Parent Advocates
Search All  
The goal of ParentAdvocates.org
is to put tax dollar expenditures and other monies used or spent by our federal, state and/or city governments before your eyes and in your hands.

Through our website, you can learn your rights as a taxpayer and parent as well as to which programs, monies and more you may be entitled...and why you may not be able to exercise these rights.

Mission Statement

Click this button to share this site...


Bookmark and Share











Who We Are »
Betsy Combier

Help Us to Continue to Help Others »
Email: betsy.combier@gmail.com

 
The E-Accountability Foundation announces the

'A for Accountability' Award

to those who are willing to whistleblow unjust, misleading, or false actions and claims of the politico-educational complex in order to bring about educational reform in favor of children of all races, intellectual ability and economic status. They ask questions that need to be asked, such as "where is the money?" and "Why does it have to be this way?" and they never give up. These people have withstood adversity and have held those who seem not to believe in honesty, integrity and compassion accountable for their actions. The winners of our "A" work to expose wrong-doing not for themselves, but for others - total strangers - for the "Greater Good"of the community and, by their actions, exemplify courage and self-less passion. They are parent advocates. We salute you.

Winners of the "A":

Johnnie Mae Allen
David Possner
Dee Alpert
Aaron Carr
Harris Lirtzman
Hipolito Colon
Larry Fisher
The Giraffe Project and Giraffe Heroes' Program
Jimmy Kilpatrick and George Scott
Zach Kopplin
Matthew LaClair
Wangari Maathai
Erich Martel
Steve Orel, in memoriam, Interversity, and The World of Opportunity
Marla Ruzicka, in Memoriam
Nancy Swan
Bob Witanek
Peyton Wolcott
[ More Details » ]
 
New York POST: Obama Officials Were ‘Bothered’ by Hunter Biden Burisma Job: Book
President Obama’s White House was “bothered” by Hunter Biden’s ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and Obama officials found Hunter’s presence on the company board of directors while his father was vice president “unseemly,” according to a new book. The revelations were first published by New Yorker writer Evan Osnos in “Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now,” which hit bookstores earlier this month, the Daily Mail reported.
          
   Hunter Biden   
Congratulations to the NY POST editors and staff for getting the important information about the Biden family's deceit and double-dealing to the general public. The newspaper has made history.

And we can all see how Twitter and Facebook have tried to censor voices they disagree with. This must be addressed by whoever is elected President.

Betsy Combier
Facebook
Twitter
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ blog
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Obama officials were ‘bothered’ by Hunter Biden Burisma job: book
By Jon Levine, NY POST, October 31, 2020
LINK: https://nypost.com/2020/10/31/obama-officials-were-bothered-by-hunter-biden-burisma-job-book/

President Obama’s White House was “bothered” by Hunter Biden’s ties to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and Obama officials found Hunter’s presence on the company board of directors while his father was vice president “unseemly,” according to a new book.

The revelations were first published by New Yorker writer Evan Osnos in “Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now,” which hit bookstores earlier this month, the Daily Mail reported.

“In the Spring of 2014 at the same time Biden was playing a central role in overseeing US policy in Ukraine, Hunter joined the board of Burisma, one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas producers,” Osnos writes.

The situation, however, was allowed to persist by the administration even as “distance was becoming harder to maintain” between the two Bidens. Obama veterans continue to insist Hunter’s business ties had no impact on US foreign policy.

The Osnos revelations come after GOP led Senate report in September concluded that at least two Obama White House officials raised concerns about Hunter’s work for the company and feared the creation of a perception of conflict of interest.

The report concluded that the Obama administration ignored “glaring warning signs” and that “Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board negatively impacted the efforts of dedicated career service individuals who were fighting to push for anti-corruption measures in Ukraine.”

Democrats said the committee found no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden.

The Hunter Biden story again exploded into the news after bombshell revelations published in the New York Post raised new questions about the potential involvement Joe Biden may have had with his son and various business partners.

Feds reportedly seized second Hunter Biden laptop in February
https://nypost.com/2020/10/31/feds-reportedly-seized-second-hunter-biden-laptop-in-february/
By Jon Levine, NY POST, October 31, 2020

A second laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was taken by the feds back in February.

The computer was found in the Massachusetts offices of celebrity psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow during a raid and seized by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, according to a new report from NBC.

Ablow’s medical license was suspended after he was accused of sexually exploiting patients and other professional misconduct. He has not been charged with a crime and has denied the allegations.

Hunter Biden has not been the target of the search or the investigation and his lawyer ultimately got the laptop back, the network reported. It’s unclear what was on the machine or why it would have been in Ablow’s offices.

As The Post previously reported, a different Hunter Biden laptop made its way to a Delaware computer repair shop last year. The store owner later delivered its hard drive to Rudy Giuliani after he said Hunter never returned to retrieve the property.

The laptop contained a trove of emails detailing various discussions between Hunter and foreign contacts — which potentially included setting up meetings with his famous father while he was vice president.

The Post’s Twitter Account Gained About 190,000 Followers During the Blackout
By Tamar Lapin, NY POST, October 30, 2020

The Post gained about 190,000 Twitter followers while it was locked out of its primary account by the social media giant, data shows.

That number represents a 10.6 percent increase in just about two weeks, according to analytics tool Social Blade.

The spike came as Twitter blocked the news organization from posting during that time period.

A tweet announcing The Post’s return to the social media site on Friday evening quickly went viral, racking up more than 17,000 retweets and close to 50,000 likes in about an hour.

“We’re baaaaaaack,” the tweet read.

Twitter had locked the account on Oct. 14. The company finally backed down Friday and unlocked the account after a two-week stalemate over the Hunter Biden exposé.

The move came after The Post refused Twitter’s demand that it delete six tweets that linked to stories that the company claimed — without any evidence — were based on hacked information.

SEE ALSO

How tweet it is: Twitter backs down, unlocks Post's account
The Post never budged, and kept the tweets on the account during the standoff.
https://nypost.com/2020/10/30/twitter-backs-down-agrees-to-unlock-posts-account/

In a series of tweets, the social-media giant said it was revising its “Hacked Materials Policy” and “updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement.”

“Our policies are living documents,” said one of the tweets from @TwitterSafety.

“We’re willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public.


The missive included an image of The Post’s Saturday front page, with the headline “Free bird!”

Glenn Greenwald says mainstream media is ‘desperate to see’ Trump lose
By Bruce Golding, NY POST, October 30, 2020

Most of the mainstream news media has been “concocting excuses” to ignore The Post’s exposé about Hunter Biden’s emails — which actually justify hard questions for Joe Biden, according to award-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald.

In a 6,000-word draft of the article that led him to resign from The Intercept, Greenwald also blamed the lack of coverage on widespread antipathy toward President Trump among American reporters and editors.

“The reality is the U.S. press has been planning for this moment for four years — cooking up justifications for refusing to report on newsworthy material that might help Donald Trump get re-elected,” he wrote.

“One major factor is the undeniable truth that journalists with national outlets based in New York, Washington and West Coast cities overwhelmingly not just favor Joe Biden but are desperate to see Donald Trump defeated.”

Greenwald used the Substack website to self-publish his lengthy attack after saying editors at The Intercept — which he co-founded in 2014 — “censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression.”

Greenwald titled his article, “THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER’S EMAILS.”

In it, he said that The Post’s exclusives and subsequent articles from a handful of others “provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants, and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.”

“One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials,” he wrote.

“Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions — the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election — journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence.”

As an example, Green cited a tweet by National Public Radio’s public editor that said, “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers time on stories that are just pure distractions.”

Greenwald also pointed to a segment of the CNN program “Amanpour” that was televised on Sunday and featured an appearance by Elizabeth Harrington, national spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.

“CNN’s Christiane Amanpour barely pretended to be interested in any journalism surrounding the story, scoffing during an interview at requests from the RNC’s Elizabeth Harrington to cover the story and verify the documents by telling her: ‘We’re not going to do your work for you,’” he wrote.

Greenwald, who helped The Guardian US win the 2014 Pulitzer Prize by working with whistleblower Edward Snowden to expose secret surveillance by the National Security Agency, said the questions raised by Hunter Biden’s emails and other documents “are as glaring as they are important.”

Greenwald also published an email that he said he sent the Biden campaign with nine questions “about these documents that the public has the absolute right to know.”

They included, “Are any specific emails published by the New York Post purportedly either to or from Hunter Biden, or which reference Vice President Biden, fabricated or fraudulently altered? If so, which ones? Has Vice President Biden discussed with Hunter whether these emails are authentic?”

“Though the Biden campaign indicated that they would respond to The Intercept’s questions, they have not done so,” he wrote in his draft article.

“A statement they released to other outlets contains no answers to any of these questions except to claim that Biden ‘has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any business overseas.’”

In response to Greenwald’s public resignation on Thursday, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief, Betsy Reed, wrote on the site that Greenwald “believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor.”

“The narrative Glenn presents about his departure is teeming with distortions and inaccuracies — all of them designed to make him appear as a victim, rather than a grown person throwing a tantrum,” she wrote.

“While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle the dubious claims of a political campaign — the Trump campaign — and launder them as journalism.”

The Biden campaign didn’t return a request for comment.

Glenn Greenwald quits The Intercept over ‘censorship’ of Hunter Biden article
by Steve Nelson, NY POST, October 29, 2020

Prominent journalist Glenn Greenwald on Thursday resigned from The Intercept, a news organization he co-founded after editors sought to “censor” an article he wrote about The Post’s exposé on documents retrieved from a Hunter Biden laptop.

Greenwald is best known for his 2013 reporting on leaked mass-surveillance documents from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. His work for The Guardian won the Pulitzer Prize.

“The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden,” Greenwald wrote in a blog post.

“[T]he brute censorship this week of my article — about the Hunter Biden materials and Joe Biden’s conduct regarding Ukraine and China, as well my critique of the media’s rank-closing attempt, in a deeply unholy union with Silicon Valley and the ‘intelligence community,’ to suppress its revelations — eroded the last justification I could cling to for staying.”

Greenwald, 53, lives in Brazil with his husband David Miranda, a socialist congressman, and their two children. He helped launch The Intercept in early 2014.

Greenwald posted the censored article and his emails with editors on the SubStack platform, which lets subscribers finance independent journalism.

The lede of the censored story says: “Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden’s work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family’s pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.”

Peter Maas, an editor at The Intercept, rejected Greenwald’s draft, writing in an email that its “core problem is the connection it often asserts or assumes between the Hunter Biden emails and corruption by Joe Biden.”

Maas wrote that “[t]here are many places in which the explicit or implied position is a) the emails expose corruption by Joe Biden and b) news organizations are suppressing their reporting on it. Those positions strike me as foundations to this draft, and they also strike me as inaccurate, and that inaccuracy undercuts narrower points that are sound.”

Maas allows that “[t]here are a couple of published emails and texts in which Hunter Biden or his business partners suggest or hint that Joe Biden might be aware of, or involved in, their dealings with China. Those passages have gotten the most attention, justifiably, but they are vague.

“In one of the China emails, for instance, there is a reference to ‘the big guy’ — who might be Joe Biden or might be someone else — and it’s unclear whether Joe Biden, even if he is the big guy, was aware of an ownership share being discussed for him. Some of the most serious accusations, and potential corroboration, come not from the hard drive but from Tony Bobulinski’s short press conference in which he didn’t take questions before he turned up at the debate as Trump’s guest.”

Maas also wrote that news organizations may be avoiding the story because they don’t have a copy of the Hunter Biden hard drive to validate.

Greenwald replied: “you know that you can’t explicitly say you don’t want to publish the article because it raises questions about the candidate you and all other TI Editors want very much to win the election in 5 days. So you have to cast your censorship as an accusation — an outrageous and inaccurate one — that my article contains factually false claims.”

The Intercept’s editor in chief Betsy Reed said in a statement that Greenwald’s departure was the result of a “fundamental disagreement over the role of editors in the production of journalism and the nature of censorship.”

“Glenn demands the absolute right to determine what he will publish. He believes that anyone who disagrees with him is corrupt, and anyone who presumes to edit his words is a censor,” Reed wrote.

Greenwald wrote in his resignation announcement, however, that he could not stomach compliance with partisan censorship.

“Like anyone with young children, a family and numerous obligations, I do this with some trepidation, but also with the conviction that there is no other choice. I could not sleep at night knowing that I allowed any institution to censor what I want to say and believe,” Greenwald wrote.

Greenwald wrote that he was particularly disturbed that The Intercept — owned by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar — referred to the Hunter Biden hard drive as Russian disinformation, without evidence.

“The Intercept published some of the most credulous and false affirmations of maximalist Russiagate madness, and, horrifyingly, took the lead in falsely branding the Hunter Biden archive as ‘Russian disinformation’ by mindlessly and uncritically citing — of all things — a letter by former CIA officials that contained this baseless insinuation,” Greenwald wrote.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said last week that The Post’s reporting on the Hunter Biden emails “is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo concurred.

On Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were grilled by the Senate commerce committee on their censorship this month of The Post’s reporting. Facebook said it throttled The Post’s initial stories pending fact-checking. Twitter blocked distribution of URLs and locked down the account of The Post, journalists and officials who shared the stories.

Twitter censored The Post’s stories under a “hacked materials” policy, despite no evidence that the records were hacked, and The Post’s main Twitter account remains locked. “Our team made a fast decision. The enforcement action, however, of blocking URLs, both in tweets and in DM direct messages we believe was incorrect and we changed it,” Dorsey said.

Hunter Biden has not denied providing the laptop to a Delaware computer repairman, who in turn gave its contents to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani who shared it with The Post.

The repairman, whose identity The Post confirmed before publication, says Hunter Biden never retrieved the laptop from his store and provided evidence of a contract saying the equipment would be legally regarded as abandoned after 90 days.

Last week Bobulinski, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, corroborated allegations that Joe Biden was aware of and involved in his son’s dealings, including a 2017 business proposal with a Chinese energy company. A document mentioned a 10 percent set-aside for “the big guy,” who Bobulinski says was Joe Biden.

Greenwald wrote that his critique of partisanship on information platforms was not unique to The Intercept.

“To the contrary: these are the raging battles over free expression and the right of dissent raging within every major cultural, political and journalistic institution,” he wrote. “That’s the crisis that journalism, and more broadly values of liberalism, faces. Our discourse is becoming increasingly intolerant of dissenting views, and our culture is demanding more and more submission to prevailing orthodoxies imposed by self-anointed monopolists of Truth and Righteousness, backed up by armies of online enforcement mobs.”

 
© 2003 The E-Accountability Foundation