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Hear Ye! Hear Ye! 'Conservative Activists' Take Down Maricopa County Board of Supes Steve Chucri

Blame it on Right-Wing Pundits is a way-too-simple and way-too-shallow explanation for all the deep dirt running under the surface and under-the-radar here in Maricopa County - that includes all things political + an entire cast of characters making Maricopa County the Folly of The Nation.

Ever since the forced resignation of the former Maricopa County Assessor in 2019. the Arizona State Capitol had become a pressure-cooker even before the November 2020 General Election. took a while for the dust to settle while Politicians attempt to troll the media even more

Here we go again!

Fact-checking the audit

Logan and Ben Cotton, the CEO of the digital forensics company CyFIR, which is a subcontractor on the election review, made a number of claims during the July 15 briefing that have since been debunked. . .

Once the bad information gets out there, people have got to hear the truth and they’ve got to hear it from a credible source.

– Gowri Ramachandran, Brennan Center for Justice

Some sketchy details for the latest episode just yesterday September 21, 2021

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The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors is comprised of, from left, Bill Gates, Steve Chucri, Jack Sellers, Clint Hickman and Steve Gallardo. Photo courtesy Maricopa County

Chucri to resign after recordings of him bashing colleagues over ‘audit’ become public

By: Jeremy Duda - September 21, 2021 3:45 pm

 

> "Maricopa County Supervisor Steve Chucri announced that he will resign his seat after a recording surfaced in which he criticized his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors for not supporting the Senate’s review of the 2020 election, speculating that two of them were worried about what such a review would show about their own narrow victories in November in a newly released recording. Chucri’s resignation will be effective Nov. 5.

The remaining four members of the Board of Supervisors will select his replacement.

Arizona Mirror reporter Jeremy Duda tracked down some details from conversations and comments Chucri made back in January and March of this year (9 months and 6 months after) that were, as he reported, "provided to right-wing media."

> The comments were made during a meeting in March with Shelby Busch and Steve Robinson of the conservative group We the People AZ Alliance, which, at the time, was attempting to force recall elections against all five members of the Board of Supervisors, . .

Gateway Pundit, a far-right conspiracy theory website, that has promoted countless false claims and conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 election, first published the recordings. . .According to Gateway Pundit, the recording was made on March 22, a little more than a week before Fann announced that she’d hired the Florida firm Cyber Ninjas to conduct the upcoming “audit,” which began several weeks later.  

- Chucri said he first ran in 2012, a time when the Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County government in general had been rocked by years of discord and scandal, to bring civility, innovation and a business mindset to government.

- “I do not want to perpetuate the very problem I ran to eliminate several years ago. While I have had my differences with my colleagues, I have known them to be good, honorable and ethical men,” he said.

Chucri: Comments twisted to prove non-existent ‘cover-up’

Chucri said the political landscape “has changed for the worst this year,” a trend he blamed on the proliferation of false fraud claims about the 2020 election, an issue which, in Arizona, has put Maricopa County’s elections officials and supervisors in the center of the storm.

“The environment is wrought with toxicity — and all civility and decorum no longer seem to have a place. The fixation with the 2020 election results and aftermath have gotten out of control,” Chucri said.

- He also criticized Gateway Pundit and others for presenting his comments as evidence of problems with the election in Maricopa County.“The picture some individuals are trying to paint about a cover-up, scam and other nonsense about my colleagues and myself is simply false. There was no cover-up, the election was not stolen. Biden won,” he said. 

- Chucri’s criticism wasn’t limited to his fellow supervisors. At one point, he said he was proud to have helped “take out” Adrian Fontes, the Democratic county recorder who lost his re-election last year, opining, “That guy’s a scumbag.” Fontes and the board clashed several times, and the supervisors stripped him of some of his powers over elections after problems during the 2018 vote. . .

READ MORE > Jeremy Dude Arizona Mirror

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06 September 2021 

Pundits & Pop Psychology: Baffled and Bamboozled

Try to get a grip on this one article: it is a book review

 Don't know about you, dear readers, but I miss the step-by-step logic of proving a theorem in the science of geometry that usually ends with three initials QED Classic Latin 'Quod erat demonstrandum' That which was demonstrated [to be true]

The Rhetoric of Pop Psychology

Jesse Singal’s takedown of trendy science aimed at fixing human behavior in The Quick Fix reveals the limits of a certain strand of journalism

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Discipline Down on The Internet of 'Things'

Direct from the source today:

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Governments hold upper hand online

Scott Rosenberg

Axios | 2021-09-20T10:00:10.686710Z

 

Insert: "Governments around the world are finding it easier than ever to make the internet, and the companies that run it, knuckle under.

Driving the news: Russia Friday forced Apple and Google to remove an app that supporters of dissident leader Alexei Navalny had created to coordinate opposition votes in Russian elections.

• Also last week, China's government removed nearly all online content connected with one of its top movie stars as part of a broader campaign against the power of celebrities, the Wall Street Journal reported.
• Full shutdowns of internet access by governments seeking to cut off citizens' access to information for political reasons have become increasingly common, a study Axios reported earlier this month found.

The big picture: Governments are limiting or banning applications, content and connectivity itself — and Big Tech companies, rich and powerful as they are, can't or won't fight back.

• From the Arab Spring to the Black Lives Matter protests, the internet has helped organizers build popular movements and even, on occasion, overthrow governments.
• But for now, at least, the tables have turned, and technology is giving entrenched leaders and parties an effective lever to bolster their power.

In Russia, per a New York Times report, the government of Vladimir Putin threatened specific Apple and Google employees with prosecution if the companies did not act to remove the Navalny app, which the government had said was illegal.

• The move came as Russians went to the polls Friday, and followed weeks of government pressure on the companies.
• Once the app, which distributed information to opposition voters on how best to deploy their ballots, got blocked, Navalny organizers started using Telegram to spread the word, but by the end of the day that service had taken down their account, too.

In China, actress Zhao Wei's internet presence vanished at the end of August, per the WSJ. Movies featuring the star, who had 86 million fans on Weibo, have disappeared from online services. The government offered no explanation for why she seemed to have fallen out of favor.

• The move against Zhao came amid a wider government effort to limit the profile and power of online celebrities and business leaders, including a high-profile take-down of entrepreneur billionaire Jack Ma.
• In August China also began removing content seen as criticizing the country's economy.

Around the world, nonprofit Access Now documented 50 internet shutdowns in 21 countries during the first five months of 2021.

• Governments in countries including India, Belarus, Turkey, Myanmar and Ethiopia have sought to cut their citizens off from internet access or to ban content and services they don't like.
• In the U.S., meanwhile, leaders of both parties have targeted online giants with complaints of censorship and promoting misinformation, amid a broad government effort to constrain the companies' power.

Between the lines: Companies aren't sovereign, so when governments take legal action against them, whatever the motivation, they have little choice but to buckle under or stop operating in a particular nation.

• That last option is largely out in China, where most of the U.S.-based internet giants have either been sidelined or chosen to exit, and most online services are provided by domestic firms that can't pick up stakes and leave.
• China's model may well become more common as governments seek control — and as the technology powering internet services becomes easier to copy.

Our thought bubble: Organizing our online universe around centralized chokepoints like app stores and search engine monopolies does much of the work in advance for authoritarian governments looking to squelch dissent.

Go deeper: Nationalism and authoritarianism threaten the internet's universality