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What is GARM? ‘Collusive’ ad group allegedly targeting conservatives faces grilling from top House committee

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A controversial advertising alliance has drawn the attention of one of the most powerful House committees in Congress as critics allege it has fostered corporate collusion in order to silence certain political messages. 

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) describes itself as a “cross-industry initiative” started as part of the World Federation of Advertisers that, according to a spokesperson, “was established in 2019 to help the advertising industry address the challenge of illegal or harmful content on digital media platforms and its monetization via advertising.”

“It was set up in the wake of the Christchurch Mosque shootings in which the killer livestreamed the attacks on Facebook,” the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “This followed a slew of high-profile cases where brands’ advertisements appeared next to illegal or harmful content, such as child pornography and content promoting terrorism. This included the 2017 London Times exposé entitled ‘Big brands fund terror through online adverts.’”

The group claims to be “apolitical” and “voluntary” and says that it benefits its members by providing use of “resources and information about best practices to learn where their advertising investments go, and to avoid placement next to illegal or harmful content that could damage their brands’ reputation.”

JORDAN INVESTIGATES DAUGHTER OF JUDGE IN NY V. TRUMP CASE OVER HER WORK FOR KAMALA HARRIS, DEMOCRATS

Garm

GARM, The Global Alliance for Responsible Media, has drawn the ire of the House Judiciary Committee (Fox News)

“GARM offers voluntary frameworks to help brands choose the content they want their ads to appear next to,” GARM’s website says. 

However, GARM’s critics have a different view of the organization and suggest that it has colluded with dozens of major U.S. corporations to push boycotts and suppress speech in a manner that targets conservatives.

In discussing his views on freedom of speech, GARM’s leader and co-founder, Rob Rakowitz, has expressed frustration with an “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution” and complained about using “‘principles for governance’ and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).” With this worldview, GARM pushed what it called “uncommon collaboration” to “rise above individual commercial interest.”

SEVEN FEDERAL AGENCIES HAVE PUSHED TECH GIANTS TO CENSOR AMERICANS, MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER SAYS

Jim Jordan on Capitol Hill

OCTOBER 13: Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) speaks to reporters as House Republicans hold a caucus meeting at the Longworth House Office Building on October 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The House Judiciary Committee released an extensive report outlining how it believes “large corporations, advertising agencies, and industry associations participated in boycotts and other coordinated action to demonetize platforms, podcasts, news outlets, and other content deemed disfavored by GARM and its members.”

GARM is alleged to have worked with large companies to implement advertising crackdowns on Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Spotify, political candidates and news outlets, including Fox News, The Daily Wire and Breitbart News.

“The Committee’s oversight has shown that GARM has deviated far from its original intent, and has collectively used its immense market power to demonetize voices and viewpoints the group disagrees with — even intervening in situations that do not have a so-called ‘brand safety’ concern,” Committee Chairman Jim Jordan wrote in a letter to over 40 companies last week. 

“Through its oversight, the Committee has learned that collusive activity is occurring within the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), of which your company is a member. In particular, the Committee has uncovered evidence of coordinated action by GARM and its member companies, including boycotts of disfavored social media platforms, podcasts, and news outlets.”

“The Committee on the Judiciary is conducting oversight into the adequacy and enforcement of U.S. antitrust laws,” the letter said.

Along with Adidas, the letter was sent to a variety of other companies, including American Express, Bayer, BP, Carhartt, Chanel, CVS and General Motors, asking them to preserve documents related to their involvement with GARM.

Musk has also publicly criticized GARM and suggested taking legal action against the group while referring to it as an “advertising boycott racket.”

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Jordan GARM

Activist Rob Rakowitz is the head of Global Alliance for Responsible Media. (Getty Images/BeetTV/Youtube)

The WFA spokesperson, Will Gilroy, told Fox News Digital this week that the “recent allegations by the US House Judiciary Committee against GARM for anti-competitive behavior are unfounded.”

 “Membership of GARM is entirely voluntary. Its frameworks and tools are intentionally broad, and individual companies are free to review, adopt, modify, or reject them, as they see fit,” Gilroy said. “The decision where and when to advertise is always down to the individual advertiser, in collaboration with their agency partners where relevant.”

“Recent engagement with industry leaders suggests that GARM’s work remains valuable and increasingly relevant as digital media continues to develop,” he continued. “As such, GARM will continue to live up to its commitment to help allow its members to drive more responsible marketing practices.”



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Hollywood Bowl cancels show after power outage amid L.A. heat wave

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In a weekend marked by power outages due to extreme heat, the Hollywood Bowl had to cancel its Sunday program after the historic venue lost electricity.

No details were available about the cause of the power outage or how long it was supposed to last.

On the social media platform X, Hollywood Bowl officials said “if a new date for this performance can be confirmed, details will follow and tickets for the original date will be valid for the new performance date.”

Grouplove and Tiny Habits were scheduled to perform.

Both the Los Angleles Department of Water and Power and Southern California Edison reported scattered outages this week, hitting such areas as University Park near USC, Echo Park, Northridge and Valley Glen.

The National Weather Service in Oxnard said that “dangerously hot conditions” would continue in the region through Monday.



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Heat to blame as thousands are without power across San Diego County

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SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — The heat wave scorching Southern California will continue at least another day and the power grid is working hard to keep up.

The National Weather Service (NWS) reports the record-breaking high temperatures will continue through Monday night for all areas of San Diego County.

VIDEO: Hail falls from sky in Valley Center amid isolated storms

San Diego’s valley areas, including Santee, El Cajon, Escondido, La Mesa, Poway and San Marcos, are under an excessive heat warning until 8 p.m. Monday with temperatures expected in the 100s to 110s.

While San Diego’s coastal areas are under heat advisories through 8 p.m. Monday — San Diego, Oceanside, Vista, Chula Vista, Carlsbad, Encinitas and National City. NWS says high temperatures are expected in the uppers 80s and low 90s near the coast, and 90s to 100 degrees just a few miles inland.

NWS forecast for Southern California on Monday as heat warnings remain in place (Photo: National Weather Service)NWS forecast for Southern California on Monday as heat warnings remain in place (Photo: National Weather Service)

NWS forecast for Southern California on Monday as heat warnings remain in place (Photo: National Weather Service)

As San Diego’s power grid works to keep up with the demand from the record-breaking temperatures, tens of thousands of people across the county were without power Sunday.

A San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) spokesperson told FOX 5/KUSI Sunday afternoon they believe the heat is related to the mass power outages across the county, however they are still investigating the cause.

The spokesperson also took the chance to thank their customers for being patient and said SDG&E crews are working around the clock in the heat to bring back power to all those impacted.

Southern California heat wave brings record temperatures to these areas

At one point Sunday, more than 10,000 people were without power in the Jamacha area, according to SDG&E.

SDG&E's outage map shows power outages across San Diego County Sunday as the record-breaking heat continues to scorch the region (Photo: SDG&E) SDG&E's outage map shows power outages across San Diego County Sunday as the record-breaking heat continues to scorch the region (Photo: SDG&E)

SDG&E’s outage map shows power outages across San Diego County Sunday as the record-breaking heat continues to scorch the region (Photo: SDG&E)

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, the SDG&E outage map is reporting the following outages across San Diego County:

  • San Juan Capistrano

  • City Heights/ Chollas Creek/ Oak Park

  • University Heights/ North Park/ Normal Heights

  • Granite Hills/ Bostonia/ E El Cajon

  • N Vista

  • Escondido

  • El Cajon

  • City Heights/ Chollas Creek/ Oak Park

  • City Heights/ Chollas Creek/ Oak Park

  • University Heights/ North Park/ Normal Heights

  • Fletcher Hills/ El Cajon

  • Blossom Valley/ El Monte

  • Lemon Grove

  • NE Escondido/ Dixon Lake/ Daley Ranch

  • University Heights/ North Park/ Normal Heights

  • Lemon Grove

  • La Presa/ Spring Valley/ Rancho San Diego

SDG&E reports most of these outages are weather related while the rest remain under investigation.

Meanwhile, many areas across Southern California have been experiencing severe weather amid the high temperatures. Parts of the county this weekend have seen thunderstorms with high winds, heavy rain and hail.

If your power goes out during an extreme heat event, there are several steps you can take to stay cool.

According to the CDC, residents can dress in lightweight clothing, use battery-powered fans to cool your home, stay hydrated, reduce activity, take cool showers, keep refrigerator and freezer doors closed to preserve food, close blinds and curtains to help keep out the sun, along with finding alternative ways to prepare food like grilling outside.

Call 800-CDC-INFO for more information on what to do during a power failure in hot weather.

Those in San Diego County impacted by the power outages can find more information, check the status of an outage and report an outage with SDG&E’s outage map.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News.



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House GOP releases scathing report on Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan

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Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released a scathing report that took a fine-toothed comb to the military’s botched 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal and highlighted areas of serious mismanagement. 

The Republican-led report opens by harkening back to President Joe Biden’s urgency to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. That, along with the Afghanistan withdrawal, demonstrates a “pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners,” according to the report.

The report also disputed Biden’s assertion that his hands were tied to the Doha agreement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer of 2021, and it revealed how state officials had no plan for getting Americans and allies out while there were still troops there to protect them. 

Marines help baby Abbey Gate Afghanistan

A U.S. Marine grabs an infant over a fence of barbed wire during an evacuation at then-Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021. (Omar Haidiri/AFP via Getty Images)

Here’s a roundup of the findings of the 600-page report, comprised of tens of thousands of pages of documents and interviews with high-level officials that spanned much of the last two years: 

Biden was not bound by deadlines in Trump’s Doha agreement with Taliban

The report found that Biden and Vice President Harris were advised by top leaders that the Taliban were already in violation of the conditions of the Doha agreement and, therefore, the U.S. was not obligated to leave. 

HOUSE COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS BLINKEN OVER AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL

The committee also found NATO allies had expressed their vehement opposition to the U.S. decision to withdraw. The British Chief of the Defense staff warned that “withdrawal under these circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban.”

Biden kept on Zalmay Khalilzad, a Trump appointee who negotiated the agreement, as special representative to Afghanistan – a signal that the new administration endorsed the deal. 

At the Taliban’s demand, Khalilzad had shut out the Afghan government from the talks – a major blow to President Ashraf Ghani’s government. 

When Trump left office, some 2,500 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan. Biden himself was determined to draw that number to zero no matter what, according to Col. Seth Krummrich, chief of staff for Special Operations Command, who told the committee, “The president decided we’re going to leave, and he’s not listening to anybody.”

Then-State Dept. spokesperson Ned Price admitted in testimony the Doha agreement was “immaterial” to Biden’s decision to withdraw. 

Taliban

Taliban fighters celebrate the third anniversary of the withdrawal of U.S.-led troops from Afghanistan in Kabul last month. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)

The withdrawal: State Department built up personnel, failed to hatch escape plan as it became clear Kabul would fall

The report also details numerous warning signs the State Department received to draw down its embassy footprint as it became clear Afghanistan would quickly fall to the Taliban. It refused to do so. At the time of the withdrawal, it was one of the largest embassies in the world. 

In the end, Americans and U.S. allies were left stranded as the military was ordered to withdraw before the embassy had shuttered.

In one meeting, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon rejected military officials’ warnings, saying “we at the State Department have a much higher risk tolerance than you guys.”

Gen. Austin Miler, the longest-serving commander in Afghanistan, confirmed McKeon’s comments and explained that the State Department did not have a higher risk tolerance but instead exhibited “a lack of understanding of the risk” in Afghanistan.

Asked why McKeon would make such statements, the officer explained, “The State Department and the president were saying it. Consequently, [Wilson] and others start saying it, thinking that they will make it work.” 

The report lays blame on former Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson, who instead of shrinking, grew the embassy’s presence as the security situation deteriorated.

Revealing little sense of urgency, Wilson was on a two-week vacation on the last week of July and the first week of August 2021. 

Afghan women

The Taliban Virtue and Vice Ministry on May 7, 2022, said women in public must wear all-encompassing robes and cover their faces, except for their eyes. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

An NEO, a noncombatant evacuation operation to get personnel out, was not ordered until Aug. 15 as the Taliban marched into Kabul. 

There weren’t enough troops present to begin the NEO until Aug. 19, and the first public message from the embassy in Kabul urging Americans to evacuate wasn’t sent until Aug. 7. 

And while there weren’t enough military planes to handle the evacuations, it took the Transportation Department until Aug. 20 to allow foreign planes to assist. 

Wilson fled the embassy ahead of his entire embassy staff, the report found. He reportedly had COVID-19 at the time but got a foreign service officer to take his test for him so that he could flee the country. 

Acting Under Secretary Carol Perez told the committee the embassy’s evacuation plan was “still in the works” when the Taliban took over, despite months of warning.

Those left behind: Americans and allies turned away while unvetted Afghans got on flights

Wilson testified that he was “comfortable” with holding off on the NEO until Aug. 15, while Gen. Frank McKenzie described it as the “fatal flaw that created what happened in August.”

As the Taliban surrounded Kabul on Aug. 14, notes obtained by the committee from a National Security Counsel (NSC) meeting reveal the U.S. government still had not determined who would be eligible for evacuation nor had they identified third countries to serve as transit points for an evacuation.

Fewer cases for special immigrant visas (SIVs) to evacuate Afghan U.S. military allies like interpreters were processed in June, July and August – the lead-up to the takeover – than the four months prior. 

When the last U.S. military flight departed Kabul, around 1,000 Americans were left on the ground, as were more than 90% of SIV-eligible Afghans.

The report found that local embassy employees had been de-prioritized for evacuation, with many turned away from the embassy and airport in tears. On the day of the Taliban takeover, the U.S.’ only guidance for those who might be eligible for evacuation was to “not travel to the airport until you have been informed by email that departure options exist.”

And since the NSC did not send over guidelines for who was eligible for evacuation and who to prioritize because they were “at risk,” the State Department processed thousands of evacuees with no documentation. 

The U.S. government had “no idea if people being evacuated were threats,” one State Department employee told the committee.

After the final troops left Afghanistan, volunteer groups helped at least 314 American citizens and 266 lawful permanent residents evacuate the country.

Scenes at Abbey Gate: Terror threat warnings unheeded before bombing

And as the Taliban whipped groups of desperate Afghans at the airport, burned young women and executed civilians, U.S. troops were forbidden from intervening. 

Consul General Jim DeHart described the scene as “apocalyptic.” 

U.S. intelligence, meanwhile, was tracking multiple threat streams, including “a potential VBIED or suicide vest IED as part of a complex attack,” by Aug. 23.  By Aug. 26, the threat was specifically narrowed down to Abbey Gate. It was so serious that diplomatic security pulled back state employees from the gate.

Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan ultimately decided to keep the gate open in the face of the threats due to requests made by the Brits.

AFGHAN GENERAL SAYS HIS COUNTRY HAS ONCE AGAIN BECOME ‘CRUCIBLE OF TERRORISM’

And on Aug. 26, two bombs planted by terror group ISIS-K exploded at the airport, killing 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghans. CENTCOM records revealed the same ISIS-K terror cell that conducted the Abbey Gate attack “established a base of operations located six kilometers to the west” of the airport in a neighborhood previously used by them as a staging area for an attack on the airport in December 2020. But the U.S. did not strike this cell before the bombing. 

Two weeks later, an airstrike intending to kill those behind the ISIS-K instead killed 10 civilians. The administration initially touted the strike as a success of over-the-horizon capabilities before acknowledging a family of civilians had been killed. 

The U.S. has not struck ISIS-K in Afghanistan since – in stark contrast to the 313 operations carried out by CENTCOM against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2022.

Abbey Gate rush

U.S. service members assist the Department of State with a non-combatant evacuation operation in Afghanistan. (Department of Defense)

The long-term consequences 

In addition to the $7 billion in abandoned U.S. weapons, the Taliban likely gained access to up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government. 

The Taliban’s interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, proclaimed in February 2024 that relations with the rest of the world, especially the U.S., are “irrelevant” to its policymaking.

A NATO report written by the Defence Education Enhancement Programme found the Taliban was using U.S. military biometric devices and databases to hunt down U.S. Afghan allies.

And in the first six months of Taliban power, “nearly 500 former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces were killed or forcibly disappeared,” according to the report. 

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Some 118 girls have been sold as child brides since the takeover and 116 families are waiting for a buyer. Women are now banned from speaking or showing their faces in public. 

In June 2024, the Department of Homeland Security identified more than 400 persons of interest from Central Asia who had illegally crossed the U.S. southern border with the help of an ISIS-related smuggling network. The U.S. has since arrested more than 150 of these individuals. On June 11, 2024, the FBI arrested eight people with ties to ISIS-K who had crossed through the southern border.



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