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Oversight committee investigates alleged Google censorship of Trump shooting

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U.S. House Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., launched an investigation Wednesday into allegations that Google and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, censored or misrepresented content about President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Comer sent letters to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai Wednesday over the alleged censorship, which grabbed national attention after the near-fatal assassination attempt against Trump in Butler County, Pennsylvania July 13.

How Google and Facebook handled questions and searches about the assassination attempt against Trump sparked criticism.

“Specifically, Meta’s AI assistant claimed, ‘the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump was a ‘fictional’ event,’ even as the chatbot ‘had plenty to say about Democratic rival Kamala Harris’ run for the White House,” Comer wrote, citing a New York Post article. “When asked if the assassination on President Trump was fictional, Meta’s bot responded that there ‘was no real assassination attempt on Donald Trump. I strive to provide accurate and reliable information, but sometimes mistakes can occur.’ The bot further added, ‘[t]o confirm, there has been no credible report or evidence of a successful or attempted assassination of Donald Trump.’”

Facebook’s team also admitted that it censored the photo of a bloody Trump holding his fist in the air just after the shooting, a photo that went viral online and became a rallying point for his campaign.

“This was an error,” Facebook Communications Director Dani Levi wrote on X about the photo. “This fact check was initially applied to a doctored photo showing the secret service agents smiling, and in some cases our systems incorrectly applied that fact check to the real photo. This has been fixed and we apologize for the mistake.”

“Google users report that autocompleted search prompts related to the assassination attempt of President Trump produced results for failed assassination attempts of former Presidents, including Harry Truman, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan—or even assassinations of historical figures such as Archduke Franz Ferdinand—but omitted from the list of automatically generated search suggestions the recent attempt on President Trump’s life,” Comer wrote.

Google told CBS MoneyWatch that the search issues were technical “anomalies” that were unintentional and could affect anyone.

Comer’s investigation is calling for documents and answers on how Google’s search and autocomplete works. Google staff briefed the committee earlier this month.

“In response to preliminary staff inquiries, Google contends that the Autocomplete results omitted the Trump assassination attempt due to a safety protocol concerning predicted assassination attempts of current political leaders, and Google had not yet updated the Autocomplete feature to reflect that an assassination attempt of President Trump had occurred,” Comer wrote.

In his letter to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Comer pointed out that the executive branch regulates the tech companies that can have bias in determining who runs the executive branch.

“The Committee has long been concerned with how large technology companies leverage their businesses to influence public opinion—especially the design and use of content moderation policies within private sector social media companies—and how company policies are shaped and influenced by Executive Branch officials,” Comer wrote in his letter to Zuckerberg.

After the issues last month, Trump blasted both companies online, saying “here we go again” and calling it “rigging the election,” an apparent reference to how social media companies at the urging of the FBI censored news stories about the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation but the laptop later was found to be real.

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Disaster

FEMA’s response to the hurricanes of 2024 – Inadequate, corrupt, and politically charged

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The news from Hurricane Helene and Milton just gets more bizarre and shows the truly punitive nature of the Biden/Harris administration.

The Daily Wire Reports:

A FEMA supervisor told workers in a message to “avoid homes advertising Trump” as they canvassed Lake Placid, Florida to identify residents who could qualify for federal aid, internal messages viewed by The Daily Wire reveal. The supervisor, Marn’i Washington, relayed this message both verbally and in a group chat used by the relief team, multiple government employees told The Daily Wire.

The government employees told The Daily Wire that at least 20 homes with Trump signs or flags were skipped from the end of October and into November due to the guidance, meaning they were not given the opportunity to qualify for FEMA assistance. Images shared with The Daily Wire show that houses were skipped over by the workers, who wrote in the government system messages such as: “Trump sign no entry per leadership.”

It is unclear whether the same guidance was issued elsewhere in the country. The employees were part of a Department of Homeland Security surge capacity force team, meaning they volunteered from other DHS agencies to help an understaffed FEMA as it dealt with a second major hurricane in a span of just a few weeks.

The employee said it felt wrong to discriminate against Trump supporters when they were at their “most vulnerable.”

“I volunteered to help disaster victims, not discriminate against them,” the employee said. “It didn’t matter if people were black, white, Hispanic, for Trump, for Harris. Everyone deserves the same amount of help.”

The guidance came as the Biden administration was criticized over its sluggish response to Hurricane Helene in rural areas across the country. In Roan Mountain, Tennessee, for example, locals told The Daily Wire it took nearly two weeks for FEMA to show up. The town is located in Carter County, which voted 81% for Trump on Tuesday.

Supposedly, after this news story made the alternative media rounds, including the Daily Wire, – this “supervisor” was fired. About then, Fox and other conservative media ran with the story.


 

In other FEMA related news, the New York Post reports that:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to answer nearly half of the calls for aid and assistance it recently received during Hurricanes Helene and Milton, a report released this week shows.

During a recent week, FEMA’s call centers were so overwhelmed, almost half of all callers never connected with a federal working, according to data released this week.

And it took federal agents on average more than an hour to actually pick up those calls that were answered.

The damning report comes as the Harris-Biden administration has been slammed by conservatives for its response to disaster relief after Hurricanes Helene and Milton slammed into Florida, North Carolina and other southern states.

One man seeking help after his North Carolina home was flooded called FEMA and got a recording that said he was 675th in line.

 


A Google news search shows that there has been almost no mention about Hurricane Helene since October 7th. It is as if it never happened on Google News and MSM. A search on Hurricane Helene documents that the top articles are about

  1. NASA hurricane surveillance,
  2. pecan farmers in Georgia, and
  3. deforestation caused by Helene.

Note the lack of news about the destruction, FEMA’s response, or the communities affected.

Adding the words North Carolina to Hurricane Helene doesn’t pull up any articles on the plight of those suffering, the recovery, or information on FEMA’s response. Instead, there are news stories on deforestation (again), opoids, and a local NC article on bad drinking water (an article that does not even mention FEMA or the hurricane response).

 

By all appearances, there is a governmental blackout regarding their disastrous response and criticisms about that response. Of interest, previous news stories between Oct 1-7, almost all center around “fact-checks’ that try to blunt the criticisms about FEMA, including Trump’s.


The vast media blackout on FEMA’s lack of an organized response in North Carolina is truly a blackeye on America and mainstream media.

By all appearances, the deep state is both protecting its own reputation and that of the Harris campaign. They wanted nothing out there that would reflect poorly on the Biden/Harris administration before the election. Mainstream media compliance and cooperation with the Federal government to hide their incompetence and corruption before this election and over the last decade may be the biggest story of this generation.

The video below is probably the most accurate synopsis of what the situation in NC looks like right now:

Of course, this video was found on X and TikTok- no such news stories on MSM!


North Carolina Department of Transportation has been mentioned as doing amazing work.


And course, Ron DeSantis has been amazing


In combing through X, it is clear that there is a lot of false information out there about the hurricanes this year. Just as has always been the case – gossip and rumors abound during and after a crisis.

By using common sense, and due diligence, people figure it out. By getting all sides of a story, the good, the bad, the false, and the exaggerated – people figure it out and filter reality as it pertains to their view of the world. We don’t all have the same beliefs or worldview.

This is the nature of individuals, communities, and groups – just as it has always been. “Fake news” is nothing new.

Censoring anything not approved by the government is evil. Particularly when DHS (FEMA) has been corrupted, poorly managed, and involved in hate crimes – such as discriminating against Trump supporters. Their malfeasance is palpable. That is the road paved to a totalitarian society.

“The real story here is that the Biden-Harris administration has spurned the interests of the American people since day one, pushing for hundreds of millions of FEMA dollars every year, specifically for illegal immigrants,” Chairman Green said. “Last year, House Republicans eliminated this spending in the FY24 DHS appropriations bill, only for the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House to fight to add it back to the omnibus spending bill.

“This is an issue of priorities, and the Biden-Harris administration’s are completely backwards. It takes a lot of nerve for Secretary Mayorkas to ask for more money after he and his bosses in the White House fought for roughly $650 million just this year for the Shelter and Services Program. Under Biden and Harris’ leadership, our tax dollars are being used to help facilitate illegal immigration, while many American citizens are left to suffer following natural disasters.”

-House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, MD (R-TN)

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International

Bells of Notre Dame Cathedral ring in streets of Paris for first time since 2019 fire

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral have been heard in the streets of Paris for the first time since the devastating fire in 2019.  

On November 8, the eight bells of the Notre Dame Cathedral finally rang in Paris following five years of restoration after the devastating 2019 fire that destroyed the historic church, according to AFP reporters.  

 

“This is a beautiful, important and symbolic step,” Philippe Jost, head of the public body tasked with restoring the cathedral, said.

The restoration of the cathedral’s bells marks a significant moment in French history after the beloved church was destroyed by a fire on April 15, 2019. As the fire raged, Parisians stood on the street watching the cathedral burn, many of whom saw the fire as a symbol of destruction of society and culture.  

The Cathedral itself was a symbol of France’s rich Catholic history which is inseparable from French culture. The gothic church, filled with detailed art and majestic architecture, survived the French revolution, which destroyed hundreds of churches as the country attempted to wipe out Catholic influence.

Following the 2019 fire, many Catholics saw the destruction as a sign.

Bishop Athanasius Schneider viewed the fire as a “symbolic and evocative” sign of the “spiritual conflagration” that has attacked Catholicism in recent decades. 

Similarly, Cardinal Raymond Burke described the fire as a “sobering reflection” on the “attacks upon the infinite beauty of the faith by the grievous sins and crimes of our day.”

“Represents the end of a dark era,” one user wrote. “The symbolism is clear.” 

“In Catholic theology, church bells are blessed by priests to serve as audible exorcisms of local demons,” Catholic commentator Dr. Taylor Marshall wrote. 

 

“The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris just began ringing again… just in time,” he added.

Notre Dame Cathedral is scheduled to formally reopen on December 8, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.

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