YOUNG ANDY CUOMO IN NEW YORK IS DOING THE SAME THING "TEDDY" SCHNEIDERMAN WAS DOING, PROMOTING HIMSELF, BY CONTINUING THIS LAWSUIT THROUGH HIS POLITICAL LACKEY BARBARA UNDERWOOD AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE ...
CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
"NY attorney general: No backing down on Trump lawsuit"
Tom McElroy | Associated Press
08/31/2018, 04:54pm
NEW YORK — Lawyers for President Donald Trump asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought against his charitable foundation by New York’s attorney general, arguing that it was politically motivated.
In the motion Thursday, Trump attorney Alan S. Futerfas argued that former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman “made it his stated mission to ‘lead the resistance’ and attack Mr. Trump whenever possible” and “used his public antipathy for Mr. Trump to solicit donations for his own re-election campaign and advance his career interests and aspirations.”
Trump very publicly announced his intention to dissolve the foundation and donate all of its remaining funds to charity, but the AG “actively stonewalled dissolution,” Futerfas wrote.
“At the same time, the NYAG turned a blind eye to serious and significant allegations of misconduct involving the Clinton Foundation, including claims that it, and its subsidiaries, violated New York law by failing to disclose $225 million in donations from foreign governments,” Futerfas wrote.
Schneiderman began investigating the Trump Foundation in 2016 following Washington Post reports that its spending personally benefited the presidential candidate.
Schneiderman ordered the foundation to stop fundraising in New York.
Schneiderman resigned in May after allegations that he physically abused women he had dated; he denied the claims.
His successor, Democratic Attorney General Barbara Underwood, filed the lawsuit in June, claiming the Trump Foundation “was little more than a checkbook for payments from Mr. Trump or his businesses to nonprofits, regardless of their purpose or legality.”
The suit seeks $2.8 million in restitution and the foundation’s disbandment.
The filing said Underwood continued the “inflammatory rhetoric, stating publicly that she considers her battles with the President ‘the most important work (she) has ever done’ and has vowed that such ‘work will continue.'”
Trump’s lawyers also argued that several impermissible donations by the foundation were due to clerical errors and were all corrected when brought to the attention of foundation officials.
In a statement Thursday, the attorney general’s office said it won’t back down from “holding Trump and his associates accountable for their flagrant violations of New York law.”
“As our lawsuit detailed, the Trump Foundation functioned as a personal piggy bank to serve Trump’s business and political interests,” the statement said.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/d ... n-lawsuit/
POLITICS
Re: POLITICS
THE HILL
"Tourism officials boost marketing efforts in Va. town after Huckabee Sanders restaurant incident"
Brett Samuels
3 SEPTEMBER 2018
A Virginia regional tourism board is reshaping its marketing efforts after protesters were drawn to the area because of controversy at The Red Hen restaurant.
The Roanoke Times reported Sunday that Rockbridge Regional Tourism - comprised of members from Lexington, Va., Buena Vista, Va., and Rockbridge County - decided to spend an additional $5,000 per month from July through September to try and attract more visitors.
The tourism office dipped into its emergency funds for the boost, which localities reportedly decided was necessary after negative coverage from an incident at The Red Hen restaurant involving White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The restaurant, located in Lexington, Va., made national headlines after the owner refused to serve Sanders and her family.
"For a town our size, it was a significant impact," Director of Marketing Patty Williams told The Roanoke Times.
Williams said the tourism office received thousands of emails and phone calls after the Red Hen controversy, including from some visitors who vowed never to come back to the region, The Roanoke Times reported.
In addition to the funding, the tourism group is reportedly pulling together a survey to poll travelers on whether they recall The Red Hen incident and whether it would impact their decision to travel to the area in the future.
Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post following the June incident that she asked Sanders to leave because the restaurant employs several LGBT employees, and Sanders's defense of President Trump's call to bar transgender people from the military was antithetical to her beliefs.
Sanders later tweeted about the episode from her government Twitter account, saying that she was asked to leave because she worked for Trump and that she departed the restaurant "politely."
President Trump then lashed out at the restaurant via Twitter, calling the establishment "filthy."
Protesters gathered outside the establishment in the days that followed, and some Republicans called for a boycott of the restaurant.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/touris ... id=HPDHP17
"Tourism officials boost marketing efforts in Va. town after Huckabee Sanders restaurant incident"
Brett Samuels
3 SEPTEMBER 2018
A Virginia regional tourism board is reshaping its marketing efforts after protesters were drawn to the area because of controversy at The Red Hen restaurant.
The Roanoke Times reported Sunday that Rockbridge Regional Tourism - comprised of members from Lexington, Va., Buena Vista, Va., and Rockbridge County - decided to spend an additional $5,000 per month from July through September to try and attract more visitors.
The tourism office dipped into its emergency funds for the boost, which localities reportedly decided was necessary after negative coverage from an incident at The Red Hen restaurant involving White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The restaurant, located in Lexington, Va., made national headlines after the owner refused to serve Sanders and her family.
"For a town our size, it was a significant impact," Director of Marketing Patty Williams told The Roanoke Times.
Williams said the tourism office received thousands of emails and phone calls after the Red Hen controversy, including from some visitors who vowed never to come back to the region, The Roanoke Times reported.
In addition to the funding, the tourism group is reportedly pulling together a survey to poll travelers on whether they recall The Red Hen incident and whether it would impact their decision to travel to the area in the future.
Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post following the June incident that she asked Sanders to leave because the restaurant employs several LGBT employees, and Sanders's defense of President Trump's call to bar transgender people from the military was antithetical to her beliefs.
Sanders later tweeted about the episode from her government Twitter account, saying that she was asked to leave because she worked for Trump and that she departed the restaurant "politely."
President Trump then lashed out at the restaurant via Twitter, calling the establishment "filthy."
Protesters gathered outside the establishment in the days that followed, and some Republicans called for a boycott of the restaurant.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/touris ... id=HPDHP17
Re: POLITICS
AND HERE COMES YET ANOTHER FRIVOLOUS LAWSUIT AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE AS YOUNG ANDY CUOMO, THE DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST GOVERNOR OF CORRUPT NEW YORK STATE, USES TAXPAYER FUNDS TO BUY HIS WAY INTO THE WHITE HOUSE IN 2020 ...
AND THIS IS THE SAME CUOMO ADMINISTRATION THAT ITSELF ROUTINELY VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW OF THOSE OF US WHO ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS LIVING IN UPSTATE NEW YORK …
AS TO THE CONSTITUTION IN THE CASE OF PUERTO RICO, IT IS ENTIRELY SILENT AS TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BEING DUTY-BOUND TO DO ANYTHING FOR PUERTO RICO AFTER A HURRICANE …
And so ...
CBS NEWS
"Cuomo to help families sue Trump over Hurricane Maria response"
Peter Martinez
3 SEPTEMBER 2018
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a congregation Sunday that he would help families sue President Trump and his administration for failing to provide adequate assistance to those affected by Hurricane Maria.
Cuomo said the Trump administration violated Puerto Ricans' Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law.
He said that New York stands committed to helping victims of Puerto Rico rebuild after the deadly storm walloped the island in September 2017.
"President Trump never tried to help Puerto Rico."
"Florida got attention, Texas got attention, and Puerto Rico got the short end of the stick."
"That is not just wrong and unethical and despicable, it is also illegal," Cuomo said Sunday at the Heavenly Vision Christian Center in the Bronx, New York.
Cuomo's press statement laid out five disparities between the federal government's response to and treatment of citizens in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which primarily struck Texas, and Hurricane Maria -- which devastated the Puerto Rican island:
1. A three week wait
2. Lack of funding
3. Lack of food and water
4. Sparse resources
5. Unacceptable relief
"We're going to hold 'King' Trump to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution said equal protection under the law."
"Puerto Rico did not receive equal protection under the law," Cuomo said.
"New York is standing with Puerto Rico the way we said we would."
"We are going to fight back and we're going to show this president that the law is the law."
There were no immediate details released about Cuomo's plan nor did he take any questions at Sunday's event.
Cuomo, who is a seeking a third term as governor, also took swipes at Mr. Trump's border wall and how the president reacted to the aftermath of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.
"Somebody has to stand up to this president."
"He is a bully," Cuomo said.
Cuomo's speech Sunday comes on the heels of a report out last week that said Hurricane Maria is now considered the most deadly U.S. natural disaster in the last century.
Puerto Rico's government requested an independent review by George Washington University, which found Maria killed an estimated 2,975 people – more than 46 times the original official death toll of 64.
For months, there's been speculation the death toll was much higher than what the government was reporting.
San Juan's mayor, Carmen Cruz, called the new report "painful and shameful," and told CBS News' David Begnaud the governor should take more responsibility.
"When I saw people dying I opted to shout it."
"I opted to ask for help."
"When others saw people dying they opted to shut up," Cruz said.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló acknowledged Tuesday that he made mistakes.
"The focus shouldn't be, you know, hey, let's blame all these folks."
"The focus should be who's going to be accountable and who's going to take the action so this doesn't happen again," Rosselló said.
Researchers found the government and hospitals were inadequately prepared for the Category 4 storm.
They also found the risk of death was 45 percent higher for those living in low-income areas on the island, and elderly men were at the greatest risk of dying.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
AND THIS IS THE SAME CUOMO ADMINISTRATION THAT ITSELF ROUTINELY VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OF EQUAL PROTECTION UNDER THE LAW OF THOSE OF US WHO ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS LIVING IN UPSTATE NEW YORK …
AS TO THE CONSTITUTION IN THE CASE OF PUERTO RICO, IT IS ENTIRELY SILENT AS TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES BEING DUTY-BOUND TO DO ANYTHING FOR PUERTO RICO AFTER A HURRICANE …
And so ...
CBS NEWS
"Cuomo to help families sue Trump over Hurricane Maria response"
Peter Martinez
3 SEPTEMBER 2018
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a congregation Sunday that he would help families sue President Trump and his administration for failing to provide adequate assistance to those affected by Hurricane Maria.
Cuomo said the Trump administration violated Puerto Ricans' Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law.
He said that New York stands committed to helping victims of Puerto Rico rebuild after the deadly storm walloped the island in September 2017.
"President Trump never tried to help Puerto Rico."
"Florida got attention, Texas got attention, and Puerto Rico got the short end of the stick."
"That is not just wrong and unethical and despicable, it is also illegal," Cuomo said Sunday at the Heavenly Vision Christian Center in the Bronx, New York.
Cuomo's press statement laid out five disparities between the federal government's response to and treatment of citizens in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which primarily struck Texas, and Hurricane Maria -- which devastated the Puerto Rican island:
1. A three week wait
2. Lack of funding
3. Lack of food and water
4. Sparse resources
5. Unacceptable relief
"We're going to hold 'King' Trump to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution said equal protection under the law."
"Puerto Rico did not receive equal protection under the law," Cuomo said.
"New York is standing with Puerto Rico the way we said we would."
"We are going to fight back and we're going to show this president that the law is the law."
There were no immediate details released about Cuomo's plan nor did he take any questions at Sunday's event.
Cuomo, who is a seeking a third term as governor, also took swipes at Mr. Trump's border wall and how the president reacted to the aftermath of a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last year.
"Somebody has to stand up to this president."
"He is a bully," Cuomo said.
Cuomo's speech Sunday comes on the heels of a report out last week that said Hurricane Maria is now considered the most deadly U.S. natural disaster in the last century.
Puerto Rico's government requested an independent review by George Washington University, which found Maria killed an estimated 2,975 people – more than 46 times the original official death toll of 64.
For months, there's been speculation the death toll was much higher than what the government was reporting.
San Juan's mayor, Carmen Cruz, called the new report "painful and shameful," and told CBS News' David Begnaud the governor should take more responsibility.
"When I saw people dying I opted to shout it."
"I opted to ask for help."
"When others saw people dying they opted to shut up," Cruz said.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló acknowledged Tuesday that he made mistakes.
"The focus shouldn't be, you know, hey, let's blame all these folks."
"The focus should be who's going to be accountable and who's going to take the action so this doesn't happen again," Rosselló said.
Researchers found the government and hospitals were inadequately prepared for the Category 4 storm.
They also found the risk of death was 45 percent higher for those living in low-income areas on the island, and elderly men were at the greatest risk of dying.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ ... id=HPDHP17
Re: POLITICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR September 3, 2018 at 8:36 pm
Paul Plante says :
And according to an article in THE HILL today entitled “Tourism officials boost marketing efforts in Va. town after Huckabee Sanders restaurant incident” by Brett Samuels on 3 September 2018, because of the very incident, which was a death blow to tourism in that area, a Virginia regional tourism board is now being forced to reshape its marketing efforts after protesters were drawn to the area because of controversy at The Red Hen restaurant, so this isn’t just local news, it is international news, and as THE HILL article proves, it still has legs and room to run.
According to THE HILL, the Roanoke Times reported Sunday that Rockbridge Regional Tourism – comprised of members from Lexington, Va., Buena Vista, Va., and Rockbridge County – decided to spend an additional $5,000 per month from July through September to try and attract more visitors.
The tourism office had to dip into its emergency funds for the boost, which localities reportedly decided was necessary after negative coverage from an incident at The Red Hen restaurant involving White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The restaurant, located in Lexington, Va., made national headlines after the owner refused to serve Sanders and her family.
“For a town our size, it was a significant impact,” Director of Marketing Patty Williams told The Roanoke Times.
Williams said the tourism office received thousands of emails and phone calls after the Red Hen controversy, including from some visitors who vowed never to come back to the region, The Roanoke Times reported.
end quotes
Talk about a small town being put on the national map, that is what Sarah Sanders accomplished for Lexington, Va. by getting her *** tossed out of the Red Hen this summer.
Getting back to THE HILL article, in addition to the funding, the tourism group is reportedly pulling together a survey to poll travelers on whether they recall The Red Hen incident and whether it would impact their decision to travel to the area in the future.
end quotes
HUH?
What on earth are they going to do that for?
Sounds kind of stupid to me, anyway, but then, I am not in any way involved with the tourist industry, so who knows what motivates their thinking.
What are they going to do when somebody answers “yes, I do recall that incident and no, because of it I am never coming back?”
Getting back to THE HILL:
Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post following the June incident that she asked Sanders to leave because the restaurant employs several LGBT employees, and Sanders’s defense of President Trump’s call to bar transgender people from the military was antithetical to her beliefs.
Sanders later tweeted about the episode from her government Twitter account, saying that she was asked to leave because she worked for Trump and that she departed the restaurant “politely.”
President Trump then lashed out at the restaurant via Twitter, calling the establishment “filthy.”
Protesters gathered outside the establishment in the days that followed, and some Republicans called for a boycott of the restaurant.
end quotes
Now, as to Trump calling her restaurant “filthy,” the dude should talk, because according to health department reports on line, his restaurants are filthy, too and his hotels have bedbugs.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ment-69173
Paul Plante says :
And according to an article in THE HILL today entitled “Tourism officials boost marketing efforts in Va. town after Huckabee Sanders restaurant incident” by Brett Samuels on 3 September 2018, because of the very incident, which was a death blow to tourism in that area, a Virginia regional tourism board is now being forced to reshape its marketing efforts after protesters were drawn to the area because of controversy at The Red Hen restaurant, so this isn’t just local news, it is international news, and as THE HILL article proves, it still has legs and room to run.
According to THE HILL, the Roanoke Times reported Sunday that Rockbridge Regional Tourism – comprised of members from Lexington, Va., Buena Vista, Va., and Rockbridge County – decided to spend an additional $5,000 per month from July through September to try and attract more visitors.
The tourism office had to dip into its emergency funds for the boost, which localities reportedly decided was necessary after negative coverage from an incident at The Red Hen restaurant involving White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
The restaurant, located in Lexington, Va., made national headlines after the owner refused to serve Sanders and her family.
“For a town our size, it was a significant impact,” Director of Marketing Patty Williams told The Roanoke Times.
Williams said the tourism office received thousands of emails and phone calls after the Red Hen controversy, including from some visitors who vowed never to come back to the region, The Roanoke Times reported.
end quotes
Talk about a small town being put on the national map, that is what Sarah Sanders accomplished for Lexington, Va. by getting her *** tossed out of the Red Hen this summer.
Getting back to THE HILL article, in addition to the funding, the tourism group is reportedly pulling together a survey to poll travelers on whether they recall The Red Hen incident and whether it would impact their decision to travel to the area in the future.
end quotes
HUH?
What on earth are they going to do that for?
Sounds kind of stupid to me, anyway, but then, I am not in any way involved with the tourist industry, so who knows what motivates their thinking.
What are they going to do when somebody answers “yes, I do recall that incident and no, because of it I am never coming back?”
Getting back to THE HILL:
Red Hen owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post following the June incident that she asked Sanders to leave because the restaurant employs several LGBT employees, and Sanders’s defense of President Trump’s call to bar transgender people from the military was antithetical to her beliefs.
Sanders later tweeted about the episode from her government Twitter account, saying that she was asked to leave because she worked for Trump and that she departed the restaurant “politely.”
President Trump then lashed out at the restaurant via Twitter, calling the establishment “filthy.”
Protesters gathered outside the establishment in the days that followed, and some Republicans called for a boycott of the restaurant.
end quotes
Now, as to Trump calling her restaurant “filthy,” the dude should talk, because according to health department reports on line, his restaurants are filthy, too and his hotels have bedbugs.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ment-69173
Re: POLITICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR September 2, 2018
Opinion: On the Corporate Control of Speech and Thought in America Today
Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante
As we here in the United States of America continue to ponder and explore the question of alleged foreign interference with our supposed “democracy” in this country, and the role the “press,” a very ill-defined term, as is the word “media,” play in that foreign interference, presuming it actually exits, which I believe does based on my own research in the matter, we must step back as citizens ask ourselves, if we truly care about “democracy” in this country, as opposed to merely mouthing an empty, meaningless word, such as “democracy” has become, is it really the “press” that is the true enemy of the American people?
Or is it really corporate control of the press and the media in America today that is the true enemy of the American people?
And more importantly, how exactly is it that that that corporate control of our “media” and “press” is being gained, and by whom?
And truthfully, if one has been taught even rudimentary American history, as we all supposedly were, one knows well from the “Citizen Genet Affair” from back in the days of the presidency of George Washington at the beginning of this nation’s political history that foreign influence in our internal affairs has been with us since we were nothing more than a collection of separate and distinct British colonies,
As to foreign influence in our internal political affairs extending to control of our social media in America today, which is a modern-day version of the “press,” as this very on-line publication well proves, 231 years ago now, on December 19, 1787, a political writer here in America with the nom de plume of “Anti-Cincinnatus” writing in the Northampton Hampshire Gazette posed this question on that very subject as follows, to wit:
The Constitution grants no power more nor less with respect to the liberty of the press; but leaves it just as it found it, in the hands of the several state constitutions: but to enervate this argument, my author sagely observes, “that where general powers are expressly granted, the particular ones comprehended within them must also be granted:” and with keen sagacity discovers a general power granted to Congress “to define and punish offences against the law of nations,” and after a plausible parade or inconclusive argumentation, assumes to have proved, “that the power of restraining the press is necessarily involved in the unlimited power of defining offences against the law of nations, or of making treaties, which are to be the supreme law of the land.”
To clear off the obscurity and confusion which involve the ideas and reasonings of this author, concerning the law of nations and public treaties, and set this matter in a clear convictive point of view, it is needless and would be to no purpose to pursue him through an intricate maze or winding in a pompous declamatory harangue; it is needful, to that end only to consider, that by the law of nations, is intended, those regulations and articles of agreement by which different nations, in their treaties, one with another, mutually bind themselves to regulate their conduct, one towards the other.
A violation of such articles is properly defined an offence against the law of nations: and there is and can be no other law of nations, which binds them with respect to their treatment one of another, but these articles of agreement contained in their public treaties and alliances.
These public treaties become the law of the land in that being made by constitutional authority, i.e. among us, by those whom the people themselves have authorized for that purpose, are in a proper sense their own agreements, and therefore as laws, bind the several states, as states, and their inhabitants, as individuals to take notice of and govern themselves according to the articles and rules which are defined and stipulated in them: as law of the land they bind to nothing but a performance of the engagements which they contain.
How then doth it appear “that a power to define offences against the law of nations, necessarily involves a power of restraining the liberty of the press?”
Have we the least possible ground of fear, that the United States in some future period will enter in their public treaties an article to injure the liberty of the press?
What concern have foreign nations with the liberty or restraint of the American press?
End quotes
What concerns do they have, indeed, people?
And how about control of our political thought and speech, as a starter?
So the question 231 years later, based on developments that “Anti-Cincinnatus” writing in the Northampton Hampshire Gazette 231 years ago, such as the intersection of the rise of venture capitalism in America and the development of the internet as a means of mass communication, should be “what concerns should we in America today with foreign nations interfering with our liberty by restraining the American people’s press that the internet in America has become."
To answer that question, this paper seeks to explore the role of so-called “social media” like the Cape Charles Mirror and an internet site known as “The Livyjr Files” in participatory democracy in America today, which question was the subject of a scholarly paper entitled “THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: A CASE STUDY OF THREE FACEBOOK GROUPS” presented in 2018 on the University of Maryland website by author James Gachau, as follows:
As far back as 1918, John Dewey cautioned that democracy should not be identified with “economic individualism as the essence of freedom of action” (Dewey, 1954).
He saw freedom as grounded socially in the human experience of “communicative (not merely economic) exchange through which individuals orient themselves to the world” (Couldry, 2010, p. 133).
These communicative exchanges are necessary for people to live an authentically human life.
In the widely dispersed societies of the twenty-first century, journalism and mass communication are necessary for this communicative exchange.
This dissertation argues that Facebook, through purposefully designed and organized groups, can facilitate such communicative exchanges for social classes that are given short shrift by the mainstream media.
I posit that due to their ability to select, control, and filter media content according to their specified needs and concerns, rather than have media fare dictated to them by the dominant classes, social media users in general, and Facebook groups composed of subordinate classes in particular, have the capacity to cultivate and nurture discourses that challenge the views and opinions of the dominant publics in which these groups are located.
Using counterpublic theory à la Nancy Fraser, Catherine Squires, and Michael Warner, this dissertation analyzes the media content that members of three Facebook groups shared on their groups’ Facebook walls, and how this content helped them articulate oppositional voices and identities.
Based in Kenya, the first group, Freethinkers Initiative Kenya (FIKA), identifies with freethought and atheism in a society that is predominantly Christian.
The second group, Pan-African Network (PAN) promotes the interests of Africans across the globe, campaigning for the advancement of a proud black identity in a world increasingly perceived as hostile to Blacks and people of African descent.
The third group, Women Without Religion (WWR), espouses a feminist atheist identity that opposes “white male supremacy,” and speaks against the perceived oppression of women occasioned by the patriarchal religions of the Judeo-Christian heritage.
End quotes
Such is the political power foreign groups are able to gain in this country through dominant social media sites like Facebook, which was started with venture capital funds from Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, an American venture capital firm that works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments, with offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, and with additional operating funds in London, India and China (through a partnership with International Data Group (IDG-Accel)).
Thus is foreign capital and foreign influence infiltrated into American political thought through control and censorship of social media sites in America like Facebook and a corporation named Tapatalk, Inc., which has just gained operational control of an American social media site formerly called Zetaboards, out of the state of Maryland in the United States of America.
According to Wikipedia, Accel has funded technology companies including Facebook, Slack, Dropbox, Atlassian, Flipkart, Supercell, Spotify, Etsy, Braintree/Venmo, Vox Media, Lynda.com, Qualtrics, DJI, Clouder, Jet.com, GoFundMe, Vectra Networks Inc. and BrowserStack.
In 1983, Accel was founded by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz.
In addition to Accel’s continued investments in early-stage startups from the Accel early stage fund, the firm announced a $480 million growth fund in December 2008, focused on growth equity opportunities in information technology, the internet, digital media, mobile, networking, software, and services.
In March 2016, Accel raised $2 billion, $500 million for an early stage venture fund and $1.5 billion for growth investments.
In April 2016, Accel raised a separate $500 million fund for investments in Europe and Israel.
In November 2016, Accel’s India arm closed its fifth fund with $450 million, about two years after closing its fourth fund with $325 million.
Accel is a venture capital firm that concentrates on the following technology sectors, to wit: Consumer, Infrastructure, Media, Mobile, SaaS, Security, Customer care services and Investments, which pretty much represents the gamut from soup to nuts, giving them a large amount of control over our lives as American citizens, to our detriment.
With respect to that thought, way back in 1919, United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis stated the opinion that suppression of ideas worked a great hardship on society, which happens to be all of us in America, and not just those who happen to be citizens of Facebook.
Another well-respected Supreme Court Justice at that time named Oliver Wendell Holmes rested his First Amendment views on what he called the “marketplace of ideas,” reasoning that because we cannot know immediately which ideas are good and true and useful and which are not, we must let them vie against one another in the faith that after full exposure and discussion, the truth will win out.
But what happens when large social media sites such as Facebook and Tapatalk intentionally skew the playing field so that there is no real discussion, as the censors out there in society would like to see imposed in here, in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror?
Supreme Court Justice Brandeis saw free speech as an essential aspect of citizenship in America.
According to his view, men and women in America both had the duty in a democracy such as ours is supposed to be, but isn’t, to be good citizens, which means being informed on the issues confronting us.
Mused the Justice, how can individuals make intelligent decisions about those issues without having basic information about them?
How can citizens, which means all of us, and not just some of us who are Facebook citizens, judge which side has the better argument unless we can hear both sides of an argument and then join in the debate, as we can do in here in the Cape Charles Mirror?
Brandeis thus provided a positive justification for protection of speech, that being the necessity for the citizenry, which happens to be all of us here in the United States of America, and not just some of us, regardless of what Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook might think about it, along with a foreign national named Huang Dongri, aka Winter Wong, who was born in Hong Kong, and who now is the CEO of a corporate entity named Tapatalk, Inc., with corporate headquarters located 2051 Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, California 90404, which corporation in 2016 acquired Yuku, and in July 2017 migrated the contents of that service to their own bulletin board platform, and in July 2017, also acquired Zetaboards and zIFBoards (formerly Invisionfree), the forum services operated by Zathyus Networks, to be fully informed about issues and to be aware of all viewpoints.
But when these powerful corporations like Facebook and Tapatalk are using venture capital funds to swallow up social media sites in America like Zetaboards to impose their own corporate rules on the users that serve to limit discussion and debate, can we today be said to be fully informed about all issues, and not just those Mark Zuckerberg and Huang Dongri want discussed, and to be aware of all viewpoints.
Think about it, people, and please stay tuned, for more discussion on this subject is forthcoming.
And thanks to the Cape Charles Mirror for being one of the few social media sites here in America, with the recent demise of Zetaboards, to really take seriously that positive justification for protection of speech set forth by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis back in 1919.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ica-today/
Opinion: On the Corporate Control of Speech and Thought in America Today
Special Opinion to the Mirror by Paul Plante
As we here in the United States of America continue to ponder and explore the question of alleged foreign interference with our supposed “democracy” in this country, and the role the “press,” a very ill-defined term, as is the word “media,” play in that foreign interference, presuming it actually exits, which I believe does based on my own research in the matter, we must step back as citizens ask ourselves, if we truly care about “democracy” in this country, as opposed to merely mouthing an empty, meaningless word, such as “democracy” has become, is it really the “press” that is the true enemy of the American people?
Or is it really corporate control of the press and the media in America today that is the true enemy of the American people?
And more importantly, how exactly is it that that that corporate control of our “media” and “press” is being gained, and by whom?
And truthfully, if one has been taught even rudimentary American history, as we all supposedly were, one knows well from the “Citizen Genet Affair” from back in the days of the presidency of George Washington at the beginning of this nation’s political history that foreign influence in our internal affairs has been with us since we were nothing more than a collection of separate and distinct British colonies,
As to foreign influence in our internal political affairs extending to control of our social media in America today, which is a modern-day version of the “press,” as this very on-line publication well proves, 231 years ago now, on December 19, 1787, a political writer here in America with the nom de plume of “Anti-Cincinnatus” writing in the Northampton Hampshire Gazette posed this question on that very subject as follows, to wit:
The Constitution grants no power more nor less with respect to the liberty of the press; but leaves it just as it found it, in the hands of the several state constitutions: but to enervate this argument, my author sagely observes, “that where general powers are expressly granted, the particular ones comprehended within them must also be granted:” and with keen sagacity discovers a general power granted to Congress “to define and punish offences against the law of nations,” and after a plausible parade or inconclusive argumentation, assumes to have proved, “that the power of restraining the press is necessarily involved in the unlimited power of defining offences against the law of nations, or of making treaties, which are to be the supreme law of the land.”
To clear off the obscurity and confusion which involve the ideas and reasonings of this author, concerning the law of nations and public treaties, and set this matter in a clear convictive point of view, it is needless and would be to no purpose to pursue him through an intricate maze or winding in a pompous declamatory harangue; it is needful, to that end only to consider, that by the law of nations, is intended, those regulations and articles of agreement by which different nations, in their treaties, one with another, mutually bind themselves to regulate their conduct, one towards the other.
A violation of such articles is properly defined an offence against the law of nations: and there is and can be no other law of nations, which binds them with respect to their treatment one of another, but these articles of agreement contained in their public treaties and alliances.
These public treaties become the law of the land in that being made by constitutional authority, i.e. among us, by those whom the people themselves have authorized for that purpose, are in a proper sense their own agreements, and therefore as laws, bind the several states, as states, and their inhabitants, as individuals to take notice of and govern themselves according to the articles and rules which are defined and stipulated in them: as law of the land they bind to nothing but a performance of the engagements which they contain.
How then doth it appear “that a power to define offences against the law of nations, necessarily involves a power of restraining the liberty of the press?”
Have we the least possible ground of fear, that the United States in some future period will enter in their public treaties an article to injure the liberty of the press?
What concern have foreign nations with the liberty or restraint of the American press?
End quotes
What concerns do they have, indeed, people?
And how about control of our political thought and speech, as a starter?
So the question 231 years later, based on developments that “Anti-Cincinnatus” writing in the Northampton Hampshire Gazette 231 years ago, such as the intersection of the rise of venture capitalism in America and the development of the internet as a means of mass communication, should be “what concerns should we in America today with foreign nations interfering with our liberty by restraining the American people’s press that the internet in America has become."
To answer that question, this paper seeks to explore the role of so-called “social media” like the Cape Charles Mirror and an internet site known as “The Livyjr Files” in participatory democracy in America today, which question was the subject of a scholarly paper entitled “THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: A CASE STUDY OF THREE FACEBOOK GROUPS” presented in 2018 on the University of Maryland website by author James Gachau, as follows:
As far back as 1918, John Dewey cautioned that democracy should not be identified with “economic individualism as the essence of freedom of action” (Dewey, 1954).
He saw freedom as grounded socially in the human experience of “communicative (not merely economic) exchange through which individuals orient themselves to the world” (Couldry, 2010, p. 133).
These communicative exchanges are necessary for people to live an authentically human life.
In the widely dispersed societies of the twenty-first century, journalism and mass communication are necessary for this communicative exchange.
This dissertation argues that Facebook, through purposefully designed and organized groups, can facilitate such communicative exchanges for social classes that are given short shrift by the mainstream media.
I posit that due to their ability to select, control, and filter media content according to their specified needs and concerns, rather than have media fare dictated to them by the dominant classes, social media users in general, and Facebook groups composed of subordinate classes in particular, have the capacity to cultivate and nurture discourses that challenge the views and opinions of the dominant publics in which these groups are located.
Using counterpublic theory à la Nancy Fraser, Catherine Squires, and Michael Warner, this dissertation analyzes the media content that members of three Facebook groups shared on their groups’ Facebook walls, and how this content helped them articulate oppositional voices and identities.
Based in Kenya, the first group, Freethinkers Initiative Kenya (FIKA), identifies with freethought and atheism in a society that is predominantly Christian.
The second group, Pan-African Network (PAN) promotes the interests of Africans across the globe, campaigning for the advancement of a proud black identity in a world increasingly perceived as hostile to Blacks and people of African descent.
The third group, Women Without Religion (WWR), espouses a feminist atheist identity that opposes “white male supremacy,” and speaks against the perceived oppression of women occasioned by the patriarchal religions of the Judeo-Christian heritage.
End quotes
Such is the political power foreign groups are able to gain in this country through dominant social media sites like Facebook, which was started with venture capital funds from Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, an American venture capital firm that works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments, with offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, and with additional operating funds in London, India and China (through a partnership with International Data Group (IDG-Accel)).
Thus is foreign capital and foreign influence infiltrated into American political thought through control and censorship of social media sites in America like Facebook and a corporation named Tapatalk, Inc., which has just gained operational control of an American social media site formerly called Zetaboards, out of the state of Maryland in the United States of America.
According to Wikipedia, Accel has funded technology companies including Facebook, Slack, Dropbox, Atlassian, Flipkart, Supercell, Spotify, Etsy, Braintree/Venmo, Vox Media, Lynda.com, Qualtrics, DJI, Clouder, Jet.com, GoFundMe, Vectra Networks Inc. and BrowserStack.
In 1983, Accel was founded by Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz.
In addition to Accel’s continued investments in early-stage startups from the Accel early stage fund, the firm announced a $480 million growth fund in December 2008, focused on growth equity opportunities in information technology, the internet, digital media, mobile, networking, software, and services.
In March 2016, Accel raised $2 billion, $500 million for an early stage venture fund and $1.5 billion for growth investments.
In April 2016, Accel raised a separate $500 million fund for investments in Europe and Israel.
In November 2016, Accel’s India arm closed its fifth fund with $450 million, about two years after closing its fourth fund with $325 million.
Accel is a venture capital firm that concentrates on the following technology sectors, to wit: Consumer, Infrastructure, Media, Mobile, SaaS, Security, Customer care services and Investments, which pretty much represents the gamut from soup to nuts, giving them a large amount of control over our lives as American citizens, to our detriment.
With respect to that thought, way back in 1919, United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis stated the opinion that suppression of ideas worked a great hardship on society, which happens to be all of us in America, and not just those who happen to be citizens of Facebook.
Another well-respected Supreme Court Justice at that time named Oliver Wendell Holmes rested his First Amendment views on what he called the “marketplace of ideas,” reasoning that because we cannot know immediately which ideas are good and true and useful and which are not, we must let them vie against one another in the faith that after full exposure and discussion, the truth will win out.
But what happens when large social media sites such as Facebook and Tapatalk intentionally skew the playing field so that there is no real discussion, as the censors out there in society would like to see imposed in here, in the pages of the Cape Charles Mirror?
Supreme Court Justice Brandeis saw free speech as an essential aspect of citizenship in America.
According to his view, men and women in America both had the duty in a democracy such as ours is supposed to be, but isn’t, to be good citizens, which means being informed on the issues confronting us.
Mused the Justice, how can individuals make intelligent decisions about those issues without having basic information about them?
How can citizens, which means all of us, and not just some of us who are Facebook citizens, judge which side has the better argument unless we can hear both sides of an argument and then join in the debate, as we can do in here in the Cape Charles Mirror?
Brandeis thus provided a positive justification for protection of speech, that being the necessity for the citizenry, which happens to be all of us here in the United States of America, and not just some of us, regardless of what Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook might think about it, along with a foreign national named Huang Dongri, aka Winter Wong, who was born in Hong Kong, and who now is the CEO of a corporate entity named Tapatalk, Inc., with corporate headquarters located 2051 Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, California 90404, which corporation in 2016 acquired Yuku, and in July 2017 migrated the contents of that service to their own bulletin board platform, and in July 2017, also acquired Zetaboards and zIFBoards (formerly Invisionfree), the forum services operated by Zathyus Networks, to be fully informed about issues and to be aware of all viewpoints.
But when these powerful corporations like Facebook and Tapatalk are using venture capital funds to swallow up social media sites in America like Zetaboards to impose their own corporate rules on the users that serve to limit discussion and debate, can we today be said to be fully informed about all issues, and not just those Mark Zuckerberg and Huang Dongri want discussed, and to be aware of all viewpoints.
Think about it, people, and please stay tuned, for more discussion on this subject is forthcoming.
And thanks to the Cape Charles Mirror for being one of the few social media sites here in America, with the recent demise of Zetaboards, to really take seriously that positive justification for protection of speech set forth by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis back in 1919.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ica-today/
Re: POLITICS
THE CAPE CHARLES September 3, 2018 at 6:57 pm
Paul Plante says :
To understand what the political writer with the nom de plume “Anti-Cincinnatus” was on about 231 years ago now, on December 19, 1787, when he posed the question “(W)hat concern have foreign nations with the liberty or restraint of the American press” in the Northampton Hampshire Gazette, it is necessary to consider the fact that back then, the United States of America was a brand-new nation in a time when the communications technology that exists today, which many take for granted, as if it were always there, simply did not exist, nor did the “trade agreements” with other nations, which in turn give foreign nations access to control of what is now called the IT or Information Technology industry in this country.
As Wikipedia tells us in the section on the “First Party System” in America, a period said to cover from 1792 to 1824, by 1796, both major parties in America at that time, the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, had a national network of newspapers, which attacked each other vehemently, with the Federalist and Republican newspapers of the 1790s trading vicious barbs against their enemies.
Nationalism was a high priority, and the editors fostered an intellectual nationalism typified by the Federalist effort to stimulate a national literary culture through their clubs and publications in New York and Philadelphia, and through Federalist Noah Webster’s efforts to simplify and Americanize the language.
Back then, there were not the huge corporations controlling the media and press as there are today.
Nor were there political parties in America such as we know them to be today, nor was there really any political experience by the people of America as American citizens, since they had only begun to be American citizens as a result of the American Revolution, while we today are born as American citizens, and young people in America have been born into a time in terms of mass communication that would have fascinated Thomas Jefferson and Jemmy Madison, and probably “Anti-Cincinnatus,” as well.
Thus, our political experience in America today is vastly different than it was at the time of this nation’s beginning.
As Wikipedia tells us under the heading “Inventing campaign techniques” in the section on the “First Party System” in America, given the power of the Federalists, the Democratic Republicans had to work harder to win, so the Jeffersonians invented many campaign techniques that the Federalists later adopted and that became standard American practice.
As Wikipedia tells us, the highly coordinated “get-out-the-vote” drive invented by the Jeffersonians at the time of this nation’s political beginning as a nation would be familiar to modern political campaigners, but it was the first of its kind in world history.
The Jeffersonians of that political era in America were especially effective at building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast their statements and editorialize in their favor, a function that is being taken over today by corporate control of our media and press to broadcast their statements, or those they want broadcasted, as well as editorializing in their favor, or more to the point of this paper, keeping editorials they don’t want from being printed in the first place.
Dropping back to the beginning of this nation’s political history, the Federalists, with a strong base among merchants, controlled more newspapers in America at that time than did the Republicans, so that in 1796, the Federalist papers outnumbered the Democratic Republicans by 4 to 1.
Every year after that, more papers began publishing, but in 1800, the Federalists still had a to 1 numerical advantage.
Today, and this is since the 2004 elections here in America, there has been a proliferation of internet sites that serve the same purpose as those early newspapers, the wonderful Cape Charles Mirror being one of them.
My first real political experience or involvement as an American citizen living in a rural area, in fact, was on an internet site called The John Kerry Forum, which site was dedicated to getting John Kerry elected over George W. Bush, and it was a highly partisan site that was quite intolerant of any criticism of John Kerry or any praise of George W. Bush, and to this day, I have to wonder how much that site and its blatant censorship contributed to John Kerry losing that election.
With respect to the role the internet plays in American politics today, right after the November 2004 elections, I was given a book to read on the subject of the intersection of politics and the internet in American politics today entitled “The Power of Many” by an author named Christian Crumlish, who himself had gained experience with the use of the internet as a real professional “tool” for communications among separate and disparate groups of people in the world during the John “Screamer” Dean Campaign, which was the first major political campaign in America to make such use of the internet as a communications tool for political purposes.
So 2004 was truly a watershed year in terms of how politics in America would be conducted from that time forward.
Thomas Jefferson was an American politician for the newspaper age.
Franklin Roosevelt was a politician for the age of radio.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a politician for the television age.
And today, we have entered the internet age in American politics, and hence this subject of corporate control of that medium, and especially control by foreign corporations such as this Tapatalk, Inc., which we know from a RECODE article entitled “Having Successfully Made Forums Mobile, Tapatalk Raises $5.8 Million Seed Round” by Liz Gannes on June 16, 2014 originated in Shanghai, which is in China, and was founded by a person named Huang Dongri, who was born in Hong Kong, and who now calls himself Winter Wong, CEO of Tapatalk, which corporation then moved to Los Angeles as part of MuckerLab,
As to Muckerlab, we know from a TechCrunch article “Inside MuckerLab, The Startup Accelerator That’s Amping Up L.A.’s Tech Ecosystem” by Colleen Taylor, @loyalelectron for those who are interested in such trivia on July 23, 2013, as follows:
In the San Francisco Bay Area, there is no shortage of “accelerator” programs that promise to take fledgling technology companies to the next level by providing mentorship, funding, business introductions, and the like.
And as the startup scene a few hundred miles south in Los Angeles continues to heat up, the appetite for accelerators is growing too.
One of the leading new startup accelerators in L.A. is MuckerLab, so while TechCrunch TV was in Southern California recently we stopped by to take a look inside and find out about what makes the program tick.
end quotes
And what makes the Muckerlab program tick, of course, is money and lots of it.
Getting back to our nation’s beginnings, most papers back then, on each side, were weeklies with a circulation of 300 to 1000.
Today, there are internet sites like the Cape Charles Mirror with circulation or readership far in excess of that, which makes them targets for corporate take-over.
Back then, the astute Tommy Jefferson systematically subsidized the editors, and Fisher Ames, a leading Federalist, who used the term “Jacobin” to link Jefferson’s followers to the terrorists of the French Revolution, blamed the newspapers for electing Jefferson, seeing them as “an overmatch for any Government …”
“The Jacobins owe their triumph to the unceasing use of this engine; not so much to skill in use of it as by repetition.”
end quotes
Today, the “engine” in question is now the internet.
As to Ames’ assessment above, a modern historian today agrees as follows:
It was the good fortune of the Republicans to have within their ranks a number of highly gifted political manipulators and propagandists.
Some of them had the ability … to not only see and analyze the problem at hand but to present it in a succinct fashion; in short, to fabricate the apt phrase, to coin the compelling slogan and appeal to the electorate on any given issue in language it could understand.
Outstanding phrasemakers included editor William Duane, party leaders Albert Gallatin and Thomas Cooper, and Jefferson himself.
end quotes
Today, corporate control of our thought on the internet threatens to take all of that away, on the one hand, or to reinforce it on the other by the suppression of our voices raised in dissent.
Is that serious?
Or should we just say “Oh la” and “Ho Hum?”
The candid world would like to know.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ment-69149
Paul Plante says :
To understand what the political writer with the nom de plume “Anti-Cincinnatus” was on about 231 years ago now, on December 19, 1787, when he posed the question “(W)hat concern have foreign nations with the liberty or restraint of the American press” in the Northampton Hampshire Gazette, it is necessary to consider the fact that back then, the United States of America was a brand-new nation in a time when the communications technology that exists today, which many take for granted, as if it were always there, simply did not exist, nor did the “trade agreements” with other nations, which in turn give foreign nations access to control of what is now called the IT or Information Technology industry in this country.
As Wikipedia tells us in the section on the “First Party System” in America, a period said to cover from 1792 to 1824, by 1796, both major parties in America at that time, the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans, had a national network of newspapers, which attacked each other vehemently, with the Federalist and Republican newspapers of the 1790s trading vicious barbs against their enemies.
Nationalism was a high priority, and the editors fostered an intellectual nationalism typified by the Federalist effort to stimulate a national literary culture through their clubs and publications in New York and Philadelphia, and through Federalist Noah Webster’s efforts to simplify and Americanize the language.
Back then, there were not the huge corporations controlling the media and press as there are today.
Nor were there political parties in America such as we know them to be today, nor was there really any political experience by the people of America as American citizens, since they had only begun to be American citizens as a result of the American Revolution, while we today are born as American citizens, and young people in America have been born into a time in terms of mass communication that would have fascinated Thomas Jefferson and Jemmy Madison, and probably “Anti-Cincinnatus,” as well.
Thus, our political experience in America today is vastly different than it was at the time of this nation’s beginning.
As Wikipedia tells us under the heading “Inventing campaign techniques” in the section on the “First Party System” in America, given the power of the Federalists, the Democratic Republicans had to work harder to win, so the Jeffersonians invented many campaign techniques that the Federalists later adopted and that became standard American practice.
As Wikipedia tells us, the highly coordinated “get-out-the-vote” drive invented by the Jeffersonians at the time of this nation’s political beginning as a nation would be familiar to modern political campaigners, but it was the first of its kind in world history.
The Jeffersonians of that political era in America were especially effective at building a network of newspapers in major cities to broadcast their statements and editorialize in their favor, a function that is being taken over today by corporate control of our media and press to broadcast their statements, or those they want broadcasted, as well as editorializing in their favor, or more to the point of this paper, keeping editorials they don’t want from being printed in the first place.
Dropping back to the beginning of this nation’s political history, the Federalists, with a strong base among merchants, controlled more newspapers in America at that time than did the Republicans, so that in 1796, the Federalist papers outnumbered the Democratic Republicans by 4 to 1.
Every year after that, more papers began publishing, but in 1800, the Federalists still had a to 1 numerical advantage.
Today, and this is since the 2004 elections here in America, there has been a proliferation of internet sites that serve the same purpose as those early newspapers, the wonderful Cape Charles Mirror being one of them.
My first real political experience or involvement as an American citizen living in a rural area, in fact, was on an internet site called The John Kerry Forum, which site was dedicated to getting John Kerry elected over George W. Bush, and it was a highly partisan site that was quite intolerant of any criticism of John Kerry or any praise of George W. Bush, and to this day, I have to wonder how much that site and its blatant censorship contributed to John Kerry losing that election.
With respect to the role the internet plays in American politics today, right after the November 2004 elections, I was given a book to read on the subject of the intersection of politics and the internet in American politics today entitled “The Power of Many” by an author named Christian Crumlish, who himself had gained experience with the use of the internet as a real professional “tool” for communications among separate and disparate groups of people in the world during the John “Screamer” Dean Campaign, which was the first major political campaign in America to make such use of the internet as a communications tool for political purposes.
So 2004 was truly a watershed year in terms of how politics in America would be conducted from that time forward.
Thomas Jefferson was an American politician for the newspaper age.
Franklin Roosevelt was a politician for the age of radio.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy was a politician for the television age.
And today, we have entered the internet age in American politics, and hence this subject of corporate control of that medium, and especially control by foreign corporations such as this Tapatalk, Inc., which we know from a RECODE article entitled “Having Successfully Made Forums Mobile, Tapatalk Raises $5.8 Million Seed Round” by Liz Gannes on June 16, 2014 originated in Shanghai, which is in China, and was founded by a person named Huang Dongri, who was born in Hong Kong, and who now calls himself Winter Wong, CEO of Tapatalk, which corporation then moved to Los Angeles as part of MuckerLab,
As to Muckerlab, we know from a TechCrunch article “Inside MuckerLab, The Startup Accelerator That’s Amping Up L.A.’s Tech Ecosystem” by Colleen Taylor, @loyalelectron for those who are interested in such trivia on July 23, 2013, as follows:
In the San Francisco Bay Area, there is no shortage of “accelerator” programs that promise to take fledgling technology companies to the next level by providing mentorship, funding, business introductions, and the like.
And as the startup scene a few hundred miles south in Los Angeles continues to heat up, the appetite for accelerators is growing too.
One of the leading new startup accelerators in L.A. is MuckerLab, so while TechCrunch TV was in Southern California recently we stopped by to take a look inside and find out about what makes the program tick.
end quotes
And what makes the Muckerlab program tick, of course, is money and lots of it.
Getting back to our nation’s beginnings, most papers back then, on each side, were weeklies with a circulation of 300 to 1000.
Today, there are internet sites like the Cape Charles Mirror with circulation or readership far in excess of that, which makes them targets for corporate take-over.
Back then, the astute Tommy Jefferson systematically subsidized the editors, and Fisher Ames, a leading Federalist, who used the term “Jacobin” to link Jefferson’s followers to the terrorists of the French Revolution, blamed the newspapers for electing Jefferson, seeing them as “an overmatch for any Government …”
“The Jacobins owe their triumph to the unceasing use of this engine; not so much to skill in use of it as by repetition.”
end quotes
Today, the “engine” in question is now the internet.
As to Ames’ assessment above, a modern historian today agrees as follows:
It was the good fortune of the Republicans to have within their ranks a number of highly gifted political manipulators and propagandists.
Some of them had the ability … to not only see and analyze the problem at hand but to present it in a succinct fashion; in short, to fabricate the apt phrase, to coin the compelling slogan and appeal to the electorate on any given issue in language it could understand.
Outstanding phrasemakers included editor William Duane, party leaders Albert Gallatin and Thomas Cooper, and Jefferson himself.
end quotes
Today, corporate control of our thought on the internet threatens to take all of that away, on the one hand, or to reinforce it on the other by the suppression of our voices raised in dissent.
Is that serious?
Or should we just say “Oh la” and “Ho Hum?”
The candid world would like to know.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/o ... ment-69149
Re: POLITICS
THE CAPE CHARLES MIRROR September 3, 2018 at 10:25 pm
Paul Plante says :
And here is yet another news story, this one from CBS News entitled “Cuomo to help families sue Trump over Hurricane Maria response” by Peter Martinez on 3 September 2018, about a ridiculous, loud-mouthed bully of a hack politician named Young Andy Cuomo, aka “THE HONKER,” the Democratic Socialist governor of corrupt New York state, the most corrupt state in the nation, who is the prospective Democrat party presidential contender in 2020, the same hack politician who said America was never great, and won’t be until he is put in charge of it as our emperor, using state taxpayer dollars to file frivolous lawsuits against the Trump administration to buy his way in to the White House in 2020, to wit:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a congregation Sunday that he would help families sue President Trump and his administration for failing to provide adequate assistance to those affected by Hurricane Maria.
end quotes
Now, frankly, that claim is as ridiculous as is the one making it, as we see from the following from that same article to wit:
Cuomo said the Trump administration violated Puerto Ricans’ Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law.
end quotes
HUH?
Say what?
How so, Young Andy?
And this is the same Young Andy Cuomo whose own thuggish policies routinely violate the Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law of those of us who are American citizens residing in upstate New York, outside of Young Andy’s power base of New York City, whose Democrat and Democratic Socialist population far outstrips that of the rest of the state, which is why Young Andy, the thug, can routinely violate our rights and get away with it with impunity, since he is the one who also appoints the state’s judges.
Getting back to the CBS News story:
“President Trump never tried to help Puerto Rico.”
“Florida got attention, Texas got attention, and Puerto Rico got the short end of the stick.”
“That is not just wrong and unethical and despicable, it is also illegal,” Cuomo said Sunday at the Heavenly Vision Christian Center in the Bronx, New York.
end quotes
Yeah, right, Young Andy, in your dreams!
But it gets better yet, as we see from the following:
“We’re going to hold ‘King’ Trump to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution said equal protection under the law.”
“Puerto Rico did not receive equal protection under the law,” Cuomo said.
“New York is standing with Puerto Rico the way we said we would.”
“We are going to fight back and we’re going to show this president that the law is the law.”
end quotes
That, people, is what political pandering looks like in real life, right there before our eyes.
For those unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia tells us that “pandering” is the act of expressing one’s views in accordance with the likes of a group to which one is attempting to appeal, and the term is most notably associated with politics.
In pandering, the views one is expressing are merely for the purpose of drawing support up to and including votes and do not necessarily reflect one’s personal values, as is obvious in the case of Young Andy here, to wit:
There were no immediate details released about Cuomo’s plan nor did he take any questions at Sunday’s event.
end quotes
Which brings us right back to 2010, when Young Andy, then the attorney-general, was running for the office of governor, and this editorial from the NY Times entitled “Cuomo for Governor” on Oct. 22, 2010, as follows:
Despite several position books, Mr. Cuomo’s candidacy has been more skeletal than it should have been, and there have been times when he failed to stand up forcefully for his stated principles.
end quotes
Young Andy always has a press release full of praise for himself, but never any substance,
And speaking of press releases touting his greatness, we have one from Young Andy on September 24, 2017, entitled “Governor Cuomo Launches Statewide Empire State Relief & Recovery Effort for Puerto Rico” as follows:
Following his visit to Puerto Rico to deliver emergency supplies and see firsthand the widespread damage and devastation from Hurricane Maria, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today launched the Empire State Relief and Recovery Effort for Puerto Rico.
“After seeing the breathtaking devastation and unfathomable need for help firsthand in Puerto Rico, I am launching this effort to put the full weight of New York’s resources behind the Puerto Rican people,” Governor Cuomo said.
“New York has a long and proud history of standing up to help those in need, and with millions of Puerto Ricans suffering, we must do everything we can to help our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters recover.”
“Puerto Ricans have helped make New York great — and we will not leave our family alone in its time of need.”
end quotes
So America was never great, but New York was great, and that because of people from Puerto Rico, not Americans.
What horsecrap, but that is what political pandering is all about.
Getting back to Young Andy’s latest pandering, we have:
“Somebody has to stand up to this president.”
“He is a bully,” Cuomo said.
end quotes
Now, given the facts here, that last line is a real doozy, because Young Andy, who is calling Trump a bully, is himself a thug and bully, which makes him calling Trump a bully a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, but such is presidential politics in America today, so what else can we expect, beyond yet more of this horsecrap from Young Andy to come between now and 2020, so America, stay tuned to this same station for breaking news as it happens on this same story of Young Andy Cuomo’s quest for the Washington White House.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/a ... ment-69194
Paul Plante says :
And here is yet another news story, this one from CBS News entitled “Cuomo to help families sue Trump over Hurricane Maria response” by Peter Martinez on 3 September 2018, about a ridiculous, loud-mouthed bully of a hack politician named Young Andy Cuomo, aka “THE HONKER,” the Democratic Socialist governor of corrupt New York state, the most corrupt state in the nation, who is the prospective Democrat party presidential contender in 2020, the same hack politician who said America was never great, and won’t be until he is put in charge of it as our emperor, using state taxpayer dollars to file frivolous lawsuits against the Trump administration to buy his way in to the White House in 2020, to wit:
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo told a congregation Sunday that he would help families sue President Trump and his administration for failing to provide adequate assistance to those affected by Hurricane Maria.
end quotes
Now, frankly, that claim is as ridiculous as is the one making it, as we see from the following from that same article to wit:
Cuomo said the Trump administration violated Puerto Ricans’ Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law.
end quotes
HUH?
Say what?
How so, Young Andy?
And this is the same Young Andy Cuomo whose own thuggish policies routinely violate the Constitutional rights of equal protection under the law of those of us who are American citizens residing in upstate New York, outside of Young Andy’s power base of New York City, whose Democrat and Democratic Socialist population far outstrips that of the rest of the state, which is why Young Andy, the thug, can routinely violate our rights and get away with it with impunity, since he is the one who also appoints the state’s judges.
Getting back to the CBS News story:
“President Trump never tried to help Puerto Rico.”
“Florida got attention, Texas got attention, and Puerto Rico got the short end of the stick.”
“That is not just wrong and unethical and despicable, it is also illegal,” Cuomo said Sunday at the Heavenly Vision Christian Center in the Bronx, New York.
end quotes
Yeah, right, Young Andy, in your dreams!
But it gets better yet, as we see from the following:
“We’re going to hold ‘King’ Trump to the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution said equal protection under the law.”
“Puerto Rico did not receive equal protection under the law,” Cuomo said.
“New York is standing with Puerto Rico the way we said we would.”
“We are going to fight back and we’re going to show this president that the law is the law.”
end quotes
That, people, is what political pandering looks like in real life, right there before our eyes.
For those unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia tells us that “pandering” is the act of expressing one’s views in accordance with the likes of a group to which one is attempting to appeal, and the term is most notably associated with politics.
In pandering, the views one is expressing are merely for the purpose of drawing support up to and including votes and do not necessarily reflect one’s personal values, as is obvious in the case of Young Andy here, to wit:
There were no immediate details released about Cuomo’s plan nor did he take any questions at Sunday’s event.
end quotes
Which brings us right back to 2010, when Young Andy, then the attorney-general, was running for the office of governor, and this editorial from the NY Times entitled “Cuomo for Governor” on Oct. 22, 2010, as follows:
Despite several position books, Mr. Cuomo’s candidacy has been more skeletal than it should have been, and there have been times when he failed to stand up forcefully for his stated principles.
end quotes
Young Andy always has a press release full of praise for himself, but never any substance,
And speaking of press releases touting his greatness, we have one from Young Andy on September 24, 2017, entitled “Governor Cuomo Launches Statewide Empire State Relief & Recovery Effort for Puerto Rico” as follows:
Following his visit to Puerto Rico to deliver emergency supplies and see firsthand the widespread damage and devastation from Hurricane Maria, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today launched the Empire State Relief and Recovery Effort for Puerto Rico.
“After seeing the breathtaking devastation and unfathomable need for help firsthand in Puerto Rico, I am launching this effort to put the full weight of New York’s resources behind the Puerto Rican people,” Governor Cuomo said.
“New York has a long and proud history of standing up to help those in need, and with millions of Puerto Ricans suffering, we must do everything we can to help our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters recover.”
“Puerto Ricans have helped make New York great — and we will not leave our family alone in its time of need.”
end quotes
So America was never great, but New York was great, and that because of people from Puerto Rico, not Americans.
What horsecrap, but that is what political pandering is all about.
Getting back to Young Andy’s latest pandering, we have:
“Somebody has to stand up to this president.”
“He is a bully,” Cuomo said.
end quotes
Now, given the facts here, that last line is a real doozy, because Young Andy, who is calling Trump a bully, is himself a thug and bully, which makes him calling Trump a bully a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black, but such is presidential politics in America today, so what else can we expect, beyond yet more of this horsecrap from Young Andy to come between now and 2020, so America, stay tuned to this same station for breaking news as it happens on this same story of Young Andy Cuomo’s quest for the Washington White House.
http://www.capecharlesmirror.com/news/a ... ment-69194
Re: POLITICS
"GlobalFoundries eliminated 455 jobs, new filings show"
By Eric Anderson, Albany, New York Times Union
Updated 8:16 am EDT, Friday, August 31, 2018
Malta - GlobalFoundries this week confirmed it would eliminate 424 jobs at its Malta semiconductor factory and another 31 based at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany, filings with the state Labor Department show.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings were made late Thursday afternoon.
Workers were notified earlier in the week.
The company hadn't previously provided a precise number of jobs being eliminated.
The company announced Monday afternoon that it was restructuring its operations in Malta and putting on hold its efforts to make the next-generation chips using 7-nanometer architecture.
The first layoffs are expected to occur Nov. 28, according to the WARN filing.
The company employed about 3,400 people before the restructuring.
About 4,700 people are employed in computer and electronic product manufacturing in the Capital Region, according to the state Labor Department's latest Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
The annual average wage was $98,435.
GlobalFoundries had invested $2 billion to prepare its Malta plant for 7-nanometer production, including the acquisition of several extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that cost $200 million apiece.
GlobalFoundries' withdrawal from the 7-nanometer development effort leaves two companies — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung — pursuing the leading-edge technology.
GlobalFoundries and TSMC are foundry operations, producing chips designed by semiconductor firms that don't have their own factories.
TSMC had 2017 sales of nearly $32.2 billion, according to IC Insights, five times GlobalFoundries' $6.1 billion in sales.
GlobalFoundries will focus on its 14/12-nanometer chips, adding features it says will be "most relevant" to its clients, CEO Thomas Caulfield said earlier this week.
Efforts to reach a GlobalFoundries spokesman for comment on Thursday weren't successful.
https://www.timesunion.com/business/art ... DailyBrief
By Eric Anderson, Albany, New York Times Union
Updated 8:16 am EDT, Friday, August 31, 2018
Malta - GlobalFoundries this week confirmed it would eliminate 424 jobs at its Malta semiconductor factory and another 31 based at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany, filings with the state Labor Department show.
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification filings were made late Thursday afternoon.
Workers were notified earlier in the week.
The company hadn't previously provided a precise number of jobs being eliminated.
The company announced Monday afternoon that it was restructuring its operations in Malta and putting on hold its efforts to make the next-generation chips using 7-nanometer architecture.
The first layoffs are expected to occur Nov. 28, according to the WARN filing.
The company employed about 3,400 people before the restructuring.
About 4,700 people are employed in computer and electronic product manufacturing in the Capital Region, according to the state Labor Department's latest Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.
The annual average wage was $98,435.
GlobalFoundries had invested $2 billion to prepare its Malta plant for 7-nanometer production, including the acquisition of several extreme ultraviolet lithography machines that cost $200 million apiece.
GlobalFoundries' withdrawal from the 7-nanometer development effort leaves two companies — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung — pursuing the leading-edge technology.
GlobalFoundries and TSMC are foundry operations, producing chips designed by semiconductor firms that don't have their own factories.
TSMC had 2017 sales of nearly $32.2 billion, according to IC Insights, five times GlobalFoundries' $6.1 billion in sales.
GlobalFoundries will focus on its 14/12-nanometer chips, adding features it says will be "most relevant" to its clients, CEO Thomas Caulfield said earlier this week.
Efforts to reach a GlobalFoundries spokesman for comment on Thursday weren't successful.
https://www.timesunion.com/business/art ... DailyBrief
Re: POLITICS
"Cuomo forgets pledge to bar donations from businesses with open RFPs"
By Rachel Silberstein, Albany, New York Times Union on September 4, 2018 at 4:10 PM
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo appears to have forgotten his November 2016 pledge instruct his campaign to reject contributions from companies with open bids for state contracts.
“I believe we did that,” Cuomo told the Albany Times Union editorial board on Tuesday morning.
The governor then began to shift the conversation to the broader issues ethics reform, but the Times Union’s Casey Seiler interjected, noting that the TU had asked the campaign about the broken promise several times.
“I thought we did, didn’t we?” Cuomo asked, turning to his campaign aide Abbey Collins.
“No, we did not implement that,” Collins responded, echoing her previous statements that, “the best way to implement that is through the Legislature.”
“I don’t even remember the issue, to tell you the truth.” Cuomo said, adding, “I have to go back and check.”
Following revelations in 2016 that two of his close associates had played a key role in a massive bid rigging scandal, accused of diverting state contracts to developers who contributed generously to the governor’s campaign, Cuomo announced several steps that he would immediately and under his “own authority” to curb pay to play practices.
Here’s a refresher, in the governor’s own words.
There are other steps we can take immediately.
The contracting systems at CUNY and SUNY have become the focus of US Attorney and IG inquiries in the past several months.
To insure more permanent supervision, I will create and appoint separate Inspector Generals for both SUNY and CUNY.
They will be charged with identifying and investigating conflicts of interest, fraud, corruption and abuse.
They will review contracts and hiring for both improper and illegal actions.
They will look for personal benefit to any executive or legislative employee or improper actions with a third party.
They will review all campuses and all affiliated entities.
The IGs will have the authority to bring any report of improper conduct directly to law enforcement.
I will also appoint a Chief Procurement Officer for the Executive branch.
That person will be charged with reviewing all state contracts, with an eye towards eliminating any wrongdoing, conflicts of interest or collusion.
And just so there is no confusion, I do mean all contracts.
Any contract or agreement that entails the disbursement of state funds will be subject to review.
The Chief Procurement officer will have authority to review any disbursement from the State Division of the Budget.
This will include all contracts, grants, executive or legislative disbursements.
Any question of collusion, political benefit or personal connections will be thoroughly examined.
The Chief Procurement Officer will have investigative and prosecutorial experience, and will be authorized to refer problematic issues directly to law enforcement for further action.
I will order my campaign and my party not to accept campaign contributions from companies once a Request for Proposals has been announced, and for six months following the conclusion for the winner.
I believe the other state offices and the legislature should do the same and will propose such a law.
Those are the actions I can take under my own authority.
But there is more to do.
As the Times Union has reported, none of the reforms materialized and Cuomo’s spokespersons have repeatedly blamed the Legislature for failing to act on similar, but unrelated campaign finance and oversight measures.
During an hour-long meeting with editorial board members, Cuomo spoke in detail about his office has enacted increased oversight over the Legislature and continues to push for comprehensive ethics and campaign finance reform.
https://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/arc ... open-rfps/
By Rachel Silberstein, Albany, New York Times Union on September 4, 2018 at 4:10 PM
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo appears to have forgotten his November 2016 pledge instruct his campaign to reject contributions from companies with open bids for state contracts.
“I believe we did that,” Cuomo told the Albany Times Union editorial board on Tuesday morning.
The governor then began to shift the conversation to the broader issues ethics reform, but the Times Union’s Casey Seiler interjected, noting that the TU had asked the campaign about the broken promise several times.
“I thought we did, didn’t we?” Cuomo asked, turning to his campaign aide Abbey Collins.
“No, we did not implement that,” Collins responded, echoing her previous statements that, “the best way to implement that is through the Legislature.”
“I don’t even remember the issue, to tell you the truth.” Cuomo said, adding, “I have to go back and check.”
Following revelations in 2016 that two of his close associates had played a key role in a massive bid rigging scandal, accused of diverting state contracts to developers who contributed generously to the governor’s campaign, Cuomo announced several steps that he would immediately and under his “own authority” to curb pay to play practices.
Here’s a refresher, in the governor’s own words.
There are other steps we can take immediately.
The contracting systems at CUNY and SUNY have become the focus of US Attorney and IG inquiries in the past several months.
To insure more permanent supervision, I will create and appoint separate Inspector Generals for both SUNY and CUNY.
They will be charged with identifying and investigating conflicts of interest, fraud, corruption and abuse.
They will review contracts and hiring for both improper and illegal actions.
They will look for personal benefit to any executive or legislative employee or improper actions with a third party.
They will review all campuses and all affiliated entities.
The IGs will have the authority to bring any report of improper conduct directly to law enforcement.
I will also appoint a Chief Procurement Officer for the Executive branch.
That person will be charged with reviewing all state contracts, with an eye towards eliminating any wrongdoing, conflicts of interest or collusion.
And just so there is no confusion, I do mean all contracts.
Any contract or agreement that entails the disbursement of state funds will be subject to review.
The Chief Procurement officer will have authority to review any disbursement from the State Division of the Budget.
This will include all contracts, grants, executive or legislative disbursements.
Any question of collusion, political benefit or personal connections will be thoroughly examined.
The Chief Procurement Officer will have investigative and prosecutorial experience, and will be authorized to refer problematic issues directly to law enforcement for further action.
I will order my campaign and my party not to accept campaign contributions from companies once a Request for Proposals has been announced, and for six months following the conclusion for the winner.
I believe the other state offices and the legislature should do the same and will propose such a law.
Those are the actions I can take under my own authority.
But there is more to do.
As the Times Union has reported, none of the reforms materialized and Cuomo’s spokespersons have repeatedly blamed the Legislature for failing to act on similar, but unrelated campaign finance and oversight measures.
During an hour-long meeting with editorial board members, Cuomo spoke in detail about his office has enacted increased oversight over the Legislature and continues to push for comprehensive ethics and campaign finance reform.
https://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/arc ... open-rfps/
Re: POLITICS
"Troy Democrat charged in petition fraud case"
By Kenneth C. Crowe II, Albany, New York Times Union
Updated 5:08 pm EDT, Thursday, August 30, 2018
Troy - A city Democratic committeeman was arrested on a felony charge Thursday for allegedly forging three signatures on Working Families Party nominating petitions for Rensselaer County district attorney and a County Legislature seat, police said.
Anthony J. Isopo, 46, of Roosevelt Avenue, Lansingburgh, was arraigned before City Court Judge Christopher Maier Thursday for five felony counts of possession of a forged instrument and three misdemeanor counts of falsifying business records and released.
He will return to City Court on Sept. 27.
His attorney is Andrew Healey.
City detectives arrested Isopo after receiving a complaint filed by Mary Pat Donnelly, the Democratic candidate for district attorney.
Donnelly hired a private investigator to probe the circumstances of the allegations against Isopo.
After conducting his investigation, he recommended that she go to the Troy police.
Donnelly of East Greenbush and Republican District Attorney Joel E. Abelove of Rensselaer face each other in the Sept.13 Independence Party primary for district attorney.
In addition, Donnelly will appear on the Working Families Party primary ballot with Abelove supporters having an opportunity to write-in his name.
Isopo allegedly submitted a petition to the Rensselaer County Board of Elections with five signatures.
Republicans contacted three of the people whose names appeared on the petitions.
They said they had never signed the petitions.
Isopo submitted Working Families Party petitions for Donnelly and Carole Claren-Weaver, the Democratic candidate for a seat on the County Legislature representing Troy.
Claren-Weaver faces County Legislator Kim Ashe-McPherson, the Republican candidate, in the election.
Ashe-McPherson was appointed to fill the vacancy created when former County Legislator Edward Manny, D-Troy, died earlier this year.
The issue of fraudulent signatures recalls the 2009 Working Families Party primary, in which scores of voter signatures were forged on absentee ballots for Democratic candidates in Troy.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article ... DailyBrief
By Kenneth C. Crowe II, Albany, New York Times Union
Updated 5:08 pm EDT, Thursday, August 30, 2018
Troy - A city Democratic committeeman was arrested on a felony charge Thursday for allegedly forging three signatures on Working Families Party nominating petitions for Rensselaer County district attorney and a County Legislature seat, police said.
Anthony J. Isopo, 46, of Roosevelt Avenue, Lansingburgh, was arraigned before City Court Judge Christopher Maier Thursday for five felony counts of possession of a forged instrument and three misdemeanor counts of falsifying business records and released.
He will return to City Court on Sept. 27.
His attorney is Andrew Healey.
City detectives arrested Isopo after receiving a complaint filed by Mary Pat Donnelly, the Democratic candidate for district attorney.
Donnelly hired a private investigator to probe the circumstances of the allegations against Isopo.
After conducting his investigation, he recommended that she go to the Troy police.
Donnelly of East Greenbush and Republican District Attorney Joel E. Abelove of Rensselaer face each other in the Sept.13 Independence Party primary for district attorney.
In addition, Donnelly will appear on the Working Families Party primary ballot with Abelove supporters having an opportunity to write-in his name.
Isopo allegedly submitted a petition to the Rensselaer County Board of Elections with five signatures.
Republicans contacted three of the people whose names appeared on the petitions.
They said they had never signed the petitions.
Isopo submitted Working Families Party petitions for Donnelly and Carole Claren-Weaver, the Democratic candidate for a seat on the County Legislature representing Troy.
Claren-Weaver faces County Legislator Kim Ashe-McPherson, the Republican candidate, in the election.
Ashe-McPherson was appointed to fill the vacancy created when former County Legislator Edward Manny, D-Troy, died earlier this year.
The issue of fraudulent signatures recalls the 2009 Working Families Party primary, in which scores of voter signatures were forged on absentee ballots for Democratic candidates in Troy.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article ... DailyBrief