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Aug. 15, 2021 - Epoch Times
19:31
Twitter Suspends 2020 Maricopa County Election Audit Accounts | Facts Matter
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Good evening.
Two days ago, over in Arizona, where the audit of the 2020 election is taking place, the state Senate has issued a new, fresh subpoena for not only the county routers, but also for ballot envelopes as well as other election-related materials.
However, you likely have not heard about this, since just yesterday, Twitter suspended the official account of the Arizona audit.
Meanwhile, also yesterday, over at the CDC, officials there changed their stance on masks.
They are now recommending that all people who live in certain areas of the country should be wearing masks, regardless of whether they're vaccinated or not.
And lastly, two days ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs became the first agency in the entire country to mandate that all employees must be vaccinated.
If they're not vaccinated, they'll be fired.
However, is that actually legal?
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 over in Arizona.
But actually, just before we do, as a super quick aside, right there at the very 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, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, American Thought Leaders, China in Focus, Life and Times, and Facts Matters on there as well.
And we publish exclusive episodes onto Epoch TV that frankly, due to the censorship, we don't feel comfortable publishing here on YouTube.
Again, the link to Epoch TV will be right there at the top of the description box.
And now let's really move on over to Arizona.
As we've already explored in several previous episodes, the large-scale audit of the 2020 election over in Maricopa County has been underway for the past three months now.
And as a part of that audit, the Arizona State Senate has been conducting a hand recount of 2.1 million ballots, they've been looking for any possible IT breaches that might have occurred, and they've also been examining close to 400 tabulation machines which were used during the previous election.
Now one thing that they haven't been able to examine are the county routers.
That's because even though the Senate issued a subpoena for these routers back in December, the county has been refusing to hand them over over the last seven months.
They've been just refusing to comply and therefore the county routers have never been handed over to be forensically examined.
However, the Senate is still pushing ahead.
In fact, just two days ago, Arizona senators issued a fresh new subpoena ordering Maricopa County to hand over all of the remaining materials which are related to the 2020 election.
Specifically, besides the routers themselves, as well as the router images, they are also ordering that all ballot envelopes, the voter records, as well as all the username and passwords for the election machines must be handed over as well.
Furthermore, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors was also commanded by the state Senate to hand over all of their findings in regards to any system breaches that might have occurred within six months of the November 3rd election.
And then lastly, the Board of Supervisors was also told to appear at the Arizona State Capitol for a hearing on August 2nd.
Now, if they fail to comply with anything, meaning if the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors fails to comply with anything that was asked for them by the Senate, they were told that this may constitute contempt of the legislature.
And so you might be wondering whether the county will actually comply with this fresh new subpoena, given the fact that they have not complied with the previous one.
Well, thus far, the county has not decided one way or the other to comply with the previous subpoena.
However, here's what a county spokesperson said about it.
The county has already provided everything competent auditors would need to confirm the accuracy and security of the 2020 election.
The board will review the materials requested with our legal team and respond in the coming days.
And so, we'll just have to wait and see whether the county will ultimately comply with this new subpoena.
Although frankly, it has become a little harder to know what is actually going on with regards to this audit.
That's because just yesterday, and this is something that I almost couldn't believe once I actually saw it, Twitter suspended the official Arizona audit account.
That's right.
They suspended the official account for the Senate-led election audit.
That Twitter account, by the way, was one of the main channels that the audit was using to let people know what was happening.
And now it has just been taken down.
It had close to 100,000 followers, by the way, and it was used by the Arizona State Senate to let people know what is happening.
Now, as of this moment, Twitter has yet to give any official explanation for why they took down this account.
In fact, we hear at the Epoch Times we reached out to Twitter for comment on this matter, but we have yet to hear back.
Although, it is worth noting that this decision by Twitter to suspend this account came just a few days after two recent developments.
First was that President Trump went over to Arizona just a few days ago, and he delivered a speech in which he referenced the Arizona audit.
And so since then, it's come more into the national conversation.
And then secondly, this takedown by Twitter came just shortly after Ken Bennett, who was the audit liaison, after Ken said that he was blocked from entering the audit several days ago.
He was literally not allowed to enter the venue.
Why?
Well, he says that it's because he shared information that he sourced from the audit with people who were critical of the operation.
Here's what he said during an interview.
"I shared some box counts of how many ballots were in each box, and that got leaked to the press and I apologized to Senate President Pham.
I had promised that information would not be leaked to the press, but it indirectly got done so that's how I got barred from the audit." For your reference, by the way, the audit team is currently under a non-disclosure agreement, and so information has to officially go to the Arizona State Senate before being released to the public.
Regardless, the fact that Twitter suspended the official account that the Arizona State Senate was using to communicate with the public about the election audit is fueling criticism against Twitter and other big tech firms over their censoring of conservative voices.
Now, if you would like to read more about either the new subpoena that was issued by the State Senate or about Twitter's decision to ban the audit account, the links to that will be in the description box below this video for you to check out.
And now, before we move on over and discuss the federal vaccine mandates, I would like to take a quick moment and introduce our sponsor for today's episode and i will do so from the sound That's right, Roman.
Although today we are not in the sound studio, we are in the kitchen.
And we have a new type of sponsor.
It's a book.
It's actually a very good book.
It's called Terms of Service.
They sent me a copy to read and I've been going through it for myself.
I'm about a third of the way through.
And you know what?
I didn't have any expectations, but still it sort of blew them out of the water.
It's a dystopian Orwellian type of novel.
And you know, it hit upon a question that was really timely.
It's exactly what I was thinking about recently, how big tech, there's sort of two things that big tech is doing simultaneously.
On the one side, they are censoring us.
They're censoring how we speak, how we express ourselves.
And in that process, they're inching closer and closer to actually censoring the thoughts within our own heads.
So that's one thing.
But then on the other side, the artificial intelligence is actually moving us in a certain direction Based on the content that it recommends, based on the events that it recommends, based on the Advertising that it shows, it's actually moving us in a certain direction, right?
And so this book I'm not going to get into the plot in case you are actually going to read it, but it explores the question of As artificial intelligence gets more and more advanced, where is this ultimately leading us to?
Where is this leading society to?
So again, phenomenal book.
I'm recommending it not only because they sent me a copy and because they sponsored our episode, but because the book is generally very good.
If you want to find it for yourself, you can search for Terms of Service on Amazon.
Buy a copy there.
Or if you don't want to give any commission to Jeff Bezos, you can go to craigwstanfield.com forward slash Roman and buy a copy directly from the author.
I'll actually throw a link to that direct website there in the description box below.
And again, Mr.
Stanfield, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode.
And now Roman in the studio, back to you.
And now let's talk about mask mandates.
Just yesterday, the CDC, which is America's top health agency, they altered their COVID guidance and they told people that even if they're fully vaccinated, they should still be wearing masks if they live in certain parts of the country.
Their recommendation, by the way, also applies to children.
Now in explaining this change in policy, Dr.
Rochelle Walensky, who is the director of the CDC, she told this to the media.
New research into outbreaks from several states and other countries indicate that on rare occasions, some vaccinated people infected with the Delta variant after vaccination may be contagious and spread the virus to others.
Furthermore, she went on to say that their research indicated that vaccinated people who contract the Delta variant have the same amount of the virus as unvaccinated people, and therefore, vaccinated people can still transmit the variant.
Here's what she said on this front.
Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we reached out to the CDC in order to get specific citations to what research they're referring to, but we have yet to hear back.
Regardless, the CDC is now advising everyone, even vaccinated people who live in certain areas with what they're calling substantial and high transmission of the virus, to wear masks in public and in indoor settings.
Now, let's unpack which areas they're actually referring to here.
When they say areas with high transmission...
They're specifically referring to areas that have a one case in 1,000 over a seven-day period transmission rate.
And so when you look at an official map of the COVID cases on the CDC website, their new recommendation applies to the counties marked in either orange or red.
And for your reference, by the way, out of America's 3,219 counties, 2,043 of them fall into that category, meaning that this recommendation applies to 63% of America's counties.
Now, this shift from the CDC came about two and a half months after they first announced that vaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks indoors because of the protection that the vaccine provided.
However, as more and more evidence is emerging that the vaccines are not as effective against COVID as they once were, which according to the official report is due to the virus variants, the CDC has now changed their policy.
And it's also worth noting that though what the CDC issued was guidance, they don't make any specific rules.
However, what the CDC says is then typically followed closely by both health departments as well as businesses across the entire country.
And so what we're very likely to start seeing is that mask mandates will begin to spring up around the country once again.
Although there have been critics of such a move.
For instance, even here in New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who's a Democrat, he recently said that if the mask mandate is reinstated, that would cause people to develop a lack of confidence in the vaccines, since he said they would start questioning why they still need to wear masks after getting the shot.
Which, by the way, is a perfect segue into our next topic, which is forced vaccinations.
Two days ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs, also known as the VA, it became the first federal agency in the entire country to mandate that all employees must be vaccinated.
Specifically, Dennis McDonough, who is the secretary of the VA, he came out and he said that all healthcare employees must receive the COVID vaccine as a prerequisite for employment.
Here's specifically what he said in a statement.
We are mandating vaccines for Title 38 employees because it's the best way to keep veterans safe, especially as the Delta variant spreads across the country.
Now, after he made that statement, the employees who fall under Title 38, which includes doctors, dentists, as well as registered nurses, they have eight weeks to get fully vaccinated.
And according to the new policy, if these employees refuse, they can be fired.
Here's the VA secretary again explaining his reasoning.
Whenever a veteran or VA employee sets foot in a VA facility, they deserve to know that we have done everything in our power to protect them from COVID-19.
With this mandate, we can once again make and keep that fundamental promise.
Now what's interesting to note is that just last month in June, Joe Biden came out and he specifically told federal agencies to not do this.
He told federal agencies to not require vaccination as a precondition for employment.
That was last month in June.
However, just earlier today, he reversed course.
While in Virginia, Joe Biden said that mandatory vaccine mandates for all federal employees are now under consideration.
Specifically, when he was asked by a reporter on whether the new mask mandate from the CDC would create any type of confusion, here's what he said.
We have a pandemic because of the unvaccinated, and they are sowing enormous confusion.
And there's only one thing we know for sure.
If those other 100 million people got vaccinated, we'd be in a very different world.
So get vaccinated.
If you haven't, you're not nearly as smart as I said you were.
Now in that statement, Joe Biden mentioned that if the people got vaccinated, we would be in a whole different world right now.
And this is a claim that the Biden administration has repeated over the last several weeks, wherein they blame unvaccinated people for the spike in COVID cases across the country.
And when they make that claim, they often cite the CDC as their source.
However, that data is not publicly available.
In fact, the CDC has thus far declined to make public their data, and so I guess we'll have to just believe what they say.
Now, while Joe Biden is considering mandating vaccines for all federal employees, some other Democrat leaders have already taken the next step.
For instance, this is what Mayor Bill de Blasio just said earlier today in an interview on MSNBC. We have got to shake people at this point and say, come on now.
We tried voluntary, where we could not have been more kind and compassionate as a country.
Free testing everywhere you turn, incentives, friendly, warm embrace.
The voluntary phase is over.
Voluntary alone doesn't work.
It's time for mandates, because it's the only way to protect our people.
Likewise, on the West Coast, Gavin Newsom, who is currently the governor of California, although he's facing a recall, he had an interview with CNN where he said this.
It's like drunk drivers.
You don't have the right to go out and drink and drive and put everybody else at risk, including your own life.
We don't even have to have that debate if we can just get everybody vaccinated that isn't vaccinated, that's refusing to get vaccinated, that's living vaccine free and impacting the rest of us.
And so, given their statements, it goes without much surprise that New York City and California became the first two places in the entire country requiring all of their government workers to be either fully vaccinated or to show a weekly negative COVID test.
And while this isn't officially a vaccine mandate, since no workers will be forced to get the shot, the officials in these two places are hoping that the inconvenience and the discomfort of having to do weekly tests will persuade many people to just get the vaccine.
This rule, by the way, affects people such as police officers, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers, toll booth operators, and so on.
There are over half a million different types of government employees between California and New York City, and so a lot of people will be impacted.
And so the question that you might be asking yourself, the $500 million question, is whether any of this is legal.
Is it legal for the local, state, and federal governments to force mandatory vaccinations, or to create a situation where they're essentially pushing you towards that?
Well, there's a lot of debate over that subject right now.
However, just yesterday, the Department of Justice came out and issued an opinion saying that COVID vaccine mandates are, in fact, legal.
To be more specific, the Justice Department issued a legal opinion which said that federal law does not prohibit either public agencies or private businesses from requiring their employees to be vaccinated.
Here's part of what their opinion said: "Federal law does not prohibit public or private entities from imposing vaccine requirements, even when the only vaccines available are those authorized under emergency use authorizations." Now, what they're referring to there, in case you're not aware, is the fact that all the COVID vaccines, whether it's the Moderna, the Pfizer, or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, they are all currently under what's known as emergency use authorization by the FDA, meaning that, even though they have been tested, they are currently not fully approved.
However, the Justice Department concluded that even though, even with these emergency use authorizations in place, private businesses as well as government agencies can still force their employees to get the shot.
And in fact, this messaging from the Justice Department is now being used as justification to push forward such policies.
For instance, when he was asked about this opinion from the Justice Department, here's what Mayor Bill de Blasio had to say.
This DOJ decision is important.
I think that will be helpful.
We have got to put pressure on this situation.
However, it's worth noting that what the Justice Department issued was an opinion, and so whether these mandates are actually legal or not will likely be determined in court as lawsuits invariably begin to sprout up across this country.
Although, they will likely be springing up in blue states because many red states have taken a harder-line stance against enforcing either mask mandates or mandatory vaccine mandates.
For instance, here's what Governor Greg Abbott, who is the governor of Texas, here's what he wrote just yesterday.
The time for government mask mandates is over.
Now is the time for personal responsibility.
In May, I signed an executive order prohibiting mask mandates by government entities.
Every Texan has the right to choose whether they will wear a mask or have their children wear masks.
Likewise, over the last several months, 15 states across the country, all with Republican legislatures, have banned vaccine passports.
And for your reference, those states are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Montana, both North and South Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
And given the fact that these states have banned vaccine passports, it's very unlikely that they will enforce any type of mandatory vaccinations.
We'll just have to wait and see how the whole thing ultimately plays out, which will likely play out along party lines.
And frankly, we will be covering this extremely closely because how this all turns out will have a very large impact on the type of world that our kids inherit.
If you would like to go deeper into anything that we've discussed today, such as the new CDC mask recommendations, the vaccine mandate from the VA, or the opinion from the Justice Department, all those links will be put in the description box below this video so you can check them out.
And now lastly, just like we're seeing censorship over on Twitter, we here at the Epoch Times have been experiencing censorship on this platform on YouTube for quite a while now.
In fact, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube coincidentally 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 mysteriously just been disabled.
They're essentially snuffing out our ability to monetize our program.
However, we here at the Epoch Times, we did not take this lying down.
We did not just roll over and do nothing.
Instead, we took action and we created something very cool.
It's called EpicTV.
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, China in Focus, Life and Times, Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, as well as Facts Matter.
And on there we publish exclusive episodes that frankly, due to the censorship, we just don't feel comfortable publishing here on YouTube.
If you want to check out those exclusive episodes, as well as all the other awesome content on Epic TV, the link to it will be right there pinned at the top of the description box.
And I really hope you click on it.
I hope you check it out.
I hope you subscribe.
I hope you can join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful, beautiful world through honest journalism based in truth and tradition.
And by the way, right now, I'm sure you are aware, honest journalism that doesn't just push the established narrative is more important than ever before because if you don't have access to facts without them being filtered through some kind of a narrative, then likely you might not be informed.
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Subscribe to this YouTube channel in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while YouTube still allows it.
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Then, until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times.
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