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Aug. 15, 2021 - Epoch Times

17:27

Supreme Court Rules that Arizona Can Ban Harvesting of Ballots | Facts Matter

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	Good evening.
	Just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court, they ruled that Arizona's ban on ballot harvesting is, in fact, legal.
	We here at the Epoch Times, we were able to get an exclusive interview with Arizona's Attorney General in order to figure out what this will mean for the state.
	Meanwhile, Facebook is trying to root out extremism.
	How?
	Well, they're sending messages to their users informing them that their friends and family might have become extremists, as well as what they can do about it.
	Now, what does Facebook exactly classify as extremist?
	Well, let's go through that 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 by talking about Facebook.
	But actually, just as a quick aside, I'd like to mention that right there at the top of the description box is a link to Epic TV, which is our brand new no-censorship video platform where you can find all of the awesome Epoch Times video programs like The Larry Elder Show, Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, American Thought Leaders, China in Focus, Crossroads, as well as our show, Facts Matter...
	And on there, we publish exclusive episodes that you will not be finding here on YouTube.
	Hope you check out that link.
	And now let's move on over and talk about Facebook.
	Now, if you yourself have a Facebook account, then over the last day or two, you might have received a message like this suddenly pop up.
	It says, are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?
	And right below that it says, We care about preventing extremism on Facebook.
	Others in your situation have received confidential support.
	So that's one type of message.
	Many other Facebook users reported seeing another type of message.
	This one right here.
	It says, Amy, you have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently.
	And then it goes on to say, Violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment.
	You can take action now to protect yourself and others.
	And then, just like the other message, it has a Get Support button right below it.
	And when you click on that Get Support button, it takes you to this page right here, where, among several other things, it gives you a list of signs that someone has become an extremist.
	Such as, they say discriminatory things, they show unusual amounts of anger or aggression, they discuss or obsess over violence or conspiracy theories, they spend an unhealthy amount of time online, they get tattoos of extremist symbols, or they share memes or videos with extremist symbols in them.
	And then, at the bottom of that page, it gives you a list of suggestions on how to talk with your friends, as well as counseling resources that you can send them to.
	Now, in order to figure out what's actually going on, as well as to find out how Facebook actually classifies extremism, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to Facebook for comment, and here's what their spokesperson got back to us with.
	This test is part of our larger work to assess ways to provide resources and support to people on Facebook who may have engaged with or were exposed to extremist content or may know someone who is at risk.
	We are partnering with NGOs and academic experts in this space and hope to have more to share in the future.
	Now, it's not exactly clear which NGOs and which experts Facebook is partnering with and how they exactly determine what is harmful or extremist.
	They did not clarify when we asked them.
	Now, most of the comments that I've seen online of people posting screenshots of this message that they received have compared this to some Orwellian Big Brother type of thought policing.
	Here's just one example from a House delegate out in Virginia.
	Yes, actually, I have a real concern that some leftist technocrats are creating an Orwellian environment where people are being arbitrarily silenced or banned for saying something the thought police doesn't like.
	Many other people questioned whether this step by Facebook crossed the line of going from a platform to an outright publisher.
	Here's one example.
	Yeah, I'm becoming an extremist.
	An anti-Facebook extremist.
	Confidential help is available.
	Who do they think they are?
	Either they're a publisher and the political platform legally liable for every bit of content they host, or they need to stay out of the way.
	Zuck's choice.
	Now, this move by Facebook to send out these messages comes at a time when big tech companies have been criticized by both parties, although for very different reasons.
	For instance, over the last several years, Democrat lawmakers have been pressuring the CEOs of big tech companies, like the ones for Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft, essentially accusing them of allowing extremism, misinformation and cyberbullying on their platforms.
	On the other hand, though, Republican lawmakers have been accusing these platforms of censoring conservative viewpoints and then also limiting the reach or sometimes outright blocking content that portrays Democrats in a negative light.
	However, with Facebook's new effort, with these messages that they're pushing out to their users, it seems like they might have taken it up to a new level.
	Because they're not just targeting certain actions.
	They appear to be targeting what is inside of an individual's mind.
	They're not asking people if their friends push something on Facebook that might seem extremist.
	Instead, they're asking whether their friends and family have extremist notions inside of their minds.
	And so we'll have to see how all this plays out.
	From the conversations that I'm seeing on Twitter, it seems like many users are concerned with the direction that Facebook is taking across both sides of the political aisle.
	Now the timing of this new feature is interesting.
	Specifically because it came right after a move to rein in big tech was dealt a heavy blow.
	That's because just two days ago, a federal court dismissed two antitrust lawsuits that were brought against Facebook.
	Now, these lawsuits, they were brought forth by almost every single attorney general in the entire country, as well as by the FTC, which stands for the Federal Trade Commission, and they were seeking to break up what they described as Facebook's monopoly on social networking.
	However, the judge in the case, Judge James Bosberg, he was appointed by Barack Obama, he said that the FTC did not provide enough evidence or enough explanation on how they determined that Facebook controls more than 60% of the social media marketplace.
	Here's what he said as a part of his ruling.
	The FTC has failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims, namely that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for personal social networking services.
	The complaint contains nothing of that score save the naked allegation that the company has had and still has a dominant share of that market in excess of 60%.
	In this ruling, he then went on to say that social media sites are generally free to use and that furthermore, it's hard to even figure out what classifies a company as a social media site.
	And then he concluded the argument by writing this, quote, And after this ruling was published, Facebook's stock price, it rose 4%.
	Some lawmakers criticized this judge's ruling, saying that it may just provoke Congress into pursuing more aggressive legislation against social media companies.
	For instance, here's what Ken Buck, who is a Republican from Colorado, here's what he said.
	Today's development in the FTC's case against Facebook shows that antitrust reform is urgently needed.
	Congress needs to provide additional tools and resources to our antitrust enforcers to Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to both the FTC as well as Facebook for comment on this ruling, but we have yet to hear back.
	Regardless, if you would like to read more about these anti-extremist messages that Facebook is sending to its users, or if you would like to read more about this ruling here about this anti-monopoly case, which will actually likely be appealed in the very near future, those links will be right there in the description box below this video for you to check out.
	And now let's move on over to Arizona.
	Hello?
	Yeah, hey Roman, it's me.
	No, I'm just kidding.
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	Honestly, I don't have much faith in the future of the American dollar as the global reserve currency.
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	The link 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.
	American Heart for a Gold, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode.
	And now, Roman in the studio, back to you.
	And now let's talk about Arizona.
	And to start with, let's talk about what's happening with the election audit.
	According to Randy Pullen, who is one of the audit liaisons, after more than two months, the auditors have now completely moved out of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
	And instead, he told media that the audit will continue at another one of the buildings at the fairgrounds over in Phoenix.
	He said that both the 2.1 million ballots as well as the election equipment, they have been moved over to the Wesley Bolin building, which if you look on a map is about two miles south of the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
	He further said that the voting machines, the ballots and other materials will be protected around the clock by three security guards.
	They're also allowing surveillance cameras to provide live stream footage of the materials, which you can actually watch for yourself over at azaudit.org.
	Now, in terms of what comes next, here's what Mr. President.
	Poland said.
	There's still a little bit more work to do.
	I can't imagine it will take more than a couple of weeks to get everything resolved.
	Now in terms of what specific work he's referring to, in a previous episode we already discussed how the audit team announced that last week the hand recount portion was done as well as the paper examination portions of the audit.
	They were already finished and now they are concluding the forensic exam part of the process.
	Now, in terms of the findings, Mr.
	Poland suggested that we'll just have to wait.
	Here's specifically what he said.
	As we already mentioned in a previous episode, the audit team themselves, they're under a non-disclosure agreement.
	And so when they hand the final report over to the Arizona State Senate, which will likely happen sometime in early August, it'll be up to the Senate as to when or how to release the data to the public.
	Now, there has been some other election integrity news over in Arizona that I believe is worth discussing.
	That's because just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled that Arizona's ban on ballot harvesting is, in fact, legal.
	More specifically, in a 6-3 decision, which was split along purely ideological lines, the Supreme Court ruled that Arizona's ban on ballot harvesting as well as out-of-precinct voting did not violate the Federal Voting Rights Act.
	And as a part of their ruling, here's what Justice Samuel Alito, here's what he wrote.
	Arizona's out-of-precinct policy and HB 2023, which is their anti-ballot harvesting law, do not violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and HB 2023 was not enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose.
	Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we got very lucky, and we got an exclusive interview with Mark Brunovich, who is Arizona's Attorney General.
	He's the one who actually argued the case, and he said that the court recognized when it comes to time, place, and manner, the states have a lot of authority.
	We as public servants have no more sacred duty than protecting the people's right to vote, but we have to maintain confidence in the integrity of the results.
	Now, this decision was also a victory for the former Trump administration, since they had actually filed a court brief in this case supporting Arizona's position.
	On the flip side, though, Joe Biden denounced the Supreme Court's ruling, saying that it Now what he's referring to there is what Justice Kagan wrote in her dissenting opinion.
	In that dissenting opinion, which is part of the minority, the three justices that voted against this ruling, she wrote that Arizona's laws discriminate against minority voters.
	However, Mark Brunovich, he took issue with that assertion.
	Here's what he told us during that interview.
	If you accept the logic of the dissent, then almost any voting integrity measures enacted by any state would be unconstitutional or inconsistent with the Voting Rights Act.
	It would essentially nationalize all of our elections, which is exactly what the left is trying to do with S1 and H.R.1.
	By the way, what he's referring to there is the so-called For the People's Act, which is the national law that the Democrats are trying to push through Congress right now, which would essentially nationalize our elections.
	Mr.
	Brunovich then went on to say this.
	So I think that Justice Kagan in that dissent is essentially doing the bidding of the far left that's trying to undermine the system of checks and balances with our government.
	There was a time not that long ago when even the Democrats recognized that limits on ballot harvesting help protect the integrity of the process.
	And along that line, let's talk about what's happening over in Pennsylvania.
	Because just two days ago, Pennsylvania's Democrat governor, Mr. Tom Wolfe, he vetoed a Republican election integrity bill.
	Among several other things, this election bill, which has already passed the Pennsylvania legislature, it would have expanded voter ID requirements.
	It would have moved up the voter registration deadline, and it would have limited the use of drop boxes.
	In explaining why exactly he vetoed this bill, the Pennsylvania governor, he wrote this.
	I made it clear I wouldn't sign a bill that creates barriers to voting.
	That's exactly what this bill does by limiting mail ballots, capping early voting, cutting voter registration time.
	And besides this election bill, by the way, two days ago, Tom Wolfe also used his executive authority to remove a budget proposal which would have earmarked several million dollars to create an election auditing agency.
	Now, State Representative Seth Grove, he's a Republican over in Pennsylvania, he accused Tom Wolf of failing voters, since he said that the provisions within this election bill were supported by most Pennsylvanians.
	Here's specifically what he said.
	To say I am disappointed in Wolf's lack of action is an understatement.
	Though Wolf has put on blinders to problems within our election process, it doesn't mean the problems do not exist.
	Likewise, Heritage Action, which is a conservative policy group, they also criticized the governor's veto, reiterating that the measure was very popular.
	Here's what they wrote.
	Voter ID requirements are a common sense first step to protecting our elections.
	They are supported by 74% of Pennsylvania voters.
	And there really might be something to that statistic, because even though both at the state and national levels the Democrats have been calling the election integrity measures a form of voter suppression, Some recent polls suggested that a majority of Americans across party lines support things like photo ID requirements.
	For instance, a recent poll from Monmouth, it suggested that 62% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 91% of Republicans support some form of voter ID requirements.
	And so, we'll just have to wait and see if the Pennsylvania legislature will be able to override that veto, which is frankly rather unlikely.
	Now if you'd like to read more about the Supreme Court case over in Arizona, or this law out in Pennsylvania which just got vetoed, all those links will be down there 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, they made the decision to demonetize our content.
	We can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after our episodes.
	The Super Chat feature has just been disabled.
	That's the financial side of it.
	But on the back end, I see that our episodes are routinely throttled or censored by YouTube.
	They essentially reduce the reach to non-subscribers.
	However, we here at the Epoch Times, we took action, and we created something very cool.
	It's called Epic TV. It's our brand new no-censorship video platform where you can find all of the awesome Epoch Times video programs like The Larry Elder Show, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, American Thought Leaders, Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, China in Focus, and our show Facts Matter.
	And on there, we'll publish exclusive episodes that you will not find here on YouTube.
	And actually, besides that, we also publish awesome documentaries.
	In fact, we're finishing up a phenomenal documentary called America Rewritten.
	Here's a trailer for it.
	The American story was once seen as a light of strength and freedom for the world.
	It created a government by the people and for the people, but rights were given not by leaders, but by God.
	Yet now the very fabric of the nation is under assault.
	What is the real story of America?
	Why did the Founding Fathers choose a republic over a democracy?
	And what would the world be if the bedrock of the American Constitution was lost?
	If you'd like to check out some of this awesome content over on Epic TV, the link to it will be right there at the top of the description box.
	I hope you click on it.
	I hope you check it out.
	I hope you subscribe.
	And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful world through honest journalism that is based in truth and tradition.
	Now lastly, if you have not already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm.
	Subscribe to this YouTube channel so that you can get honest content like this delivered directly into your YouTube feed while YouTube still allows it.
	And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epic Times.
	Stay informed.

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