Last Thursday, the Cincinnati Enquirer published a piece regarding school board candidates’ use of the cash-transfer app Venmo for donations, which may potentially violate Ohio state finance law, given that it went into personal accounts.

The article involved candidates for the Lakota Local School District board of education; the district, in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, is one of many which has seen a pitched battle over whether critical race theory is being and should be taught in its schools.

The piece would have mainly been a boring one — it didn’t identify either of the candidates facing questions about their financing, Darbi Boddy and Russ Loges, as being anti-critical race theory.

However, in a painful lapse of journalistic ethics, the Enquirer decided they would leave a donor’s home address visible on a screenshot of the Venmo transactions page, essentially doxing them.

INBOX: The Cincinnati Enquirer just doxxed a middle class family from West Chester over the school board issue. Here’s a redlined screenshot of the main page on their website. pic.twitter.com/lljGbM4VGZ

— John Ashbrook (@JohnAshbrook) October 29, 2021

Study: Americans with J&J COVID Vaccine 3.7 Times More Likely to Develop Blood Clots Than Average Person

“The Cincinnati Enquirer just doxxed a middle class family from West Chester over the school board issue,” political strategist John Ashbrook tweeted.

According to Fox News, the images were later taken down from the Enquirer’s website — although conservatives were outraged.

Should newspapers be allowed to dox people in this way?

“This is absolutely unacceptable,” said J.D. Vance — author, Ohio senatorial candidate and Cincinnati native.

“I’d expect national journalists to harass families, but not our local paper.”

Another Ohio GOP Senate candidate, former Ohio Republican Party chair Jane Timken, noted these were the same kind of activist parents being called “domestic terrorist[s]” by certain groups.

This is absolutely unacceptable. I’d expect national journalists to harass families, but not our local paper. https://t.co/lClNzizfWM

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) October 29, 2021

Labeled a ‘domestic terrorist’, doxxed by the media – THIS is what concerned parents are dealing with when they’re just trying to exercise their right to free speech, have a say over their children’s education, and protect their kids.

Absolutely unacceptable. https://t.co/N6TjlExrfX

— Jane Timken (@JaneTimkenOH) October 29, 2021

New Investigation Debunks Pathetic McAuliffe Lie That ‘CRT is Not Taught in VA Schools’

Gannett, which owns the Enquirer, noted the screenshot was erased from the article quickly after it garnered online attention — but offered an odd excuse for revealing the family’s address.

“The cropping of the promo image was corrected immediately although campaign donations are public record,” a Gannett spokesperson said, according to Fox.

This is indeed accurate. There a lot of things you do that are public record — that also shouldn’t be amplified to the world by the biggest media source in Cincinnati, or in any other city. Most people don’t seek that information out, but the Enquirer served it to its readership on a platter. That they can’t see the problem there is just as disconcerting as the fact they amplified it in the first place.

The story in its original form is available on Archive.is with the screenshot in place. The image is thoroughly unnecessary to the story. The two individuals mentioned are running for three open seats on the Lakota board, and while their sympathies aren’t mentioned in the story, they aren’t a mystery to voters or to Enquirer writers Erin Glynn and Madeline Mitchell.

Furthermore, given the tenor of school board debates, the decision to use the screenshot — and not vet whether or not the addresses or names were visible — is a mistake that can’t just be wallpapered over by saying, “yeah, but it’s public record.”

From the sounds of things, Boddy and Loges should have been more careful in terms of how they accepted campaign donations via Venmo. The article can serve as a warning to parent activists — dot your I’s and cross your T’s when it comes to campaign finance.

However, the story quickly became a major newspaper’s decision to dox donors in a contentious campaign and then hide behind a public record defense. That reasoning is inexplicable, particularly given how little the screenshot contributed and the obvious utility of the information for bad actors. This is doxing and targeting, plain and simple. The Cincinnati Enquirer needs to acknowledge that.

The vaccine mandate recently implemented by the Biden administration is costing jobs and affecting the U.S. economy, said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) in an interview with NTD.

President Joe Biden on Sept. 9 announced sweeping COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal workers and contractors, and set a Dec. 8 deadline. Federal workers and contractors under the mandate won’t have the option to submit weekly COVID-19 tests and instead have to get vaccinated or seek a religious or medical exemption.

Norman said the mandate is creating a “huge issue” in South Carolina where essential workers such as engineers have walked off jobs and military families have come under pressure.

“It affects their livelihood, food on the table, not to mention their retirement,” said Norman. “This is a man-made crisis.”

Norman also cited “millions” of illegal immigrants entering the United States without needing proof of COVID-19 vaccination or having received a negative test.

“If it’s so important that Americans get vaccinated and to cause people to lose jobs again, how is it not important for the millions coming into this country?” said Norman.

President Joe Biden has presided over what is on track to be the worst border crisis in U.S. history in terms of the number of illegal immigrants that U.S. agents and officers have encountered. The number topped 200,000 in both July and August.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki in September had defended the Biden administration’s decision not to require negative COVID-19 test results or proof of vaccination from people illegally crossing the U.S.–Mexico border.

Psaki, responding to a question from a reporter on whether border patrol officials ask to see proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or negative test results “if somebody walks into the country, right across the river,” said illegal immigration is not comparable to foreign nationals who arrive by airplane to the United States.

In August, 40 percent of illegal immigrants released in Texas city had tested positive for COVID-19.

Regarding the Biden administration’s enforcement of the vaccine mandate for employers with 100 or more employees, Norman said private companies are “being held hostage” while postal unions were exempt from the mandate.

“It’s been a pick and choose, it’s been a sham show that this administration continues to do,” stated Norman. “They say one thing and do opposite.”

A U.S. Postal Service (USPS) spokesman told The Epoch Times in September that the USPS is not one of the agencies compelled to require COVID-19 vaccination.

The USPS, with more than 630,000 employees, is an independent agency of the Executive Branch.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/rep-norman-vaccine-mandate-is-a-man-made-crisis-affecting-u-s-economy_4079275.html

McAuliffe took $350,000 donation from a foreign-owned company linked to an overseas money laundering probe

A government watchdog group hit Terry McAuliffe with a campaign finance complaint on Friday over a $350,000 donation he received from a foreign-owned company linked to an overseas money laundering probe, according to a copy of the filing obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The National Legal and Policy Center is asking the FEC to “promptly investigate” whether the contribution to the Virginia gubernatorial candidate violated federal laws prohibiting campaigns from accepting political donations from foreign nationals.

“Terry McAuliffe has a history of accepting foreign contributions.  The FEC must fully investigate these serious charges that he accepted $350,000 in illegal foreign contributions for his current campaign,” said Washington, D.C. attorney, Paul Kamenar, counsel to NLPC, who drafted and filed the complaint with the FEC.

LycaTel LLC, owned by Sri Lankan-British national Allirajah Subaskaran, gave McAuliffe $350,000 in July, the Free Beacon first reported in early October. The company is a New Jersey subsidiary of Subaskaran’s U.K.-based telecom conglomerate, which boasts a complicated web of offshore businesses and has been the subject of tax-fraud and money-laundering charges in France.

Federal law prohibits campaigns from accepting money from foreign nationals and entities, directly or indirectly, in local, state, and federal elections. While U.S.-based subsidiaries of foreign corporations can contribute, the donation can’t be made under the direction of the company’s foreign leadership—which legal experts said can be a murky legal distinction.

“This is effectively a really easy way to launder foreign money into the U.S. political process and to avoid the FEC prohibition on foreign nationals making contributions in U.S. elections,” Ben Freeman, director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, told the Free Beacon earlier this month.

LycaTel does not appear to have contributed to previous Virginia campaigns or federal races. In July, the company retained D.C.-based lobbyist Robert Thompson to lobby on “Telecom” issues, according to disclosure records. Prior to that, Thompson had registered as a foreign agent representing Subaskaran as part of a “business expansion within the U.S.A.,” according to records filed with the Department of Justice.

Thompson was a lobbyist for the Sri Lankan government from 2013 to 2014, according to disclosure records. Thompson did not respond to a request for comment about his lobbying work.

Subaskaran, through his WWW Holding Company and other entities, owns a globe-spanning web of companies in the technology, media, and gaming sectors, many of them with the word “Lyca” in the names. The Lyca group has clashed with British authorities over allegations of unpaid taxes. French authorities in 2016 raided LycaMobile’s Paris headquarters and arrested “19 people suspected of being involved in a money-laundering system implicating Lycamobile and Lycamobile Services,” according to a statement from French prosecutors.

LycaMobile couriers in 2015 were photographed transporting tote bags of cash—reportedly as much as $1 million per week—to various post offices around the United Kingdom, according to a series of articles by BuzzFeed. LycaMobile denied any wrongdoing related to the deposits and noted that it operates a cash-heavy business.

LycaTel’s operations in the United States have come under scrutiny as well. The Federal Communications Commission in 2011 fined the company $5 million for “deceptively marketing prepaid calling cards” to largely immigrant buyers. The company reportedly claimed the low-cost cards could be used to make “hundreds of minutes of calls” overseas, but buyers were only able to use “a fraction of those minutes for calls, because LycaTel applies a variety of fees and surcharges that quickly deplete the card,” said the FCC.

LycaTel did not respond to emailed questions. When reached by phone earlier this month, LycaTel’s general counsel said the company had no comment on the donation and was “waiting to hear back from management as to what they want to disclose and what they don’t.” McAuliffe’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

McAuliffe and Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin will face off at the polls on Nov. 2.

Note: This piece was originally published on Oct. 30, 2021, at 8:30 a.m. 

https://freebeacon.com/democrats/watchdog-hits-mcauliffe-with-campaign-finance-complaint/

John Thornton has ties to Chinese propaganda group, Belt and Road projects

The namesake of the Brookings Institution’s China Center chairs a company that facilitates investments in China’s global infrastructure initiative and has served on the board of an alleged Chinese propaganda agency, facts that were not disclosed in Brookings literature on those topics.

John L. Thornton, the chairman emeritus of the Brookings board of trustees, has served since 2016 as chairman of the Silk Road Finance Corporation, a Communist Party-backed fund that develops projects for the Belt and Road Initiative, which the U.S. government considers a national security threat. He is on the board of China’s Confucius Institutes, which Beijing allegedly uses to advance propaganda in American schools. Scholars at Brookings’s John L. Thornton China Center have defended “Belt and Road” and Confucius Institutes without disclosing that Thornton serves on organizations that support the initiatives.

Brookings and other prominent think tanks in recent years have come under intense scrutiny amid concerns that they serve as shadow lobbying organizations for their corporate and foreign government donors. The Chinese government’s partnerships with think tanks have especially drawn scrutiny because of Beijing’s intense foreign propaganda efforts. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Brookings partnered with Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, which the FBI has investigated for spy activity. Brookings and the academy have hosted multiple forums in recent years to encourage Belt and Road projects in the Middle East.

Thornton, a former president of Goldman Sachs, has since 2004 given at least $16 million to Brookings, including $5 million to form the China Center, according to Brookings’s annual reports.

Thornton’s perch at Brookings and his ties to Wall Street have given him extensive access to Chinese government officials. He reportedly spent six weeks this summer meeting officials in Beijing and Xinjiang as part of unofficial backchannel diplomatic talks. Thornton reportedly consulted with the White House before he made the trip, suggesting that he had some approval from the Biden administration.

Thornton, who in 2008 was awarded China’s friendship medal, in 2018 formed a consortium of Wall Street bankers to maintain dialogue with their Chinese counterparts amid escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing. Wall Street sees China as an untapped investment opportunity, while critics fear that investments in China will create national security risks and make companies beholden to the authoritarian Chinese government.

A leading transparency watchdog group says think tanks like Brookings are vulnerable to foreign overtures because of their ability to influence public policy. At least 17 Brookings scholars have joined the Biden administration. Former Brookings China fellow Rush Doshi serves as director of the National Security Council’s China portfolio.

“The more prestigious you are, that means you’re more of an attractive target for an international player like China, Saudi Arabia,” said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the government affairs manager at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “The more well known you are, the more well-connected you are, the more prestigious you are, as a think tank, the more you’re likely going to have these overtures and entanglements.”

One intelligence analyst says that Thornton’s recent visit to China, during which he met with Chinese vice premier Han Zheng, undercut U.S. policy and aided China’s propaganda efforts.

“It’s very problematic for a soft-on-China individual with conflicts of interest to visit China for negotiations,” said Anders Corr, an intelligence analyst with the Journal of Political Risk. “Thornton did his own country a disservice while selfishly putting himself into the limelight,” said Corr, who also blasted Thornton for visiting Xinjiang, where the Chinese government carries out genocide against Uyghur Muslims.

While Brookings scholars have at times criticized China for its human rights abuses, scholars with the China Center have defended the institutions linked to Thornton.

David Dollar, a senior fellow at the China Center, in a report last year urged U.S. officials to “dial down anti-China rhetoric” regarding the Belt and Road Initiative. He also called the popular criticism of Belt and Road as a debt trap for poor countries “exaggerated.”

Jamie Horsley, another Brookings scholar, in an essay this year defended Confucius Institutes against allegations that they serve as espionage hubs for the Chinese government. Cheng Li, the director of the China Center, decried a growing divide between U.S.-China education exchange programs in a piece also published by the website for the China-United States Exchange Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the Communist Party. Li supports cultural exchange programs, which U.S. counterintelligence officials have said are hotbeds of Chinese espionage activity.

The China-United States Exchange Foundation has given Brookings at least $500,000 since 2005. CIA director William Burns testified this year that when he served as president of Carnegie Endowment, another Washington, D.C., think tank, he severed ties with the foundation over its influence activities.

Thornton’s position at Silk Road Finance Corporation may pose an even bigger conflict of interest for Brookings.

Silk Road Finance vice chairman Shan Li in 2016 and 2017 attended forums that Thornton hosted for an exclusive group of former American government officials, Chinese officials, scholars, and business leaders. Li serves on the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a Chinese Communist Party-backed advisory group that supports Silk Road Finance. The Chinese government says the conference is an “important organ” for the Communist Party.

Former U.S. government officials, including Jon Huntsman and Janet Napolitano, attended the 2016 event, as did Commerce Department official Stefan Selig. Then-Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe (D.) attended the 2016 event. The Chinese delegation consisted of several Chinese university officials, the director at the official think tank for the People’s Liberation Army, and then-Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai.

Cui has expressed gratitude to Brookings for the work the institution has done on U.S.-China relations. “I also want to thank the Brookings Institution for its long-term support for the development of the China-U.S. relationship,” he said at a webinar hosted by Brookings in August 2020.

Officials with the International Monetary Fund, which monitors the success of Belt and Road projects, attended the events alongside Li. The president of the China Development Bank, one of the largest funders of Belt and Road projects, attended the 2017 forum. Silk Road Finance in 2016 partnered with the China Development Bank and other investors to build renewable power plants in Kuwait.

Li’s position with Silk Road Finance is disclosed in literature for the forums, while Thornton is identified only by his position at Brookings.

Javier Solana, a distinguished fellow at Brookings, serves as international adviser for Silk Road Finance, though Brookings’s biography for Solana lists numerous other affiliations. Solana “provides counsel” on research programs at Brookings and participates in policy debate.

Andrea Risotto, a Brookings spokeswoman, said that the Brookings China forums were held to bring “together stakeholders from the United States and China to foster greater understanding on pressing issues of the day and to develop pragmatic and innovative ideas on how to solve problems facing society.”

Risotto also said Brookings prohibits its donors and board members from influencing its scholars’ research and policy recommendations.

“Moreover, our supporters, including our Board of Trustee members, have a responsibility to safeguard the independence of the institution,” Risotto told the Free Beacon.

“Our bylaws explicitly prohibit the Board or its members from determining, controlling, or influencing how research is conducted or the conclusions reached.”

But Brookings has faced accusations in the past of tailoring its research and programming to the demands of its corporate and foreign donors. The New York Times reported in 2016 that Brookings promoted a project to support Lennar Corporation after the home builder donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the think tank. Brookings officials also lobbied the State Department on behalf of the Norwegian government, another major donor to the think tank.

Brookings has faced other conflict of interest allegations for its China-related activities. The Washington Post reported in 2018 that Brookings published a report sponsored by Huawei, the Chinese telecom giant that has since been blacklisted by the U.S. government. The report praised surveillance equipment used in African cities but failed to disclose that the products were Huawei’s. Huawei donated $300,000 to fund the report.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/brookings-institution-boosts-china-initiatives-linked-to-board-member/

Former President Donald Trump, who earlier this year foretold of the gas price increases that have rocked Americans, now says $10 a gallon gas could be coming to Joe Biden’s America.

Trump was interviewed Saturday by Fox News host Jeanine Pirro.

During the wide-ranging interview, Pirro noted President Joe Biden’s comment in a recent town hall event that there was little he could or would do concerning rising gasoline prices.

“No, he doesn’t have any idea. Look, one of the things I was most proud of, our country became energy independent. We didn’t need the Middle East. We didn’t need Russia. We didn’t need anybody. We had our own — we had more than them,” Trump said.

Trump said his administration intentionally made energy independence a goal.

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“We were number one by far over Saudi Arabia and, you know this, and Russia. Number one by far. I had the pipelines going, Keystone XL pipeline. Amazingly, I ended the Russian pipeline. I was not good to Russia. I got along well with Russia. I got along well with Putin, but they weren’t happy with Trump. I can tell you that,” he said.

“But Biden opened up this big massive pipeline all over Europe, but he closed down the XL, and I have to say, because you heard it a thousand times, more importantly, we’re energy independent no longer. I was so proud of that,” Trump continued.

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Trump said that gas prices on his watch hit $1.87 a gallon.

“And now, yesterday, they had in a certain section of California $7.70,” Trump said.

“It’s always the lead. It’s going to follow, and it’s going to go a lot higher than that, and Biden sent people to go see Russia, Saudi Arabia and other members of OPEC that we need help, because we don’t have enough.”

“Now when you talk about inflation, the biggest factor in my opinion is no energy. The trucks, the factories, everything, the deliveries, the planes, everything — it is so energy-based that the energy now is so expensive to get. We don’t have enough oil,” he said.

Trump said he used the time when the nation’s Strategic Reserves of oil had been depleted to buy oil while the price was low.

“I never got credit. I don’t think anybody has ever mentioned it, but I bought 75 million barrels, I believe it was. Seventy-five million barrels, which is a massive order. It was good for two things. The prices got so low that it was hurting our energy jobs, and we bought it cheap as hell,” he said.

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Although Biden says the most he could do would be to trim prices by a few cents, Trump said that if he was in the White House, he could do a lot more.

“I could get that down within six months. I’ll bet you I could get it down to $2, $2.50,” he said.

But Trump said with Biden at the helm, the price of gas is only going to rise.

“It’s going to be over $10,” Trump said, indicating the Biden does not know how to lower prices.

Trump in March had predicted gas prices would soar. During an interview with Maria Bartiromo of Fox News, Trump said then that the price of gas could hit $5.

“Gas prices are going up at a far more rapid rate than anybody’s seen in a long time. We had gas prices very low, and yet we had more energy jobs than we’ve ever had,” said Trump, speaking at a time when the average price of gas was $2.879 per gallon.

“[T]hey will be going up by $1, $2, $3, if you look at that, and it’s bigger than a tax increase to the consumer,” he said

“You get a dollar increase in gasoline, that is bigger than a tax hike — than a big tax hike. So, it’s a terrible thing that is happening,” Trump said then.

Giggles, snickers and some awkwardness greeted Facebook’s decision to change its corporate name to Meta.

Jokesters poked fun at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, because “meta” is pronounced like the feminine form of the Hebrew word for “dead,”, according to the Times of Israel.

“In Hebrew, *Meta* means *Dead*,” Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt, a tech expert, tweeted on Thursday. “The Jewish community will ridicule this name for years to come.”

In Hebrew, *Meta* means *Dead*
The Jewish community will ridicule this name for years to come.

— Nirit Weiss-Blatt, PhD (@DrTechlash) October 28, 2021

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Other social media users piled on.

Meta means “dead” in Hebrew (feminine adjective).
Mark Zuckerberg must have slept through Hebrew class. pic.twitter.com/B7W9273EGK

— Emmanuel Navon עמנואל נבון 🇮🇱 (@emmanuelnavon) October 28, 2021

The funniest thing that happened was the creation of META

Make Everything Trump Again

Mark Zuckerberg is likely kicking stuff around the office right now
Oh, and BTW, #meta means “dead” in Hebrew

Zuck must’ve been asleep that day during religion class#MakeEverythingTrumpAgain pic.twitter.com/ewGV5M2cUT

— Lisa Ann Michael 🚂🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@TheBronxxKid44) October 29, 2021

Facebook changing their corporate name to Meta isn’t going to change the underlying facts. They’re a monopoly. They crush competition. And they refuse to control the spread of misinformation and harmful content on their site. We need to break up Facebook. pic.twitter.com/Gha9PUxAoz

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 29, 2021

We are very honoured that @facebook felt inspired by the logo of our migraine app – maybe they’ll get inspired by our data privacy procedures as well 👀 🤓
#dataprivacy #meta #facebook pic.twitter.com/QY7cota36r

— M-sense Migräne (@msense_app) October 29, 2021

Facebook Just Officially Changed Its Name

Zuckerberg said the name Facebook does not cover “everything we do” at a time when his empire includes Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, its Quest VR headset, its Horizon VR platform and more. Zuckerberg explained that the metaverse is a form of the virtual world where everyone is connected by virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses and phone apps.

Sounds chic. But the label? Aye, there’s the rub.

In Portuguese and Spanish, the word is not so troubling because it means “goal.” In Brazil, however, the word has a sexual connotation, according to Bloomberg.

Zuckerberg’s announcement was a boon for Nova Scotia-based Meta Materials. The company’s stock rose 26 percent in after-hours trading on Thursday, when Zuckerberg made his announcement, and another 6 percent on Friday, according to Reuters.

George Palikaras, the CEO of Meta Materials, tweeted a metaverse welcome to Facebook.

On behalf of @Metamaterialtec I would like to cordially welcome @Facebook to the #metaverse. #GoBeyond $MMAT #AR #VR Meta, meet META® 🙂 https://t.co/8gOgkYTvSl pic.twitter.com/2i2PMKwzFA

— George Palikaras (@palikaras) October 28, 2021

Name changes can often fail in translation.

Kentucky Fried Chicken learned that when it entered the Chinese market in the 1980s, according to the BBC.

The restaurant’s “finger lickin’ good” motto, when translated into Mandarin, came out “eat your fingers off.”