Media Ethics - Speaking About News

Captain Anonymous Exposes Lapsed Media Ethics

October 30, 2020

Tim Graham, It was the wrong time for 33-year-old Miles Taylor to announce he is the much-celebrated “Anonymous” Trump official who wrote a New York Times op-ed and then a New York Times-bestselling book in …

FBI Finally Looking Into Voter Fraud

A tidal wave of reports over alleged voter fraud and other irregularities in the 2020 election cycle should keep FBI investigators busy for the foreseeable future, that is if FBI Director Christopher Wray’s investigators care to look. The FBI has been accused of turning a blind eye as hundreds of witnesses step forward and mountains of evidence pile up suggesting a lot of funny business took place during the Nov. 3 election. But could that be changing? Matt Braynard, a former data chief and strategist for the Trump campaign, and his team at The Voter Integrity Project have conducted a review of ballot and election results in the 2020 election. Braynard went through his team’s work in a recent video, revealing the troubling findings his team uncovered in the course of their research. Braynard now says the FBI has reached out to him and his team asking for them to hand over evidence underlying their findings. According to Braynard, his team’s findings have been or will be included in court filings in the states of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona. The Voter Integrity Project discovered several irregularities and significant discrepancies in states where Biden leads the president by a narrow margin. Braynard calls the findings extremely accessible and easy to understand, characterizing his work as something separate from conspiracy theories or other complicated statistical analyses that are difficult for the layperson to understand. Perhaps that’s why the FBI is interested in taking a look at Braynard’s work. “Everything I brought to you here is incredibly accessible. It’s all easy to understand,” said Braynard. Among the recommendations that Braynard has for election reforms going forward is the use of a third party to audit state registration files. Braynard also encourages states to authenticate requests for absentee ballots and attach dates of birth to voter records. Braynard suggests the use of fingerprints to match absentee ballot requests to registered voters. He also called for election equipment to use open source software so that election data can be reviewed. Braynard says more details about his findings will be released in the coming days, including a white paper and audit of his team’s work. The full video of Braynard outlining his team’s findings is available here.
Trump: DOJ ‘missing in action’ on alleged election fraud

Trump says he has ‘not seen anything’ from DOJ or FBI on investigating the 2020 election! President Trump told “Sunday Morning Futures” in his first interview since Election Day that the Department of Justice is “missing in action” regarding alleged election fraud. He went on to tell host Maria Bartiromo in the exclusive interview that he has “not seen anything” from the DOJ or the Federal Bureau of Investigation on investigating the 2020 election. “You would think if you’re in the FBI or Department of Justice, this is the biggest thing you could be looking at,” Trump said. “Where are they? I’ve not seen anything.” “They just keep moving along and they go on to the next president,” he continued. Trump, who has yet to concede to President-elect Joe Biden, went on to stress that he believes “this election was a fraud,” adding that he thinks it was “rigged,” claims he has repeatedly made. Trump’s legal team is attempting to prove through various legal battles that the president is the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, despite Biden being the projected winner. “I ask, are they [DOJ and FBI] looking at it? Everyone says, ‘Yes, they’re looking at it,’” Trump said on Sunday. “Look, where are they with [Former FBI director James] Comey, [former FBI Deputy Director Andrew] McCabe and all of these other people?” “They lied to Congress, they lied, they leaked, they spied on our campaign,” he added, referencing the Russia probe. He went on to ask, “Where are they with all of this stuff? And what happened to [U.S. Attorney John] Durham? Where’s Durham?” Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Russia probe remains “full steam ahead,” a source familiar with his progress told Fox News earlier this month, despite concerns from Republicans and Trump allies that the probe has been dormant following Election Day. Another source told Fox News that his investigation “is definitely still happening,” despite radio silence coming from the U.S. attorney from Connecticut. Durham’s investigation has produced one criminal charge so far, against former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who was accused of altering an email related to the surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide. That prosecution, though, did not allege a broader conspiracy within the FBI, and the conduct it involved had largely been laid out in a Justice Department inspector general report from last December. After the Clinesmith charge, Durham’s team went silent. Two sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News over the summer that Durham was not finished with several lines of investigation, which he believed were “critical.” On Sunday, Trump also slammed the machines from Dominion Voting Systems. “All I can say is I haven’t heard, with all of the fraud that’s taken place, nobody has come to me and said, ‘Oh, the FBI has nabbed, you know the people that are doing this game. The FBI is looking at Dominion,’ which nobody even knows where they’re based, which nobody even knows where the votes are counted.” Earlier this month, election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems responded to allegations made by President Trump’s top lawyers, who claimed election fraud and foreign interference were conducted through the voting software. Sidney Powell, an attorney on Trump’s election legal team, claimed to have found massive election fraud. “What we are really dealing with here and uncovering more by the day is the massive influence of communist money through Venezuela, Cuba and likely China in the interference with our elections here in the United States,” Powell said. She attempted to link election software in several states with a company founded “at the direction” of former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013. Dominion has repeatedly rejected accusations about vote switching and software issues. The company’s international headquarters are in Toronto, where it was founded in 2002, and its U.S. base is in Denver. “The latest flood of absurdities is deeply concerning, not just for Dominion but also for our dedicated state and local partners and the electoral process on whole,” the voting software company said in a statement following a press conference when Trump’s team made the allegations. “Dominion is plainly a nonpartisan American company with no ties to Venezuela or Cuba,” the statement continued. “Vote counts are conducted by county and state election officials, not by Dominion, or any other election technology company – our systems support tabulation by those officials alone.” Powell has said that the votes for the U.S. election were counted in countries such as Spain and Germany. Dominion spokesperson Michael Steel flatly rejected this notion during an interview with Fox News last week. “What’s going on in this country is not to be believed,” Trump said on Sunday. He went on to ask, “Why isn’t the FBI all over the place?” “They’re not, they’re not, it’s an incredible thing,” Trump continued. “They’re not and it’s an embarrassment to our country.” Fox News’ asked the DOJ and FBI for comment and whether they are investigating alleged voter fraud, but did not immediately hear back.
2020 Election May Be Biggest Presidential Theft Since 1824

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is an authority on American history. When it comes to the 2020 election, he is convinced that fraud took place and that we as a country, haven’t seen anything like it in almost 100 years. Gingrich made his case on Twitter. If only cranks find the tabulations strange, put me down as a crank Patrick Basham, To say out-loud that you find the results of the 2020 presidential election odd is to invite derision. You must be a crank or a conspiracy theorist. Mark me down as a crank, then. I am a pollster and I find this election to be deeply puzzling. I also think that the Trump campaign is still well within its rights to contest the tabulations. Something very strange happened in America’s democracy in the early hours of Wednesday November 4 and the days that followed. It’s reasonable for a lot of Americans to want to find out exactly what. First, consider some facts. President Trump received more votes than any previous incumbent seeking reelection. He got 11 million more votes than in 2016, the third largest rise in support ever for an incumbent. By way of comparison, President Obama was comfortably reelected in 2012 with 3.5 million fewer votes than he received in 2008. Trump’s vote increased so much because, according to exit polls, he performed far better with many key demographic groups. Ninety-five percent of Republicans voted for him. He did extraordinarily well with rural male working-class whites. He earned the highest share of all minority votes for a Republican since 1960. Trump grew his support among black voters by 50 percent over 2016. Nationally, Joe Biden’s black support fell well below 90 percent, the level below which Democratic presidential candidates usually lose. Trump increased his share of the national Hispanic vote to 35 percent. With 60 percent or less of the national Hispanic vote, it is arithmetically impossible for a Democratic presidential candidate to win Florida, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico. Bellwether states swung further in Trump’s direction than in 2016. Florida, Ohio and Iowa each defied America’s media polls with huge wins for Trump. Since 1852, only Richard Nixon has lost the electoral college after winning this trio, and that 1960 defeat to John F. Kennedy is still the subject of great suspicion. Midwestern states Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin always swing in the same direction as Ohio and Iowa, their regional peers. Ohio likewise swings with Florida. Current tallies show that, outside of a few cities, the Rust Belt swung in Trump’s direction. Yet, Biden leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin because of an apparent avalanche of black votes in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee. Biden’s ‘winning’ margin was derived almost entirely from such voters in these cities, as coincidentally his black vote spiked only in exactly the locations necessary to secure victory. He did not receive comparable levels of support among comparable demographic groups in comparable states, which is highly unusual for the presidential victor. We are told that Biden won more votes nationally than any presidential candidate in history. But he won a record low of 17 percent of counties; he only won 524 counties, as opposed to the 873 counties Obama won in 2008. Yet, Biden somehow outdid Obama in total votes. Victorious presidential candidates, especially challengers, usually have down-ballot coattails; Biden did not. The Republicans held the Senate and enjoyed a ‘red wave’ in the House, where they gained a large number of seats while winning all 27 toss-up contests. Trump’s party did not lose a single state legislature and actually made gains at the state level. Another anomaly is found in the comparison between the polls and non-polling metrics. The latter include: party registrations trends; the candidates’ respective primary votes; candidate enthusiasm; social media followings; broadcast and digital media ratings; online searches; the number of (especially small) donors; and the number of individuals betting on each candidate. Despite poor recent performances, media and academic polls have an impressive 80 percent record predicting the winner during the modern era. But, when the polls err, non-polling metrics do not; the latter have a 100 percent record. Every non-polling metric forecast Trump’s reelection. For Trump to lose this election, the mainstream polls needed to be correct, which they were not. Furthermore, for Trump to lose, not only did one or more of these metrics have to be wrong for the first time ever, but every single one had to be wrong, and at the very same time; not an impossible outcome, but extremely unlikely nonetheless. Atypical voting patterns married with misses by polling and non-polling metrics should give observers pause for thought. Adding to the mystery is a cascade of information about the bizarre manner in which so many ballots were accumulated and counted. The following peculiarities also lack compelling explanations: 1. Late on election night, with Trump comfortably ahead, many swing states stopped counting ballots. In most cases, observers were removed from the counting facilities. Counting generally continued without the observers 2. Statistically abnormal vote counts were the new normal when counting resumed. They were unusually large in size (hundreds of thousands) and had an unusually high (90 percent and above) Biden-to-Trump ratio 3. Late arriving ballots were counted. In Pennsylvania, 23,000 absentee ballots have impossible postal return dates and another 86,000 have such extraordinary return dates they raise serious questions 4. The failure to match signatures on mail-in ballots. The destruction of mail in ballot envelopes, which must contain signatures 5. Historically low absentee ballot rejection rates despite the massive expansion of mail voting. Such is Biden’s narrow margin that, as political analyst Robert Barnes observes, ‘If the states simply imposed the same absentee ballot rejection rate as recent cycles, then Trump wins the election’ 6. Missing votes. In Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 50,000 votes held on 47 USB cards are missing 7. Non-resident voters. Matt Braynard’s Voter Integrity Project estimates that 20,312 people who no longer met residency requirements cast ballots in Georgia. Biden’s […]
President Trump fights back on Wis., Pa.: We have found many illegal votes

President Trump promised to challenge the Wisconsin vote count after the recount there, and said his campaign is disputing a number of votes larger than President-elect Joe Biden’s winning margin. “The Wisconsin recount is not about finding mistakes in the count, it is about finding people who have voted illegally, and that case will be brought after the recount is over, on Monday or Tuesday. We have found many illegal votes. Stay tuned!” the president tweeted Saturday afternoon. Biden picked up 132 more votes after an election recount in Milwaukee County, one of two places in Wisconsin where Trump spent $3 million to force a recount. In Dane County, another Democratic stronghold in Wisconsin, votes are still being tallied in a count expected to last into the weekend, but Trump has gained 68 votes over Biden so far. Trump is gearing up for yet another legal battle, this time to toss tens of thousands of ballots in the state Biden clinched by nearly 20,600 votes, with margins in Milwaukee and Dane counties about 2-to-1 for the Democrat. The deadline to certify the votes, which will be done by the Democratic chair of the bipartisan Wisconsin Election Commission, is Tuesday, but the Wisconsin Voters Alliance, a conservative group, has filed a lawsuit against election officials, seeking to block the process. Later Saturday, the president tweeted about Pennsylvania, saying he could prove fraud. “Specific allegations were made, and we have massive proof, in the Pennsylvania case. Some people just don’t want to see it. They want nothing to do with saving our Country. Sad!!!” Trump said. “The number of ballots that our Campaign is challenging in the Pennsylvania case is FAR LARGER than the 81,000 vote margin. It’s not even close. Fraud and illegality ARE a big part of the case. Documents being completed. We will appeal!” he continued. The Trump campaign has been looking ahead to a potential Supreme Court case after a panel of federal appeals judges in Pennsylvania dismissed the campaign’s lawsuit claiming voter fraud in the presidential election. “The campaign’s claims have no merit,” the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled Friday, despite Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani arguing to a lower court that widespread voter fraud occurred in a state where President-elect Joe Biden won by just over 80,000 votes. The Trump campaign has the option of asking the U.S. Supreme Court for emergency injunctive relief, which would go to Justice Samuel Alito, who would then likely ask his eight colleagues to weigh in. “The activist judicial machinery in Pennsylvania continues to cover up the allegations of massive fraud. We are very thankful to have had the opportunity to present proof and the facts to the PA state legislature. On to SCOTUS!,” Jenna Ellis, Trump’s attorney and campaign adviser, said in a statement on Twitter after the court ruling. Meanwhile, Trump’s attorneys have targeted absentee ballots in which voters identified themselves as “indefinitely confined,” allowing them to cast an absentee ballot without showing a photo ID; ballots that have a certification envelope with two different ink colors, indicating a poll worker may have helped complete it; and absentee ballots that don’t have a separate written record for the request, such as in-person absentee ballots. Election officials have tallied those ballots during the recount but marked them as exhibits at the request of the Trump campaign. Trump’s campaign challenges have failed in courts elsewhere, with experts widely concurring that there’s no proof of GOP claims of widespread voter fraud. Legal efforts to date have been unsuccessful in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania.