July 22, 2021 - Epoch Times
19:18
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| Good evening. | |
| Three days ago, several farmers over in the Midwest, they collectively filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration saying that they were not allowed to participate in a federal loan program due to the fact that they were white. | |
| Meanwhile, over in Oklahoma, the governor there has just signed a new bill into law which prohibits the teaching of critical race theory in all of Oklahoma's public schools. | |
| However, over in Washington state, they are taking a different approach. | |
| That's because just yesterday, the Washington governor signed a different type of bill into law, which actually requires mandatory critical race training in all of Washington's public schools. | |
| And lastly, as the audit of the 2020 election continues over in Arizona, the Maricopa County officials there are facing a subpoena over not turning over routers as well as machine passwords. | |
| Let's go through these stories together. | |
| This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. | |
| Now let's start today's discussion over in Arizona. | |
| And actually, just as a quick aside, right there at the top of the description box is a link to Epic TV, our brand new no censorship video platform where you can find all of Epic Times' programs, such as The Larry Elder Show, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, American Thought Leaders, Life and Times, China in Focus with Tiffany Meyer, as well as Facts Life and Times, China in Focus with Tiffany Meyer, as well as Facts Matter with me, It is a phenomenal, awesome platform. | |
| Again, the link will be right there. | |
| Hope you click on it. | |
| Hope you check it out. | |
| And now let's really start our discussion over in Arizona. | |
| Now, as we've already discussed in several previous episodes, the large-scale audit of the 2020 election over in Maricopa County has been underway for about three weeks now. | |
| And as a part of that audit, the Arizona State Senate is doing a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots, they're looking for any possible IT breaches that might have occurred, and they're also forensically examining close to 400 tabulation machines that were used during the election. | |
| Now, in the background, there are quite a few challenges to this process. | |
| For instance, just last week, it was revealed that officials over in Maricopa County, for one, they have been refusing to turn over the county's routers to the election auditors, and secondly, in regards to the election machines, the officials claim that they actually do not have the passwords which would allow you to access those machines' administrative control functions. | |
| Now, three days ago, the Arizona State Senate, it told these Maricopa County officials that unless they receive the materials that are being withheld, they will actually issue subpoenas for live testimony, meaning that the Maricopa County officials, they will actually have to go to the State Senate and testify under oath. | |
| Here's part of what an email that the lawyer representing the Arizona State Senate sent to these officials said. | |
| We have been asked to relay that the Senate views the county's explanations on the router and password issues as inadequate and potentially incorrect. | |
| Unless the Senate receives the materials today, they will issue subpoenas on Monday for live testimony from Mr. | |
| Jarrett and each of the supervisors personally so that their positions and rationales can be better explained under oath. | |
| Now, there are actually two separate things that we need to discuss here, the issue of the routers and the issue of the passwords. | |
| In regards to the routers, the county officials claim that since these routers, these countywide routers, are used by many departments, not just the election department, they contain sensitive information that should not be shared with the auditors. | |
| Here's how they explained it in their response letter. | |
| The county's routers were not used solely for election-related activities. | |
| They were used by the entire county. | |
| Providing them or their virtual images could jeopardize the security of law enforcement data and programs, as well as Maricopa County's citizens' financial, health care, and other private information. | |
| We are working with knowledgeable personnel to determine if there is a safe manner to get the Senate the information about the November 3rd election without jeopardizing this other information. | |
| Now, even though this explanation does seem reasonable, and even the Maricopa County Sheriff himself, he released a statement saying that he supports not releasing the routers, there was a court order issued several weeks ago which mandated that these routers must be turned over to the Senate. | |
| And so these county officials are, in fact, currently defying the law by refusing to hand them over. | |
| Now, on the second point, in regards to the passwords, the officials of Maricopa County told the audit liaison, whose name is Ken Binet, that they do not have the passwords to access the administrative control functions on the Dominion voting machines. | |
| Here's how Ken Binet described the situation during an interview. | |
| They've told us that they don't have that second password, or that they've given us all the passwords they have. | |
| And that actually does seem to be the case, since the lawyer representing Maricopa County wrote something similar in his letter. | |
| Here's what he wrote. | |
| The county has already produced every password and security key for the tabulators that is within the county's possession. | |
| It does not have any others. | |
| However, if you are surprised to learn that county officials don't have the administrative passwords for their own machines, well, you are not the only one. | |
| Even John Brakey, who is a Democrat and is currently serving as an assistant to Ken Binet, he said that he was blown away by this development. | |
| Here's what he said specifically. | |
| It's like leasing a car, and they refuse to give you the keys. | |
| They're supposed to be running the election. | |
| You know what's wrong? | |
| Sometimes these vendors have too much power. | |
| Now we here at the Epoch Times, we actually reached out to the Dominion voting systems for comment on this matter, but we have yet to hear back. | |
| Regardless though, in the past, Dominion has said that they actually support forensic audits by federally accredited laboratories. | |
| However, they added that the Cyber Ninjas, which is the company that is leading the Arizona audit, is actually not verified to run such an audit. | |
| And so we'll have to wait and see what the Arizona State Senate ultimately does. | |
| If they choose to subpoena the Maricopa County officials, they might be able to get them under oath and get more details about their rationale, but at the end of the day, if they don't have the passwords, there's nothing much they can do and they would have to go some other different route in order to acquire them. | |
| We'll just have to wait and see what they decide to do in the next coming few days. | |
| Now, there is something else worth mentioning in regards to this audit outside of this whole drama regarding the Maricopa County officials. | |
| On our last episode, we discussed a letter that the Biden administration's Department of Justice sent to the Arizona State Senate. | |
| In that letter, the Department of Justice raised three concerns about the audit. | |
| And now on Friday, three days ago, the Arizona Senate president, she sent a response letter to the DOJ, which addressed these concerns. | |
| And she said that the election materials are still under the control of the Senate. | |
| She says that the security over at the area, the venue where this audit is taking place is strong and the materials are safeguarded around the clock. | |
| And third of all, she said that if there needs to be a voter canvas, meaning that if the auditors need to go out and make sure that the people who voted are who they said they were, that their methodology would comply with all state, local, and federal laws. | |
| Specifically, here's what part of her letter said. | |
| All ballot review and processing occurs within the confines of a carefully documented chain of custody. | |
| And from the moment the counting began, all audit team members and observers alike have been strictly prohibited from bringing into the demarcated ballot processing area any electronic device or any instrument, for example, a blue or black ink pen, that could be used to spoil a ballot. | |
| Not a single ballot or other official election document has been destroyed, defaced, lost, or adulterated during the course of the audit. | |
| Now, outside of this issue with the Department of Justice, we discussed several weeks ago how the Cyber Ninja's security plan was released to the public by a Maricopa County judge. | |
| And to this day, which is now about a full week since that story, there has been no developments that have made a public on that front. | |
| It is still unclear why exactly the Maricopa County judge decided to release those security plans to the public. | |
| And as soon as anything is made public on that front, I'll let you know right away. | |
| Now besides all this legal drama that's happening behind the scenes, the audit itself does seem to be going rather smoothly. | |
| You can actually, of course, watch it yourself over at azaudit.org, which is the website that the Arizona State Senate set up, which allows you to watch the audit as it's happening in real time from nine different camera angles. | |
| Now, the venue itself, which is the Veterans Memorial Coliseum over in Phoenix, is booked by the Senate until this Friday, until May 14th, meaning that if the audit is not completed by Friday, then the Senate will have to pause the audit and either find a new venue or rebook the Coliseum, which won't be available again until May 21st, so about five days later. | |
| What that ultimately means in practice is that if this audit is not completed by this Friday, there will very likely be at least a one-week pause. | |
| Now, if you would like to read the source document of anything that we've discussed thus far about Arizona, such as the letters and emails between the Senate and county officials, as well as the DOJ letter and the response letter, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now, before we move on over and discuss how several white farmers are collectively suing the Biden administration over discrimination, I would like to take a quick moment and introduce our sponsor for today's episode, and I will do so from the sound booth. | |
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| Now, Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| And now, let's move on over to Wisconsin. | |
| A disabled farmer over in Chilton, which is a city in Wisconsin, has just filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration saying that he was not allowed to participate in a loan forgiveness program due to the fact that he was white. | |
| Now this man is actually one of five Midwestern farmers who collectively filed this lawsuit, saying that the federal government violated their constitutional rights with the way that this program was structured. | |
| According to the lawsuit, these farmers have either loans with the Farm Service Agency, or they have USDA-backed loans. | |
| And they say that they are otherwise 100% eligible for the federal loan forgiveness program. | |
| Except... | |
| For the color of their skin. | |
| They say that because they are white farmers, they are ineligible. | |
| Now this forgiveness program was actually part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, signed into law by Joe Biden just a few weeks ago, and it allocated $4 billion to forgive loans for what they called socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. | |
| However, according to this lawsuit, the phrase socially disadvantaged is explicitly racist, since in order to be eligible for this debt relief, farmers must either be black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian American, or Pacific Islander. | |
| If you are a white farmer, you don't qualify. | |
| And according to this lawsuit, this makes this new law both racist and unconstitutional. | |
| In fact, here's how one of these five farmers, the one from Wisconsin, here's how he described it during an interview. | |
| It was just out-and-out racist, and I really don't think that there should be racism allowed in the federal government at any level. | |
| I don't see where they're going to be impacted any different than anybody else. | |
| I've never seen any government program based solely on that. | |
| I mean, if it would have been against any other race, everybody would have been on board and would have been complaining immediately. | |
| Now, according to a report from Fox News, the USDA, which is the United States Department of Agriculture, they said that they are reviewing this lawsuit alongside the Department of Justice, but the USDA also said that they plan to continue offering loan forgiveness to socially disadvantaged farmers. | |
| Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to the Department of Justice for comment on this case, but we have yet to hear back. | |
| Regardless, if you would like to read more about this lawsuit for yourself, the link to it will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And actually, while we're on the topic of racism, let's discuss critical race theory. | |
| Three days ago, the governor of Oklahoma, he signed a bill which put a ban on the teaching of critical race theory in all of Oklahoma's public schools. | |
| And by the way, in case you're not aware, critical race theory is a quasi-Marxist ideology which holds that racism is ingrained within the United States. | |
| And among many other concepts that it espouses, it labels people with white skin, including children, as oppressors, who should feel guilt due to their privilege. | |
| Now, in signing this new bill, here's what the Oklahoma governor had to say. | |
| Okay. | |
| We can and should teach this history without labeling a young child as an oppressor, or requiring he or she feel guilt or shame based on their race or sex. | |
| Now, what's interesting to note here is that this new bill, which was just signed into law, does not actually mention critical race theory by name, and instead it bans the teaching of some of the racist and sexist concepts which are promoted by this ideology, including things like one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex, or that an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. | |
| Those were quotes from the bill itself. | |
| Now, even though this new law specifically prohibits the teaching of racist concepts, opponents of the bill call the bill itself racist. | |
| For instance, the chairwoman of the Oklahoma City Public School Board, she wrote this on Twitter. | |
| This past week, the Oklahoma state legislature passed HB 1775, which is this new bill, an outright racist and oppressive piece of legislation. | |
| I am appalled at the flagrant attempt to erase factual, incomprehensible history that has occurred in the United States. | |
| Now, while Oklahoma has banned the teaching of critical race theory in their public schools, the state of Washington has actually gone a totally different route. | |
| That's because just yesterday, the governor of Washington signed into law a bill which actually mandates the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. | |
| The bill that he signed into law, which actually passed the state legislature back in April, mandates that school districts across all of Washington must use at least one of their three professional learning days to train all of the staff members in all of the public schools on the topics of cultural competency, diversity, equity, as well as inclusion. mandates that school districts across all of Washington must use Here are some of the topics listed in the bill itself. | |
| The legislature plans to continue the important work of dismantling institutional racism in public schools and recognizes the importance of increasing equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism and cultural competency training throughout the entire public school system. | |
| Now, one of the key concepts in this bill is something called equity. | |
| And equity is very different from equal opportunity. | |
| Instead, equity looks to create equal outcomes by redistributing resources along the lines of either economic or racial disparities. | |
| As just an example of what this actually looks like in practice, here in New York City, where we filmed this program, In order to achieve equity, officials here, they replace the entrance exam for the gifted and talented program, which, by the way, is a very competitive entrance exam. | |
| They replace that with a lottery. | |
| And so now, instead of competing for this gifted and talented student program, your name is just picked out of a drawing. | |
| Now, the two very different approaches between these two states, between Oklahoma and Washington, bespeaks of a larger debate surrounding this topic that's happening across the entire country right now, with mostly blue states adopting some form of critical race theory in order to combat what they call systemic racism, while mostly red states are pushing back against critical race theory, saying that this theory itself is racist. | |
| As to how all of this will ultimately play out, only time will tell. | |
| However, if you would like to read more about these new laws out in Washington and Oklahoma, or if you would like to read more about the Marxist origins of critical race theory, those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And by the way, that is that same little description box that is right below that like button that I hope you take a moment to smash. | |
| Because videos that are like this, talking honestly about what is happening in this world right now, are routinely... | |
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| However, when you smash that like button below this video, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide. | |
| And now, let's circle back and go back to Arizona. | |
| Aside from what's happening with the audit over in Maricopa County, two days ago, the governor of Arizona signed a bill into law which prohibits voters from adding their signature to an unsigned mail-in ballot after Election Day. | |
| Now, before being signed into law, this bill passed both chambers of Arizona's legislature along straight party lines, and since Republicans hold a majority in Arizona, the bill was pushed through. | |
| Now, the way that the law currently works in Arizona is that if an election official receives a ballot with a signature that does not match the one they have on file, they can actually contact the voter and have them fix the signature, and there is a grace period of up to five business days after the election where the voter can fix their signature. | |
| And what the Democrats in Arizona were trying to do is that they were trying to apply the same five-day standard to ballots that did not have any signature at all. | |
| They were pushing for a system wherein if a ballot came in without any signature, election officials can likewise reach out to the voter and have them fix the problem with a five-day grace period. | |
| However, that argument actually ended back in October, October of 2020, when the Court of Appeals ruled against this practice. | |
| Here's what the court wrote as a part of their decision. | |
| All ballots must have some deadline. | |
| And it is reasonable that Arizona has chosen to make that deadline election day itself so as to promote its unquestioned interest in administering an orderly election and to facilitate its already burdensome job of collecting, verifying, and counting all of the votes in a timely fashion. | |
| And so, this new bill, which was just signed into law two days ago, codified this court's ruling by adding an amendment to the current Arizona election law. | |
| Here's what the new amendment says. | |
| The ballot will not be counted without the voter's signature on the envelope. | |
| This law does, however, still authorize election officials to reach out to voters if their ballots don't have a signature on them, but the problem must now be fixed by 7 p.m. | |
| on Election Day, not five days afterwards. | |
| If you would like to read the details of this new law for yourself out in Arizona, the link to that will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And lastly, as we already discussed in several other episodes, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube made the unilateral decision to demonetize our program. | |
| We can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after our episodes, and the Super Chat feature has just been disabled. | |
| They're essentially trying to snuff out our independent journalism. | |
| However, we here at the Epoch Times have launched something very, very cool. | |
| It's called Epic TV. It's our brand new no-censorship platform where you can find all of our awesome content, such as the Larry Elder Show, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, China in Focus, American Thought Leaders, Life and Times, as well as this show, Facts Matter, and you will find exclusive episodes on there starting, well, we were actually supposed to start last week, but over the weekend we had a bit of a difficulty, and likely tomorrow we'll actually have our first exclusive episode on there. | |
| So again, that link to Epic TV will be at the very top of the description box. | |
| I hope you click on it. | |
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| And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this world through honest journalism based in truth and tradition. | |
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| And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times. |
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