Judicial Watch to Facebook: Free Trump!

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Judicial Watch Featured

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Judicial Watch is a Supporting Sponsor of the annual Conservative
Political Action Conference (CPAC
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which being held this weekend, February 25-28, at the Hyatt Regency
Orlando, FL. I am scheduled to speak on the main stage Sunday,
February 28, 2021, from 12:10 p.m. – 12:25 p.m., although the
schedule can change without notice (especially as former President
Trump is also scheduled to appear around that time!)

You can watch the conference live through Sunday at
www.judicialwatch.org/cpac
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You
can also visit our Facebook page
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or YouTube page
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Each year CPAC brings together thousands of attendees and the leading
conservative organizations and speakers of conservative thought in the
nation. Regularly seen on C-SPAN and other national news networks,
CPAC has been the premier event for any major elected official or
public personality seeking to discuss issues of the day with
conservatives. From presidents of the United States to college student
leaders, CPAC
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has become the place to
find our nation’s current and future leaders.

We are delighted to be able to reiterate in this forum the high
standards of ethics and morality we advocate in our nation’s public
life and to describe our efforts to ensure that political and judicial
officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American
people. The Left is attacking CPAC as part of its efforts to suppress
and criminalize opposition but Judicial Watch isn’t intimidated. See
you Sunday!

JUDICIAL WATCH TO FACEBOOK: END CENSORSHIP OF TRUMP

We asked
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Facebook’s Oversight Board to end the censorship of former President
Trump and allow him back onto the platform. We told its “Oversight
Board” that the decision to suspend Trump is an affront to free
speech and transparency. The Oversight Board
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is empowered by Facebook to review and
overturn Facebook’s censorship decisions.

Facebook and Big Tech censorship of former President Trump is an
attack on the free speech of every American. Simply put: Big Tech must
stop censoring conservatives in their effort to help Joe Biden.

(The censorship isn’t just about Trump. I’ve been locked out of
Twitter for six weeks over a tweet previously found not to be in
violation
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of Twitter’s rules.)

Here is the Judicial Watch comment:

Dear Board Members:

Judicial Watch is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation,
promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in government and
fidelity to the rule of the law. It is fair to say that Judicial Watch
is the largest government transparency organization in the United
States.

The Oversight Board should quickly reverse Facebook’s panicked
decision to suspend then-President Trump from its platform. The
decision is an affront to the First Amendment protections of free
speech, peaceable assembly, and the right to petition the government.

There is no credible evidence that President Trump either morally or
legally incited violence. He was resoundingly acquitted by the United
States Senate after the impeachment “prosecutors” failed to
produce credible evidence he incited violence. For Facebook to suggest
President Trump incited violence and that complaints about the
administration of an election could incite violence is a political
position aligned with the Left and political opponents of President
Trump and his supporters. The “Trump standard” Facebook would set
for speech on its platform would, if fairly applied, limits core
political speech of every user on every public policy topic.
Specifically, Left partisans now seek to effectively criminalize those
who advocate for free, fair, and secure elections. Facebook’s ban of
President Trump provides moral cover to this attack on the rights of
tens of millions of Americans.

There is no apolitical process for censoring or even “fact
checking” political speech, and Facebook’s policies should reflect
this reality – on topics ranging from election reform to, as the
Oversight Board previously found, COVID debates. (The Internet and
platforms such as Facebook are increasingly seen as a public
accommodation. In Washington, DC, restricting access to public
accommodations based on political affiliation is prohibited under the
DC Human Rights Act.)

The brazen deplatforming of President Trump is chilling the speech of
other Facebook users, and Internet users generally, who fairly worry
about Facebook censoring and deplatforming them.

Facebook’s censorship also undermines government and related
transparency. Politicians who communicate their views on Facebook are
providing transparency and information that otherwise may not be
available to voters and citizens. Deplatforming President Trump
certainly chills the speech of other politicians and deprives citizens
of useful insights about these politicians and government policies.

BLACK, LATINO SENIORS IN VIRGINIA GET VACCINE AS WHITE 85-YEAR-OLDS
WAIT

Few things have been more disturbing than the politicization of our
health care by leftists imposing their racialist agenda on innocent
and vulnerable Americans. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog reports the
latest travesty
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in Virginia:

In a move that is outraging senior citizens throughout Virginia, the
state is shifting its COVID-19 vaccination distribution to prioritize
black and Latino residents even as desperate 85-year-olds interviewed
by Judicial Watch struggle to get the shot. Like several other states,
Virginia is vaccinating its population in phases, with healthcare
personnel and residents of long-term care facilities receiving utmost
priority. With that population completed, according to the Virginia
Department of Health
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the second
group includes a peculiar combination of frontline workers, people 65
and over, those with medical conditions, incarcerated criminals and
those living in homeless shelters or “migrant labor camps
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As if it were not bad enough that law-abiding seniors are considered
as important to Virginia officials as convicts and illegal immigrants,
now comes another slap in the face. In the next few weeks, the state
will give preference to black and Latino residents 65 and over while
much older white seniors, many in their 80s, cannot secure an
appointment to get inoculated. The plan
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was announced a few days ago by Dr. Danny Avula, who was appointed by
Governor Ralph Northam this year to be the state’s vaccine
coordinator. A Richmond news report
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calls it the latest step taken by Virginia to bake equity into its
vaccination policies. In recent weeks, the article says, roughly
10,000 vaccines were channeled specifically toward trusted clinics in
neighborhoods with older black residents.

The news article cites statistics from a COVID-19 tracking project
operated by a liberal monthly magazine. Black Virginians are dying
from COVID-19 at 1.2 times the rate of white residents
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when adjusted for population, according to the project’s figures.
Latinos are being infected at more than double the rate of whites. In
October, the rate was five times higher than whites. Yet national data
has revealed vast disparities between where the virus has devastated
communities and where shots are given, the story claims, adding that
in Virginia white residents are getting vaccinations at 2.2 times the
rate of black residents. “Factors include a history of
discriminatory lending practices that pushed these populations into
areas with less access to health care, limited internet and a lack of
transportation,” the article states. “All of that is on top of
navigating a fractured health care system that’s in many ways shut
them out.”

The piece makes quite a case for giving minorities preference to get
the shot by selectively including stats supporting the argument. For
example, the reporter cites “some experts
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that have raised concern over age-based vaccine prioritization because
it fails to account for lower expectancies among black and Latino
communities, though it does concede that 75% of Virginia’s deaths
are among those over 70. The story also refers to a Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) study that says blacks lost about three years in
life expectancy in 2020 while Latinos lost two and whites only eight
months. In the state capital of Richmond, most COVID-19 cases,
hospitalizations, and deaths are among black and Latino people with
life expectancies ranging from 63 to 69 years old. More affluent and
white neighborhoods have an average life expectancy between 77 and 83
years old, according to an academic study presented in the story.

A computer-savvy, 85-year-old Virginia man who has tried in vain for
weeks to get vaccinated told Judicial Watch the new state order giving
minorities preference is “particularly disturbing.” The man and
his wife, also in her 80s, do not want to be identified because they
are still trying to get the vaccine and fear criticizing the system
might hurt their chances. In January the couple, residents of a suburb
about 65 miles south of Richmond, signed up on the state website but
lost their place after being told that the site was compromised. They
have since tried signing up repeatedly with no luck.

Many of their elderly friends are in the same discouraging situation,
the couple said. “The governor has decided who gets the vaccine
based on race/ethnicity,” said another elderly Virginian who cannot
get the shot after learning about the new distribution plan in a local
media report. “The governor is a disgrace,” said a Virginia native
in her mid-80s.

SURGE IN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT MINORS PROMPTS HEALTH CRISIS IN U.S.

President Joe Biden’s lawless open borders agenda is creating a new
border crisis. Our _Corruption Chronicles_ blog describes
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the “impending catastrophe.”

A huge surge in illegal immigrant minors is prompting a health
emergency on the southern border and surrounding communities, igniting
“grave concern” among federal lawmakers who are calling on the
Biden administration to “prevent the impending catastrophe.” In a
letter
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to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas more than a dozen
members of congress who sit on various House committees—including
civil rights, national security, and the environment—say they are
particularly concerned that the influx could soon lead to a health
crisis that may cause widespread COVID-19 infections and fatalities.
Additionally, a Latino congressman from south Texas is urging the
administration to “prevent further devastation of border communities
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by addressing the “influx of Central American migrants at the
U.S.-Mexico border
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The government classifies the young migrants as Unaccompanied Alien
Children (UAC) and in January there was a 64% increase over the same
one-month period last year, according to Border Patrol figures
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The data shows that two busy Texas sectors—Big Bend and Del
Rio—saw the biggest increase in UAC traffic over the same one-month
period in 2020, 141% and 122% respectively. Under federal law the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) takes custody of UAC,
identified as illegal immigrants under the age of 18, and must provide
care for them. HHS funds and oversees around 170 state-licensed care
facilities to house the minors when they arrive from foreign countries
south of the border.

There are approximately 4,020 illegal alien minors in HHS care,
according to recent agency figures
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American taxpayers provide them with an array of services including
classroom education, mental and medical health care, legal counsel,
and a variety of recreational activities. The overwhelming majority of
the migrants—72%—are not children but rather young adults or
adolescents 15 to 17 years old, government records
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show. Most of
the youths are from Guatemala and Honduras and 68% are male, which has
tremendously boosted gang recruitment
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in
this country. Federal authorities have for years confirmed that the
nation’s most violent street gangs—including the Mara Salvatrucha
(MS-13)—recruit new members
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at
U.S. shelters housing UAC.

Health issues have also been a serious concern long before COVID-19,
when the Obama administration allowed tens of thousands of UAC to
enter the U.S. Back in 2014, Judicial Watch reported
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that
the hordes of illegal immigrant minors brought in serious diseases,
including swine flu, dengue fever and possibly Ebola. At the time, a
congressman who is also a medical doctor alerted the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that the UAC were importing
infectious diseases considered to be largely eradicated in this
country. Four years later, the infamous Central American caravan posed
an equally serious public health threat, bringing dangerous diseases
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such
as extremely drug resistant strands of tuberculosis, dengue, and
chikungunya. By 2019, the Border Patrol admitted it was getting
slammed with illegal immigrants plagued by “serious illnesses
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including tuberculosis, influenza, and pneumonia. Federal agents
disclosed at the time that they were referring 50 illegal aliens a day
for urgent medical care.

COVID-19 only adds to the already dire situation. In their letter to
Mayorkas the congressional delegation points out that the increasing
number of UAC illegally crossing the border will soon overwhelm
facilities in the middle of a global pandemic, forcing Customs and
Border Protection (CBP) to release unlawfully present individuals into
the U.S. “This surge also has the capability to cause a COVID-19
outbreak at ports of entry and other CBP facilities, which threatens
the health of CBP personnel and could result in the temporary closures
of ports of entry,” the legislators write. “Such closures would
greatly impact commerce and hamper the United States’ economic
recovery. The increase in illegal immigration at the southern border
presents a risk not only to Border Patrol agents apprehending migrants
who illegally cross the border, but also to those communities into
which those individuals will relocate—likely leading to widespread
COVID-19 infection and fatalities.”

In his plea to the administration, the Latino congressman from south
Texas, Democrat Vicente Gonzalez, writes that migrant caravans
approaching the southern border will “overwhelm our many
unvaccinated” federal agents and “put our frontline workers at
greater risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The lawmaker, in his
second term, reminds the Biden administration that border communities
in south Texas districts like the one he represents, continue to be
devastated by the COVID-10 pandemic. “A disorderly rushing of our
border is not acceptable,” Gonzalez writes.

_TIME_ CELEBRATES LEFT’S ELECTION VICTORY, EXPOSES LINKS TO VIOLENCE

By now you have heard of that notorious _Time_ article that bragged
about the leftist conspiracy on the election. Micah Morrison, our
chief investigative reporter, highlights some incredible details in
his _Investigative Bulletin_.

“Victory has one hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan,” John F.
Kennedy famously reminded the world in the wake of the Bay of Pigs
disaster. It’s a lesson _Time Magazine_ forgot in assembling its
recent 6,800-word fantasy epic, “The Secret History of the Shadow
Campaign that Saved the 2020 Election.”
Lead writer Molly Ball and three additional _Time _reporters inventory
a loosely connected ecosystem of notorious self-promotors now rushing
to claim paternity for the Joe Biden victory. It was, Time tells us, a
“conspiracy” of the selfless and the good, working to “keep the
peace.”

On Election Day, Ball writes, “the nation was braced for chaos.
Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of
protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for
battle.”

But “a well-funded cabal of powerful people” was ready. They
ranged “across industries and ideologies, working together behind
the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer
media coverage and control the flow of information.”

What did this conspiracy do? “They got states to change voting
systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and
private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited
armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for
the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to
take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven
strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national
public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the
vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s
conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more
traction.”

Who were the conspirators? They were “left-wing activists and
business leaders,” the strange bedfellows of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce and the AFL-CIO, Democrats, Republicans, advocacy groups,
“the institutional left, like Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace;
resistance groups like Indivisible and MoveOn; progressive data geeks
and strategists, representatives of donors and foundations,
state-level grassroots organizers, racial-justice activists.” And
more: “Congress, Silicon Valley and the nation’s statehouses,”
were involved. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic Chan
Zuckerberg Initiative, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights CEO
Vanita Gupta (now a Biden nominee for associate attorney general),
former House leader Dick Gephardt, the National Council on Election
Integrity, the Voting Rights Lab, and dozens of other groups and
individuals were involved.

You can read the entire epic here
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As serious
political journalism, it’s nonsense. But here at Judicial Watch, we
took note of three important issues that _Time_ rushed past: the
Left’s work with Big Tech to suppress information; the campaign
against mail-in voting; and the command and control of violent
protestors.

_Time_ notes that elements of the Left “successfully pressured
social media companies.” We don’t hear much more about it, except
that “veteran progressive operative” Laura Quinn, a co-founder of
data group Catalist, piloted a “secret project” to track the
online flow of disputed information. And that armed with the Catalist
findings, Left activists leaned on Mark Zuckerberg and others to step
up pressure on social media opinion and reporting that they viewed as
“disinformation.”

Judicial Watch has repeatedly warned about Big Tech’s concentration
of power and the perils of censoring conservative speech. Many
conservative voices have been banned from social media, including
then-President of the United States Donald Trump. Judicial Watch’s
own Tom Fitton was suspended from Twitter
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for an innocuous tweet about hydroxychloroquine—the exact same tweet
that Tom had repeatedly posted and that Twitter had found in September
to be not in violation of its rules.

_Time_ does not pause to consider the dangers in gigantic corporations
moving to censor speech. Nor does it question the merits of mail-in
voting, despite serious problems with the practice. The Constitution
gives state legislatures, not the courts, the authority to decide how
elections will be conducted.

On Monday, the Supreme Court declined to consider Pennsylvania’s
judicial rewrite of state laws governing mail-in ballots in the 2020
election. In his dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas noted that
“changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough. Such
rule changes by officials who may lack authority to do so is even
worse.” Read the full Thomas dissent here
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We share Justice Thomas’s concerns. Judicial Watch is a national
leader in the campaign for fair and lawful elections. Our litigation
teams have been working for years to clean up dirty voter rolls.

In Pennsylvania, for example, we sued the state for failing to make
reasonable efforts to remove ineligible voters from its rolls, as
required by the National Voter Registration Act. As we reported
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in October, Pennsylvania set out a ludicrously low level of inactive
names eligible for removal under the NVRA. The state initially claimed
that in one county of 457,000 registrants, it had found _only eight
inactive names eligible_ for removal. In another county of 357,000
registrants, _only five names had been removed_. In a third county of
403,000 registrants, _only four names_ were removed. Read more here
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about the Pennsylvania case and other Judicial Watch efforts to clean
up voter rolls.

_Time_ also glides past what appears to be the biggest secret in its
secret history: the ability of the Left to turn on and off street
protests that could become violent. The revelations are buried deep in
the story.

On Election Night, Time
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reports, “activists charged with the protest strategy” had a
“difficult” conversation. When was the right time to trigger
massive street protests? “We wanted to be mindful of when was the
right time to call for moving masses of people into the streets,”
one progressive activist told _Time_.

“As much as [Left activists] were eager to mount a show of
strength,” _Time_ reported, “mobilizing immediately could backfire
and put people at risk. Protests that devolved into violent clashes
would give Trump a pretext to send in federal agents or troops.”

So on Election Night, “the word went out: stand down.”

One leading protest organization sent out a notice saying it “would
not be activating the entire national mobilization network today, but
remains ready to activate if necessary.”

Another progressive activist told _Time _that protestors “had spent
so much time getting ready to hit the streets” on Wednesday, the day
after the election. But they followed orders. “Wednesday through
Friday, there was not a single Antifa vs. Proud Boys incident like
everyone was expecting.”

A national mobilization effort aimed at turning out street protests
that could turn violent—sparked perhaps by an “Antifa vs. Proud
Boys incident”— reveals an extraordinary degree of organization,
command and control. That’s worth a closer look. But you probably
won’t read about it in _Time_.
Until next week …



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