Sinclair, TV station owners under scrutiny from DOJ for advertising practices: Report

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., Tribune Media Co., and other independent TV station owners are under scrutiny from the Department of Justice to determine if they broke antitrust laws and drove up local television advertising prices, a new report says.

The investigation is looking at whether the television station owners worked together when their ad sales team discussed their performance among each other. This could have resulted in increased television commercial prices, the Wall Street Journal reports. “It is our policy not to comment on a potential investigation,” a Sinclair spokesperson said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “It is our understanding that this is not specific to Sinclair, but focuses on the larger broadcast industry.”

A Tribune spokesperson reportedly refused to provide a comment. The potential antitrust violation was unearthed by the government as a part of Sinclair’s potential acquisition of Tribune. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and other commissioners voted to send the issue to an administrative law judge. It’s uncertain when the probe was launched and if the companies will be penalized.

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/sinclair-tv-station-owners-under-scrutiny-from-doj-for-advertising-practices-report

Mueller team scrutinizing Trump tweets in obstruction investigation: Report

Special counsel Robert Mueller is examining some of President Trump’s tweets to determine whether the president attempted to obstruct justice in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mueller is looking at Trump’s tweets about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former FBI Director James Comey, three sources told the New York Times. Mueller wants to question Trump about his tweets, the publication reported Thursday. Some of Trump’s tweets about the men came as he was pressuring them in private about Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. In a wide-ranging investigation, Mueller is examining Trump’s conversations with Comey and Sessions, as well as other top administration officials, about the Russia probe; misleading White House statements; public attacks on key witnesses; and possible pardon offers made to potential witnesses, the report said.

Mueller would need credible witnesses and evidence showing Trump had criminal intent to make a strong case that the president obstructed justice. Trump’s lawyers have argued Trump’s actions are not obstruction, and that he is merely defending himself against a “witch hunt.” Some of his lawyers have privately said, however, that they’re concerned Mueller is building an obstruction case.

One of Trump’s lawyers, Rudy Giuliani, brushed off Mueller’s examination of the tweets as desperation. “If you’re going to obstruct justice, you do it quietly and secretly, not in public,” he told the Times.

https:// www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/mueller-team-scrutinizing-trump-tweets-in-obstruction-investigation-report

>>2300689

Sound like he didn't get a flip from Manafort, like he was hoping for, so now it's about latching on to what ever he can get his hands on.

America’s Adversaries Are Weaponizing Information, NSA Director Warns

U.S. needs a whole-of-government effort to counter foreign influence and cyber attacks

Foreign adversaries have stepped up the use of information warfare to control populations since 2011 and the operations are one of the new threats in the digital age, according to the director of the National Security Agency. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both NSA and Cyber Command, said in remarks last week that both the military and the nation as a whole are taking steps to counter foreign information warfare and to use information operations against adversaries.

The Arab Spring uprisings that began in April 2011 were fueled by social media and the internet and led to the unseating of several governments throughout the Middle East and North Africa. "We looked at this as an indicator of how powerful a free and open internet can be in the world, and we looked at this from that lens," Nakasone said in remarks to a security conference in Aspen, Colorado. "But I would also say that our adversaries looked at it from a completely different lens: As an existential threat to their existence." Both Russia and China stepped up internal internet controls and other internal security measures after the Arab Spring aimed at blocking the spread of pro-democracy revolutions to their nations. And so what have you seen since then, I would say, is the weaponization of information," Nakasone said. "The idea of being able to control a populace with disinformation." "I think that is an incredibly important trend that we're starting to see," he said. Both states are "operating below the threshold of war," he said.

Russia's recent information warfare operations have involved the use of hard and soft power, such as the so-called "little green men" in Russian military uniforms without official insignia deployed to help take over Ukraine's Crimea and combined with aggressive disinformation operations to support the eventual annexation. Another example was Russia's cyber-enabled intelligence operation to influence the 2016 presidential election by hacking political organizations' networks and posting stolen emails and documents online. China, for its part, has taken steps to curtail access to free and open U.S. social media outlets inside China, such as Facebook and Twitter. Beijing also is engaged in large-scale government-backed influence operations on Chinese social media outlets such as WeChat and Weibo. The Chinese government, for example, controls a group called 50 Cent Army, thousands of Chinese internet influence agents and trolls who are said to be paid the equivalent of $.50 for each online message posted. China also deployed online technology capable of controlling search engine results so that, for example, a search entry for Tiananmen, the main Beijing square, will not return results on the 1989 government crackdown on unarmed, pro-democracy protesters in the square by Chinese military forces.

Asked if the United States is prepared to wage information warfare against the kind of activities used by Russia against Ukraine and the American election, Nakasone said the military has begun incorporating information warfare into its tactical training. "We've recognized the importance of hybrid warfare within our Army, within our Marine Corps on the ground," he said. "We've already started to take action to train at places like the National Training Center that incorporates the idea of information warfare with a ground combat element." The training shows the military recognizes the importance of incorporating information operations with traditional military operations.

https:// freebeacon.com/national-security/americas-adversaries-weaponizing-information-nsa-director-warns/

>>2301032

Agreed, what was interesting to me was, who is saying it.

Former McCaskill Campaign Spokesman Is Now Spokesman for Husband’s Investment Company

Longtime Dem operative handled questions on company's government housing investments

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) has worked to distance her political career from her husband's investment career, especially when it's negatively spotlighted in the press, but her husband’s investment company now employs McCaskill's former campaign spokesman to handle its press.

The wealth of McCaskill's husband, Joseph Shepard, has long caused political problems for the senator, most recently on Tuesday when the Kansas City Star reported that his businesses had received $131 million in federal subsidies since McCaskill took office in 2007. Last month the report was that Shepard had millions of dollars invested in a hedge fund using offshore tax havens. McCaskill has responded to stories on Shepard's investments by saying she has no involvement in them, but in an apparent effort to mitigate damage to McCaskill's reelection effort, Shepard's company Sugar Creek has brought in the political consultant who helped McCaskill first get elected to the Senate in 2006 to handle its damage control efforts.

Tony Wyche is president of Soapbox, a public relations and political consulting company based in Missouri that still lists McCaskill as its top political client. His LinkedIn résumé shows a long track record of work in Democratic politics, including two-year stints as communications director for the Missouri Democratic Party and deputy press secretary for the Democratic National Committee. His company was paid $44,500 by McCaskill's 2006 campaign, throughout which he was quoted as her spokesman. Wyche was first quoted as a spokesman for Shepard's company in May. He is quoted throughout Tuesday's report on the federal subsidies received by Shepard's companies. Soapbox did not respond to an inquiry on the terms of its work with Sugar Creek. The McCaskill campaign also did not respond to an inquiry into whether it worked with Wyche on the response he provided to the Kansas City Star.

Wyche's social media activity indicates he remains engaged with politics and is especially invested in McCaskill's reelection effort. On Twitter, Wyche often retweets both McCaskill and her campaign account. He regularly criticizes her Republican opponent Josh Hawley and celebrated a recent critique of Hawley by McCaskill's current communications director as "brutal." Wyche argued in his statement to the Kansas City Star that Shepard is actually less involved in government housing investments than he was before he met McCaskill in 2001. He would not provide details on precisely how much Shepard had earned from his investments since McCaskill became a senator in 2007. The Kansas City Star reported that Shepard earned between $365,374 and $1,118,158 from investments in housing projects that receive federal subsidies. Based on earlier press reports and disclosures, the investments have earned him between $5,026,118 and $22,269263 since 2007.

https:// freebeacon.com/politics/former-mccaskill-campaign-spokesman-now-spokesman-husbands-investment-company/

Pa. Dem Criticized Ruling to Uphold Laws Protecting Sexually Abused Children

Scott Wallace was also opposed to efforts to fund police, mandate minimum sentences for sexual harassment

A far-left candidate running for Congress in Pennsylvania has criticized a Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws meant to protect sexually abused children and opposed efforts to fund police and mandate minimum sentences for sexual harassment while serving as legislative director for a prominent criminal defense attorneys group.

Scott Wallace, the Democrat who is challenging incumbent Republican Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania's first congressional district, is the grandson of former vice president Henry Wallace and inherited a fortune after his grandfather's company was sold in the 1990s. Wallace spent years running the Wallace Global Fund, his family's foundation created in 1995, which has disbursed millions to radical left-wing groups while devoting no funds to organizations or groups located in the district he is seeking to represent.

Prior to Wallace's involvement with the fund, which dates back to at least 1995 when he was listed as a "Director" on its board, Wallace was the legislative director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for seven years from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. As Wallace was acting as the legislative director with the criminal defense organization, which is based in Washington, D.C., he argued that there is no such thing as victim conduct being off limits. During the trial of Matthew Solomon for the murder of his wife, Lisa, Matthew's lawyer Jeffrey Waller raised questions during the trial about Lisa's temper and said that she "liked to go to bars." Wallace, responding to concerns about the rights of victims, said that there is "no such thing as victim conduct being off limits," according to a quote from a New York Times article in 1988. Matthew Solomon was found guilty of strangling Lisa Solomon and stuffing her body in a garbage bag before dumping it outside of their apartment complex. Solomon was sentenced to 18-years-to-life and was denied parole for the seventh time in 2017.

Later, in 1990, Wallace criticized a Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws allowing children who were sexually abused to be allowed to testify and be cross-examined at a separate location rather than being forced to testify while the alleged perpetrator sat across from them in court. Wallace said the Supreme Court's decision could lead to false accusations. "This decision increases greatly the chances of a false accusation not being discovered and increases the risk of an innocent person being convicted and sent to prison," Wallace said in a 1990 Newsday article. Wallace added that it "may send a signal to experiment with other kinds of witnesses where there is a likelihood of serious emotional trauma."

Wallace later criticized a bipartisan crime bill passed by the U.S. Senate in 1993 that allocated more funding to police forces and mandated minimum sentencing guidelines for violent crimes in addition to crimes involving sexual harassment and offenses involving firearms, calling it "controversial" in a December 1993 column published in the Indianapolis Star. Wallace also lambasted the "hidden costs" of hiring 100,000 police officers to address the U.S. crime problem during the time, Fox News previously noted. "The 100,000 cops on which the Senate wants to spend $9 billion will not simply be fired at the end of five years; someone will have to continue paying them," Wallace said. "Scott Wallace did everything in his power to undermine victims of abuse," said Chris Martin, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "This is just yet another example of his record being too extreme for Pennsylvania's 1st District."

Following his stint with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Wallace helped run his family's fund as a director on its board and later took over its operations alongside his wife until stepping away from the position before the current election cycle. Wallace lived in Maryland and South Africa before moving back to the district to run for office. The fund, under Wallace's leadership, disbursed millions to a number of controversial far-left organizations including groups that promote the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaigns against Israel, groups that advocate for taxing families for "irresponsible breeding," and financed legal representation for a number of Guantanamo Bay detainees "just after 9/11." Wallace's campaign did not return a request for comment.

https:// freebeacon.com/politics/pa-dem-criticized-ruling-to-uphold-laws-protecting-sexually-abused-children/

>>2300779

>>2300819 I think as bad as this appears we are near the time of truth being revealed.

>>2301301 Agreed, we don't need any more of far anything!