[FoxNews] CBS News’ Race and Culture Unit needs to sign off on show scripts that could potentially offend particular viewers, according to a former staffer with knowledge of the process.
A former CBS employee told Fox News Digital the broadcast network's Race and Culture Unit vetted "basically every story" that could potentially be considered culturally sensitive.
The former employee said show producers were "required" to send drafts of show scripts to an email chain with members of the Race and Culture Unit as well as the standards and practices unit and could only proceed if they signed off.
CBS News’ Race and Culture Unit has emerged as a hot-button issue in recent days after a report that "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil found himself in hot water for asking questions that were not cleared by the network’s Race and Culture unit.
Dokoupil sparked an internal uproar earlier this month when he interviewed author Ta-Nehisi Coates about his book, "The Message," which delved into his travels to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Dokoupil told Coates his heavily anti-Israel book – which has been criticized for omitting significant context about Palestinian terrorism and the Jewish state's extraordinary security situation – read like something you would find in "the backpack of an extremist." Dokoupil, who is Jewish, also pushed him on whether he believes Israel has the right to exist.
After news broke that liberal staffers objected to Dokoupil’s line of questioning, Puck media reporter Dylan Byers reported that the Race and Culture Unit didn’t approve of the anchor’s actions.
"Last Tuesday, while the CBS News leadership was consumed with the network’s vice presidential debate, the issue was elevated to the network’s Race and Culture unit, which was formed in the summer of 2020, amid the George Floyd reckoning, and determines whether the ‘tone, content, and intention’ of any segment or package are suitable for the network’s air," Byers reported.
"The unit, led by Alvin Patrick, determined that while Dokoupil’s questions and intentions were acceptable, his tone was not," Byers added. "Meanwhile, the network’s Standards and Practices division, led by Claudia Milne, determined that Dokoupil had not followed the preproduction process wherein questions are run through Race and Culture and Standards and Practices."
CBS leadership informed staffers that Dokoupil’s interview didn’t meet the company’s "editorial standards," the Free Press reported, which obtained audio of a staff meeting.
The CBS News Race and Culture Unit has "a four-pronged role at CBS News and Stations as a reviewer, an incubator, a producer and a library," according to the CBS website. The unit sees its primary role as a reviewer to "ensure all stories have the proper context, tone and intention."
CBS News did not respond to a Fox News Digital request when asked if "basically every story" needs to be vetted by the Race and Culture Unit.
The New York Times previously reported that Dokoupil ultimately had to meet with both the CBS News standards and practices team and the Race and Culture Unit following the interview.
Dokoupil eventually expressed regret for the interview causing tumult, but not for his line of questioning, according to the New York Times.
#1
The only surprise here is that it's coming to light. People who watch CBS uncritically are now beginning to wonder about the network. The rest of us are saying, "Told you."
Whatever could have made Tony Dokoupil think he could practice actual journalism at CBS? How did he even get where he is if he didn't know better?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/12/2024 12:07 Comments ||
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I’m Brian Gordon, tech reporter for The News & Observer, and this is Open Source, a weekly newsletter on business, labor and technology in North Carolina.
…In separate mine news, the government is not seizing private property in Chimney Rock, North Carolina, to build a lithium mine. Several people on social media have tied the ongoing permitting process for lithium mining in Kings Mountain (50 miles away) to a supposed land grab in storm-affected Chimney Rock, which local and state officials assure isn’t happening.
Rumor: The government is seizing land in Chimney Rock to get the critical metal lithium.
Facts: The government is not seizing land in Chimney Rock to obtain lithium.
On Oct. 8, Republican U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards, who represents Western North Carolina, released a statement debunking several Hurricane Helene myths. His first fact-check focused on a prominent rumor about lithium and a small Rutherford County town that was devastated by the storm.
“Local officials have confirmed the government is NOT seizing Chimney Rock,” Edwards wrote. “There was no ‘special meeting’ held in Chimney Rock between federal, state or local governments about seizing the town.”
False news of lithium inspiring a government land grab spread in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene on X, Facebook, and TikTok. “Lithium, that’s why they’re doing it,” is how one person opens her TikTok video, which has since garnered 20,600 likes. Some of the posts referred to an Oct. 2 public meeting during which officials supposedly discussed seizing private property after rushing waters leveled most of Chimney Rock’s Main Street.
The next day, Rutherford County Emergency Management offered clarification on Facebook, stating, “These claims are entirely false.” The department said town officials had met with state, county, and federal leaders on Oct. 2 about coordinating support after Helene.
Lithium is not currently mined in North Carolina, but two companies want to start digging for it.
In 2015, a Charlotte-based resource company called Albemarle purchased a former lithium mine about 30 mile west of Charlotte in the small city of Kings Mountain. Albemarle currently operates the only active U.S. lithium mine, in Silver Peak, Nevada, but the dormant Kings Mountain mine could eclipse Silver Peak’s output by a factor of 10.
A different Charlotte-area lithium company, Piedmont Lithium, is lobbying to dig a brand new mine in Kings Mountain.
Lightweight with a high-voltage capacity, lithium is an ideal component in electric vehicle batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are also crucial to cell phones, laptops, cameras, toys, medical devices, and other electronics. In North Carolina, a series of forthcoming lithium projects has positioned the state as a key player in the emerging “EV battery belt” forming across the Southeast United States.
In late September, Albemarle submitted permits to the state and federal governments in its pursuit to restart the Kings Mountain mine (which is currently a 163-foot-deep lake). The company submitted these permits days before Helene passed over Western North Carolina, and some noted this chronology in posts about a Chimney Rock land grab.
More than 50 miles separate Chimney Rock and Kings Mountain.
As it tries to reopen the mine, Albemarle currently refines imported lithium at its Kings Mountain facility. In a statement to The News & Observer on Wednesday, the company said this plant “did sustain a period of power loss from Hurricane Helene; however the site facilities were not otherwise impacted.”
The site has since resumed normal operations, the company said.
#3
^ Some have. My experience with the Tubbs fire is that getting back to property is a long process. Just getting to the property through several N Guard security checkpoints was tedious. Don't get me going on going through govt bureaus to try to get anything done.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
10/12/2024 10:07 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I'm no fan of Blackrock but other than that I'm not sure I see the problem here. Is mining lithium any worse than mining uranium or even coal for that matter? Is it worse than drilling oil wells? Should we let the Chinese corner the market on lithium and use slaves to mine it? I dunno.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/12/2024 12:13 Comments ||
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[X] I need help in identifying who wrote this stunning article below, wish to give them credit.
Since 2009, Dominion Voting Systems operated from 215 Spadina Ave., Toronto, ON, M5T 2C7,Canada — an office space of the radical Tides Foundation. This building houses (or housed until a few months ago) a Toronto office of Tides Canada and a Tides’ incubation space for leftist groups.
Dominion Voting Systems Corp. is the Canadian company behind the ballot switching software.
Dominion was founded in 2003, with a mission to provide electronic voting systems friendly for progressives. Because of such partisanship, it languished with almost no customers for the next 5-6 years, until the Obama administration came to power.
In 2010, the Obama administration confiscated electronic voting systems assets (software, intellectual property, manufacturing tools, customer base, etc.) from two established American companies, and gave them to Dominion. At the same time, Dominion got some employees and assets from a foreign EVS company, tied to Hugo Chavez.
Its software has been used by some 40% of the voters in this elections, mostly by Democrat-controlled states and election commissions. Apparently, no protections were put in place against ballot switching, deletion, or creation. According to Dominion’s own website, it software was used in "battleground" states and the largest Democrat states, including MI, GA, AZ, NV, NM, CO, AK, UT, NJ, CA, NY.
Dominion Early History
Dominion Voting System Corp., was founded in Canada in 2002-2003 with an openly progressive mission — to develop electronic voting software which would not just process ballots, but also "mobilize voters" — a popular slogan of the Left.
It is not clear what products or services the company has developed. It found almost no buyers, until Obama was elected in 2008. In 2009, New York ordered a few dozens of systems from it. In 2010, Obama’s DOJ (Holder — Mueller) took the EVS unit, purchased from Diebold, away from the market leader ES&S, and gave it to Dominion. This gift included the installed base of about 30% of the US electronic voting systems (EVS) market. Within two weeks, Dominion also acquired Sequoia, which was formally spun from Smartmatic, but ties between these two companies remained.
Smartmatic is a UK based EVS vendor, whose software was used by Chavez to "win" the Venezuelan referendum in 2004. Smartmatic’s unit Sequoia faced troubles in the US. Those troubles quickly ended when its assets were purchased by Dominion.
Thus, the new Democratic party created a pocket pet corporation, gave it the lion share of the US electronic voting systems market. Dominion is ideologically aligned with the Democratic Party, owes it everything it has, dependent on it for most of its business, and needs it in power to avoid prosecution for corruption. Sounds like a conflict of interest.
Electronic Voting
Using electronic voting machines has always been controversial. The pros for electronic voting — saving working time of the ballot counters — are minuscule. The cons however are infinite. Because software is inherently complex, non-transparent, and volatile, there is always a risk of significant errors. There are also suspicions and doubts about election results. The complexity of software and hardware on which voting machines run has been continually increasing, aggravating these concerns.
At the beginning of 2009, there were four major US EVS suppliers: ES&S, Premier (a unit of Nixdorf-Diebold), Sequoia (linked to Smartmatic), and Hart Intercivic. The market size was a few hundred million dollars a year and growing. EVS vendors competed among themselves and against traditional pen and paper voting. There were no barriers to entry for other competitors, other than government’s regulations.
Electronic voting, which sounded like a good idea in the 1980s is so no more. Electronic voting machines and their vendors were under criticism for many years. In 2007-2008, this criticism materialized in the SEC, DOJ, and states lawsuits against the voting machines vendors. Diebold was catching flack for having a prominent Republican party supporter among their top executives. It spun its EVS unit as a separate company Premier, and was looking for a buyer. The existing vendors were burdened with liabilities, including DOJ investigations. This opened up an opportunity for the Obama administration.
Technical Vulnerabilities of EVS Systems
The voting software developers can easily insert code, changing numbers in favor of or against one candidate. No hacking is necessary. The malicious code can be designed to pass tests and to be triggered only at the time of a real election, automatically or manually. Both case are possible even the the machine is disconnected from the internet and has no ordinary I/O devices.
The malicious code can be activated manually in real time by inserting a ballot or another paper with a pre-defined QR or image code. An audit of the source code is necessary, but not sufficient. Dominion software runs on Windows, and the malicious code can be hidden in any part of the operating system. Malicious code can be hidden in the firmware, too.
If a state wants to take risks and to rely on testing and the source code audit, they should be conducted with the participation of technically competent representatives of both parties. If the system passes testing and auditing, the machine image must be securely stored. All supplied machines must have exactly the same hardware and the software as the audited system.
As far as I know, thorough tests and source code audits are conducted very rarely, if at all. Further, the vendors are not required to use only the audited image, and are allowed to update the software almost at will. That means that election commissions are forced to blindly trust the vendors. Blind trust is always wrong and invites abuse. But even "trust but verify" is applicable only to trustworthy vendors. Dominion Voting is the opposite of trustworthy.
The only real solution to the vulnerability of EVS is not to use them at all. Manual ballot counting has no software vulnerabilities, and is much cheaper. Virginia appears to be the only state that decided to use only manual ballots.
How Dominion went from nothing to everything in two weeks
In September 2009, ES&S acquired Premier [8], without any objections from the DOJ. But in March 2010, the Obama’s DOJ (Eric Holder — Robert Mueller) forced ES&S to "sell" Premier’s assets to Dominion, but to keep its liabilities. In addition, ES&S was forced to license to Dominion some of its software, in perpetuity and free of charge. The pretext for the DOJ action was antitrust.
The "Sale"
This is how the assets transfer was structured, per DOJ [1] (March 8, 2010). "WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice announced today that it will require Election Systems & Software (ES&S) to divest voting equipment systems assets it purchased in September 2009 from Premier Election Solutions Inc. in order to restore competition.
The assets to be divested include the means to produce all versions of Premier’s hardware, software and firmware used to record, tabulate, transmit or report votes, including the Assure 1.2 system, and a license to better serve disabled voters. The department said that today’s settlement will restore competition in voting equipment systems in the United States... "
"In order to restore competition" sounds funny, because the same document also required ES&S to not compete against the buyer (with exceptions).
"... the acquisition substantially reduced competition as it combined the two largest providers of systems used to tally votes in federal, state and local elections in the United States. ES&S’s acquisition of Premier made ES&S the provider of more than 70 percent of the voting equipment systems in the United States. The department said that because the cash value of the deal between ES&S and Premier was $5 million, far below the mandatory reporting threshold for mergers under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, the department’s investigation of the transaction did not begin until the companies had combined their assets and dismantled many of Premier’s operating divisions."
Sounds like a poor pretext. The DOJ has been investigating these companies even before the merger, and was aware of it. Further, the DOJ does not allege that the merger has not been reported. Even so, why not simply demand unrolling the merger? The DOJ provides a poor excuse to demand divestiture rather than a normal unrolling.
"Under the terms of the settlement, ES&S must divest all of the intellectual property associated with all versions —past, present and in development —of the Premier voting equipment systems to another company. ES&S also must divest all Premier tooling and fixed assets, as well as inventory of parts and components. In order to allow the divestiture buyer to better serve disabled voters, ES&S must also grant a fully paid-up, irrevocable, perpetual license to use the AutoMARK, ES&S’s ballot marking device for which Premier had a limited license prior to the acquisition. The buyer of the divestiture assets will have the right to modify and improve both Premier products and the AutoMARK."
Thus, the Obama’s DOJ stripped ES&S not only acquired Premier assets, but also coerced it to license rights to its pre-merger product.
"ES&S must sell the divestiture assets to a buyer approved by the department." This is not selling. This is confiscation multiplied by corruption. "The settlement prohibits ES&S from bidding on new voting equipment system contracts using the Premier equipment. [transferred to Dominion]"
Wait, didn’t they say that the purpose was to increase the competition?
"The department also required that ES&S grant the divestiture buyer an opportunity to compete to provide services to Premier customers currently under contract with ES&S, giving customers the option to switch to the divestiture buyer or to remain with ES&S ... ES&S also must provide access to knowledgeable Premier employees and agree to offer a supply agreement to allow the divestiture buyer time to establish its own manufacturing of voting equipment systems."
The approved divestiture buyer, Dominion Voting, is not mentioned in this press release. But this quote shows that the DOJ has already determined the "approved buyer," and knew that it had no manufacturing base.
After the "Sale"
Dominion announced the acquisition of the Diebold products on May 19, 2010 [2] and the acquisition of Sequoia Voting assets on June 4, 2010 [3]. Dominion also hired much of its personnel, probably retaining ties to extremely sketchy Smartmatic. Sequoia/Smartmatic systems had been used in the Venezuela 2004 referendum, which Hugo Chavez "won". Smartmatic is a British company with Hugo Chavez ties, headed by "Lord" Malloch-Brown (former UN Deputy Secretary-General, UNDP, UNHCR, VP of Soros’ Quantum Fund, and Vice Chair of Soros’ Open Society Foundation) [7], and linked to electoral scandals all over the world [5].
In August 2009 (corrected), the rough breakdown of the EVS market in the US was (per Brad Friedman):
Less than a year later, after the "antitrust" actions of Obama’s DOJ, it became:
50% Dominion
40% ES&S (restricted in competing against Dominion)
10% Hart Intercivic
Thus, the DOJ’s actions did the exact opposite of its words. An elections system vendor should be non-partisan, in a demonstrable way. Dominion is not just partisan, but hyper-partisan in favor of the Democrat party, or even its pocket vendor.
Dominion has many more ties to the Democrat party and its prominent supporters in the US and abroad, which are not covered in this article.
Software Development in Serbia
Dominion develops much of its software in Belgrade, Serbia. Russia is a close friend to Serbia, if not its only one. If anybody sincerely thought that Putin wanted to hack American elections, their first location of interest would be the offices of Dominion Voting in Belgrade, rather than the Trump Tower in New York.
By the way, Serbian and Russian languages use the Cyrillic alphabet. Most letters have the same Unicode encoding in Serbian and Russian (the Basic Multilingual Plane, range 0410-04FF). If any election officials found Cyrillic text on a Dominion voting machine in 2016, it was probably left by its developers in Serbia.
Remarks
This is the Agreement between Michigan & Dominion, including specs of many Dominion products (PDF, 161 pages). Wi-Fi connection and even a dial up modem are offered as an option.
Some of the companies referenced here as foreign based or foreign originating re-registered in the US.
Dominion Voting Systems Series
Part I
Part II (this)
Part III
[the above explains why Dominion is protected, in effect their are an arm of the federal government; John Populous, along with Obama The Foreigner, must be one of the first arrested and prosecuted]
Some References
[1] Justice Department Requires Key Divestiture in Election Systems & Software/Premier Election Solutions Merger, http://justice.gov, March 8, 2010
[2] Dominion Voting Systems, Inc. Acquires Premier Election Solutions Assets From ES&S, press release, May 19
[3] Dominion Voting Systems Corporation Acquires Assets of Sequoia Voting Systems, press release, June 4, 2010
[3b] On Heels of Diebold/Premier Purchase, Canadian Firm Also Acquires Sequoia, Lies About Chavez-Ties in Announcement — contemporary commentary
[4] Marcos warns of ’another Smartmatic situation’ — Smartmatic was accused of election fraud in the 2016 elections in Philippines
[5] Smartmatic in Wikipedia, November 9, 2020 (not verified)
[6] Sequoia Voting Systems in Wikipedia, November 9, 2020 (not verified)
[7] "Lord" Malloch Brown in Wikipedia, November 8, 2010 (not verified)
[8] Diebold Sells U.S. Elections Systems Business to ES&S, press release, September 3, 2009
[9] Dominion Voting Systems Corp — discussion of Dominion’s ideology and highly partisan offers
[10] Dominion Voting Systems’ profile in Bloomberg
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
10/12/2024 07:31 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under: Commies
[Outkick] "I don’t like to post a lot of political content, but this clip should scare EVERYONE. She is the sitting VP and running for President of the United States. She is incapable of putting a sentence together without a teleprompter and even she appears to know she is in way over her head. This election is very important and this along with the many other clips of her attempting to answer questions should SCARE THE SH*T OUT OF YOU"
#4
They must be butter because the Dems want them on the rolls. Gil Give them a set of handcuffs if they vote.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/12/2024 14:41 Comments ||
Top||
#5
A reminder for those posting articles. The highlighting is for your comments on the article text (in-lines). The article text is left plain, or portions may be in bold, italic, underlined, or struck through as appropriate.
#7
If only there were some way to know in advance that an election was coming. That way, citizens could hie their asses down to the DMV and register to vote, like going to the 7-11 for hurricane supplies.
[NationalPulse] Barack Obama is urging black men to support Kamala Harris, suggesting that our allegiance should be based on the color of her skin and the chance to "make history." But I have a simple response to that: my ancestors fought too hard for my right to vote for me to be reduced to a racial checkbox in a political game. I won't support someone just because they look remotely like me; especially when that person has shown no regard for the real issues facing black communities. WORD OF WARNING: Given recent revelations regarding Obama sexual life. Dropping your pants may get you more than you expect or want.
Posted by: NN2N1 ||
10/12/2024 05:16 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11125 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
Black Insurrectionist has released something on Walz that is not really surprising.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
10/12/2024 14:34 Comments ||
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As many of you know, Jimmy Kimmel's writer, Jacob Reed, directed an ad for the Kamala Harris campaign titled 'Men for Kamala.' The ad features what are presented as everyday male voters explaining why supporting Kamala Harris is the masculine thing to do. However, none of the men… pic.twitter.com/UKsD7o3l15
As many of you know, Jimmy Kimmel's writer, Jacob Reed, directed an ad for the Kamala Harris campaign titled 'Men for Kamala.' The ad features what are presented as everyday male voters explaining why supporting Kamala Harris is the masculine thing to do. However, none of the men in the ad are actually regular voters—they are paid actors.
Moreover, their real-life circumstances differ significantly from the individuals they portray in the ad. Here are their stories:
- Wayland McQueen is a far-left, pro-Antifa comedian and actor who has, until now, found limited success. He does improv gigs at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles. In a Twitter post from 2022, he explains what white privilege is and tells you why you need to acknowledge your white privilege. As of 2024 he is single.
- Lanre Idewu is an immigrant from Nigeria. He is also an actor who works at the D.C.-based OCTET Productions. He has many intimate pictures with the Obamas and the Bidens. Idewu, who is bisexual, has done gay-for-pay movies and nude solo shoots. In the "Men for Kamala" ad, he says he is "man enough to f-ing braid his daughter’s hair," but the only problem is that he doesn’t have a daughter. Idewu isn’t braiding anyone’s hair.
- Mike Leffingwell, a gay man, also works at the Upright Citizens Brigade, where McQueen works. He is an acting coach, cartoon writer for Netflix and DreamWorks, and an actor in TV commercials. On his public Instagram page, he showcases his participation in his latest project—the "Men for Kamala" ad.
- Winston Carter, the heavyset fellow in the ad who claims to be a mechanic and rancher, lives in Los Angeles signed with Taft Broadcasting Company. He has found limited success in the acting world, mainly as an extra in films and as a character in the low-budget superhero film Spaghettiman.
- Tony Ketcham, the tough, rugged, bearded grandpa in his garage in the "Men for Kamala" ad, is also an actor. He now mainly does low-budget independent films like Car Botz, where he played the role of PePaw. Tony is unmarried in real life. In 2001, he played the extra role of "alcoholic consumer" in the movie Ghost World.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NationalPulse] Barack Obama is urging black men to support Kamala Harris, suggesting that our allegiance should be based on the color of her skin and the chance to "make history." But I have a simple response to that: my ancestors fought too hard for my right to vote for me to be reduced to a racial checkbox in a political game. I won't support someone just because they look remotely like me; especially when that person has shown no regard for the real issues facing black communities.
