A prominent liberal think tank that helped suppress media coverage of Hunter Biden’s corrupt foreign business dealings recruited Arizonan government workers and activist leaders for its leadership program.
The Aspen Institute, a prominent liberal think tank, runs 65 programs nationwide to shape communities to its standards: such as the leadership program in Arizona. An independent reporter uncovered this week how one of the institute’s arms, Aspen Digital, coordinated a “tabletop exercise” with social media companies, media outlets, and academia to ensure effective cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop story released by the New York Post a month later. Twitter’s newest CEO, Elon Musk, uncovered this collusion with the release of internal Twitter communications and documents dubbed the “Twitter Files.”
30. Efforts continued to influence Twitter's Yoel Roth.
In Sept 2020, Roth participated in an Aspen Institute “tabletop exercise” on a potential "Hack-and-Dump" operation relating to Hunter Biden
The goal was to shape how the media covered it — and how social media carried it pic.twitter.com/lQSorONUSh
This revelation adds to another discovery from last November, when The Washington Free Beaconreported that Twitter’s former head of site security, Yoel Roth, served as an advisor for the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder. Key advisors on the commission have gone to great lengths to modify public narrative by censoring, filtering, or warping news coverage.
The Aspen Institute was one of numerous key organizations coordinating with social media and legacy media to control public speech and narratives at the government’s behest. Musk emphasized again on Tuesday that the government has been dictating free speech via social media companies.
“Every social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government,” said Musk.
Most people don’t appreciate the significance of the point Matt was making:
*Every* social media company is engaged in heavy censorship, with significant involvement of and, at times, explicit direction of the government.
Google frequently makes links disappear, for example.
The Aspen Institute isn’t the only entity to collude with government, social media companies, and other powerful entities to counter public speech. Governor-elect Katie Hobbs, during her term as secretary of state, worked with a middle man organization to censor online speech.
Last year, the Aspen Institute launched its first Arizona-based leadership program: the Greater Phoenix Workforce Leadership Academy, a 10-month stint developed between the institute and the Center for the Future of Arizona. Walmart was the key funder for this program. The academy is part of the “Economic Opportunities Program,” an equity-based program for low- and moderate-income individuals.
“We recognize that race, gender, and place intersect with and intensify the challenge of economic inequality and we address these dynamics by advancing an inclusive vision of economic justice,” reads the program page.
The leadership program’s inaugural 2021 class includes employees of Maricopa Community Colleges, University of Arizona, the City of Phoenix, Arizona Department of Transportation, Mesa Public Schools, Mesa Community College, Arizona Department of Economic Security/EEA, and the Arizona Commerce Authority.
Arizona government workers haven’t just been recruited by the Aspen Institute. In the wake of elections-related controversy over the summer, former Yavapai County Elections Director Lynn Constabile was hired by U.S. Digital Response (USDR), which was co-founded by a former Aspen Institute tech policy fellow along with former Big Tech leaders, and advised by three Obama administration chief technology officers.
USDR is a pro-bono nonprofit that assists governments and organizations with crisis response. Part of their work involves shaping public narratives and perception, such as tackling “misinformation” and “disinformation” by working closely with Big Tech-funded entities like the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).
The full list of these 24 inaugural Greater Phoenix Workforce Leadership Academy fellows, now part of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunity Fellows Network, is replicated below:
Audrey Bell-Jenkins — Workforce Development Manager, UMOM New Day Centers;
Katie Belous — Research Analyst, Pipeline AZ
Colleen Bivona — Associate Director, Grants Development and Management, Maricopa Community Colleges
Miguel Fernandez — Professor, Chandler Gilbert Community College
Eileana Gudiño — Community Development Director, Valley of the Sun United Way
On New Year’s Day, Kari Lake asked the Arizona Supreme Court to take up her case challenging the 2022 midterm election. The request for special-action appellate review marks a final effort to prevent transition of power proceedings ahead of Governor-Elect Katie Hobbs’ inauguration on Thursday.
Lake’s team filed their appeal with the Arizona Court of Appeals last Wednesday, alleging that suppressed and illegal votes outnumbered Hobbs’ 17,100 lead. Lake is pushing for a new election.
“A new governor is scheduled to be seated under a cloud of electoral uncertainty and impropriety,” stated Lake.
The embattled GOP candidate’s team cited “extraordinary circumstances” as the reason for their request, characterizing the Election Day tabulator-printer fiasco as a “targeted attack” on voters as well as citing the upcoming swearing-in ceremony.
Lake’s appeal insisted that the court should distinguish the election content standards: namely, clear-and-convincing versus preponderance-of-evidence, the use of latches for the right to violate laws in future elections, and that unconstitutional elections would qualify as misconduct.
We would recommend this thread to anyone still pretending that what happened in November was a free & fair election.
The amount of evidence of intentional misconduct on Election Day and the weeks following is overwhelming.
Lake asserted that Maricopa County officials offered “changing and conflicting testimony” that they alleged was proof of intentional malfeasance on Election Day, including chain of custody violations and improper signature review for mail-in ballots. The appeal included a remark made by the county’s counsel, Thomas Liddy, in his closing argument.
“You reap what you sow,” said Liddy, in reference to Election Day voters.
The longer @katiehobbs is allowed to pretend she's governor, the more damage she does to our institutions.
Serious countries don't allow fundamentally unserious people to pretend that they are leaders.
Especially morally vacant and intellectually vapid ones like Hobbs.
Lake claimed that controversy over this most recent election jeopardizes the republic: a seeming counter to Democrats’ claim that scrutinizing elections jeopardizes democracy.
“A significant majority of voters no longer trust the outcomes of elections in Arizona. A functioning republic cannot exist for long in these circumstances,” read the appeal.
Polls support Lake’s claim concerning election distrust. Rasmussen Reports found that 72 percent of likely voters agreed with Lake’s claims that Election Day problems resulted in disenfranchisement, with 45 percent strongly agreeing.
Tufts University polling conducted the week after the midterm election discovered that distrust in elections correlated with age. Younger voters tended to trust the legitimacy of elections more greatly than older voters, especially concerning the 2020 election. Their polling also discovered that younger generations were far less likely to identify with one specific political party, but didn’t view Democrats as “too extreme” compared with older generations.
Although Hobbs’ team points to Monday as the inauguration day, the official ceremony remains on Thursday.
An appeal may be underway in the case challenging the attorney general race results after Pinal County reported undercounting hundreds of ballots.
Pinal County added to their count over 500 more ballots, effectively halving Democrat Kris Mayes’ lead from 511 to 280. Republican Abraham Hamadeh gained 392 votes, while Mayes gained 115 votes.
BOMBSHELL REPORT:
I am still fighting to get to the bottom of this botched election. Every voter deserves to know who legitimately won and to have every vote count.
In a statement, Pinal County dismissed the missed ballots as “human error” that mainly impacted Election Day votes. The county pointed out that it had a 99 percent accuracy rate, based on the fact that the 500-odd vote discrepancy amounted to a .35 percent variance within 146,000 votes.
“[T]he recount process did what it was supposed to do — it identified a roughly five hundred vote undercount in the Pinal County election attributable to human error,” stated the county. “[I]n light of threatened litigation and rumored appeals, Pinal County can make no further comment at this time.”
The county also speculated that election workers mistakenly believed certain tabulators were counting votes when they malfunctioned.
Prior to the recount and throughout the lawsuit against them, the county admittedly knew the major vote discrepancy existed. The Board of Supervisors’ new chairman, Jeff Serdy, toldArizona Daily Independent that their officials hadn’t said anything because they weren’t sure what they were allowed to say. Yet, their board of supervisors certified the election in late November anyways.
The Pinal County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved canvassing the County's Election results for the November 8, 2022, Election.
Pinal County wouldn’t have had the first board to reject election results over concerns of improper election management or malfeasance. Former Pima County Supervisor Ally Miller said in a statement to AZ Free News that she and fellow supervisor Steve Christy refused to certify the 2020 election due to concerns about her county’s administration of the election. Miller noted that she and Christy had “just cause” per statute to do so.
“I felt certain that a vote approving the canvass would have not only been malfeasant but fraudulent,” said Miller.
Miller opined that signing off on faulty election results may constitute a felony, citing the recent debacle over the Mojave County Board of Supervisors’ initial refusal to certify their election results.
“We heard from the Mojave County supervisors this year that they voted in favor of the canvass under duress. They claimed they were warned by the County Attorney’s Office that if they failed to certify this year’s election before the statutory deadline they would have invalidated all Mohave County elections and failure to approve the canvass may have represented an act of malfeasance,” stated Miller. “They said they would be at risk of committing a Class 2 misdemeanor under Arizona statute. Not only is the legal advice they received disputed, for some of us, it would be a felony to sign-off on an election that was not completely fair and free from shenanigans, or substantial human error.”
The massive discrepancies across the board spurred Secretary of State-Elect Adrian Fontes to remark that the variance was problematic. He said that a recount should yield only single digit differences — not hundreds. Fontes said that the county didn’t “step up” by training or preparing properly, and indicated that increasing funds and resources would remedy the issue.
“It is absolutely, really problematic to see the number of ballots in Pinal County that weren’t tabulated,” said Fontes. “If we’re not funding, training, and staffing these departments, we’re going to have these kinds of problems.”
However, Fontes didn’t hesitate to congratulate Mayes on the victory.
The county’s Democratic and GOP parties issued a joint statement on Friday calling the recount a success and issuing their support for the recorder.
Thank you @PinalCounty and @PinalGOP Party Chair for believing that facts matter and for your continued support to our county Recorder and Elections officials. Some things go beyond party politics and become a matter of fallacies and facts. Facts win every time.@azdempartypic.twitter.com/4Z6S9uJdRv
Pinal County has been beset with problems throughout this election year. In August, former Elections Director David Frisk resigned after back-to-back issues ahead of the primary. The county faced several lawsuits after mailing about 63,000 voters incorrect early ballots. Then on the day of the primary, the county failed to have enough ballots on hand for voters. Workers were forced to disenfranchise those voters.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Flagstaff Mayor Becky Daggett will focus first on addressing climate change and affordable housing.
Daggett issued this promise during her swearing-in at last week’s city council meeting. She said she would direct her staff to tackle these two issues first.
“[We are going to emphasize] affordable housing and climate action, and also scheduling meetings with the public and really trying to hit the ground running,” said Daggett.
Affordable housing and climate action are the leading two of several priorities Daggett pledged on the campaign trail. After those priorities, Daggett listed small business growth, job creation, and increased investment in “greener” multi-modal transportation: pedestrian pathways, biking, and busing.
A week prior to her swearing-in, Daggett attended a bipartisan meeting with 12 other mayors to discuss housing as well as public safety, American Rescue Plan funds, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and CHIPS and Science Act. Daggett met with President Joe Biden, the White House Intergovernmental Affairs staff, Domestic Policy Council Director Susan Rice, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Labor Secretary Martin Walsh, and Housing & Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge.
Both Daggett and the former mayor, Paul Deasy, ran their campaigns on promises to tackle climate change and affordable housing. On the trail, Daggett indicated that she would lean into higher density housing (high rise apartments, etc.) or missing middle housing (duplexes, townhomes, bungalow courts, carriage houses, etc.) to expand neighborhood walkability. Daggett also indicated a desire to reduce parking minimums.
Daggett noted that state law precludes Flagstaff from implementing its ideal affordable housing initiatives. Daggett said that until state law relaxes, the city would rely on incentives such as Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, partnerships with nonprofit and for-profit developers on city-owned land, and prioritize affordable housing during budget talks.
Climate change has been a winning topic for Flagstaff’s voters for the better part of the past decade; former mayor Coral Evans committed the city to carbon neutrality by 2030, a plan which Daggett supports. Affordable housing presents a newer concern prompted by the hot-turned-cold housing market, combined with the glut of short-term rental properties in the area.
Last June, Daggett and the Flagstaff City Council passed a Carbon Neutrality Plan. The plan noted that every action would integrate equity as a foundational element. The council pledged to encourage alternatives to cars such as walking, biking, rolling, and busing; reduce citizens’ dependence on driving; electrify its buses; expand micro-mobility devices; support citizens’ transition to electric vehicles; transition to 100 percent renewable electricity for municipal needs; increase renewable energy installations and usage in new buildings while supporting solar installations on existing buildings; reduce or remove natural gas usage in municipal buildings; encourage electrical grid reliance on new buildings; require new homes to be net zero energy homes by 2030; encourage sustainable consumption; divert waste from the landfill; reduce organic waste to the landfill to feed people; and develop a portfolio of local and regional carbon dioxide removal initiatives to achieve carbon neutrality.
Last August, Daggett said she would look to use American Rescue Plan Act funding to expand emergency shelter and affordable housing initiatives. In June, Daggett said that the city should apply its $5 billion budget surplus to climate action and affordable housing.
According to Flagstaff’s profile on the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM), the city has about 971,600 annual GHG emissions. It’s completed five out of nine phases spanning mitigation, adaption, and energy access & poverty initiatives.
GCoM is a coalition of over 11,500 cities and local governments across six continents and 142 countries pledging to lower emissions and establish climate resiliency. GCoM is co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg, former New York City mayor, and Frans Timmersman, European Commission executive vice president for the European Green New Deal.
GCoM ex-officio members include Patricia Espinosa, UNFCCC executive secretary; Maimunah Mohd Sharif, UN-Habitat executive director; and the Global Covenant of Mayors executive director. On the board are the mayors of Guelph, Canada; Warsaw, Poland; Heidelberg, Germany; Colombo, Shri Lanka; Kloto 1, Togo; Makati, Philippines; and Hobart, Australia.
Phoenix is also a member of GCoM, with reported annual GHG emissions of 16.45 million.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Governor-elect Katie Hobbs said she doesn’t plan on working with Arizona Senate Republicans.
The comments offer a stark contrast to Hobbs’ public promises for bipartisanship and a confidence that she can work well with GOP leaders.
Our campaign was never about Democrats or Republicans, and my administration will be no different. If we're going to tackle Arizona's toughest challenges, it's going to take bipartisanship to deliver Arizona solutions. https://t.co/Vn05maQzWa
Yesterday I had the opportunity to share my vision for Arizona in my 1st interview as Governor-Elect.
Arizonans are facing real challenges right now, and I'm ready to get to work bringing people together to deliver bipartisan solutions.https://t.co/oaNwje2aRw
Hobbs issued the remarks during the Democratic Governor Association’s (DGA) annual winter meeting at the beginning of December in New Orleans, Louisiana: an exclusive Ritz-Carlton Hotel confab with donors, lobbyists, and a handful of journalists.
"I believe that if we can put our partisan differences aside, there are things we can work together on. And that's a win-win for all Arizonans."
According to The New York Times relay of Hobbs’ commentary, the governor-elect said that her communication with their leadership was strained to the point that she hadn’t and wouldn’t communicate with them.
Arizona is divided. But the path forward is clear — we need to work together, across parties, to mend fences and heal our divisions. It’s time to leave the past behind and look forward into the future.
Hobbs indicated she would be harsh to those constituents and political leaders who challenge the validity of her election. Hobbs also said that she wasn’t optimistic about finding common ground on voting issues.
“These people are claiming fraud when there is none, these people mounted an insurrection on the Capitol, they’re the ones who have broken the trust,” said Hobbs. “You can’t coddle these people that have been misled by the people they have upheld as leaders. These so-called leaders need to be held accountable.”
Yet over a week later, Hobbs publicized her meeting with State Rep. Ben Toma (R-LD27), speaker-elect, and State Sen. Warren Petersen (R-LD14), president-elect. Her public optimism on the meeting flipped from her DGA outlook. In November, Toma told The Arizona Republic that it was too early to know how the state legislature would work with Hobbs.
Had a productive discussion with Speaker-Elect @RepBenToma and President-Elect @votewarren this morning. We are ready to find common ground and get to work on behalf of all Arizonans. pic.twitter.com/0GW1gXQi9N
Hobbs’ DGA remarks followed controversies over her willingness to end the state’s 1901 abortion ban, universal school choice program, and Border Strike Force.
Hobbs will be sworn in next Thursday, Jan. 5.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
