When COVID happened, the U.S. health response may have left something to be desired. But one thing our public officials turned out to be very good at was rushing taxpayer money out the door without proper oversight. More than $6 trillion in COVID funds poured into the economy. A lot of it, relief funds for small businesses. We’re now learning the eye-popping scope of the fraud committed, as the hunt continues to catch more of the crooks. In today’s cover story, we follow the COVID money.
It’s election year. This is the fifth presidential election campaign since Twitter and Facebook were created. And with each election cycle, efforts to manipulate the election through social media have become more heavy-handed. It’s no longer just about putting out a message. It’s about stopping certain voices from being heard and certain facts from getting told. The First Amendment limits the government’s role in monitoring and censoring American speech. But a Congressional committee has found evidence of the government and its partners veering far beyond Constitutional guardrails, with help from a growing censorship-industrial complex.
Posted in Free Speech, Government, Sharyl Attkisson, Social Media
One of the first things President Biden did when he took office was to halt construction of southern border barriers. Now, after millions of illegal border crossings and untold amounts of human and fentanyl trafficking, a surprising reversal. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has announced immediate action to resume construction of barriers where it had been called off. We were there nearly three years ago when the building of Trump’s wall was literally stopped overnight. Here’s a look back at what we saw then.
Posted in Immigration, Joe Biden, Sharyl Attkisson
We begin with a look into the role of key instigators and police in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol protests. Authorities haven’t provided answers about the role of undercover agents and informants in the crowd that day. A Rasmussen Reports survey found 65% of likely voters say they think undercover government agents likely helped provoke the riots. We review keys moments on video with law enforcement experts who ask, why did police inexplicably stand by and allow some demonstrators to drive the crowd to violence? Today, the results of our yearlong investigation.
Posted in Sharyl Attkisson
Full Measure host Sharyl Attkisson is joined by a panel of experts to discuss emerging research and treatments related to COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines.
Posted in Public Health/Safety, Sharyl Attkisson
We’ve long reported about the need to protect American technology amid Chinese efforts to steal it. But today’s cover story makes the case for the possibility that the way we’re doing it is causing more harm than good and leading to innocent scientists being charged as spies. As the Chinese proverb says, “A bad beginning makes a bad ending.”
Posted in Espionage, Sharyl Attkisson
Whether it’s helping businesses, supporting hospitals and schools, or paying the unemployed, a record amount of money is being spent on Covid-19-related assistance in the U.S. But for every taxpayer dollars that’s sent to someone who needs it, an unknown amount of money is lost to waste and fraud. Today, we look at some of the biggest cons so far – and who’s looking for all the crooks.
Texas businessman Dinesh Sah is one of the biggest known Covid scamsters so far. He’s sentenced to 11 years in prison for fabricating documents applying for nearly $25 million for nonexistent businesses and workers. He spent the taxpayer money on homes and luxury cars.
Sharyl: What was your first clue that there was going to be an element, a large element, of fraud possible?
Mike Ware: As soon as we started to hear what the numbers were in terms of how much money was going to be allocated to these programs.
Mike Ware is the Inspector General of the Small Business Administration, which is in charge of administering Covid-19 relief for businesses. With Ware’s help, we’re taking a deep dive into all the fraud that’s come with it.
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Posted in Fraud, Sharyl Attkisson
NASA Researcher Arrested for False Statements and Wire Fraud in Relation to China’s Talents Program
A Texas A&M University professor has been arrested and charged with lying about his contacts with the Communist Chinese, which were prohibited under the terms of his taxpayer-funded grant.
According to the Justice Department, 53-year old Zhengdong Cheng led a team conducting research for NASA.
While 1.4 million foreign researchers and academics are here in the U.S. for the right reasons, the Chinese Talents Program exploits our open and free universities. These conflicts must be disclosed, and we will hold those accountable when such conflict violates the law.
Dept. of Justice news release
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Posted in Asia, Fraud, Sharyl Attkisson
Was the effort to focus America’s attention on the idea of “fake news”—itself a propaganda effort? Connect the dots and learn who’s behind it and why. It’s not what you think.
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Posted in Journalism, Sharyl Attkisson, The Virtual University
“Digital activists are paid employees; their purpose is to attack anyone who’s posting something contrary to the view the page owner wants expressed.”
It’s perhaps one of the most important and pitched battles of our time: The battle to control information and sway public opinion. What can you believe? Who’s telling the truth? What’s real? Trust in the national media breaks along partisan lines. According to the latest survey: just 11 percent of Republicans now trust national news organizations, down from last year. Over the same period, Democrats’ trust has gone up, to 34 percent. Trust in social sites like Facebook and Twitter is in the single digits for all political persuasions; a reflection that the web is a free-for-all, where news is faked, and popular sites are subject to manipulation or censorship. We investigate efforts to control: The Sum of All Knowledge.
As a Donald Trump supporter, Andrew Torba felt like odd man out in California’s Silicon Valley home of prominent tech firms like Apple, Facebook and Google. Last year he was outraged when he attended this campaign rally in San Jose and saw violent anti-Trump protesters attacking Trump supporters.
Sharyl: Did you post these feelings online?
Andrew Torba: Yes.
Sharyl: On what?
Torba: On Facebook, on Twitter, I wrote a blog about it. And immediately, without getting into any of the issues or anything, I was automatically labeled a racist, a bigot, etc. Venture capitalists, people that I respected and had worked with on a very close level, just wrote me off completely and blacklisted me completely.
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Complete text and video linked here.
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Posted in Free Speech, Sharyl Attkisson, Social Media
