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Originally posted by dsiets:

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Granholm knows as much about energy policy as my cat knows about quantum physics.

A Schrodinger's cat joke. I see you.

Is Granholm stupid or ignorant? Open the box to find out.

BOTH!

Biden White House asked Facebook to tweak algorithm to push mainstream over conservative news: memo

New memos obtained by Congress Congress show White House wanted the public to see Wall Street Journal and New York Times stories instead of those from The Daily Wire and Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren.

https://justthenews.com/govern..._campaign=newsletter

The Biden White House inquired in meetings with Facebook executives asking whether Facebook could tweak its algorithm to showcase stories from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal over content posted by "polarizing" conservative journalists and commentators in early 2021, according to meeting notes the social media firm turned over to Congress that are alarming some constitutional lawyers. The alleged focus of the meetings was to assist the administration while it struggled to combat COVID vaccine hesitancy.

The memos, reviewed by Just the News, chronicle a series of meetings between White House digital director Rob Flaherty and executives from Facebook, now known as Meta, in spring 2021 as the first questions about the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccine began surging on social media.

The memos delivered recently under subpoena to the House Judiciary Committee make clear the White House was actively interacting with Facebook, and sometimes pressuring the social media giant to moderate content in a way that would encourage more Americans to get inoculations.

President Joe Biden would eventually mandate such shots for many Americans, though he was reversed by the courts and Congress.

On April 14, 2021, for instance, the White House's Flaherty asked Facebook whether it could promote The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal over The Daily Wire and Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren, according to Facebook meeting documents obtained by Just the News.

Flaherty asked Facebook employees “If you were to change the algorithm so that people were more likely to see NYT, WSJ, any authoritative news source over Daily Wire, Tomi Lahren, polarizing people. You wouldn’t have a mechanism to check the material impact?” according to Facebook's typewritten notes from the meeting.

Lahren had publicly announced she was choosing to skip taking the vaccine, and Daily Wire filed one of the landmark lawsuits challenge Biden's mandate that companies force their employees to get the shots as a term of keeping their jobs.

Prior to Flaherty’s question, he discussed COVID vaccine hesitancy with Facebook employees during the meeting, asking what the company was doing about it.

“We have to explain to President, Ron, people, why there is misinfo on the internet, bigger problem than FB,” Flaherty was quoted as saying. “Where issues are, what interventions are, how well they are working, for products, want to engage in things that you know to be effective. I don’t even care about specific methodology, you have better, richer data than we’ll ever have.

“What are the things driving hesitancy on your platform? What is it? How big is the problem? When you are intervening, how are you measuring success?” Flaherty was quoted as asking.

Flaherty is cited in the notes as asking the questions “because candidly there is not a lot of trust towards FB" and the Biden White House wanted to know whether the platform was "finding things that are effective that you aren’t doing” to combat resistance to the vaccines.

A Facebook employee in the meeting is quoted as explaining the platform's strategy on censorship and moderation, specifically citing Lahren's refusal to get the vaccine as an example.

“In terms of interventions, know that there are groups that are hot spots – mandatory post approvals – admins have to approve posts. If violating content approved, gives the group a strike. I’m uncovering new examples on comments – public figures on comments might be contributing more. Tomi Lahren posted on how she’s not getting the vaccine. Even with comment reduction, still struggling if we reduce comments from public figures, Tomi Lahren makes a post," the notes quoted the Facebook executive as saying.

Later, a Facebook employee explained that they “have hard policy constraints – things like Tomi Lahren’s post. Just want to be clear we haven’t declared victory,” the notes added.

Lahren told Just the News on Wednesday night she was disturbed but not surprised by the Biden White House's interest in her posts on Facebook.

“The fact that I’ve been living rent free in Biden’s head is flattering," she said. "But the fact his team would go to such great lengths to silence me for simply saying I won’t personally get the COVID vaccine is disturbing to say the least. Free speech is on its last leg under Joe Biden.”

Ben Shapiro, editor emeritus at The Daily Wire, also responded on Wednesday, telling Just the Newsthat his news outlet was exploring legal options.

"The Biden White House's pressure on Facebook to target Daily Wire for traffic reduction is an obvious, disgusting, and predictable First Amendment violation," Shapiro said. "Government action is still government action even when the government is cudgeling private corporations to do the dirty work of censorship.

"We sued the Biden administration to stop the OSHA vaccine mandate, and we're not afraid of taking them to court again to preserve free speech rights. We're looking into all available remedies as we speak," he added.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan said last week in a long thread on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that evidence his committee is assembling showed the Biden White House was pressuring Facebook to change moderation policies to address vaccine hesitancy in a way that threatened free speech.

"Never-before-released internal documents subpoenaed by the Judiciary Committee PROVE that Facebook and Instagram censored posts and changed their content moderation policies because of unconstitutional pressure from the Biden White House," Jordan tweeted.

"During the first half of 2021, social media companies like Facebook faced tremendous pressure from the Biden White House—both publicly and privately—to crack down on alleged ‘misinformation,’" he continued. "In April 2021, a Facebook employee circulated an email for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, writing: ‘We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House’ to remove posts."

Constitutional law professors denounced the White House’s actions outlined in the new memos obtained by Just the News, saying they smacked of censorship and raised serious First Amendment issues.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told Just the News on Wednesday, “This is why I have asked Congress to pass a law barring federal employees from engaging in censorship and targeting of citizens. Agencies have a right to speak in their own voices. Instead, the Biden Administration sought to engage in what I have called ‘censorship through surrogate.’ This is part of that pattern."

Normally, private companies cannot be held accountable for First Amendment violations, however the law provides an exception when a private entity is acting "under color of law." University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds told Just the News on Wednesday that the First Amendment issue is when the “government is asking people to censor speech, their action is attributable to the government, so both they and the government can be sued.”

He believes that The Daily Wire and Lahren could “and probably should” sue the federal government and Facebook over the censorship.

While Reynolds noted that it is “expensive to sue the government and Facebook,” both entities “have a lot of money,” so if The Daily Wire and Lahren win, then it’s “not bad.” However, he added that it’s “harder to get relief against the government than companies.”

“By working with the government, Facebook exposed themselves to liability,” Reynolds said, noting that they do not “share sovereign immunity” with the government and will “probably very much regret it.”

The White House and Meta, which owns Facebook, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

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Today, Joe Biden celebrated his 365th day on vacation since taking office — 39.4% of his presidency.

The more vacation he takes, the better off the country is.

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Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Granholm knows as much about energy policy as my cat knows about quantum physics.

There's an overstatement if I ever saw one.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Today, Joe Biden celebrated his 365th day on vacation since taking office — 39.4% of his presidency.

The more vacation he takes, the better off the country is.

He's not running anything anyway, his handlers are.

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Originally posted by Gustofer:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Today, Joe Biden celebrated his 365th day on vacation since taking office — 39.4% of his presidency.

The more vacation he takes, the better off the country is.

He's not running anything anyway, his handlers are.

Exactly. It is irrelevant how many 'vacation days' he takes, except that each day out of the public eye is one less day he can publicly creap on little girls, fall down a flight of steps, or otherwise make a complete fool of himself.

I said it since 'inauguration day' - I have NO IDEA who our (real) president is. biden is PINO (president in name only), but he is not, and HAS NOT, been in control of anything.

I fully admit to not reading the last few pages of this thread and certainly not the whole thread so please forgive me if this has been brought up -
WTF was Barry doing while Slo-Joe was selling the country’s policies to every country on the planet willing to pay for it??

Joe did this and Joe did that, WTF was Barry doing?
He didn’t know, didn’t care, got 20%+ for The Bigger Guy??
Where was the Krimson Kenyan while all this bullshit was going on?
Has anyone asked about it?

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Originally posted by KMitch200:
I fully admit to not reading the last few pages of this thread and certainly not the whole thread so please forgive me if this has been brought up -
WTF was Barry doing while Slo-Joe was selling the country’s policies to every country on the planet willing to pay for it??

Joe did this and Joe did that, WTF was Barry doing?
He didn’t know, didn’t care, got 20%+ for The Bigger Guy??
Where was the Krimson Kenyan while all this bullshit was going on?
Has anyone asked about it?

My opinion is that when the Republicans start subpoenaing people, they should subpoena Obama and ask him if he knew of Biden's dealings. God Bless

Like all mobsters, criminals, scumbags, liars, cheats, swindlers, con-men, low-lifes and reprobates, the Crimson Kenyan knew and approved of it all as the USA was his ‘turf’ so to speak, and as such was getting his cut of ALL of the racket / action being run under his regime.

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Originally posted by dsiets:
Is Granholm stupid or ignorant? Open the box to find out.

Anyone who lived in Michigan whiles he was our Governor would be tempted to say both, but the reality is that she is just evil and is doing it on purpose with a goal behind it.

Remember how B. Hussein O's documents went expeditiously to his Presidential Library and were immediately untouchable?

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Originally posted by Rightwire:

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Originally posted by dsiets:
Is Granholm stupid or ignorant? Open the box to find out.

Anyone who lived in Michigan whiles he was our Governor would be tempted to say both, but the reality is that she is just evil and is doing it on purpose with a goal behind it.

Yup, a typical, radically misguided lib/progressive who probably got all A's in school, they're everywhere

^^^Just because you're educated, doesn't mean you're smart!

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On one hand, the Biden administration wants to stop all oil and gas production. On the other, it wants do everything it can to avoid the consequences of that policy, which requires it to get oil from somewhere.

The Biden administration had been set to buy 6 million barrels of oil as part of an effort to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Oil prices shot up over $80 per barrel last week, and the administration canceled the purchase.

Now with prices at the pump up $0.30 over the last month, some are wondering if the administration will tap America’s dwindling reserves to bring gas prices back down and avoid upsetting voters, which is what led to this situation in the first place.

The cancellation is reflective of an inconsistency in the administration’s policies. On one hand, the administration wants to stop all oil and gas production. On the other, it wants do everything it can to avoid the consequences of that policy, which requires it to get oil from somewhere.

After Draining Oil Stockpile, Biden Walks Tightrope To Avoid Upsetting Voters

Looks like a significant number of Dems would want this clown impeached; the damage he’s done on so many fronts is unimaginable.

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Originally posted by TMats:
After Draining Oil Stockpile, Biden Walks Tightrope To Avoid Upsetting Voters

Looks like a significant number of Dems would want this clown impeached; the damage he’s done on so many fronts is unimaginable.

These articles are really underselling the risk taken by this foolish administration. We're on the cusp of peak hurricane season which is September 10th and most occur +/- 3 weeks of that date.


The SPR has 4 sites on the Gulf Coast which is important as the Gulf Coast is the largest refinery cluster in the western hemisphere. Combined, the Gulf Coast refineries can refine an entire 2 million barrel super tanker every 5.17 hours. Therefore, if ports are damaged by a hurricane then withdrawing crude oil out of the SPR is vital for the economy while the ports are repaired. Hurricanes Katrina, Ike, and Gustav are good examples of SPR post-hurricane drawdowns.

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Originally posted by Tatortodd:
These articles are really underselling the risk taken by this foolish administration.

I see your point, but look at it from the perspective of Cowboy State Daily. From day one, Biden and his minions have made clear their objective, to stop all oil and gas production (and coal mining), while trying through use of the SPR to blunt the political ramifications of their policies. Wyoming is very dependent on fossil fuels: oil, gas, and coal, and Biden has depressed our state’s economy by his actions, while trying to escape the consequences. The article was never intended to dive deep into the many negative effects of his actions, rather to remind Wyoming voters what he hath wrought.

Remember... they WANT you to consider electric vehicles as the better option.

They have absolutely no motivation to keep gas prices down or assure there is a plentiful stock.

From the article linked by TMats:

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“President Biden is once again helping our enemies by denying Americans access to the resources we need. We currently import three times as much uranium from Russia as we produce,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, said in a statement.

The Biden administration also has blocked projects to develop critical minerals needed for solar panels, wind turbines and electric vehicles.

So, they're actually just against energy, period. But we need to "electrify" everything.

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So, they're actually just against energy, period.

Actually, yes. They don't want people to have the ability to freely move around so much.
This "15-minute city" concept is part of the globalist agenda.

What is the 15-minute city strategy?

The 15-minute city concept revolves around creating cities where residents can access essential goods and services within a 15-minute radius from their homes by foot, bike or public transit.