10 Ways Big Tech Can Shift Millions of Votes in the November Elections—Without Anyone Knowing

A noted researcher describes 10 ways Google, Facebook, other companies could shift millions of votes in the US midterms

Authorities in the UK have finally figured out that fake news stories and Russian-placed ads are not the real problem. The UK Parliament is about to impose stiff penalties—not on the people who place the ads or write the stories, but on the Big Tech platforms that determine which ads and stories people actually see.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/10-ways-big-tech-can-shift-millions-of-votes-in-the-november-elections-without-anyone-knowing_2671195.html

UK, Australia Have Reason to Be Concerned About Declassification

Foreign intel agencies played crucial role in creation of Russia-collusion narrative

President Donald Trump last week received phone calls from two allies saying, “Please, can we talk.” Those “allies” were almost certainly the UK and Australia.

The high-level calls were most likely coordinated and related entirely to Trump’s recent declassification order. The message appears to have been simple and direct. As Trump noted, “key Allies called to ask not to release.”

These calls should be receiving far more attention than they have been getting

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-uk-and-australia-have-reason-to-be-concerned-about-declassification_2671461.html

China’s Coastal Economies Struggling Under US Tariffs, Dominant State Sector

China’s coastal provinces and cities, prime drivers of the country’s economic growth, are straining to cope with the tandem pressures of an overbearing state sector and escalating tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

The private sector along China’s affluent coast has long been squeezed for profits and markets by the wide reach of China’s inefficient and corruption-riddled state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Tax changes set to go into effect in 2019 will saddle firms and workers with an additional $300 billion in taxes each year.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinas-coastal-economies-struggling-under-us-tariffs-dominant-state-sector_2671818.html

CIA to return to traditional espionage against state actors, says new director

On Monday, Haspel gave a talk at the University of Louisville, from where she graduated in 1978 with a degree in languages and journalism, having transferred there from the University of Kentucky. It was her first public appearance after being sworn in as CIA director. She told the audience that she intends to steer the Agency back to traditional intelligence collection against “current and potential […] nation-state adversaries” and away from counterterrorism operations against non-state actors. The latter took center stage after the events of September 11, 2001. Filling current “intelligence gaps” on countries like Russia and China will be “a strategic priority” for the CIA, said Haspel, adding that the Agency will seek to “sharpen its focus on nation-state adversaries”. She spoke at length about China, stating that Beijing was “working to diminish US influence” and expand its own authority “beyond their own region, in places like Africa, Latin America, the Pacific islands [and] South Asia”.

https://intelnews.org/2018/09/26/01-2405/

Cardinal Zen on Pope's China Deal: 'It's an Incredible Betrayal,' a 'Complete Surrender'

Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and a Catholic leader who has spent his life resisting the totalitarianism of Communist China, said the deal orchestrated by Pope Francis and the Vatican with the Communists to "regularize" the Catholic Church in China is "an incredible betrayal" of the Faith, a "compete surrender."

He also called on the Vatican secretay of state, Pietro Parolin, to resign.

https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/cardinal-zen-popes-china-deal-its-incredible-betrayal-complete-surrender

US Back in Top 10, Venezuela Last in Economic Freedom Report

“… the United States returned to the top 10 in 2016 after an absence of several years. During the 2009–2016 term of President Obama, the US score initially continued to decline as it had under President Bush. From 2013 to 2016, however, the US rating increased from 7.74 to 8.03. This is still well below the high-water mark of 8.62 in 2000 at the end of the Clinton presidency.”

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/daniel-mitchell/us-back-top-10-venezuela-last-economic-freedom-report

DECISION BRIEF: UN Anti-Corruption Programs Are So Biased That US Must Shut Them Down

Reason: UN anti-corruption programs have become shakedown-and-protection rackets for anti-American extremists. The UN anti-corruption programs aid and abet corrupt anti-American political extremists and other bad actors who use the fight against corruption selectively as a weapon of political warfare. The programs undermine the sovereignty of individual countries, which runs counter to the president’s 2017 National Security Strategy of the United States.

Pushback: Obama holdovers and the permanent bureaucracy in the State Department argue that the US must stand as a beacon against “corruption and impunity.” Led by politicized figures like career Ambassador Todd Robinson, they will fight to save the UN programs in order to promote extreme political, economic, and social agendas that do not reflect the American mainstream. Pushback will also come from European Union- and Soros-funded interests that will lose power and influence if the one-sided UN anti-corruption programs are curtailed.

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2018/09/25/decision-brief-un-anti-corruption-programs-are-so-biased-that-us-must-shut-them-down/

“Burn This Book” Exposes Keith Ellison’s Anti-American, Marxist and Islamist Associations and Agenda

(Washington, D.C.): On July 17, 2018, Representative Keith Ellison issued an astonishing – and revealing – public demand that Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos submit his company’s printed and digital products to censorship by the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). In addition, Ellison called for Amazon to no longer publish works by authors that the SPLC deems to be “haters.” Ellison actually insisted that any such material in their inventory be destroyed.

https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2018/09/25/burn-this-book-exposes-keith-ellisons-anti-american-marxist-and-islamist-associations-and-agenda/