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Aug. 3, 2021 - Epoch Times

22:17

AZ Senate Looks to Expand Audit to All Races; Move to Limit Secretary of State Power | Facts Matter

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	Good evening.
	Over in Pennsylvania, a county has just voted to allow their attorney general to investigate a local election and look into what caused errors with their voting machines.
	Meanwhile, over in Arizona, the state senate over there is considering expanding the audit over in Maricopa County to include not only the presidential and senate races, but instead all of the races of the 2020 election.
	Now, over in Minnesota, the founder of a local BLM chapter, he released a video explaining how he resigned after learning the ugly truth about the Black Lives Matter organization.
	And lastly, over in Florida, a concert down there is imposing a fairly heavy tax on people who are now vaccinated by making them pay 50 times more for tickets.
	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 begin today's discussion over in Arizona.
	But actually, just before we do, as a quick aside, down there at the very top of the description box is a link to Epoch TV, our brand new no-censorship video platform where you can find all of the awesome Epoch Times programs like The Larry Elder Show, American Thought Leaders, Crossroads with Joshua Phillips, China in Focus, Life and Times, and our show, Facts Matter, Crossroads with Joshua Phillips, China in Focus, Life and Times, And on there you will find exclusive episodes that you will not find here on YouTube.
	In fact, over the weekend we published an awesome episode looking into the possibility that the virus escaped from a lab over in Wuhan, something that I do not feel comfortable discussing here on YouTube.
	So check that link out, subscribe to Epic TV, and let's really start over in Arizona.
	As we've already discussed in several previous episodes, the large-scale audit of the 2020 election over in Maricopa County has officially restarted as of last week.
	And as a part of that audit, the Arizona State Senate is doing a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots, they are looking for any possible IT breaches that might have occurred, and they are also examining close to 400 tabulation machines that were used during the election.
	And now, as it was just announced yesterday, the Arizona State Senate is considering actually expanding this audit significantly.
	Expanding how?
	Well, the senators are considering the possibility of hiring a California-based nonprofit in order to analyze the ballot images and create a third set of numbers.
	That would allow them to compare these numbers to the tabulation from the Dominion voting machines, as well as the result of the hand recount being done by the Cyber Ninjas.
	It would basically give them a third data point to compare the numbers to.
	Now, according to Ken Bennett, who is the audit liaison, he told us here at the Epoch Times that if this plan is approved, the Senate would have to pay an additional $5,000.
	Now, this additional analysis, just for your reference, would cost more than $5,000, but Ken Bennett said that the rest of the money would be obtained through either a grant or through private funding.
	Now, the firm that is being considered for this is a nonprofit called Citizens Oversight, and according to their founder, they use something called an audit engine.
	It's basically a set of computers in order to tabulate the results from each ballot before comparing the numbers to the official records.
	And this type of review would then produce a discrepancy report, which would allow them to compare the official tabulation with what their computers were able to put together.
	Now, the founder of this company described it to us here at the Epoch Times this way.
	Basically, we do a total retabulation of the election.
	Furthermore, while the current audit is focusing only on two races from the 2020 election, which are the presidential and the Senate races, Citizens Oversight would actually be using their technology to audit all of the races that were on that ballot.
	Now, in announcing the consideration to expand the audit beyond what it is right now, here's what Ken Bennett had to say.
	We are looking with other companies to do a machine tabulation of all the races on the ballots to compare with the Dominion tabulation back in November.
	We will be looking at the images of all 2.1 million ballots.
	Mr.
	Bennett then went on to further clarify that the expanded audit would not involve a physical recount of the ballots, like what's happening over at the Memorial Coliseum, but instead it would be a separate audit using digital images of each ballot.
	That's what this company, Citizens Oversight, does.
	And so we'll have to wait and see if the Arizona State Senate ultimately decides to take this route.
	We will probably know later this week.
	Now, in terms of the hand recount, as of four days ago, Ken Bennett said that 800,000 ballots have now been recounted, adding that he believes that they are on pace to finish by June 30th, which is when the contract for the Memorial Coliseum runs up.
	Now, besides the recount, there has been another development.
	Six days ago, Republican lawmakers over in Arizona, they moved to limit the power of Katie Hobbs, who is Arizona's secretary of state and a big critic of the election audit.
	Now, the move that they made was that they passed this measure right here, which, if it goes into law, it would make clear that Arizona's attorney general has the sole authority to defend Arizona election laws and procedures, not the secretary of state.
	So this is called House Bill 2891, and it reads in part that it clarifies the legislative intent through January 2, 2023, that the Attorney General has sole authority in all election-related litigation.
	Now, this move stems largely from the fact that Katie Hobbs and Republican state lawmakers have clashed repeatedly in recent months over the election.
	For instance, while Katie Hobbs has continuously denounced the Maricopa County audit, state lawmakers say that it is critical to restoring voters' confidence in the election system.
	Furthermore, in passing this measure, the lawmakers also cited how on last Tuesday, so on May 27th, Katie Hobbs filed complaints against the Attorney General, as well as his whole office, with the State Bar Association of Arizona.
	Here's what one Republican lawmaker said about it.
	Now, in terms of whether these proposed changes will actually go through, well, right now that is uncertain.
	In order for this measure to actually become law, and for Katie Hobbs to have her powers stripped, it would have to be approved by the full legislature and then signed into law by the Arizona governor.
	And given the fact that the Arizona governor just vetoed 22 bills, including an election integrity bill, well, that looks like it might not be happening.
	Regardless, we'll keep you abreast of any developments that come about with this measure, as well as the possibility of the audit expanding.
	When we hear anything on those fronts, we'll let you know right away.
	And as always, if you would like to watch the audit for yourself, you can do so over at azaudit.org, which is the website set up by the Arizona Senate, which allows you to watch the audit in real time from nine different camera angles.
	Now, the link to azaudit.org, as well as any of the stories that we discussed, 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, including with this audit, are routinely censored by big tech because we don't just follow the established narrative.
	Instead, we just report the facts.
	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 talk a little bit about BLM. Five days ago, a new video was released which showed the founder of a BLM chapter out in Minnesota explain why he resigned from the organization, with him claiming that BLM is not concerned about either helping black communities nor helping to improve the education quality in Minneapolis.
	Now, the man's name is Rashard Turner, and back in 2015, he founded the Black Lives Matter chapter over in St.
	Paul, which is a city that's pretty close to Minneapolis.
	However, in this recently released video, Mr.
	Turner said that he became disillusioned after he became an insider within the organization.
	Here's what he said in that video.
	After a year on the inside, I learned they had little concern for rebuilding black families, and they cared even less about improving the quality of education for students in Minneapolis.
	He then went on to specifically criticize BLM's positions on charter schools.
	Here's what he said.
	That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union.
	I was an insider in Black Lives Matter, and I learned the ugly truth.
	The moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family, but it does create barriers to a better education for black children.
	He then went on to say that even though he quit the BLM organization, he has not stopped working to improve the lives of black people, including helping them to get better access to education.
	Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to the Black Lives Matter organization for comment on this matter, but we have yet to hear back.
	Regardless, it's worth noting that a full year has gone by since the death of George Floyd, and support for Black Lives Matter, the organization, has plummeted, at least here in America.
	According to a recent poll from the Morning Consult, only 48% of Americans hold favorable views about the BLM organization, which is down from 61% in May of last year.
	Now one of the reasons that might be contributing to this decline in favorability, besides the rioting and the looting, might be the fact that one of the co-founders of the BLM national organization, Ms.
	Patrisse Cullors, she was recently revealed to have been building up a fairly large real estate portfolio, which includes at least one mansion.
	And she was also found to be raking in $20,000 a month while serving as the chairwoman of a jail reform group out in Los Angeles.
	Now, it's worth noting that Ms.
	Cullors, who, by the way, has already resigned from the BLM organization, she did make a statement saying that she did not misuse any donations from BLM in order to build up her real estate portfolio.
	Regardless, that might be one of the reasons why support for BLM is falling.
	The other reason might be the fact that more and more, Americans are against the idea of defunding the police, which, of course, is a stated goal of BLM. In fact, earlier this month, USA Today conducted a poll which found that across the entire country, only 18% of people supported defunding the police.
	And what's interesting to note is that within that same poll, it found that only 28% of black Americans and only 34% of Democrats supported defunding the police, meaning that one of the main policy positions of BLM and one that directly impacts people's lives is not very popular.
	And actually, not very popular might be an understatement.
	Because what's happening is that many cities across this country that defunded their police departments saw such an increase in crime, specifically violent crime, that they are now actively refunding their police departments.
	One example is what happened out in Minneapolis.
	Last year, there were a number of city council members who pledged to completely abolish the Minneapolis Police Department.
	However, crime became so rampant that the Minneapolis City Council, just a few weeks ago, voted to give $6.4 million more in funding to the police.
	Here's how the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, who's a Democrat, described the situation.
	The violence needs to stop.
	It's unacceptable.
	People deserve to feel safe in their neighborhood.
	They deserve to be able to send their kids out to the sidewalk to play and to recreate without bullets flying by.
	That's unacceptable.
	We should be holding these perpetrators accountable.
	And then he specifically blamed the rise in crime to the defund the police movement.
	Here's what he said.
	"When you make big overarching statements that were going to defund or abolish and dismantle the police department and get rid of all the officers, there's an impact to that." Now here in New York where we filmed this program, there is a very similar situation Last year, Bill de Blasio, who is the mayor of New York, he's a Democrat, he pledged to cut $1 billion worth of funding from the NYPD. And although when you actually comb through the numbers, the city did not really cut the budget by a billion dollars.
	They cut it by about $300 million.
	Regardless, there has been a surge in violent crime here in New York City.
	That's not been seen since the mid-90s.
	It's gotten pretty bad.
	I mean, there has been a historic increase in shootings and murders and violent crimes.
	In fact, here is an announcement from the NYPD, and this is from March, and it says that in terms of shootings, there has been a 76% increase year over year.
	There's been 76 more shootings this year than last year, at least in March.
	And so Mayor Bill de Blasio, who again announced last year that he was defunding the police to a tune of a billion dollars, just this month he announced that he is instead building a new police precinct to deal with a surge in crime.
	Here's what he said.
	The 116th Precinct building was something that could not happen in that environment because of trade-offs.
	It was one or the other, which was the choice in 2020.
	We leaned into the investments in young people.
	Now, thankfully, we have the resources to address both these issues.
	And you are seeing the same thing play out in Los Angeles and Baltimore and other cities where they called to defund the police last year, but after an increase in crime, specifically violent crime, they are actually refunding their police forces.
	Now the best summary of how this all played out, in my opinion at least, was given by a congresswoman named Abigail Spanberger.
	She's a Democrat from Virginia who said that she almost lost her seat due to Democrats' messages during the last election cycle.
	Here's what she said.
	The number one concern that people brought to me in my race, that I barely re-won, was defunding the police.
	And I've heard from colleagues who say, oh, it's the language of the streets, we should respect that.
	We are in Congress.
	We are professionals.
	We are supposed to talk about things in the way where we mean what we are talking about.
	If we don't mean we should defund the police, we shouldn't say that.
	Now, if you would like to read more about this BLM leader who quit over in Minnesota or about anything related to the refunding the police department movement across America, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And now, before we move on over to Pennsylvania and discuss some irregularities in the local election over there, 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.
	That's right.
	The sponsor for today's episode is American Hartford Gold.
	Which is a very cool company run by Patriots that sells precious metals, gold and silver, that can be delivered directly to your doorstep, or they can be deposited into your IRA account, making it super simple.
	Now, they are one of my personal gold and silver bullion dealers.
	They're awesome.
	They have great customer service.
	And actually, when you call them, their wait music is a speech by Ronald Reagan.
	So even when they put me on hold, I appreciate it.
	They have an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, and so you know they're a trustworthy organization.
	And right now, they're offering a special...
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	So when you call them or when you place an order with them, depending on how much gold and silver you buy, they will not only throw in free silver, $1,500 worth of free silver, but they can also send you a free safe.
	So you can keep your precious metals in your home knowing that they're safe and secure.
	So the link to them will be in the description box below, or you can give them a call at 866-242-2352, or you can text Roman to 65532.
	Again, give them a call, click on the link in the description box below, And American Heart for Gold, thank you so much for sponsoring our episode.
	Now, Roman in the studio, back to you.
	And now, let's move on over to Pennsylvania.
	Last week, in an episode that was exclusively on Epic TV, we discussed how a county over in Pennsylvania had some issues with their local election.
	What happened was that Luzerne County, which is in the northeast of Pennsylvania, they reported having problems with their Dominion voting machines.
	This problem had to do with incorrect labeling and electronic ballots.
	According to what some of the local voters said, what happened was that when Republican voters approached the machine in order to vote, the introduction page said, Even though those voters were registered Republicans.
	This problem caused at least one township in that county to pause their election altogether, and then the county election director released this statement.
	We want to assure everybody that what happens is when you are a registered Republican, we have a specific code for that ballot.
	And once we punch that code in, even though the header says something like Democratic ballot, it's actually for the races that are in the Republican Party.
	Now we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to Dominion to get their comment on this issue, and here's what they told us.
	Luzerne County's election director has confirmed that there is a ballot screen error that is confined to the header on the viewing screen of the machine, and that all ballots are printing correctly with the Republican header and the Republican primary election races.
	As to why specifically this error occurred, thus far it's not clear.
	The county's director of elections told local media that he is Now, just a few days ago, the Luzerne County Council, they voted on a resolution to allow the local district attorney's office to investigate the election and look into the source of these voting machine errors.
	All 10 council members who were present voted in the affirmative and now this investigation can officially take place.
	Now, the councilman who initially proposed this investigation, he said that it was necessary because many voters are disenfranchised and concerned about the integrity of the election process.
	Specifically, the county resolution is asking the prosecutor to investigate Dominion Voting Machine's programming as well as their company practices.
	Now, the local district attorney out there, he told a local news outlet that his office will be looking into any allegations of possible criminal conduct relating to the election, adding that,"...without integrity in our elections, the public cannot trust the remainder of our democratic process." Now, we here at the Epoch Times will keep your breast of any developments, in this case, as they're going to be coming about.
	And if you would like to read more specifically about what happened during that election out in Pennsylvania, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And now let's head on over to Florida.
	If you would like to take a glimpse at what a world with vaccine passports might look like, well, take a look at what this concert in Florida is doing.
	They are charging people who are vaccinated only $18 per ticket, while for those who are not vaccinated, each ticket will cost $1,000.
	Now the concert is featuring a bunch of punk bands, and on their ticket website they say this, We are not telling you what to do here.
	We are making a business decision and letting the market decide.
	If someone wants to come in unvaccinated, they will scare off a large number of patrons and will need to pay the difference.
	The directions on the website further say that in order to qualify for this discount, the concertgoers will have to bring a copy of their physical vaccination card as proof.
	Now, as to whether this is legal or not, well, according to a bill which was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis just earlier this month, this thing is not legal in Florida.
	That bill, by the way, is officially called SB2006, and it prohibits Florida businesses from requiring customers to show documentation that they have been vaccinated.
	And there is more than just this punk concert which has been trying to float this new law.
	In fact, just four days ago, Celebrity Cruises, which is a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean, they said that they will proceed with their plan to require people to show proof of vaccination.
	We are working to finalize our health and safety measures for cruises departing from U.S. ports, including Florida, in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
	Our commitment to sail with fully vaccinated crew members and guests still stands, as it is a meaningful layer to ensure we make every effort to help keep safe our guests, crew, and the communities we visit.
	Now, in light of this statement, Governor Ron DeSantis, he came out and he reiterated that Florida will not be embracing any form of vaccine passports, and then he went one step further.
	He said that celebrity cruises would be breaking Florida law if they attempted to require that passengers show proof of vaccination.
	Here's what he said as a part of that statement.
	You don't pass laws and then not enforce them against giant corporations.
	It doesn't work that way.
	And so, we'll just have to wait and see what comes of this legal challenge.
	Likely, what needs to happen is that the cruise line will need to begin operating, begin requiring people to show proof of vaccination, at which point the governor can then step in and enforce Florida's law.
	As to how that will actually look like in practice, well, we'll just have to wait and see.
	And just as an aside, in terms of a national vaccine passport, There was a bit of a shake-up when earlier last week, the Secretary of Homeland Security, he told ABC News during an interview that they are taking a very close look at the possibility of some kind of a vaccine passport system for American air travelers.
	Here's what he said during that interview.
	We're taking a very close look at that.
	You know, one of our principles that has guided us throughout this pandemic is the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and making sure that any passport that we provide for vaccinations is accessible to all and that no one is disenfranchised.
	However, later on that very same day, the White House came out and rebuffed those comments from that interview, saying that And so thus far, it's not exactly clear what led to this difference in statements between the White House and the Department of Homeland Security secretary.
	Now, we're here at the Epoch Times.
	We did reach out to the White House for comment, but we have yet to hear back.
	Regardless, if you would like to read more about this punk concert over in Florida, about Governor Ron DeSantis' statements, or about this vague possibility of a possible national-level vaccine passport, well, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And lastly, as we already mentioned in several previous 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 episodes, and the Super Chat feature has just been disabled.
	They essentially just killed our ability to monetize our content.
	However, we here at The Epoch Times have launched something very cool.
	It's called Epic TV. It's our brand new no-censorship video platform where you can find all of The Epoch Times' awesome programs, like The Larry Elder Show, American Thought Leaders, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, China in Focus, Life and Times, and our show Facts Matter.
	And on there, we'll publish exclusive episodes that we do not put here on YouTube, including an episode that we published over the weekend discussing the possibility that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab.
	Take a look at this trailer.
	The official narrative around how this virus began to spread has changed dramatically over the last week.
	And please note, I say official narrative because the facts were always there.
	It's just that the corporate media outlets in this country decided to dismiss them, and the social media companies, well, they didn't allow us to even talk about it.
	And it might be the case that some virus that was being studied there in the Wuhan lab was accidentally released to the public.
	Now, COVID first made its appearance in Wuhan, which is a city in central China, back in 2019.
	That was when there emerged a cluster of cases which were linked to a local wet market.
	Regardless, to this day, which is now more than a year later, the true origins of this virus remain unknown.
	Although the focus has now officially shifted toward the theory that the virus was leaked from a laboratory over at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology.
	And in my opinion, that was due to the fact that people forgot that communists lie like people breathe.
	Dr. Fauci, he appears to be in some hot water over his funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
	Let's go through it together.
	If you would like to check out that episode or any of the other awesome programs over on Epic TV, the link to that will be right there at the top of the description box.
	Hope you click on it, hope you subscribe, and I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful world through honest journalism that's based in truth and tradition.
	Now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
	Subscribe to this YouTube channel if you haven't already in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while you still can.
	And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times.

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