Daily Caller
‘Zuck Bucks’ Need To Be Stopped Cold
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Jason Snead
It is less than 90 days to Election Day, and right on queue the group behind the “Zuck Bucks” campaign of 2020 is back with a new scheme. This time, the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) is doling out millions in grant dollars to rural election administrators in 19 states.
Election officers beware. The group is trying to turn the government offices that run elections into bastions of partisan progressive activism. Election officials striving for nonpartisanship should steer clear.
CTCL rose to prominence during the unprecedented election of 2020. The group got $350 million from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, which it then funneled disproportionately to swing-state communities that ultimately voted for Joe Biden.
Racine, Wisconsin used its CTCL money to purchase a mobile voting van that in 2022 it deployed to heavily Democrat areas of the city to register voters and collect ballots. Earlier this year, a judge declared that illegal.
After 2020, a majority of states moved to ban or restrict private funding for running election offices, including several on a bipartisan basis. This year, Wisconsin voters approved two constitutional amendments to ban private funding after the scope of CTCL’s involvement was revealed. Even Mark Zuckerberg announced he would no longer back the group’s grants.
But that did not stop CTCL. Instead, it created “Zuck Bucks 2.0,” an $80 million program called the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence.
Now, CTCL is offering grants to rural counties, saying it is merely helping cash-strapped offices on the eve of a contentious election. Sound familiar?
The sudden interest in flyover country is laughable. In 2020, rural areas got token grants of just $5,000 while urban areas got millions. CTCL claimed that big cities have more voters and therefore need more money. Subsequent analyses showed that blue counties got far money more per voter than red counties.
Perhaps CTCL hopes this move can insulate it against criticism that it is once again influencing elections. Not so fast. Reports indicate that CTCL is setting aside $2.5 million for rural grants.
CTCL is giving $3 million to Clark County, Nevada, for this election cycle alone. Add in the huge grants offered to heavily Democrat DeKalb County, Georgia and Madison, Wisconsin, and CTCL has given nearly three times the grants to just these heavily Democrat areas (located in swing states, no less) than hundreds of rural counties could get combined.
In fairness, CTCL is not wrong that rural areas often need additional resources. But those funds should come from state and local taxpayers, not partisan groups pushing an agenda.
And make no mistake, CTCL has a political agenda. Though it claims to be nonpartisan, it’s founder and executive director is a former Obama Foundation fellow and used to work at a group the Washington Post once labeled the “Democratic party’s Hogwarts for digital wizardry.” CTCL’s donors are just as left-wing, with major liberal organizations like the Skoll Foundation, Democracy Fund, and Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund footing its bills.
Small wonder, then, that by this April 28 states had banned or restricted CTCL-style private funding. Over the last few years, residents in communities from Greenwich, Connecticut, to Brunswick County, North Carolina, have opposed election administrators joining ranks with such a partisan group. Ottawa County, Michigan, declined to accept $1.5 million in CTCL funds with the county clerk explaining that accepting the grant could compromise public confidence in elections.
Over the next few months, CTCL will offer hundreds of rural counties “free” money. Many may feel inclined to take it. Before they do, they should know who they are doing business with.
Rural election offices may need additional funding, but turning to partisan groups like CTCL just puts public trust in elections at risk. County officials should treat CTCL’s latest offer of “free” money the way they would treat a windowless van hanging a sign marked “free candy:”
Stay away and warn your friends.
Jason Snead is the Executive Director of Honest Elections Project Action.
Daily Caller
Trump Orders Review Of Why U.S. Childhood Vaccination Schedule Has More Shots Than Peer Countries
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Emily Kopp
President Donald Trump will direct his top health officials to conduct a systematic review of the childhood vaccinations schedule by reviewing those of other high-income countries and update domestic recommendations if the schedules abroad appear superior, according to a memorandum obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“In January 2025, the United States recommended vaccinating all children for 18 diseases, including COVID-19, making our country a high outlier in the number of vaccinations recommended for all children,” the memo will state. “Study is warranted to ensure that Americans are receiving the best, scientifically-supported medical advice in the world.”
Trump directs the secretary of the Health and Human Services (HHS) and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to adopt best practices from other countries if deemed more medically sound. The memo cites the contrast between the U.S., which recommends vaccination for 18 diseases, and Denmark, which recommends vaccinations for 10 diseases; Japan, which recommends vaccinations for 14 diseases; and Germany, which recommends vaccinations for 15 diseases.
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HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long been a critic of the U.S. childhood vaccination schedule.
The Trump Administration ended the blanket recommendation for all children to get annual COVID-19 vaccine boosters in perpetuity. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary and Chief Medical Officer Vinay Prasad announced in May that the agency would not approve new COVID booster shots for children and healthy non-elderly adults without clinical trials demonstrating the benefit. On Friday, Prasad told his staff at the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research that a review by career staff traced the deaths of 10 children to the COVID vaccine, announced new changes to vaccine regulation, and asked for “introspection.”
Trump’s memo follows a two-day meeting of vaccine advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in which the committee adopted changes to U.S. policy on Hepatitis B vaccination that bring the country’s policy in alignment with 24 peer nations.
Total vaccines in January 2025 before the change in COVID policy. Credit: ACIP
The meeting included a presentation by FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Tracy Beth Høeg showing the discordance between the childhood vaccination schedule in the U.S. and those of other developed nations.
“Why are we so different from other developed nations, and is it ethically and scientifically justified?” Høeg asked. “We owe our children science-based recommendations here in the United States.”
Censorship Industrial Complex
Foreign Leaders Caught Orchestrating Campaign To Censor American Right-Wing Media Companies
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
Labour Party files — including internal documents never before released — reveal a coordinated series of maneuvers, strategic deceptions and covert operations that helped deliver U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to Downing Street, according to the book by investigative journalist Paul Holden. The campaign operated largely behind the scenes that mirrored the same tactics a corporate, pro-Israel faction inside the Labour Party used to crush dissent during Jeremy Corbyn’s rise, a strategy that dismantled the party’s left flank and reshaped British politics.
Holden’s reporting shows that these operatives built an array of anti-disinformation groups that presented themselves as neutral fact-checkers while aggressively targeting conservative outlets for demonetization, deplatforming and reputational damage. Internal documents and interviews indicate these organizations were never independent; they worked in lockstep with senior Labour figures who sought to contain populist movements on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Labour officials celebrated an unexpected election surge in 2017, unaware that a faction inside their own party had been covertly diverting resources to undermine Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Holden’s investigation reveals that senior Labour bureaucrats secretly operated a parallel campaign from Ergon House, funneling money and support to anti-Corbyn candidates while starving the official operation of crucial funds.
A 2020 leaked internal report (860-page dossier) revealed deep factional divisions inside the Labour Party and showed that senior staff privately opposed Corbyn’s leadership and expressed hope that Labour would underperform in the 2017 election.
The book shows that the misuse of donations was far more extensive than previously known and may have breached election spending laws, especially in constituencies where diverted money was reported incorrectly. The party’s refusal to release campaign materials tied to this funding has intensified criticism of its transparency and raised questions about Starmer’s promise to restore trust in government.
After the 2017 election, strategist Morgan McSweeney began shaping Labour Together into an anti-Corbyn vehicle, using wealthy donors and newly created advocacy groups to amplify allegations that would weaken Corbyn’s support. Holden documents that McSweeney failed to report more than £700,000 (approximately $885,000 to $900,000) in donations despite being legally obligated to disclose them, a violation that later resulted in fines.
BBC News reported in 2022 that Labour Together was fined £14,250 (approximately $18,000) for failing to declare more than £730,000 in donations, confirming that key figures in Starmer’s political orbit had already breached U.K. election transparency laws.
By 2019, McSweeney had aligned himself with Starmer’s leadership ambitions, helping him run as a continuity candidate despite planning a sharp ideological shift once in power. Holden concludes that this project ultimately hollowed out Labour’s credibility, leaving the party mired in collapsing public confidence and confronting mounting questions about the integrity of its top advisers.
(Featured Image Media Credit: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer/picture by Simon Dawson/Flickr)
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