ABC silent after Biden town hall attendees identified as ex-Obama speechwriter, wife of prominent Democrat

ABC is keeping silent amid growing criticism of its town hall with Joe Biden after two of the attendees who asked the Democratic nominee questions were identified as an Obama speechwriter and the wife of a prominent Pennsylvania Democrat. 

One of the questioners was Nathan Osburn, who worked for the Office of Public Affairs at the Commerce Department under the Obama-Biden administration and at the Small Business Administration. 

Osburn's profession was listed as "communications" on a graphic and his home city was listed as Philadelphia.

Another questioner was Mieke Haeck, who ABC identified as a physical therapist from State College, Pa.

Haeck is also the wife of Ezra Nanes, who in 2018 ran for Pennsylvania state Senate Republican Majority Leader Jake Corman. Nanes is currently an at-large member of the Centre County Democratic Committee.

Nanes praised his wife's appearance at the town hall on Twitter.

"Our children and I are so proud of our @MiekeHaeck for her courage in asking this question of @JoeBiden and so grateful to our next President for his caring and decisive answer in support of transgender and all LGBTQ people," Nanes wrote.

When reached for comment, ABC News directed Fox News to statements by town hall moderator George Stephanopoulos at the beginning of the event.  

"Some are voting for [Biden], some have said they're voting for President Trump, some are still undecided, and we're going to try to take questions from as many as we can tonight," Stephanopoulos told viewers.  

ABC News declined additional comment.

Fox News reached out to the Biden campaign, Osburn and Haeck for comment and did not immediately receive a response. 

Stephanopoulos, who was previously a communications director for the Bill Clinton White House, was also criticized for failing to ask Joe Biden about the explosive New York Post report about Hunter Biden, his overseas business dealings and their potential connection to his father, then-Vice President Biden.

This isn't the first time ABC landed in hot water over one of its town hall events. Last month, The Washington Free Beacon reported that at least two of the so-called "uncommitted voters" who participated in its town hall with President Trump had engaged in liberal political activism or criticized the president on social media.

One of them, Kutztown University professor Ellesia Blaque -- who grilled President Trump on the subject of health care -- expressed her intention to volunteer for Kamala Harris' presidential campaign in a January 2019 tweet. In other tweets, Blaque trashed the president as "pathetic," "a f---ing moron," a "pig," and a "swine." Meanwhile, she identifies as a "liberal Democrat" on her Facebook page.

The other was Philadelphia pastor Carl Day, who was also labeled an "uncommitted" voter by ABC News, but tweeted just last month that he had "never once supported trump and won't now. What I will do is call them out of their foolery."

In another tweet, Day referred to the Trump slogan "Make America Great Again" as a time when "the n-----s did what they were told in all industries, wouldn't have the audacity to try to enter a white [sic] establishment and didn't talk back to the cops." Day also suggested that Trump is a "villain."

During the town hall, Day pressed Trump on his MAGA catchphrase, asking him when has America "been great for African-Americans in the ghetto of America" and whether he was aware of "how tone-deaf that comes off to African-American communities."

 

Twitter and Facebook Anti-Conservative Cartoons

 

President Trump: If Big Tech persists, we must strip them of their Section 230 protections

 

FILE – In this March 29, 2018, file photo, the logo for Facebook appears on screens at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York’s Times Square. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

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UPDATED 3:45 PM PT – Thursday, October 15, 2020

On Thursday, President Trump slammed Big Tech companies for their alleged censorship. During his latest rally in North Carolina, the President threatened to possibly strip tech giants of their Section 230 protections.

The legislation effectively shields platforms like Twitter and Facebook from being held liable for posted content. It also protects them from being held accountable for censoring or not censoring certain content.

It’s meant to protect free speech while allowing tech giants to mitigate hate speech or violence. However, President Trump and other officials have argued it’s actually enabled platforms to block or remove political speech without retribution.

“If Big Tech persists, in coordination with the mainstream media, we must immediately strip them of their Section 230 protections,” stated the President.

He went on to say when the government granted these protections, they created “a monster.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has also criticized Twitter and Facebook for blocking a story on Joe and Hunter Biden’s corrupt dealings. The social media giants blocked the New York Post’s story earlier this week, citing concerns it may contain “hacked material.”

On Thursday, the senator stated the social media giants’ decision to block or allow content as they please is “reprehensible.” McConnell added he supports the calls by some senators to subpoena Twitter executive Jack Dorsey.

“Whether one approves of the information or not, if you selectively suppress information, that’s censorship,” he said. “In this country, we’ve always advocated competition of ideas.”

According to Republican senators, this latest controversy shows a deepening pro-Democrat bias among the top leadership of Twitter and Facebook.

MORE NEWS: Twitter Under Fire For First Amendment Suppression

Why Twitter and Facebook squelching the Hunter Biden story backfired

It quickly became clear that in their attempts to strangle the Hunter Biden story, two social media giants left themselves gasping for air.

Twitter and Facebook took major steps to squelch the New York Post piece, but wound up giving it far more attention than if they had done nothing and let their millions of users share it freely.

For Twitter in particular, if you had to come up with a plan to reinforce conservative complaints about its liberal bias, you could hardly do better than for the tech giant to lock the Trump campaign’s account. Not to mention that of press secretary Kayleigh McEnany as well.

Hashtag: #Fail

In fact, Twitter chief Jack Dorsey admitted in a tweet that the company’s conduct--censoring stories and locking accounts with little public explanation--was “unacceptable.” You got that right, Jack. But then he didn’t do anything to fix it, apparently viewing the self-inflicted wound as just a PR problem. Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans plan to subpoena Dorsey next week.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook was only slightly more restrained, limiting the Post story’s distribution through its secret algorithm while referring it to an outside fact-checker--the results of which are still not in. Uh, how many negative stories about Trump have both companies tried to silence, no matter what the sourcing?

No wonder President Trump was telling a North Carolina rally yesterday that “the Bidens got rich while America got robbed...Big Tech is censoring these stories to try to get Biden out of this impossible jam.”

It was a gift from the social media gods.

And you know who else is blacking out the story? CNN and MSNBC, except for a couple of parenthetical mentions and Joe Scarborough briefly scolding the two tech companies for blocking the story.

As for the Post story itself, well, it’s a strange one.

First let me say that the business that Hunter Biden did or attempted to do in Ukraine and elsewhere while his father was vice president was an embarrassment. He was profiteering on a family connection, which may be common in Washington but is no less seedy. He admitted to a mistake months ago in a “GMA” interview while insisting he had done nothing unethical.

But this was pretty fully aired during the Trump impeachment saga, and I think much of the public concluded that Joe Biden didn’t take explicit steps to help his son (yes, he got that prosecutor fired in what he says was an anti-corruption drive), but probably looked the other way.

Now, less than three weeks before the election, Rudy Giuliani obtains and gives the Rupert Murdoch tabloid email exchanges with Hunter in which an executive from the Ukrainian company Burisma (Hunter served on the board) thanked him for the opportunity to meet his father, then the VP. 

The Biden campaign said no such meeting took place, then backtracked slightly to say it’s possible but unlikely there was a brief hello at some point.

How the president’s personal lawyer got those emails is a tangled tale involving John MacIsaac, who runs a computer repair shop in Wilmington. He told reporters he is legally blind, and thinks but is not certain, that Hunter Biden brought in three laptops with hard drive problems and never returned to pick them up. MacIsaac, a Republican, says he discovered some of these emails and eventually told the FBI, keeping a copy when the bureau subpoenaed it. 

Giuliani told Sirius XM yesterday that Hunter was drunk when he brought in the laptops. The Post was tipped off by Steve Bannon, who is under indictment in an unrelated case.

Separately, the New York Times, which had reported that Burisma was hacked by Russian intelligence, said yesterday that U.S. intelligence analysts picked up chatter that stolen Burisma emails would be leaked in the form of an “October surprise.” Just in case there wasn’t enough intrigue.

The Post separately reported Hunter’s correspondence with Chinese executives in which Hunter Biden stood to make millions from a deal--but these emails were from 2017, after his father left office.

In an interesting twist, two reporters who questioned the initial Post story on Twitter--the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Politico’s Jake Sherman--took heat from the left for daring to mention its existence. 

Liberal Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, for instance, wrote: “You're really going to help Giuliani and Bannon launder this bull-- into the news cycle?” A senior producer for MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell urged people not to share or link to the story.

The better journalistic response to a story that is viewed with suspicion is to do more reporting. 

The attempts at erasing it from the digital square, as Twitter and Facebook are finding out, can backfire big time.

 

New Hunter Biden emails detail dealings with Chinese energy firm, Burisma executive

Newly obtained emails provide more details about Hunter Biden’s purported overseas business dealings dating back to 2015, including alleged efforts to secure a lucrative relationship with a Chinese energy firm and discussions with top Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi.

One email, dated May 13, 2017, and obtained by Fox News, includes a discussion of “remuneration packages” for six people in a business deal with a Chinese energy firm. The email appeared to identify Biden as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC,” in an apparent reference to now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy Co.

The email includes a note that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate.” A proposed equity split references “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” with no further details.

The second email, dated Aug. 2, 2017 and sent by “Robert Biden,” involves a deal where it appears Hunter Biden is seeking at least $10 million per year. 

“Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV’s investments,” the email read.

The New York Post was first to publish the emails.

Fox News' “Tucker Carlson Tonight” obtained another email, dated Nov. 2, 2015, from Pozharskyi to Biden and his former business partner Devon Archer. In the email, Pozharskyi told Biden and Archer that he wanted to "be on the same page re our final goals” with Blue Star Strategies Group, a consulting firm purportedly linked to Biden.

“The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay's issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” Pozharskyi wrote in an apparent reference to Burisma’s founder, Nikolai Zlochevskyi.

Biden’s overseas business dealings drew renewed scrutiny following the New York Post’s publication of a 2015 email purportedly exchanged between him and an executive at Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings. At the time, Biden served on the company’s board of directors.

In the email published by the New York Post, Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, thanked Biden for introducing him to then-Vice President Joe Biden. Less than a year after the meeting took place, Biden is accused of pressuring the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor who had launched an investigation into Burisma.

Joe Biden’s campaign has repeatedly denied that either the Democratic presidential candidate or his son engaged in any wrongdoing.

Jamal Brown, the Biden campaign national press secretary, told the news outlet Cheddar, that the reports were untrue. He praised Twitter for being skeptical of the reporting. He said Twitter's reaction makes clear that “the purported allegations are false and they’re not true and glad to see social media companies like Twitter taking responsibility to limit misinformation.”

Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, said in a statement, "Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as 'not legitimate' and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.”

 

Twitter announces new policies after Hunter Biden report imbroglio

A top policy executive at Twitter announced policy changes at the social media giant late Thursday after the company faced its toughest allegations yet of censorship in order to protect Democratic candidates.

Vijaya Gadde, the legal, policy and trust & safety lead at the company, announced that some of the changes will include its approach to “hacked content” and how it shares links on its platform.

“All other Twitter Rules will still apply to the posting of or linking to hack materials, such as our rules against posting private information, synthetic and manipulated media, and non-consensual nudity,” she posted.

The social media giant became the story when it reportedly decided to block a story.

The New York Post on Wednesday released a bombshell report just weeks before the presidential election that purported to show emails between Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and a Burisma official while his father was vice president under Barack Obama. The Ukrainian businessman thanked Hunter Biden for apparently accommodating a meeting with his father, according to the report.

Joe Biden’s detractors said the emails obtained by the Post, at the minimum, raise new questions about the former vice president's character. Joe Biden has insisted that he has played no role in his son’s business career and never spoke to his "son about his overseas business dealings.” These emails may challenge those claims.

Andrew Bates, a spokesman from the Biden campaign, said in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, that the Post "never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story. They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani — whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported — claimed to have such materials.”

“Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting," as alleged by the paper, ever took place, Bates said.

The Post later said that Bates’ statement did not deny the meeting, and pointed to a report in Politico that said his campaign indicated that a meeting could have occurred, but in passing.

The Post followed up Wednesday with an article focused on the tech platforms’ purported “censorship.” And Thursday’s print cover of the tabloid shows a photo of Biden and his son with a big blue “CENSORED” stamp and the headline “Facebook and Twitter block Post expose on Hunter Biden files.”

Critics of Twitter point to the company's apparent willingness to allow Chinese and Iranian state media to push content across its platform and allowed countless unverified allegations about President Trump during the Robert Mueller investigation into Russian interference.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey addressed the controversy surrounding actions the company took on Wednesday, calling them "unacceptable." 

"Our communication around our actions on the @nypost article was not great," he tweeted. "And blocking URL sharing via tweet or DM with zero context as to why we’re blocking: unacceptable."

The Senate Judiciary Committee leaders announced that they will vote on a subpoena for Dorsey to testify before the committee on Friday, Oct. 23. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he hoped the committee would vote to subpoena Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, too. 

Gadde said that Twitter will no longer remove hacked content unless it is “directly shared  by hackers or those acting in concert with them.” And said the company will “label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared on Twitter.”

She thanked those who provided the feedback and admitted that “context moderation is incredibly difficult, especially in the critical context of an election.”

Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Trump, took to Twitter on Wednesday,  and called  for the immediate investigation into Twitter.

“Not just because of their blatant election interference to protect Biden, but to find out if they’re censoring these NY Post stories at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. Put Jack under oath!”

A Twitter spokesperson told Fox Business that as of now the company will continue to censor the article on Hunter Biden from being shared “as the materials in the article still violate our rules on sharing personal private information.”

But the spokesperson indicated that the approach may change in the future.

Fox News' Nick Givas, Fox Business' Hillary Vaughn and the Associated Press contributed to this report

 

Antifa BLM Cartoons

 

Antifa rioters who targeted Portland cafe 'solidified' his Trump vote, military veteran says

A Portland café owned by a military veteran was targeted over the weekend by demonstrators. (John Jackson)

A cafe owned by a military veteran was shot at during a chaotic demonstration in Portland over the weekend after being deemed by rioters as unfriendly to the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Heroes American Cafe was targeted for being an "unfriendly business" by so-called Antifa-linked Twitter accounts, owner John Jackson told Fox News. 

Two windows in the cafe's downtown location were shot at and another was struck with a blunt object -- possibly a baseball bat -- said Jackson, a Black man who served in the Army and Marine Corps.

"I think it's more psychological," he said. "When I first came here [Portland] about 10 years ago, it was one of the most accepting cities that I knew of."

Two windows at Heroes American Cafe in Portland were boarded up Monday after rioters targeted the business over the weekend.  (John Jackson)

 Two windows at Heroes American Cafe in Portland were boarded up Monday after rioters targeted the business over the weekend.  (John Jackson)

A tweet posted Thursday by @DublinPDX said the cafe gives its profits "to their heroes... cops" and railed against businesses that support law enforcement. 

"We're trying to compile a list of all non-friendly businesses in PDX," read a screenshot of another tweet. "AKA any company that's hanging blue lives garbage in their store or anything else that's anti the BLM movement. Drop them below."

Jackson said his businesses support all heroes -- which includes police officers, military personnel, veterans, nurses and firefighters. 

"We're for all heroes and we don't support zeroes," Jackson said. "So if you're a bad cop, we don't really have time for you. If you're walking your beat and you're taking care of your people or you're saving lives, we love you."

Demonstrators gathered in Portland on Sunday for a "Day of Rage" rally that saw rioters engaging in vandalism and the toppling of two statues of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt.

A Portland café owned by a military veteran was targeted over the weekend by demonstrators. (John Jackson)

Despite the damage, the cafe's downtown location was open Monday. No arrests have been made in the vandalism.

Portland has endured more than 100 consecutive nights of violent protests and riots that began with the police-involved death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. 

Jackson said he voted for President Trump in 2016 with some reservations, but made up his mind after his cafe was damaged. 

"This solidified my Trump vote," he said. "I'm done with this weakness and we need some real strong leadership."

 

John Jackson