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☆ Rupert Murdoch says some Fox News anchors 'endorsed' false election fraud claims in Dominion case
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Lillian Rizzo | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said some anchors of the company's TV networks parroted false fraud claims in the months following the 2020 election, according to new court papers out Monday. In new filings as part of Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox and its networks, Murdoch said he doubted the election fraud claims being aired on Fox News and Fox Business Network. Murdoch also acknowledged that Fox's TV hosts endorsed the false election fraud claims. In unveiled question and answers from Murdoch's deposition, when Murdoch was asked if he was "now aware that Fox endorsed at times this false notion of a stolen election," Murdoch responded, "Not Fox, no. Dominion sued Fox and its right-wing cable networks, Fox News and Fox Business, arguing the networks and its personalities made false claims that its voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 election.

☆ Rupert Murdoch gave Jared Kushner 'confidential information' about Biden's 2020 ads before they were public, Dominion alleges
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Azmi Haroun | Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dominion Voting Systems made new claims about Fox News' workings around the 2020 election. In its defamation suit against Fox, Dominion claimed that Rupert Murdoch shared confidential info. Jared Kushner was provided early access to Biden's 2020 election ads, per the filing. "During Trump's campaign, Rupert provided Trump's son-in-law and senior advisor, Jared Kushner, with Fox confidential information about Biden's ads, along with debate strategy (providing Kushner a preview of Biden's ads before they were public)," Dominion's lawyers wrote in the filing. And in the company's lawsuit, Dominion claimed that Fox News "sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process."

☆ Freshman Rep. Andy Ogles admits he didn't know what he majored in
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Freshman Rep. Andy Ogles claimed he had a degree in "policy and economics" while campaiging. Ogles, a freshman representative from Tennessee, originally claimed on the campaign trail that he had a degree in international policy and economics, according to Nashville's NewsChannel5. But while it's true Ogles studied at Middle Tennessee State University, he did not major in international policy nor economics. An Insider interview with Laffer, however, revealed that Ogles' role working with Laffer primarily didn't involve economics — instead, Laffer claimed Ogles mainly worked in fundraising, though he didn't question Ogles' claim of being an economist. "An economist is a person who works in economics," Laffer told Insider.

☆ Rep. George Santos thanked a lawmaker for 'stopping by' for a chat. The lawmaker said this was a lie, and that he went to protest and ask for his resignation.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Joshua Zitser | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rep. George Santos personally thanked a local NY lawmaker for "stopping by" his office for a chat. The lawmaker replied that he wasn't there for a chat, but to stage a protest outside. He said he was there calling for Santos' resignation and to hand-deliver a letter of complaints. The local lawmaker said that the lie did not come as a surprise, adding that he believed Santos is "very good" at distorting the truth. And a week before that, New York constituents flooded the hallway outside his office in Congress, also demanding that Santos be removed from office.

☆ FEC dismisses RNC complaint that Google’s spam filters were biased against conservatives
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Washington CNN —The Federal Election Commission has tossed out claims by the Republican National Committee that Google’s spam filters in Gmail are illegally biased against conservatives, according to an agency letter obtained by CNN. In its letter, the FEC cited Google’s public statements claiming that its reasons for spam filtering include blocking malware, phishing attacks and scams. The study by North Carolina State University researchers had involved an experiment testing the spam filters of Gmail, Microsoft Outlook and Yahoo! Meanwhile, a separate RNC lawsuit against Google over the same Gmail filtering issue is still ongoing. And Google has continued with an FEC-approved pilot project that allows political campaigns to bypass Gmail’s spam filters.

Last year, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, the Human Rights Campaign, labeled 2021 the “worst year” for LGBTQ rights in modern U.S. history, citing a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. “The LGBTQ+ community is really under siege right now,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas. One bill that was successfully implemented, and gained national headlines for months, was Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, or what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers. Those losses came after some conservative groups ramped up misleading or inflammatory campaign ads targeting transgender rights.

A gay California lawmaker revealed Tuesday that he received a bomb threat laced with homophobic tropes and rhetoric, amid a simmering culture war that has sparked widespread anti-LGBTQ threats and attacks nationwide. California state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said an unnamed individual threatened to bomb his home and shoot up his office. Within the last two weeks, Greene called Wiener a “communist groomer” on Twitter, and Kirk accused Wiener of releasing “pedophiles” from jail without further explanation. In response to NBC News’ request for comment, Greene’s communications director, Nick Dyer, called Wiener “ridiculous” without expanding further. The latest threat against Wiener comes amid widespread bigoted rhetoric, threats and attacks directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people across the country.

☆ Colorado shooting prompts top drag queens to tour with armed guards and metal detectors
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Matt-Lavietes-Byline-Jm.Jpg | Matt Lavietes | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

Curtis Brown“We’re trying to smile and make people happy for the holidays, and in the back of our heads we’re thinking, ‘I hope I don’t get shot,’” said Jinkx Monsoon, winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” season five and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” season seven. For months, many right-wing lawmakers, media personalities and activists have accused LGBTQ people — and drag performers in particular — of “grooming,” “indoctrinating” and “sexualizing” children. Latrice Royale, who has appeared on both “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” reasoned that the backlash is due to the greater visibility of drag brought on by the global success of the RuPaul-led competition shows, which have spinoffs in at least 16 other countries. Drag performers who have hosted events that have catered to children, such as Drag Story Hours at public libraries or family-friendly drag brunches, have particularly drawn the ire of conservative protesters. Them.”BenDeLaCreme, who appeared on the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and the third season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” shared a similar sentiment.

☆ As election nears, some conservative groups have ramped up anti-trans campaign ads
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Matt Lavietes | Matt Lavietes Is A Reporter For Nbc Out. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +10 min

In the last leg of what has been a heated midterm election cycle, some conservative groups have ramped up misleading or inflammatory campaign ads targeting transgender rights, which have become an increasingly partisan and divisive issue. Within the last several weeks, the American Principles Project aired campaign ads in six battleground states, the group wrote on Twitter. Justin Unga, the director of strategic initiatives for the Human Rights Campaign, said ads targeting transgender rights can have real-world ramifications. A record 346 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed in state legislatures around the country this year, including 145 that restrict transgender rights, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Many of the recent campaign ads targeting transgender rights were directed at Black and Latino voters, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

☆ Far-right figures appear to be testing Twitter's boundaries for anti-LGBTQ speech
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-31 | by ( Matt Lavietes | Matt Lavietes Is A Reporter For Nbc Out. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

Shields did not respond to NBC News' request for comment. The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers. The day before, within hours of Musk's Twitter acquisition, the far-right account Libs of TikTok — which has over 1.4 million Twitter followers and has largely built its following by mocking liberals — tweeted out a post with the word "groomer" written over a dozen times. The far-right celebration comes as homophobic and transphobic slurs and rhetoric have had a resurgence within Republican politics this year. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment concerning several of the more high-profile tweets that included anti-LGBTQ slurs or sentiments.

☆ In a historic first, LGBTQ Americans will be on the ballot in all 50 states
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Matt Lavietes | Matt Lavietes Is A Reporter For Nbc Out. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

For the first time in the nation's history, Americans from all 50 states and the District of Columbia will have a chance to elect an LGBTQ person to public office. More than 340 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group. The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers. "So, if you're voting against some LGBTQ rights, you're not voting against LGBTQ rights in abstract anymore, but you're voting to deny rights to someone who sits next to you every day at work." Within the record-breaking election year for LGBTQ candidates, dozens of them will also have the chance to make history on their own.

☆ Texas sues Google over alleged ‘indiscriminate’ biometric data collection
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN Business —Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Google on Thursday, alleging the tech giant had violated the state’s biometric privacy law by “indiscriminately” collecting voiceprints and facial recognition data from users and non-users of the company’s products without their consent. “Of course, this is only visible to you and you can easily turn off this feature if you choose and we do not use photos or videos in Google Photos for advertising purposes. The company has also allegedly listened in on Texans “without regard to whether a speaker has consented to Google’s indiscriminate voice printing,” according to the complaint. In February, the state claimed a now-shuttered Facebook photo-tagging tool — which was the subject of a $650 million biometric privacy settlement in Illinois last year — had also been a violation of the Texas biometric law. Texas has multiple lawsuits ongoing against Google, including two other consumer protection cases and an antitrust case targeting Google’s dominance in digital advertising.

☆ Mohamed El-Erian said the Fed made 2 big mistakes that will go down in history and spur a damaging recession that was 'totally avoidable'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Isabella Zavarise | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Top economist Mohamed El-Erian said the Federal Reserve made two big mistakes he thinks will go down in history. "I fear that we risk a very high probability of a damaging recession that was totally avoidable," he said Sunday. The Fed has been quickly raising interest rates in an attempt to cool down 40-year high inflation. "So yes, unfortunately, this will go down in a big policy error by the Federal Reserve," he said. "Even [Federal Reserve] Chair Powell has gone from looking for a soft landing to soft-ish landing to now talking about pain.

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