In this post, I want to talk about how whether Big Money from Big Tech can influence elections. I also want to look at the role of fact-checkers, who pays for their fact-checking, and what effect their fact-checks have on our elections.

Let’s start with this article about the Virginia election, that’s being held today:

So how do Democrats plan to ensure a McAuliffe win and a subsequent retention of power in the state and U.S. Senate? By using the same tactic they used in the 2020 national contest: profligate mail-in voting and fake grassroots get-out-the-vote efforts funding by philanthropies and wealthy leftists, a strategy revealed through Fakebook CEO Mark 2uckerberg’s gift to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL).

[…]We were among the first to report in-depth on how billionaire 2uckerberg and the little-known Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) spent $350 million to effectively privatize the 2020 election in battleground states, helping turnout for Biden in the name of C0VID-19 “relief.”

Overnight, this little nonprofit’s revenues grew by more than 12,000 percent from $2.8 million thanks to 2uckerberg’s cash injection…

Across nine states, our data shows that CTCL’s grants consistently ignored Trump counties in favor of big, Democratic-leaning spots like Philadelphia, Maricopa County, and Houston—all essential to Biden’s victory. In Georgia, for instance, Biden counties were two-and-a-half times more likely to receive CTCL funding than Trump counties.

Virginia received close to $4 million in 2uck Bucks, more than one-third of which went to populous Fairfax County to “support in-person early voting” and “vote by mail.” Fairfax County was Biden’s biggest vote-haul in the state and is the linchpin to McAuliffe’s strategy.

The 2uck Bucks plan isn’t really surprising if you’ve seen how Fakebook uses “fact checkers” to censor news stories.

Previously, I blogged about how Fakebook censored an interview with an abortion survivor right before an election. I also blogged about one of Fakebook’s “fact-checkers”, whose social media posts revealed that she is a partisan Democrat who hates Trump. I also blogged about how Fakebook’s fact-checker “Politifact” had to retract a fact-check of Candace Owens, the well-known black conservative, after she sued them. I also blogged about how Project Veritas filmed Fakebook employees bragging about how they deliberately censor conservative content. I blogged about how Fakebook banned well-known Christian evangelist Franklin Graham for “hate speech”. And I blogged about how Fakebook internal documents revealed that they censor criticism of the Democrat party, “especially before important elections”.

Recently, Fakebook apparently censored content that claimed that ga5 prices went up in part because of Biden’s attacks on energy production.

Here’s another article from The Federalist:

Fakebook appeared to censor a meme on Wednesday that placed blame for high ga5 prices on President Joe Biden, citing a USA Today fact-check to justify the censorship.

“Fact check: Rising ga5 prices due to high demand and low supply, not Biden’s policies,” a pop-up explained, with a link to the supposed fact-check from USA Today.

The fact-check was funded by the same 2uck Bucks we saw earlier that were pumped into Democrat-leaning voting areas:

“Our fact check work is supported in part by a grant from Fakebook,” the paper wrote.

So what actions did the Biden administration take that would have affected the price of ga5 at the pump? The fact-checkers didn’t look at any.

To check the facts, you have to check the article from The Federalist:

The sharp rise in ga5 prices was a direct consequence of Biden’s immediate offensive, stifling capital investment with pressure on Wall Street in a capital-intensive industry, plus repeated pledges for a cascade of taxes and regulation to phase out fossil fuels.

“You don’t have to ban something if you regulate it to death,” former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler explained to The Federalist in October last year as Biden ran on a platform to do just that.

On his first day in the Oval Office, Biden began to make good on his promises with an executive order implementing a moratorium on leasing in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sixty miles west of the coastal plain, home to between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, millions of dollars of equipment stand ready for deployment in Prudhoe Bay to the 1.6 million out of the nearly 20 million-acre refuge once opened for drilling.

[…]Biden continued to suspend new oil and ga5 leases on federal lands pending a review of the federal leasing program from the Interior Department. The review, promised for release by late summer, is still pending.

The suspension on leasing remained in place until a federal judge overturned the ban to set up auctions next spring, but headwinds from a hostile administration hamper incentives for risking millions in new investment.

Biden has successfully suppressed a ramp-up in production through a combination of Wall Street pressure, new regulation, and outright bans where possible on new drilling.

“We would be happy to increase our production, but this administration is doing everything in its power to run us out of business,” Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Denver-based industry trade group Western Energy Alliance, told The Federalist. “I think if they stop manipulation markets the problem would be solved.”

The point is that a Biden win signaled that regulations on energy production were on the way.  Investors didn’t wait for the regulations to take effect. They reduced their investments immediately. Energy producers didn’t wait for the regulations to take effect. They reduced their production, and supply dropped. Anyone with any understanding of economics knows what happens when supply goes down – prices rise.