-foot-3.

“… I say to people who feel forgotten, ignored and invisible, I see you, I hear you,” he continued.

He went on to invite those who disagreed politically to join him by engaging in dialogue and forming a “new town square” for political discourse.

“Let’s have a true conversation, listen to all ideas and let the best ones prevail,” he said.

Finally, he accented his speech with a dramatic moment, standing out of his chair with the help of two assistants on either side, while invoking the lines from the Pledge of Allegiance, “for which I stand,” he said.

The poignancy of the moment underscored the night’s theme of heroism and perseverance, which included a keynote speech from Vice President Mike Pence at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, birthplace of the national anthem.

But far-left PBS pundit Yamiche Alcindor, herself no stranger to controversy and a disregard for journalism norms of objectivity—despite working for a publicly funded network—appeared to be triggered by the show of patriotism and reverence for American symbols.

She bashed it, instead, as an affront to the efforts by radical black activists who have made disrespecting the national anthem a form of protest.

Alcindor’s desperate grab to try to criticize a crippled boy did not go as planned.

Instead, many on Twitter and other platforms blasted her, ironically, for her ableist attitude.

But others kept it more basic than that, condemning her warped perspective on the issue of patriotism itself in accusing Cawthorn of some nefarious intent, even if he were rebuking the anti-American protests and their tacit approval of ongoing race riots.

Cawthorn’s campaign spokesman, John Hart, issued the following statement in an email to HeadlineUSA:

“Madison was simply telling people it’s okay to stand if that’s what they choose to do,” Hart said.

“He said we need a new town square that welcomes different points of view,” the statement continued. “People who choose to stand should not be shouted down or cancelled. And by standing with the assistance of his friends, he wanted to offer a symbol of community. In tough times, we need to lift each other up.”

BIDEN: Trump ‘Rooting for More Violence’ in Wisconsin

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BIDEN: Trump ‘Rooting for More Violence’ in Wisconsin

(Headline USA) Joe Biden on Thursday said, without evidence, that President Donald Trump is “rooting for more violence” amid riots in Wisconsin, and that he’d be willing to visit the state himself to try and defuse tensions.

“He views this as a political benefit,” the Democratic presidential nominee said of Trump on MSNBC hours before the president will address the final night of the Republican National Convention. “He’s rooting for more violence, not less. And it’s clear about that.”

Biden was referring to ongoing protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Jacob Blake, a black man who resisted arrest before attempting to access a knife in his vehicle, was shot seven times Sunday by a police officer. A 17-year-old has been arrested in connection with the shooting deaths three rioters — two who died — in what may have been self defense as the teen protected a private business.

The former vice president cited comments made earlier Thursday by White House adviser Kellyanne Conway, who suggested on “Fox & Friends” that the Wisconsin unrest could help Trump’s reelection chances.

“The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns,” Conway said, in far from a cheerleading manner, “the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”

Conway later expanded the thought to Hurricane Laura’s destruction in telling reporters at the White House that she doesn’t “look at the hurricanes or what’s happening in Kenosha as political. I look at it as a matter of safety and safety.”

Still, Biden seized on her original comment, asking when someone speaking behalf of a president “ever said something like that? Ever?”

Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, had remained mostly silent through the GOP convention‘s first three days. The pair said nothing during last week’s Democratic National Convention about the urban violence epidemic that has swept the nation.

Biden’s interview marks his most public comments this week, though Harris is delivering a speech from Washington on Thursday excoriating Trump for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic fallout.

Republicans have highlighted the Democratic ticket’s ties to the rioters, who entirely oppose Trump, and have accurately said that Biden supports defunding police departments around the country.

Biden, meanwhile, has largely limited travel to near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, during the campaign, contributing to the widespread perception that he is frail and not up to the rigors of leading the country, much less traveling to try and win the White House.

But he said he’d consider traveling to Kenosha, adding, “I don’t want to become part of the problem and I want to make sure it’s able to be done safely and we bring some competence.”

“If I were president I’d be going,” Biden said. “But it’s hard to tell now what the circumstance on the ground is.”

Should he make the trip, Biden said, he would attempt to “pull together the black community as well as the white community and sit down and talk about how we get through this.”

As riots over charges of institutional racism and police brutality have swept the country for months, Biden also said Thursday that he opposes violence in Wisconsin or anywhere else: “I don’t think that’s what Kenosha’s about. I don’t think that’s what black and white America’s about.”

But he said of Trump, without evidence: “He just keeps pouring fuel on the fire. He’s encouraging this. He’s not diminishing this at all.”

“This is his America now,” Biden said, “And, if you want to end where we are now, we’ve got to end his tenure as president.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Fox’s Tucker Carlson Takes Heat for Kenosha Commentary

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Fox’s Tucker Carlson Takes Heat for Kenosha Commentary

(Headline USA) Fox News‘ Tucker Carlson, no stranger to the hot seat for his commentary, is being criticized for suggesting that no one should be surprised by the killing of two rioters during unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Authorities “stood back and watched Kenosha burn,” he said on Fox News Channel on Wednesday. “So are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder? How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?”

Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old Illinois resident and police supporter, was taken into custody on suspicion of homicide after the killings of two people involved in riots following last weekend’s police shooting of Jacob Blake, a black man who resisted arrest and attempted to access a knife rather than obey officers’ orders.

Carlson’s commentary drew an angry response online because it was seen as sympathetic to Rittenhouse or offering justification for murder, although there is video evidence that Rittenhouse acted in self defense.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted the Fox management “is complicit in Tucker Carlson’s racist, murderous rants” if they take no action against him. Author Don Winslow called the comments disgusting.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting, called Carlson a “lunatic who will get people killed. … You should be removed for the safety of our kids.”

But presidential son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted that “the left-wing media is willfully twisting Tucker Carlson’s words to smear him. He never endorsed ‘vigilante justice.’ He just pointed out that when ‘leaders’ cede control of our streets to the mob, it leads to heartbreaking consequences.”

Twitter flagged a link in one of Carlson’s tweets for sensitive content. Carlson’s tweet had quoted words he used on the air.

When asked for comment Thursday, Fox provided a transcript of Carlson’s segment from the night before.

Fox management infrequently comments on individual statements by its personalities. Instead, Fox is more likely to express displeasure by taking someone off the air — temporarily or permanently — and Carlson is expected at his post on Thursday.

He didn’t stand alone in his commentary, either.

Conservative provocateur Ann Coulter tweeted about Rittenhouse: “I want him as my president.”

Three hours before Carlson’s statement, Fox’s Jesse Watters said Rittenhouse acted inappropriately and “unfortunately this is what happens when a governor abdicates his responsibility to keep the streets safe.”

Former Fox personality Megyn Kelly trended on Twitter for a series of retweets, including one that said “Jacob Blake was armed with a KNIFE when cops shot him.” While authorities found a knife in Blake’s car after he was shot by police, it wasn’t clear to the officers what he was reaching for in his vehicle after he disobeyed their orders and evaded them.

She also emphasized a quote in a Real Clear Politics article by Ben Shapiro: “The narrative has been set: The (police) shooting was unjustified, and racist at that. No evidence has been presented, none need be. And if the facts don’t match the accusations, the facts will be put aside.”

Kelly declined comment on Thursday.

In an article on the website Outkick.com, black writer Jason Whitlock wrote that professional athletes who have sat out competitions due to police shootings are “useful idiots” convinced that some police shootings were examples of racism when they were really about resisting arrest.

In the conservative publication American Spectator, author Scott McKay said that while 17-year-olds should not cross state lines to carry rifles into demonstrations, protest groups like Black Lives Matter bear “total responsibility” for Rittenhouse doing so.

“What did you morons think was going to happen?” McKay wrote. “That you could continue to burn down a small city in middle America without any resistance?”

But liberal “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace on Thursday rejected any notion that Rittenhouse’s alleged actions are justifiable.

“Vigilante justice is a completely inappropriate response to rioting in the street,” Wallace said, without providing any evidence it was an act of vigilantism. “There is no justification for what happened in Kenosha and vigilante justice is a crime and should be punished as a crime.”

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

YouTube’s Algorithms Remove ‘Millions of Videos’ That Do Not Violate Any Policies

Joshua Paladino
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YouTube’s Algorithms Remove ‘Millions of Videos’ That Do Not Violate Any Policies

YouTube‘s content removal policy has been to ban first, review later. But that approach has led them to a situation in which they are reinstating more than half of appealed content, Reclaim the Net reported.

Google, which owns YouTube, said the increase in wrongful banning is happening because artificial intelligence powered by algorithms has taken on a larger role in content review.

However, some critics have long disputed such claims, noting that it was biased engineers who programmed the algorithms in the first place, oftentimes targeting conservative or right-wing content.

This has been particularly troublesome during leading tech companies‘ sustained effort to suppress divergent viewpoints and skepticism during the coronavirus pandemic.

Algorithms trashed more than 11.4 million videos in three months this year, from April to June. This represents a 50 percent increase from the first three months of 2020.

Users appealed only 325,000 of these removed videos, and YouTube republished more than half of them after human review.

These errors cause delays in the transmission of information that is necessary for citizens to make informed decisions, especially health-related decisions.

Moreover, deplatformed content-creators on YouTube may lose advertising revenue during the period in which the video is removed.

“Each quarter, millions of videos that are first flagged by our automated systems are later evaluated by our human review team and determined not to violate our policies,” the YouTube team wrote in a blog post, titled “Responsible policy enforcement during COVID-19.

Google said YouTube has allowed algorithms to crush more content because the pandemic has prevented human employees from manually reviewing videos.

“When reckoning with greatly reduced human review capacity due to COVID-19, we were forced to make a choice between potential under-enforcement or potential over-enforcement,” the team wrote.

“Because responsibility is our top priority, we chose the latter — using technology to help with some of the work normally done by reviewers, with automated systems set to cast a wider net,” it added.

Key Conduit for Dossier Once Worked for Russian Oligarch, as Did Steele

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Key Conduit for Dossier Once Worked for Russian Oligarch, as Did Steele

(Eric Felton, RealClearInvestigations) Jonathan Winer, a former top aide to Secretary of State John Kerry who was a key conduit for disseminating the discredited Steele dossier in the U.S. government, worked as a lobbyist for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska in years preceding the Russiagate affair.

This revelation raises new questions about Russian efforts to influence American foreign policy — far afield from any Kremlin efforts to favor Donald Trump.

Winer’s connection to Deripaska came to light through last week’s release of the fifth and final volume of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

The Senate report also found that at different times ex-British spy Christopher Steele had worked for the powerful oligarch with ties to President Vladimir Putin, and sent scores of reports from his intelligence firm on to Winer, who admitted to the panel destroying many of them before leaving the State Department. Further, the Senate developed evidence that Glenn Simpson – whose company Fusion GPS contracted with Steele for the dossier – also did work for Deripaska. Simpson denied that, telling senators, “I don’t think I’ve knowingly had any contact with his organization.”

In his initial interview with the Senate committee, Winer claimed never to have met the oligarch. In a second interview Winer revised this answer. He conceded that, beginning in 2003, Deripaska had hired the law firm Alston & Bird, where Winer was a partner. He worked on the Deripaska account but, asserting attorney-client privilege, refused to say what exactly he had done on Deripaska’s behalf. RealClearInvestigations sent questions to Alston & Bird’s spokesman but received no reply.

RealClearInvestigations has found that as an employee of the government affairs and public relations firm APCO Worldwide, Winer also worked on behalf of the Russian government’s nuclear agency in 2010 and 2011. Winer also drummed up business for Steele among lobbyists he knew from his work promoting Russia’s nuclear interests. RealClearInvestigations contacted both Winer and APCO; neither responded.

Winer used his position as a top State Department official to distribute the lurid dossier prepared by Steele, which accused Donald Trump of conspiring with Russia to steal the 2016 election.

But the dossier was not the first questionable Steele product Winer put in the hands of policymakers. He had been passing Steele-produced briefs to senior State Department colleagues for years. The memos were “free” for the government because the department didn’t pay for them. But that doesn’t mean Steele wasn’t getting paid.

While at the State Department during President Barack Obama’s second term, Winer disseminated to his colleagues over 100 memos written by Steele’s company, Orbis Business Intelligence. Among them were memos apparently intended to help influence U.S. foreign policy in favor of Steele’s Russian client, billionaire Putin loyalist Deripaska.

The Senate revelations establish that Winer was a key but little-known figure in Russiagate. He, along with former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr – whose wife worked for Fusion GPS – have emerged as prime vehicles for the dissemination of the Steele dossier to the highest reaches of the U.S. government.

Winer was for a decade an aide to Sen. John Kerry. From 1994 to 1999 he was a deputy assistant secretary at the Department of State. From government he went to the international lobby and law firm Alston & Bird. Winer moved to APCO Worldwide in 2008, about the time he met Steele, who had just left British intelligence and was setting up his own shop. Winer told the Senate that in his private sector jobs he “was still engaged in various types of Russian representation all over the map.” Pro-Putin, anti-Putin: Winer didn’t care, he told senators: “It was any work that was consistent with their needs and my values.”

Christopher Steele (leaving a London court this year): Winer admitted to destroying numerous “O Reports” from Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence before leaving the State Department./PA via AP

When Kerry became secretary of state, he named his old Senate aide to a top position at the department – special envoy to Libya. Winer seems to have used that position in ways that promoted Steele’s business. Winer’s efforts on his friend’s behalf included sending policymakers memos on Ukraine and Russia produced by Steele’s Orbis Business Intelligence. They were frequent enough to be called by a shorthand – “O Reports.” From the time he rejoined the State Department in 2013, through 2015, Winer distributed over 100 of Steele’s memos.

In an email obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information request, Winer promoted Steele’s reports to Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland and her deputy, Paul W. Jones (now the chargé d’affaires to Pakistan): “Toria and Paul, Three reports from Orbis,” Winer wrote the afternoon of Nov. 19, 2014. He added, “The man behind them and Orbis, Chris Steele (as previously mentioned, former MI6 Russia expert, and a trusted friend of mine) is in DC next couple of days. If you’d like to meet with him, let me know and I can put it together.”

Once Steele’s “O Reports” had become routine, Winer relied on Nuland’s assistant, Nina Miller, to circulate his friend’s reports. For example, on Feb. 12, 2015, Winer sent an “O Report” to Miller “concerning company said to be secretly owned by Putin, Putin’s Mistress and Friends.” It was sent with these instructions: “Nina please send high side to three usual persons.” The State Department did not respond to questions about the memos.

Winer testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Steele’s memos had no purpose other than to provide the State Department with helpful information on Russian and Ukrainian affairs.

But that’s not how Steele viewed his State Department connection. He made it clear that his “reports” were intended to shape U.S. policy. For example, Steele used his in at Foggy Bottom to try to improve diplomatic attitudes toward Deripaska, whom the Senate Intelligence Committee describes as “a key implementer of Russian influence operations around the globe.” The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has accused Deripaska of “holding assets and laundering funds on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

Deripaska has dismissed the accusations as “guesses, rumors and balderdash.”

Ariuna Namsrai: As managing director for Russia at a firm promoting Russian nuclear interests, she sent a “Hugs, Ariuna” message to her ex-colleague Winer after a meeting with Steele had been arranged./APCO Worldwide

Early in 2016 – not long before Steele began creating opposition research on Trump for Fusion GPS – Steele reached out to his friend at the Justice Department, Bruce Ohr.

Page 883 of the Senate report states that Steele emailed Ohr to say he had heard from Deripaska’s lawyers, Paul H[auser] and Adam W[aldman], that the oligarch had been “granted an official visa to visit the US this week.” Steele urged Ohr to promote Deripaska’s trip to the States: “[Y]ou should be pushing at an open door,” Steele wrote.

There was a problem, though: Steele anticipated “counter squalls from State.” It was a problem that had a two-part solution. The first involved Ohr. Steele encouraged his friend to take advantage of “an inter-agency meeting on him [Deripaska] this week which I guess you will be attending.” The second part of Steele’s strategy involved putting his memos to work. We “are circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting on the RF [Russian Federation] leadership’s targeting of certain business figures.” The reports, Steele told Ohr, would suggest that Deripaska “is not the leadership tool some have alleged.”

Winer’s distribution of “O Reports” enabled Steele to influence U.S. policy for clients such as Deripaska. That may explain why, at Steele’s direction, Winer collected and destroyed as many copies of Steele’s reports as he could before leaving his job.

“So I destroyed them,” Winer admitted to the intelligence committee. “I basically destroyed all the correspondence I had with him.”

RealClearInvestigations contacted Orbis with questions for Steele. There was no response.

Nelson W. Cunningham: This president of the Clinton-connected lobbying firm McLarty Associates got a pitch from Winer touting Steele’s Russia expertise./McLarty Associates

Winer’s promotion of Steele and his business extended beyond the government. For example, when the London-based Steele visited Washington in November 2014, Winer pitched him to Nelson Cunningham, president of the Clinton-connected lobbying firm McLarty Associates. The email, almost otherwise completely redacted, can be found in the State Department archive of responses to Freedom of Information Act requests. After describing Steele as “an old friend,” Winer told Cunningham that Steele was in town for a few days. “He was in my office catching up and it occurred to me there might be value for McClarty Global knowing him and his capabilities in terms of real time and longer term analysis of developments” in the former Soviet Union.

In another message sent from his State Department email account, Winer also touted Steele to an executive at APCO Worldwide – Ariuna Namsrai.

“Ariuna, my friend Chris Steele from London is in town and working on Russian matters as always,” Winer emailed Namsrai on Nov. 20, 2014. “I thought it might make sense for the two of you to get together if you had any time tomorrow.”

“Great to hear from you!” she enthused in reply. “I met Chris before so it’s nice to hear that he is in DC.” In the same email, Namsrai asks, “Chris – what time is convenient for you?”

The arrangements having been made for Namsrai to meet with Steele, she closed by saying “Miss you Jonathan, and hope to see you soon! Hugs, Ariuna.”

As one lawyer who specializes in federal employment law told RealClearInvestigations, it is “wildly inappropriate” for a State Department official to be recommending contractors to lobbyists with business before the department.

But there’s more to it. Who, after all, is Ariuna Namsrai, with whom Winer is on a “hugs” basis?

She is APCO’s managing director for Russia. Born in Mongolia, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

APCO is of particular interest because Winer was a senior director and “business diplomacy consultant” for the firm from May 2008 to August 2013. After he left the State Department in 2017, Winer returned to APCO as a “senior counselor.”

During his first stint, Winer worked with Namsrai representing a Russian nuclear power company called Techsnabexport. Or at least they did their best to make it appear they were primarily working for that company when they were actually working for the Russian government.

APCO’s 2011 Foreign Agents Representation Act filing names Techsnabexport as the “foreign principal” for which it was working. The firm described their client as “an open joint stock company wholly owned by the JSC Atomenergoprom.” In the fine print one discovers that that company in turn is “wholly owned by State corporation for Atomic Energy, ‘Rosatom,’ which is wholly owned by the Russian government.”

A “Contract for Lobbying Services and Consulting Services” was drawn up by APCO in April 2010, a copy of which was attached as a secondary appendix to the FARA filing. The “Scope of Work” includes “Creating and promoting a new image of State Atomic Energy corporation ‘Rosatom,” supporting “the interests of Rosatom in the USA,” and overcoming “existing political and trade barriers.

In October 2010, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States approved Rosatom’s controversial acquisition of Uranium One, a Canadian company with extensive mining projects in the US.

Namsrai did not respond to emails from RealClearInvestigations asking why APCO listed Techsnabexport as its “foreign principal” client and not the official Russian state nuclear power enterprise, Rosatom, and whether Steele performed any work for the company.

As Winer’s connections with Russia and the Steele dossier emerge, Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson says he wants to hear more from him. But, Johnson said, the committee’s ranking Democratic member, Gary Peters, is trying to derail his efforts to enforce the committee’s subpoena and interview Winer under oath. Peters’s spokesperson did not respond to questions from RealClearInvestigations.

“Among other issues, Mr. Winer’s admitted destruction of his records related to his contacts with Christopher Steele is concerning and deserves an explanation,” Johnson said. “I am looking forward to learning more from Mr. Winer in spite of Democrat attempts to further delay our investigation.”…Original Source…

Pence Aide: NBA Protest over Kenosha is ‘Absurd and Silly’

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Pence Aide: NBA Protest over Kenosha is ‘Absurd and Silly’

(Headline USA) Vice President Mike Pence‘s chief of staff said Thursday that NBA protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, are “absurd and silly.”

“If they want to protest, I don’t think we care,” Marc Short told CNN‘s “New Day.”

His comments came the day after the NBA postponed three scheduled playoff games, with the Milwaukee Bucks kicking off the boycott by refusing to leave their locker room for the game against the Orlando Magic. The players are demanding that lawmakers act to address alleged police brutality and racial injustice.

Players and teams from MLB, the WNBA, MLS and pro tennis sat out events Wednesday night, and NBA players and coaches met for nearly three hours to determine the next steps, including whether the season should continue.

“I don’t know that you are going to see the administration weigh in one way or the other. In my mind it’s absurd and silly,” Short said.

President Donald Trump, who was to deliver his renomination acceptance speech Thursday evening at a scaled-back Republican National Convention, has made restoring “law and order” to cities a centerpiece of his campaign during a summer of riots following the death of George Floyd, a black man who resisted arrest, whose killing by Minneapolis police in late May spurred national unrest.

Short also took aim at the NBA’s relative silence over human rights abuses in China, a key market for the league. The NBA last month faced scathing criticism from Republicans after an ESPN report that young participants in a league program in China were physically beaten by Chinese instructors and were not provided proper schooling.

Short also questioned why the league’s players and coaches have largely refrained from criticizing China’s human rights violations and from expressing support for Hong Kong.

The league and its players have been outspoken in calls for reforms in the aftermath of the killing of Floyd. The NBA has even incorporated its support for the Marxist Black Lives Matter movement into player uniforms and advertising.

“NBA players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they’re able to take a night off from work without having to have the consequences to themselves financially,’ White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told CNBC on Thursday.

In a separate appearance before an event hosted by Politico, Kushner said that he planned to reach out to Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James, an outspoken advocate for policing changes.

“Look, I do think that peaceful protest has a place and it has importance,” Kushner said. “But I do think that what we need to do right now is make sure that we take the anger that people have and we have to move from slogans to constructive solutions.”

Sen. Tom Cotton, a Trump ally, told Fox News that the reaction by NBA players to the incident in Kenosha was “premature.”

”We shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts,” said Cotton, R-Ark.

Adapted from reporting by Associated Press.

Corrupt WHO Expands ‘Social Listening’ Operations to Censor COVID Skeptics

Joshua Paladino
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Corrupt WHO Expands ‘Social Listening’ Operations to Censor COVID Skeptics

The World Health Organization announced in a press release titled “Immunizing the public against misinformation” that it is partnering with an analytics corporation to develop a “social listening” program.

The social listening program will look through social media posts to root out “coronavirus misinformation,” Reclaim The Net reported.

Already, the WHO has been deeply involved with selective fact-checking operations at social-media sites like Facebook, despite its links to helping the Communist Chinese Party downplay the virus early on. That cost valuable preparation time for other countries including the U.S.

President Donald Trump, after calling on the WHO to acknowledge its corruption and accept responsibility for its actions, subsequently sought to defund and withdraw from the United Nations-backed organization.

But its corrupt leadership has continued to lead the charge in promoting a false narrative that deflects from the true culprits while accusing others of spreading the lies.

“We’re not just battling the virus,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “We’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theorists that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response.”

The WHO claimed there is an “infodemic,” which the organization defines as “an overabundance of information and the rapid spread of misleading or fabricated news, images, and videos.”

Tim Nguyen, who works for the WHO’s Information Network for Epidemics, said that it is not effective enough for public health authorities to debate with critics of their orders, so they have to prevent criticism in the first place.

“Countering fake news or rumors is actually only responding or mitigating when it’s too late,” he said.

The WHO said that disorder was caused when rumors were spread about food shortages in the United States. They said these rumors led to hoarding and real shortages.

In a politically motivated example, the WHO noted that an Arizona couple drank fish-tank cleaner after President Donald Trump said hydroxychloroquine showed potential for treatment of COVID-19.

But the WHO neglected to mention that the woman, later identified as a radical left-wing activist with a history of lawsuits and mental illness, is now being investigated for foul play in the poisoning of her husband. And the case has become a textbook example of media gaslighting to promote a false anti-Trump narrative.

“What we’ve learned now, after two and a half months of doing this kind of analysis, is that there are recurring themes and topics that are coming back over and over again,” Nguyen said.

“What that means to us is that we need to re-push information at different times,” he said. “People may not understand it the first time when we push it, but when the questions and issues come up later, it means it’s time to push it out again.”

CDC: COVID Spurs Spike in Suicidal Thoughts; 4 in 10 Report Mental-Health Issues

Joshua Paladino
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CDC: COVID Spurs Spike in Suicidal Thoughts; 4 in 10 Report Mental-Health Issues

Business shutdowns and house-arrest orders stemming from the coronavirus have caused a significant spike in self-reported mental-health disorders, The Epoch Times reported.

In the June survey, 10% of respondents said they had considered killing themselves in the past month. In a 2018 survey, 1 in 20 people—only 5%—had contemplated suicide.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report on Aug. 14 that surveyed 5,412 in June, and 41 percent of respondents said they were suffering from “an adverse mental or behavioral health condition.”

Among young adults (18-24), the number of self-reported illnesses is at a crisis level, with 75 percent of people saying that they have a significant mental or behavioral problem.

Almost 31 percent of people reported anxiety or depression. More than 26 percent of people reported trauma or stress. More than 13 percent of people said they increase or initiated substance use “to cope with stress or emotions related to COVID-19.”

Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist who treats patients with stress and anxiety, said she has observed “a huge surge in depression, suicidality, and anxiety during the pandemic.”

Carole Lieberman, a doctor, psychiatrist, and author said citizens’ fear of the virus has been worsened by media.

“We’ve heard about the horrible, lonely deaths that patients with COVID-19 suffer because they’re in quarantine,” Lieberman said.

“Forced isolation through stay-at-home mandates can cause many physical and psychological problems including anxiety, depression, and suicide.”

Nicole Avena, assistant professor of neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City said the response to the virus has created its own set of challenges that “absolutely” constitute a national health crisis.

“People are worried about a possible second wave of the virus, but I can guarantee we will have a second wave of mental health crisis, which is already unfolding with increased suicides, drug overdoses, and alcohol use,” Avena said.

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