1510: Trump Op

They are alleged to have believed in a “conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology,” according to a statement by prosecutors. They added that members of the group also believe Germany is ruled by a so-called ‘deep state;’ similar baseless claims about the United States were made by former President Donald Trump.

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“More details keep coming to light that raise doubts about whether these people were even clever enough to plan and carry out such a coup,” Nanni said in a post on the social network Mastodon. “The fact is: no matter how crude their ideas are and how hopeless their plans, even the attempt is dangerous!”

Federal prosecutors said the group is alleged to have believed in a “conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology. ” Adherents of the Reich Citizens movement reject Germany’s postwar constitution and have called for bringing down the government, while QAnon is a global conspiracy theory with roots in the United States.

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BERLIN, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss is one of the last descendents of a dynasty that once ruled over swathes of eastern Germany. He is suspected of hoping to become the country's new leader in a violent coup to overthrow the democratic order.

The 71-year-old was one of 25 members and supporters of a far-right group planning the alleged putsch who were arrested early on Wednesday in nationwide raids, according to the authorities.

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The real estate developer has for years publicly advocated the theory life was better worldwide under monarchy. He stems from House of Reuss, which for centuries ruled over parts of present-day Thueringen state until Germany's 1918 revolution that led to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.

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A restaurant in Richmond last week canceled a reservation for a private event being held by a conservative Christian organization, citing the group’s opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

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Jesus has not called us to establish a theocracy in our city, state, or country nor are we to make the White House or Congress a church house,” he said.

The blurring of those lines was clearly on display on Jan. 6, 2021 when protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the election results from being certified.

The use of Christian imagery that day by extremists left Dyer and others stunned.

Some participants proudly carried crosses and others knelt in prayer. One was photographed clutching a Bible. Another carried a poster of Jesus in a red “Make America Great Again” cap. One banner read “Jesus is My Savior, Trump is my President.”

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Over 1,100 New York Times workers are now officially on work stoppage, the first of this scale at the company in 4 decades. It's never an easy decision to refuse to do work you love, but our members are willing to do what it takes to win a better newsroom for all. #GuildStrong!

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday on a case in which the North Carolina state legislature is pushing the independent state legislature theory, a radical idea that existentially threatens free and fair elections.

It entails a very selective reading of two constitutional clauses, concluding that the state legislature — and only the legislature — has any power over federal elections. A maximal reading of the theory nullifies state courts, state constitutions, gubernatorial vetoes and voter-passed ballot initiatives when it comes to voting laws, election administration and redistricting.

The theory would imbue state legislatures with untold power, an even greater risk given Republicans’ success in gerrymandering many statehouses so completely that they govern far to the right of their constituents.

“Completely freed of the ordinary checks and balances that are essential to liberty, the legislature’s power would be unfathomable,” voters opposing the North Carolina legislature wrote in a reply brief. “It is hard to imagine a more direct affront to federalism.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether it will take up a case that could overturn the 2020 elections and make representatives who voted to confirm the election ineligible to hold office in the future. The case, Brunson v. Alma S. Adams; et al, sues the members of Congress who voted against the proposed 10-day audit of the 2020 elections, alleging that doing so and then certifying the election regardless was a breach of their oath of office.

If the Supreme Court rules against Congress, it could potentially remove a sitting president and vice president, along with the members of Congress involved, and deem them unfit to hold office again at any level of U.S. government. It would allegedly also give the Supreme Court the ability to authorize the swearing-in of the rightful president and vice president.

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The world’s richest man said Twitter would make money from content creators and delve deeper into video, business segments that TikTok has mastered. He discussed a vision for Twitter to process payments, complete with connected debit cards and bank accounts, which echoed PayPal, the digital payments company he helped found. Mr. Musk has said that he ultimately hopes to transform Twitter into an “everything app” modeled after WeChat, a Chinese social media platform that is used by more than a billion people to find news, hail cabs and order food.

Last week, the company filed registration paperwork to pave the way for it to process payments, according to a filing with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, which was obtained by The New York Times.

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From an information standpoint, not a huge difference between, say, just sending a direct message and sending a payment. They are basically the same thing. In principle, you can use a direct messaging stack for payments. And so that’s definitely a direction we’re going to go in, enabling people on Twitter to be able to send money anywhere in the world instantly and in real time. We just want to make it as useful as possible.

Musk: Well, I’m obviously a big fan of getting people to be verified, leveraging the payment system and iOS and Android security. I think we want to have automated checks as well as manual checks. I’m open to ideas here. We will obviously care about real user growth, not anything that appears to be user growth that is not. We care about authentic users. And I think as long as we’re taking steps to authenticate real users and exiting ones that are not good, and that it is expensive and difficult to create bot armies, we will succeed.

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He can combine the two:

Authentication and CBDC

Everyone else is in competition with each other and he can get millions to convert as already proven by the twitter blue $8 trial balloon

See video about total state control

“This is so because hydrogen is not a source of energy. It is a carrier of energy. It takes energy to make it. It is an alternative type of battery. To imagine that Germany can be powered with green hydrogen from Canada is somewhat like thinking that Germany can be powered with batteries charged up in Canada and then shipped across the ocean for discharge.”

The prime minister, Mark Rutte, will deliver a public message on 19 December that will aim to “do justice to the meaning and experience of past slavery”, according to a parliamentary briefing. It is widely anticipated that this will be an apology for the 250 years in which the Dutch funded an economic and cultural “Golden Age” by exploiting more than 600,000 people from Africa and Asia – about 5% of the 12 million enslaved by Europeans from the 17th to the 19th century. According to broadcaster NOS, plans include €200m for awareness projects and €27m for a slavery museum.

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Upload your selfies to the TenCent AI art generator!

The algorithms are already feeding themselves on their own data

14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

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Joseph Bankman (father)

Barbara Fried (mother)

Why the hyphenated last name???

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:07

Climate activists are now calling for millions of dogs worldwide to be slaughtered in an effort to reduce the ''carbon pawprint'' they produce as a result of eating meat.

Yes, really.

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According to a recent CNN column, dogs, cats and other domestic meat-eating pets are devastating the Earth's climate.

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In the last few years, the level of urgency to ''save the planet'' coming from the mainstream media and globalist elites has intensified to dizzying new heights. From the early warnings of ''don't shower every day,'' to today's open discussions about eugenics. Trying to deface iconic works of art is sadly just the start, they're now trying to openly kill our pets and will eventually move onto humans too.

Wnd.com reports: Scientists '-- who write the papers funded by eco-idealogues with findings developed so that they can write the next paper funded by eco-idealogues '-- use any means necessary to scare people. Decades of the sky not falling means only a minute fraction of the public believes the hype, and therefore support extreme positions regarding population control and now, even animal control.

A few years ago, cow flatulence was going to keep the world from achieving its climate goals, so Bessie was targeted for her carbon hoofprint.

That was child's play compared to the CNN column, recapping a study that immediate action was necessary to stop the pending climate catastrophe. Their solutions? Don't bring large-breed animals into your home, and no matter the size, feed Fido or Fluffy only insect-based meals.

According to the CNN column, ''Their [pets'] meat-heavy diet is the biggest contributor to their carbon pawprints, which requires an abundance of energy, land and water to produce. And the production of pet food emits huge amounts of planet-warming gases '... if our furry friends formed a separate country, it would rank 5th in global meat consumption behind China, the US, Brazil and Russia.''

As a pet owner, the thought of sacrificing any of my six dogs '-- three small-breed and three whose size exceeds 45 pounds apiece '-- is both laughable and irritating. My girls' care, feeding, health and exercise is top-notch, and their importance to my family is beyond anything the world would achieve by eliminating the larger three, or replacing the occasional beef or chicken-based treats with a grub, grasshopper or glowworm.

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, the U.S. has 80 million families owning over 135 million dogs and cats between them. Animals' unconditional love to those families is immeasurable, and the lessons children learn while taking care of pets provide a foundation for those who become parents to children later in life.

Larger-breed dogs provide emotional support, protect other animals, and are used for transportation and for extending commerce in my home state of Alaska, including the iconic Iditarod sled-dog race each March.

America should reject the anti-dog agenda of the extreme eco-movement. After all, large-breed dogs need love, too.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:06

The number of tech layoffs this year is nearing annual levels seen during the Great Recession, but is far from dot-com-bust territory.

As technology companies deal with declining stock prices, inflation, rising interest rates and a possible recession, they have announced more than 60,000 job cuts this year, with indications '-- such as from Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +1.48% Chief Executive Andy Jassy; HP Inc. HPQ, +2.38% announcing cuts over the next three years; and a report that Google GOOG, -0.29% GOOGL, -0.41% is considering thousands of layoffs '-- that there will be more to come.

By comparison, about 65,000 tech jobs were lost each year in 2008 and 2009 during the recession, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Whether all the slashing will approach levels only previously seen during the dot-com bust, when almost 300,000 tech jobs were lost over two years, remains to be seen.

Some longtime Silicon Valley observers and experts say this downturn is not like the dot-com bust of 2001 and 2002, because many of the companies that failed back then weren't ''real'' companies. And though their estimates of how long this bust will last vary, they mostly agree that the impact will be significant and affect workers and others who power the industry.

This time around, the companies making cuts may have grown too quickly or added too many employees during the pandemic and may need to reset or go back to normal, experts say. But they offer real goods or services, and they have revenue coming in.

For more: Here are the tech companies that have announced layoffs

''The dot-com bust was primarily, if not exclusively, companies that had no customers and no revenues,'' said Stephen Levy, director and senior economist of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. ''The companies that are laying off, like Amazon, or freezing hiring, like Google or Apple AAPL, +1.12% , have millions and millions of customers and are profitable,'' he added.

This tech downturn is not a surprise to others like Levy, who have lived through previous ones. Their forecasts range from cautious optimism to calamitous.

''Silicon Valley has cycles,'' said Russell Hancock, CEO of Joint Venture Silicon Valley. ''We go up, we go down. It happens with regularity about every 10 years.'' Hancock, who said he thought it was too early to say ''the sky is falling,'' added that he thought the beginning of the pandemic would spark the downturn. Instead, he said, ''the pandemic turned out to be bonanza for tech'... but it just turned out to be a spike and didn't lead us to a new plateau. Now, demand is tapering.''

But Tom Siebel, a billionaire serial entrepreneur whose latest title is CEO of C3.ai AI, +7.26% , is more pessimistic. ''This is just starting,'' he told MarketWatch. ''Before this is over, everyone will feel the sting, large companies and small. It will be hard, but the industry will be healthy once we get through it.''

''All this weird, entitled behavior is coming to an end. No more people working in pajamas at home, being paid in bitcoin. This era will be a zinger, unfortunately,'' he said. The downturn, he cautioned, will last at least two years and ''look like something out of the 1970s. This recession took 15 years to happen. Companies were literally printing billions of dollars a month. It was not sustainable or real.''

To further put the numbers in perspective:

Today's tech job cuts are also approaching the number of jobs lost in the industry when the COVID-19 pandemic upended everything. In 2020, 83,000 people in the tech industry lost their jobs, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The 60,000-plus jobs lost this year is getting close to the equivalent of the number of U.S. tech jobs added by Silicon Valley's biggest tech companies from 2020 to 2021, which was 68,558, according to an analysis of hiring data by the Silicon Valley Institute for Regional Studies. Some companies making job cuts have their own reasons and circumstances '-- but most of them have been affected by declining stock prices this year. The dramatic slashing of the staff of Twitter has everything to do with Elon Musk taking the helm, but before he bought the company its stock had traded as much as 73% lower than the $54.20 he paid per share. The slowdown in real estate activity is affecting related, fairly young companies. Yet other companies, such as ride-hailing giant Lyft Inc. LYFT, +2.86% , have been under pressure to prove they can turn a profit.

See: Tech hiring is slowing down '-- these two charts explain how and why

''These are scary times: A lot of tech companies have not been through a downturn,'' Scott Russell, an SAP SAP, +0.10% executive board member, told MarketWatch. ''The mantra for nearly all of them the next few years is risk mitigation, controlled costs and operational efficiency,'' he added. Some companies already started doing those things at the beginning of the pandemic. Others, such as Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. META, +1.01% , almost doubled their size in the past couple of years, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed himself in his email to staff about the layoffs.

Tech employees of all stripes '-- those with different levels of experience, or those with H-1B visas and needing employer sponsorship to stay in this country '-- are losing their jobs, according to layoff lists seen by MarketWatch.

Some will fare better than others: Data from ZipRecruiter shows that there remains a healthy number of job openings for more senior positions: for example, for engineer 2 instead of engineer 1.

And some industries within tech are less affected than others, at least so far. A recruiter for semiconductor companies told MarketWatch that she sees few signs of a slowdown. Even Intel Corp. INTC, +0.37% , which has announced it wants to trim costs, continues to hire except for in certain locations, she said.

Also: I got laid off by a big tech company. What's my next career move?

Venture capitalists are urging caution: ''If you're a growth-stage investor, it's probably not the best time to be in that stage of investing, partly because companies were overcapitalized and with valuations that were unsustainable,'' said Barmak Meftah, founding partner at Ballistic Ventures in Silicon Valley.

All of this is going to affect not just highly paid tech employees but also the other workers who are part of tech's giant ecosystem.

A laid-off art-services provider for tech companies told MarketWatch he has become disillusioned with the industry. ''I've now experienced a couple of times where companies do a hard turn, a pivot,'' he said. ''Tech feels like there's this cult, like 'we're innovators and we're gonna decide this is the next big thing,''' no matter how it affects a company and its employees, he said.

A former Twitter employee who was laid off in early November after Musk took over the company and immediately slashed its workforce in half has already fielded calls from potential employers, he told MarketWatch. That's because he has plenty of technical and management experience.

Does he think the downturn will help unions make inroads into tech? ''I wish,'' he said. ''Getting these kinds of workers to organize is even more difficult than in other industries, and it's not easy anywhere.''

But Maria Noel Fernandez, campaign director for Silicon Valley Rising, an alliance of labor groups and community leaders, is hopeful that this time presents an ''opportunity to build a worker movement within the tech industry and the Bay Area.''

Also: A $3 trillion loss: Big Tech's horrible year is getting worse

As for lower-wage workers, they were among the first to feel the pain. The biggest cuts in janitors and bus drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area since the pandemic happened at Meta right before the mass tech-worker layoffs.

Luis Fuentes, division director for SEIU-United Service Workers West, said unionized service workers in Silicon Valley have made ''substantial gains,'' but that a majority of them make less than $50,000 a year. He's worried about a possible erosion in the progress they have made if the tech industry cuts go deeper or are prolonged.

''For somebody being laid off from Meta, it might mean they delay a vacation '-- they have more wiggle room,'' Fuentes said. ''For service workers, it's going to come down to whether they can pay rent or put food on the table.''

MarketWatch senior reporter Jon Swartz, reporter Zoe Han and columnist Therese Poletti contributed to this article.

This story has been updated with the correct spelling of Barmak Meftah's name.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:06

Switzerland could limit the use of electric vehicles (EVs) in cases of electricity supply shortages this winter under a new four-step plan to prevent power cuts and blackouts.

To ensure energy security this winter, Switzerland could become the first country to limit the driving and use of EVs, German daily Der Spiegel reports, citing multiple media reports on the Swiss four-stage action plan to avoid blackouts.

Driving EVs could be banned in Switzerland unless in cases of ''absolutely necessary journeys'' in stage three of the power conservation plans. The country also plans a stricter speed limit on highways in the recently proposed action plan, which has yet to be adopted.

Switzerland typically imports electricity from France and Germany to meet all its power demand, but this year supply from its neighbors is constrained.

In France, the nuclear fleet availability is much lower than usual, which has led to the country becoming a net importer of electricity after decades of being a net exporter. The French electricity grid is at higher risk of strained power supplies in January 2023 than previously estimated due to lower nuclear power generation. The country could face the risk of power cuts this winter when electricity supply may not be enough to meet demand, Xavier Piechaczyk, the head of grid operator RTE, said earlier this week.

In Germany, the situation is similar, as utilities are having to make do with no Russian pipeline gas supply.

Switzerland's power supply remains uncertain for the winter and troubles with enough electricity capacity cannot be ruled out, the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission, Elcom, said as early as in June. Due to the expected lower availability of French nuclear power generation and of France's power exports to Switzerland, the Swiss imports of power generated in France is likely to be much lower this winter compared to previous winter seasons, Elcom said.

Therefore, Switzerland may need to cover its electricity import needs of around 4 gigawatt hours (GWh) from imports from its other neighbors Germany, Austria, and Italy. However, the power export availability of those countries would heavily depend on the available fossil fuels, mostly natural gas, according to Elcom.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:05

In typical Groundhog Day fashion, the Pentagon has failed yet another audit. Yet, for the most part, nobody seems to care in the media or government. When you fail year after year, it becomes the rule versus the exception to fail basic standards.

This recent failure marks the fifth year that the Defense Department has failed to meet the audit requirements set by Congress. That's right, dear reader, your former War Department can't fully account for all of its assets.

So how bad was it? If you ask the lead money man of the five-sided building, it wasn't that bad; I mean, it's only a couple trillion dollars worth of stuff that we can't find, that's not that bad.

SecDef Austin's DoD has worse problems than a CR. @HouseGOP need to de-woke the military, repeal vax mandates, and cut waste, fraud, and abuse that plagues the Pentagon every day.

This comes on top of their fifth failed audit in a row.

Not a good look for the Pentagon.. #ampFW https://t.co/oEiCIkYLD6

'-- FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) November 28, 2022

It's Bad Of the 27 agencies audited within the Department of Defense, only seven received a passing grade. To put some dollar amounts to that, only 39% of the $3.5 trillion in assets are accounted for, leaving a deficit of about $2.2 trillion in assets unaccounted for.

RELATED: Report Reveals U.S. Government's 'Secret Wars' Worldwide, Some Even Hidden from Congress

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It can be challenging to conceptualize numbers this big in an agency that takes up over half of the discretionary funding in our country. To break down a bit what we mean when we refer to assets, this includes everything from the below list, which isn't all-encompassing:

2.9 million military personnel Equipment and weapons 19,700 aircraft 290 ships Buildings and supplies spread out over 4,860 installations and sites worldwide The audit also encompasses activities like the DOD health care system, which provides medical care for 9.6 million active-duty retirees and their families.

Suppose you've never been to a military base. In that case, they are like small cities with their own police departments, schools, transportation systems, and housing structure.

So these audits don't just cover our wartime assets, such as bullets and warheads, but it also covers the department's personnel care structures, such as beans and beds. So not knowing where over 60% of their assets are doesn't just speak volumes about the DOD's ability to take the fight to the bad guys but also their ability to care for the American warfighter.

For those with a long memory, this kind of outrageous irresponsibility isn't new.

Readers may recall a very interesting press conference on September 10, 2001, when Donald Rumsfeld said the Pentagon couldn't account for $2.3 trillion.

75,000 new IRS agents are going to be scouring your Venmo while the Pentagon loses another $5 trillion dollars.

'-- Starbucks Unions Form Like Voltron (@TweetyMctwat) November 28, 2022

What Have We Learned? Pentagon Chief Financial Officer Mike McCord doesn't seem too concerned, stating:

''We failed to get an A. I would not say that we flunked.''

Leave it to a Pentagon bureaucrat to spin being the sole government agency to have never passed an audit as not a complete failure. Because as a taxpayer or a parent of a service member, knowing that the machine built to care for your warfighters is, at best, getting a D- in audit readiness.

RELATED: Flashback: Biden Suggests Veterans Have Helped Impact Growth of White Supremacy

Mr. McCord went on to say that these failed audits are ''teachable moments,'' touching on the war in Ukraine, saying:

''That's to me a really great example of why it matters to get this sort of thing right '' of counting inventory, knowing where it is and knowing when it is arriving.''

Now that is an interesting comment; curious how well that will age if the Republicans get their way and can audit the military aid sent to Ukraine. The most teachable aspect of this repeated and expected audit failure is that business will continue to go on as usual in the endless spending pit that is the Pentagon.

The U.S. #military has never passed an audit. ðŸ'£ ðŸ'£ ðŸ'£

The #Pentagon's budget (that we see) is $800 billion. 🪖 🪖 🪖

Of 27 departments, only 7 were able to account for their money! ðŸ... ðŸ'´ ðŸ... #Pentagon math is routinely off by hundreds of billions!

'® 🕊 '® 🕊 '® 🕊 pic.twitter.com/DO3TcomEoq

'-- Lynn Schore (@LynnSchore) November 28, 2022

Scarce Accountability It's fitting that the Pentagon can't account for roughly $2 trillion worth of assets and that there is no accountability for their lack of accountability. Last year after they failed their fourth consecutive audit, lawmakers attempted to pass the Audit the Pentagon Act of 2021.

This legislation would have penalized the department by returning 1% of the budget to the Treasury if they failed to meet their audits. That's right, a bipartisan group of Senators dared to penalize the Pentagon for not meeting Congressionally mandated standards.

Though one has to ask '' if they don't know what happened to $2 trillion, how are they going to notice a 1% cut?

RELATED: New Pilot Sightings of UFOs Come As Rumors Swirl of Coming 'Silver Bullet' Revelations

Senator Bernie Sanders, who cosponsored the bill with Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ron Wyden (D-Ore), and Mike Lee (R-Utah), argued:

''If we are serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely and effectively, we have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has not passed an independent audit.''

The reality is nobody is serious about spending taxpayer dollars wisely, especially when it comes to the defense machine. The Department of Defense is on track to receive $1 trillion in its annual budget come 2027.

As expected, the Pentagon FAILED its 5th audit in a row.

The Pentagon received 2,000ish NFR's (Notice of Findings & Recommendations, aka weaknesses/mistakes in the financials that won't be prevented or even detected) in 2021'... And 2022. Meaning a whole year led to JACK SH*T.

'-- Libertarians: Diligently Plotting (@LibertariansDP) November 24, 2022

The Real Cost If you are still having a hard time wrapping your mind around why the Pentagon must be held to task for its inability and unwillingness to track its funding and assets appropriately, let's dial it down to what the Pentagon is ultimately tasked to do; take the fight to the bad guys.

The office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) recently issued a report on how well we allocated funds and executed our mission.

The report didn't mince words when it came to the effectiveness and efficiency of the $145 billion that was poured into that country, stating:

''The United States sought to build stable, democratic, representative, gender-sensitive, and accountable Afghan governance institutions. It failed.''

Touching on the more significant issue behind the failed War Department, professor Chris Mason of the U.S. Army War College was quoted in the report:

''U.S. efforts to build and sustain Afghanistan's governing institutions were a total, epic, predestined failure on par with the same efforts and outcome in the Vietnam war, and for the same reasons.''

The actual cost of the Pentagon's ineptitude isn't just lost assets and taxpayer dollars; it's American lives and America's reputation.

Sigar: The U.S. Gov has spent 20 years and $145 billion trying to rebuild Afg. The DOD has also spent $837 billion, which 2,443 American troops and 1,144 allied troops have been killed and 20,666 U.S. troops injured. 66,000 Afg troops have been killed and 75,000 other injured pic.twitter.com/rzXSGrrsle

'-- Said Najib Asil (@Najib_Asil) November 17, 2022

Who Are They Fighting For? Historically it's been considered a faux pas to question the military arm of our government. It was considered akin to disgracing the everyday soldier, sailor, airman, and marine.

The botched withdrawal of Afghanistan has finally stirred some in the media, government, and regular population to start questioning the motivations and credibility of the military brass and civilian leaders charged with supporting and defending our great Constitution.

Senator Grassley pointed out last year:

''We've seen example after example of excessive and inefficient spending by the Pentagon, and every dollar squandered is a dollar not being used to support our men and women in uniform.''

Who are the actual benefactors of the Pentagon's gross financial negligence? One merely has to look at the military-industrial complex to see who is supported.

Take the Pentagon's endeavor to increase shipbuilding production. They estimate the program to cost $27 billion annually between 2023 and 2052.

However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that estimate is off by $120 billion overall. Mr. McCord said of the audits:

''The process is important for us to do, and it is making us get better. It is not making us get better as fast as we want.''

The speed is exactly where you want it to be.

The Pentagon just had a fifth annual audit. Like the previous four, it failed.

We're facing crises'--from poverty to the climate'--that require resources to address.

It's time to stop pouring those resources into a war machine that has never successfully accounted for its spending.

'-- Institute for Policy Studies (@IPS_DC) November 22, 2022

Now is the time to support and share the sources you trust.The Political Insider ranks #3 on Feedspot's ''100 Best Political Blogs and Websites.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:04

Supporting National Security

Secured Satellite Network For Government Entities

Starshield leverages SpaceX's Starlink technology and launch capability to support national security efforts. While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use, with an initial focus on three areas:

Earth ObservationStarshield launches satellites with sensing payloads and delivers processed data directly to the user.

CommunicationsStarshield provides assured global communications to government users with Starshield user equipment.

Hosted payloadsStarshield builds satellite buses to support the most demanding customer payload missions.

SecurityStarlink already offers unparalleled end-to-end user data encryption. Starshield uses additional high-assurance cryptographic capability to host classified payloads and process data securely, meeting the most demanding government requirements.

Modular DesignDesigned to meet diverse mission requirements, Starshield satellites are capable of integrating a wide variety of payloads, offering unique versatility to users.

InteroperabilityStarlink's inter-satellite laser communications terminal, which is the only communications laser operating at scale in orbit today, can be integrated onto partner satellites to enable incorporation into the Starshield network.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 15:49

Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, speaks at the Teamsters Local 249 hall during a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., on Monday, April 29, 2019.

Justin Merriman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

President Joe Biden on Thursday is announcing the infusion of nearly $36 billion to shore up a financially troubled union pension plan, preventing severe cuts to the retirement incomes of more than 350,000 Teamster workers and retirees across the United States.

The money for the Central States Pension Fund is the largest amount of federal aid provided for a pension plan, the Biden administration said, and comes from the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that he signed into law in 2021.

Many union retirement plans have been under financial pressure because of underfunding and other issues. Without the federal assistance, Teamster members could have seen their benefits reduced by an average of 60% starting within a couple of years.

"Union workers and their families are finally able to breathe a huge sigh of relief, knowing that their hard-earned retirement savings have been rescued from steep cuts," said Lisa Gomez, assistant labor secretary for employee benefits security.

Multiemployer pension funds are created by agreements between unions and companies and are partially insured by the federal government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. The insurance program was on track to become insolvent in 2026, but the pandemic relief money is expected to keep it on firm footing through 2051.

Biden traveled to Ohio in July to highlight the final rules for the pension relief program. Before Thursday, the program had awarded aid to 36 troubled pension plans, but none of those had received more than about $1.2 billion.

The amount going to the Central States Pension Fund represents somewhere between one-third and one-half of the total estimated cost of the federal aid program.

The retirement plan has participants in almost every state, with the largest concentration in the Midwest. There are about 40,000 participants in both Michigan and Ohio, nearly 28,000 in Missouri, 25,000 in Illinois and about 22,000 each in Texas and Wisconsin, according to figures provided by the White House.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 15:29

by Ben Bartee via The Daily Bell

Ghana's government recently announced plans to procure oil using gold rather than US dollars '' the currency predominately used in the global oil trade.

Via Reuters:

''Ghana's government is working on a new policy to buy oil products with gold rather than U.S. dollar reserves, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said on Facebook on Thursday.

The move is meant to tackle dwindling foreign currency reserves coupled with demand for dollars by oil importers, which is'...increasing living costs'...

Using gold would prevent the exchange rate from directly impacting fuel or utility prices as domestic sellers would no longer need foreign exchange to import oil products.''

The US petrodollar buttresses America's position as the world's sole superpower. Wars have been waged against much more powerful foes than Ghana to maintain the petrodollar's dominance.

Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi tried out something similar to Ghana's plans about a decade ago, and now he's six feet under while his former country has devolved into a failed state with literal slave auctions.

What really precipitated the US-led, French-facilitated destruction of Libya all those years ago?

Via The Ecologist:

''Before 2011, Libya had achieved economic independence, with its own water, its own food, its own oil, its own money, and its own state-owned bank. It had arisen under Qaddafi from one of the poorest of countries to the richest in Africa.''

The official justification for deposing Gaddafi was to promote human rights and Democracy' (sound familiar?). In reality, as Hillary Clinton's leaked emails (for which the hero Julian Assange has paid with his freedom) reveal, the true motivation was much more basic and material.

In an email stored on her private server, longtime Clinton advisor and vaunted Swamp veteran Sidney Blumenthal wrote on April 2, 2011:

''Qaddafi's government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver '... This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).''

The Ecologist reporting continues:

''In a 'source comment', the original declassified email adds:

''According to knowledgeable individuals this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to commit France to the attack on Libya. According to these individuals Sarkozy's plans are driven by the following issues:

1. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production,2. Increase French influence in North Africa,3. Improve his internal political situation in France,4. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world,5. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi's long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.''

So, in public, the illegal invasion of Libya was framed as a liberation effort to free Africans from oppression. In private, it was all about oil and gold and raw geopolitical power.

Black Lives Matter greatly to Democrats, except when they have natural resources and don't cooperate with the petrodollar program.

''We came, we saw, he died,'' a visibly giddy Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State and chief architect of the Libyan coup, declared on national television when she learned in real-time of Gaddafi's death. Nothing stimulates her more than death.

All of this provokes the obvious question: Is Ghana playing with fire here? How long until they are similarly liberated by the liberal and loving Democrats?

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. Follow his stuff via Armageddon Prose and/or Substack, Patreon, Gab, and Twitter.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:56

WATCH THE FULL LIVE: https://ept.ms/BreachOfOathYT

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether it will take up a case that could overturn the 2020 elections and make representatives who voted to confirm the election ineligible to hold office in the future. The case, Brunson v. Alma S. Adams; et al, sues the members of Congress who voted against the proposed 10-day audit of the 2020 elections, alleging that doing so and then certifying the election regardless was a breach of their oath of office.

If the Supreme Court rules against Congress, it could potentially remove a sitting president and vice president, along with the members of Congress involved, and deem them unfit to hold office again at any level of U.S. government. It would allegedly also give the Supreme Court the ability to authorize the swearing-in of the rightful president and vice president.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:32

Authored by Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Federal Reserve Board of Governors on Dec. 2 invited public comment on proposed principles for managing climate-related risks of banks with $100 billion or more in assets.

The Federal Reserve building in Washington, in a file photo. (MDart10/Shutterstock)Six of the board's seven members voted in favor of the move. They included Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who became chair under President Donald J. Trump. Powell was first appointed to the board by President Barack Obama.

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following a meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) at the headquarters of the Fed in Washington on Sept. 21, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/Getty Images)One governor, Christopher Waller, dissented.

''I cannot support this issuance of guidance on climate change. Climate change is real, but I disagree with the premise that it poses a serious risk to the safety and soundness of large banks and the financial stability of the United States. The Federal Reserve conducts regular stress tests on large banks that impose extremely severe macroeconomic shocks and they show that the banks are resilient,'' Waller, a Trump appointee, said in a statement.

Governor Michelle W. Bowman, another Trump appointee, made it clear that she wasn't conveying her approval of the proposal in her Dec. 2 vote.

''While I support seeking public comment, this vote does not indicate my support for the finalization of this guidance. I will evaluate any future recommendation to finalize this guidance on its merits,'' she said.

''The new principles contemplate additional obligations on firms to monitor and measure a broader set of climate-related risks, over indefinite time horizons. I look forward to public input on whether the guidance will improve safety and soundness at a reasonable cost.''

Federal Reserve governors Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller (R) pose for a photo, during a break at a conference on monetary policy at Stanford University's Hoover Institution in Palo Alto, Calif., on May 6, 2022. (Ann Saphir/Reuters)In its announcement on the vote, the Fed noted that the draft principles resemble a similar proposal from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which offers insurance carried by virtually every bank in the United States.

The Fed's proposal is also comparable to one from the Department of Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which ''charters, regulates, and supervises all national banks and federal savings associations as well as federal branches and agencies of foreign banks.''

The announcement clarified that the Fed will coordinate with the FDIC and OCC ''to promote consistency in the supervision of large banks through final interagency guidance.''

Mixed Reactions''Regulators must issue guidance that addresses the growing threats to both individual banks and the stability of the entire financial system,'' David Arkush, director of the climate program for the Ralph Nader-founded non-profit Public Citizen, said.

''There is no time for the Fed or other banking regulators to delay finalizing these rules.''

Phillip Basil, director of banking policy at Better Markets, praised the Fed's stated commitment to working with the OCC and the FDIC.

''The effects of climate change present serious and complicated risks to our banking system, and this type of coordination between the banking agencies is critical to addressing those risks,'' he said in a statement.

Read more here...

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:30

Dyer, senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Augusta, has addressed the ideology in his sermons and in private conversations with members, cautioning against the philosophy that some say calls for the blending of religion and government.

His stance cost him about 10 members from his congregation, which has an average Sunday attendance of 1,000.

''It's something I had to do,'' Dyer said of his decision to speak on the issue. ''It's a reality in all of our churches and pulpits.''

Christian nationalism has been increasingly showing up in politics and pulpits, polarizing voters and worshippers. Its supporters believe that the U.S. was formed as a Christian nation and the government should work to defend its Christian tenets.

But some take their beliefs to extremes, advocating a weakening or elimination of the separation of church and state.

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center on Oct. 27 released results of a survey of 10,000 U.S. adults on attitudes about religion's role in public life. It found many supporters define Christian nationalism in broad terms, as the idea that the country is guided by Christian values.

But definitions vary greatly from person to person and can be very complex and nuanced, according to Greg Smith, one of the lead researchers at the Pew. The survey found of those who had heard of the term Christian nationalism, 24% had an unfavorable view; 5% had a favorable view and the rest had no opinion one way or the other or had never heard of it.

''That doesn't mean though, that there aren't a larger number of people who might adhere to the beliefs associated with Christian nationalist beliefs,'' says Smith.

First Baptist Atlanta senior pastor, the Rev. Anthony George said he prefers to call himself a ''patriotic Christian instead of a Christian nationalist.''

A patriotic Christian means ''You're proud of our country and proud of the things your country stands for,'' George said.

Explore After spa shootings, faith leaders grapple with deep questionsWHAT'S IN A NAME?For Georgia's religious leaders, the variety of definitions for Christian nationalism has made the topic difficult and risky to address.

The Rev. Troy Bush, senior pastor of Rehoboth Baptist Church in Tucker said because of the lack of a clear definition, he has not used the term Christian nationalism specifically in his sermons or classes. But he has said that Christians should be devoted first to Jesus.

While he sees no problem with people being patriotic or voting based on their values, he doesn't think the founding fathers intended for the U.S. to be an exclusively Christian nation.

''Jesus has not called us to establish a theocracy in our city, state, or country nor are we to make the White House or Congress a church house,'' he said.

The blurring of those lines was clearly on display on Jan. 6, 2021 when protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the election results from being certified.

The use of Christian imagery that day by extremists left Dyer and others stunned.

Some participants proudly carried crosses and others knelt in prayer. One was photographed clutching a Bible. Another carried a poster of Jesus in a red ''Make America Great Again'' cap. One banner read ''Jesus is My Savior, Trump is my President.''

Explore OPINION: Divine inspiration, the never-ending political campaign''I felt grief and shame that anyone could intertwine Christianity and politics in that kind of way,'' said Dyer of First Baptist in Augusta.

Further complicating any discussion is the entanglement of white supremacy sentiment with the movement, which some call the ''white Christian nationalist'' movement.

It's clear cut for Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. She calls the ideology a ''perversion'' of the U.S. Constitution, a danger to democracy and an affront to Christianity.

''It says that to be a true American, one has to be a Christian and a particular kind of Christian: white, culturally and politically conservative, and holding a certain position on a number of hot button, culture-war issues,'' said Tyler, referring to LGBTQ rights, abortion and gun rights.

Many Southern Baptist churches have members who are conservative or Republican and support the idea of a nation rooted in Christianity. But pastors who spoke to the AJC said they reject being lumped in with racist and extremist leanings.

But all denominations need to address white Christian nationalism because any church can serve as ''vectors for its spread,'' adds author and speaker Jemar Tisby.

''It is not merely an issue for Southern Baptists or even white evangelicals more generally,'' he said. ''White Christian nationalism is an ideology to which anyone '-- Catholic, mainline, Methodist, non-denominational, Latter-Day Saints, and more '-- can adopt.''

Explore Opinion: Quiet white Christians don't know what to say nowPolitics and GodSome politicians have tried to benefit from tapping into the political unrest of many in the pews.

U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, may be best known for proudly identifying as a Christian nationalist during her campaign in the run-up to the Nov. 8 election, which she won.

''We need to be the party of nationalism and I'm a Christian, and I say it proudly: We should be Christian nationalists.''

She isn't the only one using such rhetoric.

Defeated GOP gubernatorial candidate for Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano said that the U.S. is a Christian nation and dismisses the separation of church and state as a myth.

U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Greensboro, a former pastor, takes a softer approach, saying he doesn't know a lot about Christian nationalism. He describes himself as a Christian who is involved in his nation.

''The whole issue of separation of church and state was keeping the government out of the church, not keeping religious people, regardless of their faith, from being involved in our system of government,'' he said in a recent interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ''The truth is our system in America does not work without involvement of the people with a Judeo-Christian worldview.''

But, Hice said, increasingly attacks are being made on religious liberties, discouraging Christians from engaging politically. ''But all people of faith have the right to be involved. And that's the issue that needs to be protected.''

Sociologist Samuel L. Perry, an expert in evangelical Christianity and politics calls the ideology a perversion of what it means to be a Christian.

Perry said Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to twist the definition of what Christian nationalism means: 'I'm a nationalist. I'm a patriot. I'm a Christian nationalist.' She tries to make it sound more innocuous.''

As for churches endorsing politicians who have supported Christian nationalism, Pew's survey on religion found 77% said churches and other houses of worship should not endorse any candidates for political offices.

Andy Stanley, founder of the nondenominational, Alpharetta-based North Point Ministries and one of the most prominent religious leaders in the nation, writes in his book, ''Not In It To Win It: Why Choosing Sides Sidelines the Church'' that during the 2020 elections he felt pressured to ''politicize'' his church.

''Dozens of families reached out to me to let me know they were leaving our churches because I had bought into the Democratic narrative,'' he wrote.

When a local church becomes preoccupied with ''saving America at the expense of saving Americans, it has forsaken its mission,'' Stanley wrote.

A loaded termThe Rev. Catherine Renken fielded numerous calls last year when she posted messages on the marquee at Kirkwood Presbyterian Church in Kennesaw saying ''Christian Nationalism is an oxymoron'' and ''White Supremacy is a sin. Black Lives Matter.''

''Pastors who speak out against the heresy of Christian nationalism must be prepared for backlash,'' said Renken. ''Love of country has become so intertwined with love of God that untangling that theological knot threatens to unravel a person's faith. And so, there is a survival-like instinct to hold on to Christian nationalism as if you were protecting Jesus himself.''

The Rev. James Brewer-Calvert, senior pastor of First Christian Church of Decatur, recently addressed the issue of Christian nationalism for his congregation. He said Christian nationalism is a threat. ''The drive to yoke church and state endangers our republic's foundation of liberty to practice '-- or not to practice '-- religion, and governmental autonomy from faith-based organizations.''

Brewer-Calvert said he felt it is necessary to ''educate and prepare folks because it's a serious and very present threat to both our country and our collective faith journey.''

The Rev. James Conrad, senior pastor of Towne View Baptist Church in Kennesaw, for instance, says he avoids directly addressing political issues or taking partisan stands in his sermons.

However, he does address themes that may weave their way into certain issues, including those found in Christian nationalism.

Earlier this month, for instance, Conrad preached about Jesus loving all people regardless of gender, race, sexuality or faith.

''That's my way of addressing it,'' he said. ''I've been reluctant to this point to name Christian nationalism in a sermon,'' worried that it is too loaded of a term in this politically charged environment.

''I'm very aware of what's going on around us '-- in society and in the news '-- but to respond to every issue doesn't leave much room to keep our focus on Jesus.''

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:29

Thousands of police carried out a series of raids across much of Germany on Wednesday against suspected far-right extremists who allegedly sought to overthrow the state in an armed coup.

Federal prosecutors said some 3,000 officers conducted searches at 130 sites in 11 of Germany's 16 states against adherents of the so-called Reich Citizens movement. Some members of the grouping reject Germany's postwar constitution and have called for the overthrow of the government.

3 View gallery

German police raids far-right extremists

(Photo: Reuters )

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann described the raids as an ''anti-terrorism operation,'' adding that the suspects may have planned an armed attack on institutions of the state.

Prosecutors said 22 German citizens were detained on suspicion of ''membership in a terrorist organization.'' Three other people, including a Russian citizen, are suspected of supporting the organization, they said.

Weekly Der Spiegel reported that locations searched include the barracks of Germany's special forces unit KSK in the southwestern town of Calw. The unit has in the past been scrutinized over alleged far-right involvement by some soldiers.

Federal prosecutors declined to confirm or deny that the barracks was searched.

3 View gallery

Officer carrying evidence as German police raids far-right extremists

(Photo: Reuters )

Along with detentions in Germany, prosecutors said that one person was detained in the Austrian town of Kitzbuehel and another in the Italian city of Perugia.

Prosecutors said those detained are alleged to last year have formed a ''terrorist organization with the goal of overturning the existing state order in Germany and replace it with their own form of state, which was already in the course of being founded.''

The suspects were aware that their aim could only be achieved by military means and with force, prosecutors said.

They are alleged to have believed in a ''conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology,'' according to a statement by prosecutors. They added that members of the group also believe Germany is ruled by a so-called 'deep state;' similar baseless claims about the United States were made by former President Donald Trump.

Prosecutors identified the suspected ringleaders as Heinrich XIII P. R. and Ruediger v. P., in line with German privacy rules. Der Spiegel reported that the former was a well-known 71-year-old member of a minor German noble family, while the latter was a 69-year-old former paratrooper.

3 View gallery

German police raids far-right extremists

(Photo: Reuters )

Federal prosecutors said Heinrich XIII P. R., whom the group planned to install as Germany's new leader, had contacted Russian officials with the aim of negotiating a new order in the country once the German government was overthrown. He was allegedly assisted in this by a Russian woman, Vitalia B.

''According to current investigations there is no indication however that the persons contacted responded positively to his request,'' prosecutors said.

A further person detained by police Wednesday was identified by prosecutors as Birgit M.-W. Der Spiegel reported that the woman is a judge and former lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

The party, known by its German acronym AfD, has increasingly come under scrutiny by German security services due to its ties with extremists.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:28

Earlier this week, Oxfordshire County Council in the UK approved plans to lockdown residents into one of six zones to fight 'climate change.'

Residents would be confined to their local neighborhood and would not be able to leave unless they requested permission from the government.

As part of the climate lockdown plan, the '15 minute cities' would place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, so the government would be instantly alerted by anyone trying to leave.

Those who request permission to leave their city would be profiled by the government, which would make a decision on whether to let that person out.

Under the new scheme, residents would be permitted to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, according to reports.

However, every resident must register their car details with the government, enabling them to be tracked via smart cameras around the city.

As Vision News reported:

Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party, secretly decided to divide up the city of Oxford into six '15 minute' districts in 2021 soon after they were elected to office. None of the councilors declared their intention of imprisoning local residents in their manifestos of course, preferring to make vague claims about how they will 'improve the environment instead.

Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council, which will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras. And don't think you can beat the system if you're a two-car household. Those two cars will be counted as one, meaning you will have to divide up the journeys between yourselves. 2 cars, 50 journeys each; 3 cars, 33 journeys each and so on.

Under the new rules, your social life becomes irrelevant. By de facto, Councils dictate how many times per year you can see friends and family. You will be stopped from fraternizing with anyone outside your district, and if you want a long-distance relationship in the future, forget it; you are confined to dating only those within a 15-minute walk of your house.

A single person's life will be at the mercy of Communists in the central office, dictating the same draconian rules we had to avert the last crisis, a mild flu virus so deadly 80% of people didn't even know they had it.

An entirely new social structure is being imposed on Oxford's residents ( and more cities are to follow) under the lie of saving the planet. but what it really is, is a plan for Command and Control. There will be permits, penalties and even more ubiquitous surveillance. Council officials will determine where you can go and how often, and will log every time you do. 15-minute cities, or 15 minute prisons?

RELATED: 6 Large Banks to Participate In Pilot 'Social Credit System' for 'Climate Scenario'

According to an article on The World Economic Forum's website, '15 minute' cities are a powerful tool for action:

Urbanism trends come and go: Broadacre City, Radiant City, EcoCity. Yet the ''15-minute city'' concept'--which implies having all necessary amenities within a short walk, bike ride, or public transit trip from one's home'--has demonstrated stickiness not just as an idea, but as a powerful tool for action '' from Paris to Seoul, from Bogot to Houston.

For longtime urbanists, the 15-minute city seemed to merely repackage the historic urban pattern of development: walkable, mixed-use districts. Old wine, new bottle, as the saying goes. But for a new framing to ignite a global urbanism movement, clearly there's more going on.

The obvious, yet incomplete, answer is the pandemic. Would Paris's Mayor Anne Hidalgo have pushed for progressive urban design without this framing? Undoubtedly. But with COVID-19 and its variants keeping everyone home (or closer to home than usual), the 15-minute city went from a ''nice-to-have'' to a rallying cry. Meeting all of one's needs within a walking, biking, or transit distance was suddenly a matter of life and death. The pandemic created an urgency around equitable urbanism that sidelined arguments about bike lanes and other ''amenities'' that have roiled communities for years.

The term was coined in 2016 by Sorbonne professor Carlos Moreno, who was given an Obel Award in 2021 for developing the idea. The graph below comes from a Google Trend search of worldwide usage of the term; the peak in the middle is approximately November 15, 2020.

Such calls for draconian measures to fight climate change are nothing new.

In November 2020, the Red Cross declared climate change is a more significant threat than COVID, saying it should be confronted with ''the same urgency.''

Meanwhile, Bill Gates demanded dramatic measures to stop climate change, arguing it would be worse than the pandemic.

Former governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, said that climate deaths would dwarf those of the pandemic.

So what is the solution? More lockdowns.

Politicians and government know that fear helps the public to accept dramatic curtailing of freedoms, especially with vague promises of safety. The COVID lockdowns proved this. So now power-hungry bureaucrats can utilize the precedents for more comprehensive lockdowns in the future.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:25

France is banning short-haul domestic flights when there is a regular and frequent train option that takes less than two and a half hours, after a 2021 climate law, No 2021-1104, received permission from the European Commission (EC).

Article 145.I of the law prohibits passenger flights ''on all air routes within French territory for which there are several direct rail connections per day of less than two and a half hours,'' according to the European Union decision report (pdf).

The proposal, which has been hailed by the French Greens and environmental lobbyists in Brussels alike, will directly affect three major air routes between Paris-Orly and Lyon, Nantes, and Bordeaux.

Remix News' Thomas Brooke reports that an intention to improve rail services and decrease the journey duration could see routes from Paris and Rennes to Lyon and Marseille also axed.

The measure is expected to take several months to enter into force and should last initially for three years, with a review of its effectiveness undertaken after two.

In its decision, published on Dec. 2, the European Commission dismissed the protestations of French airports and airline lobbyists, who claimed that the ban would fall foul of competition laws.

It claimed, however, that ''the negative impacts on European citizens and connectivity of any restriction of traffic rights must be offset by the availability of affordable, convenient and more sustainable alternative transport modes.''

France's Transport Minister Cl(C)ment Beaune called the move a ''major step forward,'' adding:

''I am proud that France is a pioneer in this area.''

Karima Delli, a French Green MEP, hailed the European Commission's approval of the ban, calling it a ''victory'' for environmental campaigners, but insisted that ''the threshold must be raised to four hours, and above all, include private jets in the ban.''

A four-hour threshold would effectively see the abolition of all internal flights across France.

''The French ban on short-haul flights where quick train connections exist is a baby step, but it's one in the right direction,'' said Thomas Gelin, Greenpeace's EU climate campaigner.

However, some Green Party politicians want to extend the ban to cover four-hour train journeys, while other European lawmakers are hoping to expand the coverage to the whole continent with upcoming new railway lines like the European Uunion's TEN-T project.

As The Epoch Times' Naveen Anthrapully points out, detractors of the new rule, like the Net Zero Watch, commented in a tweet, ''Just another freedom Net Zero will be taking away. #CostOfNetZero."

Perhaps most notably, The EC noted that the new rule will not have much of an impact on the environment because air traffic on the routes had considerably declined since the pandemic shutdowns.

''Banning those routes will therefore not lead to an actual reduction in emissions. However, unquantifiable environmental benefits may nonetheless be generated since air carriers potentially interested in operating these routes will be prevented from doing so,'' said the commission in the report.

''Expect much more of this,'' tweeted Canadian conservative scholar Jordan Peterson in response to the news.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:25

By Euronews with DPA, Reuters ' Updated: 06/12/2022

Austria's government has announced new plans to seize the cars of people who are found guilty of extreme speeding.

Those who exceed the speed limit by at least 60 km/h in urban areas, or by at least 70 km/h in rural areas, could face losing their vehicles for two weeks.

If they are a repeat offender or are caught travelling particularly fast, the seized car could be auctioned off.

Those found guilty of excessive speed will also have their driving licence temporarily revoked, the government said.

The move follows similar measures in neighbouring Switzerland and Italy, which aim to crack down on "boy racers".

"He who has no car anymore cannot speed anymore," Austrian Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler said. "That is precisely why this measure is so successful in other countries, because it hits where it hurts and protects the general population

A driver in Vienna was recently caught travelling at 104 km per hour in a 30km/h zone.

"At the speeds we are talking about here, no one is fully in control of their vehicle," Gewessler told a news conference on Monday.

"The car becomes an uncontrollable weapon and a danger to completely innocent people," she added. "Extreme speed is life-threatening for all other people on the road."

In Germany, citizens' vehicles can only be seized and confiscated after illegal car races.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:18

With barely 20 minutes' notice, Elon Musk gathered Twitter employees on Thursday to address them directly for the first time.

During a nearly one-hour Q&A session, which The Verge obtained a recording of '-- you can read a full transcript below '-- Musk was blunt about Twitter's financial state, his ambition to turn Twitter into an app for payments, his love for ''gizmos,'' and that he now expects employees to work with a ''maniacal sense of urgency.''

Musk spoke about offering banking services via Twitter:

I think there's this transformative opportunity in payments. And payments really are just the exchange of information. From an information standpoint, not a huge difference between, say, just sending a direct message and sending a payment. They are basically the same thing. In principle, you can use a direct messaging stack for payments. And so that's definitely a direction we're going to go in, enabling people on Twitter to be able to send money anywhere in the world instantly and in real time. We just want to make it as useful as possible.

What circumstances could lead the company to declare bankruptcy:

We just definitely need to bring in more cash than we spend. If we don't do that and there's a massive negative cash flow, then bankruptcy is not out of the question. That is a priority. We can't scale to 1 billion users and take massive losses along the way. That's not feasible. I don't think we will.

Twitter's remote work policy:

Now, if somebody's contribution is so significant that they can overcome the communication difficulties of being remote, then they should absolutely remain at Twitter. But it will be a higher bar. They have to be that much better to overcome the communication issues of being remote. There are plenty of people at Tesla and SpaceX that do work remotely, but it is on an exception basis for exceptional people. And I totally understand if that doesn't work for some people. That's the new philosophy at Twitter.

Let me be crystal clear. If people do not return to the office when they are able to return to the office, they cannot remain at the company. End of story.

Basically, if you can show up in an office and you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted. End of story.

And its potential as a TikTok-meets-YouTube platform for video creators:

We're not trying to put YouTube out of business, but I'm just saying, do we really need to give YouTube a whole bunch of free traffic? Maybe not. So at least give creators the option if they would like to put their video on Twitter and earn the same amount as they would, or maybe slightly more, on YouTube or TikTok or whatever the case may be.

Twitter's first couple of weeks under Musk's ownership have been nothing short of tumultuous. They started with Musk unceremoniously firing much of the C-suite and laying off roughly half of Twitter's global workforce. He revamped Twitter Blue to automatically give paid subscribers a blue verification check mark, which quickly led to impersonation running rampant on the social network.

Executives continue to resign, including the head of trust and safety who Musk elevated after he took over. A lawyer at the company has told employees to seek whistleblower protection ''if you feel uncomfortable about anything you're being asked to do.'' Meanwhile, Musk has tried to convince Twitter's advertisers to return amid the chaos to no avail, even as the company's user growth sees ''all-time highs,'' according to him.

Coming soon / A newsletter from Alex Heath about where tech is headed and who's driving it.

Below is a transcript of Musk's first all-hands meeting with Twitter employees, lightly edited for clarity:

Elon Musk: Hello. Nice to meet you all. I'm very excited to be here, and I think the long-term potential for Twitter is immense. I think you've heard, perhaps, some of the things that I've said publicly, and I think what you'll find is that the things I say publicly are the same things that I say privately.

I think Twitter can perform an incredibly valuable service to the world and be the public town square where people exchange ideas and where, once in a while, they change their mind. And where you have a battleground of ideas that can hopefully take the place of the violence in a lot of cases. So people can just be talking instead of physically fighting. I think we could actually be a force for peace, which would be amazing. I think there's a tremendous amount of good that Twitter can achieve for humanity. And that's what we're going to strive for.

So in order for us to achieve that good, how do we get a lot of people on the platform? There are 8 billion humans. If we don't have at least a billion humans on the system, then we have a very small percentage of humans. So we want to have, you know, a reasonable percentage of humans. This is not for the sake of money or anything like that. It's just in order to do a lot of good, we need a lot of people on the platform and a lot of people talking.

I think it would be really interesting to get more dialog between countries and to surface tweets that are interesting. We have an amazing market share in Japan. There are probably in any given day some super interesting tweets that are happening in Japan, but we never see them in the US or almost never see them. It would be, I think, very exciting to take tweets from different countries and different language groups and expose people from different countries and different language groups to ideas that are interesting, entertaining, funny '-- where you learn something from around the world. So I think we've got a great potential to connect people around the world and expose them to, like I said, ideas and content that's going to entertain them. If we can take the most interesting, entertaining, funny stuff from around the world and show people that, it's going to be great.

And we also want to expand to be sort of a multimedia platform. We are that to some degree. We are the strongest when it comes to anything that's writing and real time. But we also want to have that for pictures and video and not in a way that copies what others do. I don't think we should not copy something just because someone else did it. We just want to focus on how we make Twitter as compelling as possible, where it's maximum enjoyment, maximum learning. Where you spend an hour on Twitter, and you don't regret it. Sometimes, you know, on some of the social media platforms, you might spend an hour, but you, like, kind of regret that, right? Not naming names but, you know, it's like you want to spend an hour and be like, ''Wow, that was a great hour.''

I think there's this transformative opportunity in payments. And payments really are just the exchange of information. From an information standpoint, not a huge difference between, say, just sending a direct message and sending a payment. They are basically the same thing. In principle, you can use a direct messaging stack for payments. And so that's definitely a direction we're going to go in, enabling people on Twitter to be able to send money anywhere in the world instantly and in real time. We just want to make it as useful as possible.

As a general principle, if we are solving the reasons that people click away from Twitter not to trap people on the site... You know, let's say somebody is a content creator on YouTube. Provided they are able to post their video on Twitter and monetize the video at least to the same degree as on YouTube, then naturally, they would just post their video on Twitter as well. But right now, content creators cannot post the length of video that they would like to post, and they cannot monetize it, which means they cannot pay the bills. These are not like super complicated things. They're pretty basic. We're not trying to put YouTube out of business, but I'm just saying, do we really need to give YouTube a whole bunch of free traffic? Maybe not. So at least give creators the option if they would like to put their video on Twitter and earn the same amount as they would, or maybe slightly more, on YouTube or TikTok or whatever the case may be.

Anyway, I think the future is super exciting, and I look forward to making it happen with you guys.

Moderator: [Inaudible] ... and other kinds of challenges that we're already facing, even with the user base at its current size.

Musk: So the question is how to make sure that the growth does not outpace the risk?

Moderator: Yeah.

Musk: Well, I'm obviously a big fan of getting people to be verified, leveraging the payment system and iOS and Android security. I think we want to have automated checks as well as manual checks. I'm open to ideas here. We will obviously care about real user growth, not anything that appears to be user growth that is not. We care about authentic users. And I think as long as we're taking steps to authenticate real users and exiting ones that are not good, and that it is expensive and difficult to create bot armies, we will succeed.

The issue without payment verification, especially without having a phone and a card, is that you can do a million bot accounts a day and with the cost of a tenth of a penny. It's not so much the $8 because, obviously, state actors have more than that. But can they put together a million phones and a million credit cards? That's much harder. That's where they're going to stumble.

Inaudible question about reviving Vine.

I think it's really just, do we have compelling shortform video as opposed to exactly what Vine was? It's not ''let's copy Vine from whichever year with ancient code.'' It's really just, how do we have compelling shortform video, just compelling content in general? I was actually flipping through the Twitter video where, once you go into kind of a full-screen video mode, you can just start flipping through videos. It's actually not bad. I was like, ''Okay, well, it's pretty good.'' I think building on that makes a ton of sense.

I told a whole bunch of people this morning that I was on it for like maybe 15 minutes, and I could have easily been on it for half an hour. The videos that it showed me were interesting. It was some good videos. And when I told a roomful of people that this morning, they didn't know it existed. So I think if we try to surface it and make it more obvious that it exists, that would be a good move.

Inaudible exchange with an employee.

You know, I've got no problem with battle, obviously [laughs]. Yeah, just email it to me. I'm pretty responsive on email. Every now and again, it's a crisis, and if I didn't respond within 24 hours, email me again. It rarely takes me longer than 24 hours to respond. Usually it's within hours. And I'm also for like, ''Hey, let's have some fun and let's have some adventure here.'' Let's just try some crazy stuff. And if it doesn't work, we'll stop it. And if it does work, we'll amplify it. But I think that's really fun and exciting.

Just try weird stuff. It's nothing ventured, nothing gained. If we're too cautious, then how do we make revolutionary improvements? Revolutions are not done with caution. So we want to try things, ideally things that don't break the whole system, but I think as long as we're agile and we react quickly to improve things and correct mistakes, I think it'll be fine.

Let's just get a bunch of content creators that we think are cool on YouTube and say, ''Hey, would you consider putting your content on Twitter, and we'll pay you 10 percent more than YouTube and see how it goes?''

Inaudible question from an employee.

We need some video ads is what you're saying. It's hard to register video ads if we don't have video ads. It's a great question. How do we start the creator flywheel if we don't have video ads to begin with? This is where subscriptions come in because YouTube also has subscriptions, and they don't show ads in subscriptions. So I think this is a case where it does make sense to start spending some money and at least matching to slightly better than matching creators on YouTube and saying, for now, we'll just pay them money that is reasonably competitive, maybe slightly better than YouTube for their content on Twitter as well. And I think as we build our subscriber base, because YouTube is doing the exact same thing, they're building a subscriber base.

I actually try to use YouTube as a nonsubscriber to just kind of get a feel for what's going on with advertising. Frankly, I find their advertising to be brutal. It seems to be one scam ad after another.

Inaudible interjection.

YouTube has 2.6 billion users? Oh man, we're nothing!

Employee: Yes, and only 80 million subscribers.

Musk: [Laughter] That's a lot. Look, my kids were basically educated by Reddit and YouTube, which, like, uh-oh. I think let's just try it. Let's just get a bunch of content creators that we think are cool on YouTube and say, ''Hey, would you consider putting your content on Twitter, and we'll pay you 10 percent more than YouTube and see how it goes?'' Let's do that. Okay, great. So you will do that?

Inaudible exchange.

Okay, collectively, you'll do it. Great. Please do it. Let's take action. I'm a big believer in having just a maniacal sense of urgency. So if you can do it after this meeting, I would do it after this meeting. Just a maniacal sense of urgency. Like, if you want to get stuff done, maniacal sense of urgency. Just go ''aah!'' Hardcore!

''Just go 'aah!' Hardcore!''

Employee: So on the subscriber part, it's $8 right now, right?

Musk: Oh. Really? [Laughter]

Employee: I know your purpose is to get people verified. Are we open to micropayments and other things to get people verified?

Musk: It's definitely just one step at a time. I intentionally limited things to only iOS, and just a small number of countries, to not have a massive amount of fraud that our systems... that we couldn't handle. So the hardest thing to commit fraud on right now, relatively speaking, is if you require a phone and a credit or a debit card.

And so then we're piggybacking over the payment system as well as Apple. This doesn't mean it's impossible to scam. Obviously, it's still possible, but it is very difficult to scam at scale. They can do individual accounts, but they can no longer do a million accounts.

With the web, you don't want someone taking a million credit card numbers off the dark web and then spawning a million instances that appear to be individual users going a zillion proxies around the world. And then we've got a million fake accounts. That's why web is going to be last, and we'll do that with great caution. And there are just some bugs in the system, and people need to download the latest version of Twitter.

We're still, I think, giving people a country error, which is kind of embarrassing. US users are getting a country error, which is incorrect. It actually should be ''You have the wrong version of the Twitter app'' error. So just like stuff like that. That's why it's been a relatively soft launch, and I have not tweeted from my main account, ''Sign up for Twitter Blue.'' It was very intentional.

Employee: I have a follow-up question. When we talked about followers, subscribers. I think Jack [Dorsey] had an interview about two or three years ago talking about how he regrets having the follow button. What's in your vision about this, and do you think that's something we will want to curate because we do want to promote creators?

Musk: I think ''subscriber'' or some other word would probably be a better word than ''follow'' because ''follow'' sounds more like, do you have a cult or something? And I'm like, I guess I kind of do have a bit of a cult, but like, not everyone wants to be a cult member, you know?

So it's more like, I'm interested in what the person or entity has to say. So that's why I'm following them. But I'm not really just their minion. I'm just interested in what they have to say, and I may agree or disagree with it. So I think ''follow'' is probably not the ideal term. And I hate ''super follow'' because it just sounds like a superfan, like I'm your No. 1 fan. It just sounds like, is this person going to stalk me and kill me? So ''super follows,'' I think we're changing that term to ''subscriber'' or something. That's a better term.

Employee: Do you want to reserve this graph of people together, like bulk subscribing to this person's content?

Musk: I am very much open to ideas here. I wouldn't say I'm stuck on anything. The following really just means that I think this person says interesting things, has interesting and maybe funny content. That's why I want to see what they have to say. I'm not necessarily always agreeing with it or always thinking that the content is great. But this is how I want to spend time '-- listening, reading, hearing what this person has to say.

Employee: The reason why I'm asking is a lot of our technology is built toward that kind of graph, and that is where I think it's a critical decision we have to make. I have one more: the home timeline. It's very hard to gauge the intent of the user through just a general home timeline. And we have this search where there are events, neighborhoods, trends, and all these things going on in search. And through the years, we're trying to curate these. Do you see us to be still on the home timeline kind of space '-- or you want to be more exploratory?

I work in the ads group, and intent is the hardest thing for us to get. So I just want to see how you imagine the Twitter app to be. Is it the home timeline, and we optimize there, or should we actually direct the user based on their intent or at least give guidance? Just want to get your thoughts on that.

I'd love to see ads for gizmos. If I saw ads for gizmos, I love gizmos, of course I'd buy them all in a click ... So then I have to send it to my assistant like, ''Please buy this gizmo.''

Musk: Right now, the onramp to Twitter is too complicated, especially via the app. This is for sure a case where TikTok is much better. It's like, buttery smooth to onramp to TikTok, to download the app. And they don't make you create a username or anything like that unless you want to post video content. And the same should be true of Twitter. People download the app just and just ask very broadly what their interests are and then immediately put them into a tweet, show them, I guess, a home timeline that has some of the most interesting tweets. And it may not be things that they've exactly asked for, but they're just really interesting. Sometimes people don't know what to ask for it. We often don't know that something is interesting or entertaining or funny, and I think we can do actually a much better job of that.

So very often, I'll see some really interesting tweet that might have a quarter-million likes, but it was never shown to me in the timeline. And the reason I see it is because a friend of mine sends me the link. If we've got awesome tweets, we should show those to people. Like TikTok, if they have incredibly popular, interesting videos, they will show those to people.

And on the advertising front, I don't think we should have a separate ad engine and tweet recommendation engine because we really want to actually show people ads that are as accurate as possible to their interests. An ad done really well that is what somebody would actually want to buy, especially if it's when they want to buy, is actually content. In order for that to be content, you have to have a wide range of ads. Being asked to sign up for a mortgage when you have no interest in that whatsoever is annoying and spam.

I'd love to see ads for gizmos. If I saw ads for gizmos, I love gizmos, of course, I'd buy them all in a click. Even if they're not that great, I'll still buy gizmos. I love technology. I'll see content for gizmos but not an ad or an ability to actually buy the gizmo. So then I have to send it to my assistant like, ''Please buy this gizmo.'' That's how it goes generally. But I'd be happy to just click on it and buy it.

I think I very rapidly want to improve every aspect of Twitter. Search I know we can improve immediately and in a number of ways. I mean, just this morning, I actually was just looking for Jack [Dorsey] actually. And I typed Jack into the search engine, and ''@jack'' was not the No. 1 thing. But that should be the No. 1 thing. So then I just had to type ''@jack'' in directly. If you type j-a-c-k, your No. 1 thing should be Jack Dorsey. I mean, that's probably what you're looking for, you know? So I think anything we do to improve any aspect of the system, let's do it right away.

Moderator: I received a number of questions over Slack, so I would like to try to summarize and relay. I think a big one that's coming across is we have a lot of services and key contributors who either work from home or remote and was hoping you could share some more thinking behind how we should be handling it, where your head is at in terms of the critical contributors who are remote right now.

Musk: So with respect to remote, I mean, it's a consistent policy that I have at Tesla and SpaceX, which is that we do need to be default in the office and for a reasonable amount of time. It's not like some crazy number of hours. I'll do crazy hours in office, but I'm not asking everyone else to do crazy hours in the office. But it's just my philosophy that people are way more productive when they're in person because the communication is much better.

If you're sitting in the same room and you can interact with people, it's just way better than if you're not sitting in the same room. There's a reason to have offices. Now, if somebody's contribution is so significant that they can overcome the communication difficulties of being remote, then they should absolutely remain at Twitter. But it will be a higher bar. They have to be that much better to overcome the communication issues of being remote. There are plenty of people at Tesla and SpaceX that do work remotely, but it is on an exception basis for exceptional people. And I totally understand if that doesn't work for some people. That's the new philosophy at Twitter.

Those who go hardcore and play to win, Twitter is a good place. And those who are not, totally understand. But then Twitter is not for you.

Moderator: There is another question that I have been getting consistently that I was hoping you could share some thoughts on. What's our plan on the attrition that we're experiencing? And how are we going to really bring people together and get everyone focused on the big vision here?

Musk: Well, I mean, I don't know. I don't have a great answer to that. But I can tell you, philosophically, what works at SpaceX and Tesla is people being in the office and being hardcore, and a small number of people can get a tremendous amount done in that situation. If you look at, say, the Tesla Autopilot AI team, it's about 150 engineers, and they're outperforming teams that they're competing against that are 3,000 engineers. I'm a big believer that a small number of exceptional people can be highly motivated and can do better than a large number of people who are pretty good and moderately motivated. That's my philosophy. And those who go hardcore and play to win, Twitter is a good place. And those who are not, totally understand. But then Twitter is not for you.

Employee: Can we talk about what engineering-driven culture means concretely?

Musk: I guess engineering-driven culture is really just are we advancing the core technology of the product. This is not engineering to the exclusion of everything else. Take Tesla, for example. We have an incredible design studio that I built from scratch with Franz von Holzhausen. We do have a project management organization, and then we've got a very large engineering organization. But product management, design, and engineering all report to me. It's not just like everyone reports to engineering. Its design, project management, and engineering report to me, and they are of equal importance.

In order for Twitter to advance the core product, what is the core product made up of? It's made of software. So unless we write great software, it's difficult to make the product better. At Tesla and SpaceX, we would be going to build rockets and cars and Superchargers and satellites. That's a lot of hardware, and there's also very good software teams there. In fact, I regard Tesla at least as much as a software company as it is a hardware company. But in the case of Twitter, we're not shipping hardware. We're shipping software. So we have to be writing great code that advances the product. It's very obvious.

Employee: Why is our leadership trying to increase attrition rate if we're already understaffed and barely able to keep things running?

Musk: I'm not trying to increase attrition, but I think we are not understaffed. I think we are overstaffed. That is my opinion, which you're welcome to disagree with.

Employee: I think a lot of people want to be participating in teams like that [Twitter Blue]. How can we spin up more of these types of projects, and then how can we do so sustainably?

We are going to be paranoid, and we're going to survive.

Musk: I think we need to spool up subscriptions. The reason I have extremely high urgency around subscriptions is that we are headed into, I think, quite a serious recession. And you can see that with basically every company doing layoffs. It's not just Twitter. And in a recession, advertising is disproportionately affected. And then advertising where the advertiser cannot clearly trace how much they spent on an ad to what demand it generated, which is known as brand advertising, will be even more affected. This puts Twitter as we look ahead into a very dire situation from a revenue standpoint.

You may have read that I sold a bunch of Tesla stock. The reason I did that was to save Twitter. Not because I lack faith in Tesla. I think Tesla stock is going to be worth an immense amount in the future. I sold the stock for Twitter. To keep Twitter alive. And the reason that we are going hardcore with subscribers is to keep Twitter alive. There's going to be probably a year or two of serious recession that, again, will disproportionately affect us. And we're going to get through that and not be dead. That's the reason for the priority there.

I've been through the recession of 2000 and 2001 and 2008''9, and I'm somewhat paranoid about dying in recessions. I have recession PTSD from keeping X and PayPal alive through the 2000 recession, keeping Tesla alive in the 2009 recession. It's worth remembering that, in 2009, General Motors and Chrysler both went bankrupt. Tesla did not, despite being a startup electric vehicle company. It was excruciatingly difficult to keep us alive in 2009. And the reason we were able to keep alive is partly by just being paranoid. It's like Andy Gross' famous statement: ''Only the paranoid survive.'' Well then, we are going to be paranoid, and we're going to survive.

Moderator: I have another question from remote folks: What is our runway?

Musk: It's difficult to say what our runway, our cash runway, is because I don't know what the revenue shortfall will be next year. But I think it is possible that we could see a net negative cash flow of several billion dollars. It's impossible to predict the actual severity of a recession or the length of it. But we do not want to have a situation where we're betting on the recession being shallow and short if, in fact, it ends up being a deep recession that is long. We need to make sure we can survive a deep recession that is long.

Basically, if you can show up in an office and you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted. End of story.

Moderator reads question about reporting structure.

I haven't had time to dig into the design side on Twitter, but I would say that, over time, it would be more like design, program management, and engineering would report directly to me and balance of the product across those three organizations, just like Tesla. Anyone who has great design and is artistically excellent, I would recommend that they stay and that this will be a happy home for them.

Employee: Hey, I was wondering back to the return office question. So much of the company is distributed right now. Are you asking us to return to the office just to get on calls with the other offices? We're not going to lose access to teammates in-person anyways. Why are you asking this?

Musk: Let me be crystal clear. If people do not return to the office when they are able to return to the office, they cannot remain at the company. End of story.

Employee: That's not my question. Even if people return to the office, the offices are separate offices. We won't be in person anyways.

Musk: Yes, but you can still maximize the amount of in-person activity. Tesla is not one place either. Basically, if you can show up in an office and you do not show up at the office, resignation accepted. End of story.

Employee: I work on growth and notifications. We've been having a lot of adventure in the last two weeks. We've shipped a lot of different things. I want to understand, over the next three months, what is the best thing for us to do? Should we continue trying a lot of different things and see where we grow? Or do we have a particular focus, or we want to focus on one or two things? Specifically, are we trying to get the next billion users? Or are we trying to focus more on revenue? I'd love to understand if there's a particular focus.

Musk: We just definitely need to bring in more cash than we spend. If we don't do that and there's a massive negative cash flow, then bankruptcy is not out of the question. That is a priority. We can't scale to 1 billion users and take massive losses along the way. That's not feasible. I don't think we will. As we make the product more compelling, if we fix and improve search, that would be massive. Add video content where creators are compensated, and it draws people to be subscribers to Twitter, then I think we will see that these things are not misaligned. They are aligned. If you have a compelling product, people will buy it. That has been my experience at SpaceX and Tesla.

Employee: And sorry, just to be a little bit more specific, is your recommendation that all of us in different teams, we try different things in the next few months to see what works, what doesn't, or do you have a specific recommendation of what our focus should be?

Musk: I think just sort of proposing those things to me, I think, would be the right thing to do. But, you know, like I said, I think there's a lot that is very, very obvious that we need to do. Like video content and compensating content creators in order to get content on Twitter and not have them be forced to put content elsewhere or not pay the bills, which is currently the situation. That's a no-brainer. High priority. Improving search: high priority. We are obviously going to add payments capability to Twitter. That's also a high priority. And if there is something you think we should do that I'm not aware of, just tell me about it, and I'm open to doing it.

Employee: I'll take the opportunity to talk about notifications. We've heard a lot about how notifications can be chaotic, especially for heavy users, but at the same time, it drives 20 percent of our growth. I'm curious to hear where you see notifications for Twitter going.

Musk: I think we should be careful with notifications. Like what would you want to do if you didn't work here would be a good test. If you're just a Twitter user and you didn't work at Twitter, what would you want Twitter to do? So you wouldn't want to do things that are annoying just to drive like user minutes or something like that. But you would want Twitter to alert you to something that is interesting. So I think just generally saying what would you want Twitter to do if you weren't at Twitter is a good way to think about whether it's the right thing or not.

Employee: We are embarking on a payments journey almost from scratch here. When you look back and think, what do you think we should do differently from what you had originally planned for PayPal? Or what are some of the mistakes that we should avoid or some of the things that we should try?

And if you address all things that you want from a finance standpoint, then we will be the people's financial institution.

Musk: The full answer to the payment story is complicated. PayPal, as it's known today, is a subset of a feature roadmap that we wrote in July of 2000. Roughly speaking, you want to basically populate a balance for every verified Twitter user. Give them some amount of money, like 10 bucks or something, that they can send anywhere in the system. We need money transfer licenses for that, which we've applied for.

Then, in order to get money out of the system in parallel, we establish a high-yield money market account so that having a Twitter balance is the highest-yield thing that you can do. So that if somebody has a checking account, a savings account, or some bank CDs and a money market account, and a credit card situation... This is very complex and expensive. If you can simply have one balance on Twitter that can simply go positive or a negative, and when it goes positive, the interest rate is better than what you could receive elsewhere, and when it goes negative, the interest rate is lower than what you see elsewhere, now you have a much simpler system.

Then you attach a debit card to the Twitter account so that you have backward compatibility into the payments system because not everyone will accept Twitter. So if have above a certain balance, you automatically send people a debit card. You want backward compatibility to the existing financial infrastructure.

In the US, there's still a small number of checks that are used. So if your landlord is demanding that you send a check, you have to have some non-zero number of checks. Then we would send a small number of checks to those that need to have checks. Then you add automatic payment. Then over time, you basically address what are all the things that you'd want from a finance standpoint. And if you address all things that you want from a finance standpoint, then we will be the people's financial institution.

Employee: It sounds like more of a bank. Do you also foresee us loaning?

Musk: Well, if you want to provide a comprehensive service to people, then you can't be missing key elements.

Moderator: We have a question from the privacy and infosec teams. It's very clear to us that accelerating product launches and experimentation is going to be important to dig ourselves out of this economic situation. At the same time, we have some pretty significant privacy and infosec obligations that we have to meet. How do you foresee this factoring into the equation in terms of being able to be equally focused on security and privacy?

Musk: First of all, I'm not not familiar with security and privacy. I'm actually very familiar with it. If you think about Tesla, all the cars are connected globally. We know where people went. In fact, we intentionally do not store the last half mile or so of where people went. We go to great lengths at Tesla because, you think about it, a Tesla has surround cameras going. There are immense privacy issues with having an always-connected car with cameras. We've gone to great lengths at Tesla to protect people's privacy. And the same is true of Starlink. You can see what websites they visit. You know where they are with precision.

And so if Starlink or SpaceX was not very good at privacy, the whole system would collapse, and people would lose faith in it. And same is true of Tesla. So this is not some new thing for me. I've been dealing with privacy issues for a very long time. Same is true of PayPal. This is not my first rodeo on the privacy front. Like my sixth rodeo. All right, we'll take a couple more questions.

Moderator: What are you thinking in terms of top-line metrics? So as we think about trying to prioritize our work across the company, what are the key one or two metrics?

Musk: I think we don't want to get overly focused on metrics. It's helpful to see these metrics as sanity checks. But if you're over-optimized on a metric, then you end up being just like a foolish AI. You pursue a number without common sense. What actually matters is: are we making the product amazing? If you make the product amazing, people will use it.

At Tesla, we do no market surveys, no market testing. We just make cars that we love and that we are convinced people will love. That's it. And Tesla outsells everyone. Tesla outsells all the people that are focused on the metrics, all the people that do the market surveys, outsells all of them. Because we focus on making the product amazing, and that's what matters. Okay, last question.

Employee: With regard to our infrastructure costs and migration to cloud, what's our goal? Do we want to be in cloud? Do we want to be our own DC? Mix of two?

Musk: We're not trying to migrate to cloud or not migrate to cloud. I think that is neither here nor there. We need to make folks make the product great, and it is neither here nor there.

Employee: How can we improve the conversion rate by making the platform more e-commerce friendly?

Musk: You mean by enabling people to buy things?

Employee: Yeah.

Musk: Well, that goes hand in hand with payments. If you have a balance on Twitter or you have basically money in your Twitter account, then it's actually very easy to buy things. So that's a natural outgrowth of having an effective payment system, is making it easy to buy stuff.

I think there's tremendous untapped opportunity at Twitter. Thank you.

Update November 15th 3:45PM PT: Removed reference to Twitter's head of ad sales resigning since that person, Robin Wheeler, was convinced by Musk to stay shortly after she resigned.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:15

Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), John Kennedy (R-La.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), in a letter late Monday evening, asked crypto-friendly bank Silvergate (SI) for answers over its supposed role in facilitating transfers between bankrupt exchange FTX and its sister firm, Alameda Research

Following FTX's bankruptcy filing, allegations have been made that former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried made large transfers of customer funds from the exchange to trading firm Alameda Research, which he also owned. The senators' letter comes at a time when the investment community is suspicious about what role Silvergate may have played in this activity.

FTX and the related entities in Bankman-Fried's crypto empire held around 20 different accounts at Silvergate, according to a bankruptcy filing.

"[There are] reports that Mr. Bankman-Fried 'secretly transferred some $10 billion of customer funds to his trading vehicle, Alameda Research,' to fund 'risky bets,' violating both U.S. securities laws and FTX's own terms of service," said the letter. "We are concerned about Silvergate's role in these activities because of reports suggesting that Silvergate facilitated the transfer of FTX customer funds to Alameda."

Silvergate shares are adding to their roughly 50% decline since the FTX collapse, down another 6.15% and touching a new 52-week low in Tuesday morning trade.

Silvergate issued the following statement, reported NBC: "Like many others, Silvergate was the victim of FTX's and Alameda Research's apparent misuse of customer assets and other lapses of judgment and we believe our full cooperation will help set the record straight about our role in the digital asset ecosystem." The bank has until Dec. 19 to officially respond to the senators.

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Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated.The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG.

Jamie Crawley

Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.

Jamie Crawley

Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.

Link to Article

Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 14:14

American businessman (born 1992)

Samuel Bankman-Fried[1] (born March 6, 1992[2]), also known by his initials SBF,[3] is an American entrepreneur, investor and founder and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX,[4][5][6][7] FTX.US[8] and cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research. FTX experienced a crisis in late 2022, which led to a collapse in FTX's native cryptocurrency, FTT. Amid the crisis, Bankman-Fried announced he would wind down operations at Alameda Research and resigned as CEO of FTX, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.[9][10]

Bankman-Fried's net worth peaked at $26 billion.[11] In October 2022, he had an estimated net worth of $10.5 billion.[12] However, on November 8, 2022, amid FTX's solvency crisis, his net worth was estimated to have dropped 94% in a day to $991.5 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the largest one-day drop in the index's history.[13][10] By November 11, 2022, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index considered Bankman-Fried to have no material wealth.[14]

Before Bankman-Fried's wealth disappeared in November 2022, Bankman-Fried was a major donor to Democratic Party candidates.[15][16] He was the second-largest individual donor to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, personally donating $5.2 million,[17][18] and he donated $40 million, mostly to Democratic candidates, during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections.[19]

Early life and education Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University[2] into a Jewish family.[20][21] He is the son of Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, both professors at Stanford Law School.[2] His aunt Linda P. Fried is the current dean of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.[22] His brother, Gabriel Bankman-Fried, is a former Wall Street trader[23] and the former director of the non-profit Guarding Against Pandemics and its associated political action committee (PAC).[24][25][26]

Bankman-Fried attended Canada/USA Mathcamp, a summer program for mathematically talented high-school students.[2] He attended high school at Crystal Springs Uplands School in Hillsborough, California.[27] From 2010 to 2014, Bankman-Fried attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[2] There, he lived in a coeducational group house called Epsilon Theta.[2] In 2014, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics and a minor in mathematics.[2][28][29]

Career In the summer of 2013, Bankman-Fried worked as an intern at Jane Street Capital, a proprietary trading firm,[2] trading international ETFs.[30] He returned to work there full-time after graduation from MIT.[2]

In September 2017, Bankman-Fried left Jane Street and moved to Berkeley, where he worked briefly at the Centre for Effective Altruism as director of development from October to November 2017.[2][31] In November 2017, he co-founded Alameda Research, a quantitative trading firm, with Tara Mac Aulay from the Centre of Effective Altruism.[2][32] As of 2021, Bankman-Fried owned approximately 90% of Alameda Research.[2] In January 2018, Bankman-Fried organized an arbitrage trade, moving up to $25 million per day, to take advantage of the higher price of bitcoin in Japan compared to in America.[2][31] After attending a late 2018 cryptocurrency conference in Macau, he moved to Hong Kong.[2][33] He founded FTX, a cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, in April 2019; it opened for business the following month.[2]

On December 8, 2021, Bankman-Fried, along with other industry executives, testified before the Committee on Financial Services about regulating the cryptocurrency industry.[34][35]

On May 12, 2022, it was disclosed that Emergent Fidelity Technologies Ltd., which is majority owned by Bankman-Fried, had bought 7.6% of Robinhood Markets Inc. stock.[36][37]

In September 2022, it was reported that Bankman-Fried's advisors had offered on his behalf to help fund Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter.[38] According to messages released as part of the lawsuit between Twitter and Musk during the latter's acquisition of Twitter, on April 25, 2022, investment banker Michael Grimes wrote that Bankman-Fried would be willing to commit up to $5 billion.[39]

Bankman-Fried invested more than $500 million in venture capital firms, including $200 million in Sequoia Capital.[40] Sequoia published a "glowing" profile of Bankman-Fried which it subsequently removed after the solvency crisis at FTX was revealed.[41][42]

Effective altruism Bankman-Fried has stated he is a supporter of effective altruism and says that he is pursuing earning to give as an altruistic career.[43][44] He is a member of Giving What We Can and has stated that he planned to donate the great majority of his wealth to effective charities over the course of his life.[6] He founded the FTX Future Fund for this purpose, which included William MacAskill, one of the founders of the effective altruism movement. After the collapse of FTX, the entire team resigned.[45][46] Future Fund had committed $160 million in charitable grants and investments by September 1, 2022.[46] In November 2022, Bankman-Fried stated that the altruistic and woke appearance he and his company displayed was not sincere, and was a "dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] and so everyone likes us".[47][48]

Solvency crisis at FTX In November 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao revealed on Twitter that his firm intended to sell its holdings of FTT, FTX's token.[49] Binance received $529 million worth of FTT as part of a sale of its equity in FTX in 2021.[50] Zhao published his tweet soon after a report from CoinDesk stating that the bulk of the holdings of Alameda, Bankman-Fried's trading firm, were in FTT.[50] Bloomberg and TechCrunch reported that any sale by Binance would likely have an outsize impact on FTT's price due to the token's low trading volume.[51][52] The announcement by Zhao of the pending sale and disputes between Zhao and Bankman-Fried on Twitter led to a decline in the price of FTT and other cryptocurrencies.[53] Shortly before, Zhao had criticized Bankman-Fried's lobbying efforts.[clarification needed ][54]

On November 8, Zhao announced that Binance had entered into a non-binding agreement to purchase FTX due to a liquidity crisis at FTX.[55][56] Zhao stated that Binance would complete due diligence soon and that all crypto exchanges should avoid using tokens as collateral.[57][58] He also wrote that he expected FTT to be "highly volatile in the coming days as things develop". On the day of the announcement, FTT lost 80 percent of its value.[59][60] On November 9, the Wall Street Journal reported that Binance had decided not to acquire FTX.[61] Binance cited reports of FTX's mishandling of customer funds and pending investigations of FTX as the reasons the firm would not pursue the deal.[62] Amid the crisis, Bankman-Fried was no longer a billionaire, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.[13] The very next day, Bloomberg reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission were investigating FTX and the nature of its connections to Bankman-Fried's other holdings.[63]

Anonymous sources cited by Reuters stated that Bankman-Fried had transferred at least $4 billion from FTX to Alameda Research, without any disclosure to insiders or the public, earlier in 2022. The sources said that the money transferred had included customer funds, and that it was backed by FTT and shares in Robinhood.[64][65] An anonymous source cited by the Wall Street Journal stated that Bankman-Fried had disclosed that Alameda owed FTX about $10 billion which was secured through customer funds held by FTX when FTX had, at the time, $16 billion in customer assets.[66] According to anonymous sources cited by the Wall Street Journal, the Chief Executive of Alameda Research Caroline Ellison told employees that Bankman-Fried was aware that FTX had lent its customers' money to Alameda to help it meet its liabilities.[67]

Resignation and aftermath Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO of FTX on November 11 and was replaced by John J. Ray III, who has experience helping creditors recoup losses at other companies, including Enron.[68] FTX and related entities filed for bankruptcy in Delaware on the same day.[69]

One day after FTX declared bankruptcy, on November 12, Bankman-Fried was interviewed by the Royal Bahamas Police Force.[70]

On 17 November, John J. Ray III, the CEO brought in as a liquidator, stated in a sworn declaration submitted in bankruptcy court that according to the firm's records, Alameda Research had lent $1 billion to Bankman-Fried.[71][72]

Political donations 2020 and earlier Bankman-Fried's only campaign finance activity prior to 2019 was a $1,000 contribution in 2010 to Michael Bennet.[18]

In the 2020 US election cycle, he contributed $5.2 million to two super PACs that supported the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign.[18] Bankman-Fried was the second-largest individual donor to Biden in the 2020 election cycle,[17] second to only Michael Bloomberg.[43][73]

2021'' February 2022 Contributions from June 2021 through February 2022 were made to members of both U.S. political parties. They included direct donations to the Republican campaigns of senators Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska.[18] Journalist Matthew Kassel notes that Bankman-Fried had often donated to politicians who cultivate good Israel''US relations, but concluded: "it is unclear if his backing of pro-Israel candidates was coincidental or motivated by any personal interest in Middle East policy."[21]

In 2022, Bankman-Fried provided initial financial support for Protect Our Future PAC. Protect Our Future was launched as a Democratic political action committee with $10 million in initial funding aiming to support "lawmakers who play the long game on policymaking in areas like pandemic preparedness and planning", according to Politico.[74]

2022 U.S. midterm elections Bankman-Fried was the second-largest individual donor to Democratic causes in the 2021''2022 election cycle, with total donations of $39.8 million, only behind George Soros.[75][76][77] Of this, $27 million was given to the Protect Our Future PAC.[78]

Bankman-Fried said in February 2022 that his political contributions were not aimed at influencing his policy goals for the cryptocurrency ecosystem; however, FTX was circulating a list of suggestions to policymakers at the time.[18] He said in an interview that he would prefer the Commodity Futures Trading Commission take a larger role in regulating and guiding the crypto industry.[18] According to the New York Times, The CFTC has a reputation for favoring relatively relaxed regulations for the industry when contrasted with other regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission.[79]

Bankman-Fried pushed for regulations via the proposed Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA) by extensively lobbying Congress, which was perceived as being favorable to FTX but harmful to the broader industry, especially its decentralized finance competitors.[80][81][82]

In May 2022, Bankman-Fried stated that he planned to spend "north of $100 million" in the 2024 presidential election with a "soft ceiling" of $1 billion.[83] In October 2022, he walked back his pledged spending, calling it a "dumb quote on my part".[84]

Contributions for the year 2022 went to members of both parties, with $35,872,000 donated to liberals (99.6%) and $155,000 to conservatives (0.4%).[85][86]

In the aftermath of the FTX scandal, recipients of Bankman-Fried's and other FTX executives' political campaign contributions have been donating equal amounts to charitable organizations. Elected officials doing so include Senator Kirsten Gillibrand[87] and Representatives Chuy Garc­a and Kevin Hern.[88] A spokesperson for former Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke said that his campaign had received a $1 million donation from Bankman-Fried in October 2022, but returned the funds in early November, prior to the election.[89]

Pandemic prevention advocacy Bankman-Fried and his younger brother, Gabe, made "contributions on a staggering scale" toward pandemic prevention initiatives, according to an investigative report by The Washington Post. "The shock waves from FTX's free fall have rippled across the public health world, where numerous leaders in pandemic-preparedness had received funds from FTX funders or were seeking donations."[90] Other public health philanthropy included a $5 million donation by the Bankman-Fried Family Foundation to ProPublica, to support reporting on bio-security in February 2022.[91] FTX donated $18 million to support the TOGETHER Trial global expansion, announced on the same day that trial investigators received the Trial of the Year Award from the Society for Clinical Trials for their work on COVID-19 treatments.[92][93]

Personal life Bankman-Fried is vegan.[33] As of mid-2021, he lived in a 5-bedroom penthouse in the Bahamas with about ten roommates.[29][94] After the collapse of FTX, the penthouse was put up for sale for close to $40 million.[95]

According to former employees of FTX and Alameda, Bankman-Fried was romantically involved with co-worker Caroline Ellison, the CEO at Alameda Research.[96][97]

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South China Morning Post . Retrieved July 28, 2021 . ^ Adragna, Anthony (January 27, 2022). "A new Democratic super PAC has entered the chat: Protect Our Future will invest $10 million in Democratic primaries for lawmakers who take "a long term view on policy planning." ". Politico. ^ "Oops. Sam Bankman-Fried's implosion took down Democrats' second-biggest donor with it as the party gears up to regulate crypto". Fortune . Retrieved November 11, 2022 . ^ Durot, Matt. "Ahead Of His Crypto Firm's Cash Crunch, Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried Spent Tens Of Millions On Politics". Forbes . Retrieved November 11, 2022 . ^ Sigalos, MacKenzie. "FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried backs down from 'dumb quote' about giving $1 billion to political races". CNBC . Retrieved November 11, 2022 . ^ "Meet the mega-donors pumping millions into the 2022 midterms". Washington Post . Retrieved November 11, 2022 . ^ Yaffe-Bellany, David (May 14, 2022). "A Crypto Emperor's Vision: No Pants, His Rules". The New York Times . Retrieved May 14, 2022 . ^ "Analysis | FTX's Sudden Unraveling May Allow DeFi to Grow". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286 . Retrieved November 12, 2022 . ^ "Sam Bankman-Fried was the face of crypto in D.C. What would FTX's acquisition mean for regulation?". Fortune . Retrieved November 12, 2022 . ^ Lang, Hannah (November 9, 2022). "Explainer: Crypto industry spends millions on U.S. midterm elections". Reuters . Retrieved November 12, 2022 . ^ "Crypto billionaire says he could spend a record $1 billion in 2024 election". NBC News. ^ "Crypto kingpin bet a fortune on Democrats. Now he's lost it all. POLITICO". Politico. ^ "2022 Top Donors to Outside Spending Groups". ^ "Bankman-Fried, Sam: Donor Detail". OpenSecrets . Retrieved November 28, 2022 . ^ "Politicians spurn contributions from bankrupt crypto exchange FTX and its former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried". ^ "Lawmakers return FTX money". Politico. ^ Kaminsky, Gabe (November 29, 2022). "Beto O'Rourke returned $1 million campaign donation from Sam Bankman-Fried, campaign claims". Washington Examiner . Retrieved December 3, 2022 . ^ Diamond, Dan (November 16, 2022). "Before FTX collapse, founder poured millions into pandemic prevention". Washington Post . Retrieved November 28, 2022 . ^ "Bankman-Fried Family Donates $5 Million to ProPublica". ProPublica . Retrieved November 28, 2022 . ^ "The FTX Foundation supports the global expansion of the Trial of the Year award winning TOGETHER Trial". www.prnewswire.com. May 16, 2022 . Retrieved November 28, 2022 . The unique partnership now between the FTX Foundation and the TOGETHER Trial has already had a direct effect on the way global clinical research is conducted... ^ "Fact Check-TOGETHER Trial says involvement with FTX began after testing that found ivermectin ineffective". Reuters. November 22, 2022 . Retrieved November 28, 2022 . ^ "A 30-Year-Old Crypto Billionaire Wants to Give His Fortune Away". Bloomberg.com. April 3, 2022. ^ "Sam Bankman-Fried's $40m Bahamas penthouse reportedly up for sale". the Guardian. November 14, 2022 . Retrieved November 16, 2022 . ^ Alexander Osipovich; Caitlin Ostroff; Patricia Kowsmann; Angel Au-Yeung; Matt Grossman (November 19, 2022). "They Lived Together, Worked Together and Lost Billions Together: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Doomed FTX Empire". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Wikidata Q115293164 . Retrieved November 19, 2022 . He was at times romantically involved with Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old CEO of his trading firm, Alameda Research, according to former employees. ^ Varanasi, Lakshmi (November 11, 2022). "FTX's crypto empire was reportedly run by a bunch of roommates in the Bahamas who dated each other, according to the news site that helped trigger the company's sudden collapse". Business Insider. Among the named members of Bankman-Fried's inner circle were Caroline Ellison, Alameda's current CEO. Ellison was the only employee CoinDesk singled out for having reportedly dated Bankman-Fried at one point, but no other specific past or present relationships were disclosed. External links Appearances on C-SPANInterview with Sam Bankman-Fried on Sam Harris' Making Sense podcast

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Official currency of West Germany and later Germany from 1948 to 2002

This article is about the mark issued by the Federal Republic of Germany. For the mark issued by the German Democratic Republic, see

East German mark. For the currency of the German Empire from 1873 to 1914, see

German mark (1871).

Deutsche Mark D-Mark

Deutsche Mark banknotes from 1989

CodeDEMUnitMarkPluralMarkSymbol DM 'ŽSubunit '‚ 1 ' 100 PfennigPlural '‚Pfennig PfennigSymbol '‚Pfennig pfBanknotes '‚Freq. used DM5, DM10, DM20, DM50, DM100, DM200 '‚Rarely used DM500, DM1,000Coins '‚Freq. used 1pf, 2pf, 5pf, 10pf, 50pf, DM1, DM2, DM5 Official user(s) None previously Unofficial user(s) Central bank Deutsche Bundesbank '‚Website www.bundesbank.de Printer '‚Website Mint '‚Website Inflation1.4%, December 2001Pegged byBosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, Bulgarian lev at par Since 13 March 1979 Fixed rate since 31 December 1998 Replaced by euro, non cash 1 January 1999 Replaced by euro, cash 1 March 2002 1 '‚¬ = DM 1.95583This infobox shows the latest status before this currency was rendered obsolete.The Deutsche Mark (German: [ËdÉ--ʏtÊƒÉ Ëmaʁk] ( listen ) ; English: German mark), abbreviated "DM" or "D-Mark" ([Ëdeːˌmaʁk] ( listen ) ), was the official currency of West Germany from 1948 until 1990 and later the unified Germany from 1990 until the adoption of the euro in 2002. In English, it was typically called the "Deutschmark" (). One Deutsche Mark was divided into 100 pfennigs.

It was first issued under Allied occupation in 1948 to replace the Reichsmark and served as the Federal Republic of Germany's official currency from its founding the following year. On 31 December 1998, the Council of the European Union fixed the irrevocable exchange rate, effective 1 January 1999, for German mark to euros as DM 1.95583 = '‚¬1.[3] In 1999, the Deutsche Mark was replaced by the euro; its coins and banknotes remained in circulation, defined in terms of euros, until the introduction of euro notes and coins on 1 January 2002. The Deutsche Mark ceased to be legal tender immediately upon the introduction of the euro'--in contrast to the other eurozone nations, where the euro and legacy currency circulated side by side for up to two months. Mark coins and banknotes continued to be accepted as valid forms of payment in Germany until 28 February 2002.

The Deutsche Bundesbank has guaranteed that all German marks in cash form may be changed into euros indefinitely, and one may do so in person at any branch of the Bundesbank in Germany. Banknotes and coins can even be sent to the Bundesbank by mail.[4] In 2012, it was estimated that as many as 13.2 billion marks were in circulation, with one poll from 2011 showing a narrow majority of Germans favouring the currency's restoration (although only a minority believed this would bring any economic benefit).[5][6]

History [ edit ] Before 1871 [ edit ] A mark had been the currency of Germany since its original unification in 1871. Before that time, the different German states issued a variety of different currencies, the most common being the North German thaler and the South German gulden. By 1857 though both currencies have been linked to the Vereinsthaler, a silver coin containing 16 + 2 ' 3 grams of pure silver. Although the German gold mark was based on gold rather than silver (at 2.79 marks per gram of fine gold), a fixed exchange rate between the Vereinsthaler and the mark of 3 marks = 1 Vereinsthaler was used for the conversion.

1873''1948 [ edit ] The first mark, known as the Goldmark, was introduced in 1873. With the outbreak of World War I, the mark was taken off the gold standard. The currency thus became known as the Papiermark, especially as high inflation, then hyperinflation occurred and the currency became exclusively made up of paper money. The Papiermark was replaced by the Rentenmark (RM) from November 15, 1923, and the Reichsmark ('›'") in 1924.

Early military occupation following WWII [ edit ] During the first two years of occupation the occupying powers of France, United Kingdom, United States, and the Soviet Union were not able to successfully negotiate a possible currency reform in Germany. Due to the strains between the Allies each zone was governed independently as regards monetary matters. The US occupation policy was governed by the directive JCS 1067 (in effect until July 1947), which forbade the US military governor "to take any steps to strengthen German financial structure".[7] As a consequence a separate monetary reform in the U.S. zone was not possible.[7] Each of the Allies printed its own occupation currency.

Currency reform of June 1948 [ edit ] The Deutsche Mark was officially introduced on Sunday, June 20, 1948, by Ludwig Erhard. The old Reichsmark and Rentenmark were exchanged for the new currency at a rate of DM 1 = 10 '›'" for the essential currency such as wages, payment of rents etc., and DM 1 = 10 '›'" for the remainder in private non-bank credit balances, with half frozen.[clarification needed ] Large amounts were exchanged for 10 '›'" to 65pf. In addition, each person received a per capita allowance of DM 60 in two parts, the first being DM 40 and the second DM 20.[8]

A few weeks later Erhard, acting against orders, issued an edict abolishing many economic controls which had been originally implemented by the Nazis, and which the Allies had not removed. He did this, as he often confessed, on Sunday because the offices of the American, British, and French occupation authorities were closed that day. He was sure that if he had done it when they were open, they would have countermanded the order.[9]

The introduction of the new currency was intended to protect western Germany from a second wave of hyperinflation and to stop the rampant barter and black market trade (where cigarettes were used as currency). Although the new currency was initially only distributed in the three western occupation zones outside Berlin, the move angered the Soviet authorities, who regarded it as a threat. The Soviets promptly cut off all road, rail and canal links between the three western zones and West Berlin, starting the Berlin Blockade. In response, the U.S. and Britain launched an airlift of food and coal and distributed the new currency in West Berlin as well.

Economics of 1948 currency reform [ edit ] Since the 1930s, prices and wages had been controlled, but money had been plentiful. That meant that people had accumulated large paper assets, and that official prices and wages did not reflect reality, as the black market dominated the economy and more than half of all transactions were taking place unofficially. The reform replaced the old money with the new Deutsche Mark at the rate of one new per ten old. This wiped out 90% of government and private debt, as well as private savings. Prices were decontrolled, and labor unions agreed to accept a 15% wage increase, despite the 25% rise in prices. The result was the prices of German export products held steady, while profits and earnings from exports soared and were poured back into the economy. The currency reforms were simultaneous with the $1.4 billion in Marshall Plan money coming in from the United States, which primarily was used for investment. In addition, the Marshall plan forced German companies, as well as those in all of Western Europe, to modernize their business practices, and take account of the wider market. Marshall plan funding overcame bottlenecks in the surging economy caused by remaining controls (which were removed in 1949), and opened up a greatly expanded market for German exports. Overnight, consumer goods appeared in the stores, because they could be sold for higher prices.[10][11] While the availability of consumer goods is seen as a giant success story by most historians of the present, the perception at the time was a different one: prices were so high that average people could not afford to shop, especially since prices were free-ranging but wages still fixed by law. Therefore, in the summer of 1948 a giant wave of strikes and demonstrations swept over West Germany, leading to an incident in Stuttgart where strikers were met by US tanks ("Stuttgarter Vorf¤lle"). Only after the wage-freeze was abandoned, Deutschmark and free-ranging prices were accepted by the population.[12]

Currency reform in the Soviet occupation zone [ edit ] In the Soviet occupation zone of Germany (later the German Democratic Republic), the East German mark (also named "Deutsche Mark" from 1948 to 1964 and colloquially referred to as the Ostmark'--literally Eastmark) was introduced a few days afterwards in the form of Reichsmark and Rentenmark notes with adhesive stamps to stop the flooding in of Reichsmark and Rentenmark notes from the West. In July 1948, a completely new series of East German mark banknotes was issued.

Bank deutscher L¤nder and the Deutsche Bundesbank [ edit ] Later in 1948, the Bank deutscher L¤nder ("Bank of the German States") assumed responsibility, followed in 1957 by the Deutsche Bundesbank. The Deutsche Mark earned a reputation as a strong store of value at times when other national currencies succumbed to periods of inflation.[citation needed ] It became a source of national pride and an anchor for the country's economic prosperity,[citation needed ] particularly during the years of the Wirtschaftswunder in the 1950s.

Currency union with the Saarland [ edit ] The population in the Saar Protectorate rejected in a referendum the proposal to turn it into a "European territory". Despite French pre-referendum claims that a "no" vote would mean that the Saar would remain a French protectorate it in fact resulted in the incorporation of the Saar into the Federal Republic of Germany on January 1, 1957. The new German member state of the Saarland maintained its currency, the Saar franc, which was in a currency union at par with the French franc. On July 9, 1959, the Deutsche Mark replaced the Saar franc at a ratio of 100 francs = DM 0.8507.

German reunification [ edit ] The Deutsche Mark played an important role in the reunification of Germany. It was introduced as the official currency of East Germany in July 1990, replacing the East German mark (Mark der DDR), in preparation for unification on 3 October 1990. East German marks were exchanged for Deutsche marks at a rate of 1:1 for the first M 4,000 and 2:1 for larger amounts. Before reunification, each citizen of East Germany coming to West Germany was given Begr¼Ÿungsgeld (welcome money), a per capita allowance of DM 100 in cash. The government of Germany and the Bundesbank were in major disagreement over the exchange rate between the East German mark and the German mark.

France and the United Kingdom were opposed to German reunification, and attempted to influence the Soviet Union to stop it.[13] However, in late 1989 France extracted German commitment to the Monetary Union in return for support for German reunification.[14]

Stability [ edit ] The German mark had a reputation as one of the world's most stable currencies; this was based on the monetary policy of the Bundesbank. The policy was "hard" in relation to the policies of certain other central banks in Europe. The "hard" and "soft" was in respect to the aims of inflation and political interference. This policy was the foundation of the European Central Bank's present policy[clarification needed ] towards the euro. The German mark's stability was greatly apparent in 1993, when speculation on the French franc and other European currencies caused a change in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. However, it should be remembered that "hard" is relative only if it is compared to other currencies, as in its 53-year history, the purchasing power of the German mark was reduced by over 70%.

Coins [ edit ] The first Deutsche Mark coins were issued by the Bank deutscher L¤nder in 1948 and 1949. From 1950, the inscription Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany) appeared on the coins. These coins were issued in denominations of 1pf, 2pf, 5pf, 10pf, and 50pf. The 1pf and 2pf coins were struck in bronze clad steel (although during some years the 2pf was issued in solid bronze) while 5pf and 10pf were brass clad steel and the 50-pfennig was in cupronickel. In 1950, cupronickel DM 1 coins were released, while a cupronickel DM 2 and a .625 silver DM 5 were released in 1951. Cupronickel replaced silver in the DM 5 in 1975. The DM 2 and DM 5 coins have often been used for commemorative themes, though typically only the generic design for the DM5 is intended for circulation. Commemorative silver DM 10 coins have also been issued which have periodically found their way into circulation. Unlike other European countries, Germany retained the use of the smallest coins (1pf and 2pf) until adoption of the euro.

The weights and dimensions of the coins can be found in an FAQ of the Bundesbank.[18]

Unlike other countries (such as Australia) there was no attempt or proposal suggested for the withdrawal of the 1pf and 2pf coins. Both coins were still in circulation in 2001 and supermarkets in particular still marked prices to the nearest pfennig. This penchant for accuracy continues with the euro (while Finland or the Netherlands for example, price to the nearest 5 cents) with the 1-cent coin still encountered in Germany.

There were a considerable number of commemorative silver DM 5 and DM 10 coins, which actually had the status of legal tender but were rarely seen outside of collectors' circles.

Obverse view of the 2001 special gold issue of the DM1 coin

On 27 December 2000, the German government enacted a law authorizing the Bundesbank to issue, in 2001, a special .999 pure gold DM 1 coin commemorating the end of the German mark. The coin had the exact design and dimensions of the circulating cupro-nickel DM 1 coin, with the exception of the inscription on the reverse, which read "Deutsche Bundesbank" (instead of "Bundesrepublik Deutschland"), as the Bundesbank was the issuing authority in this case. A total of one million gold DM 1 coins were minted (200,000 at each of the five mints) and were sold beginning in mid-2001 through German coin dealers on behalf of the Bundesbank. The issue price varied by dealer but averaged approximately US$165.

German coins bear a mint mark, indicating where the coin was minted. D indicates Munich, F Stuttgart, G Karlsruhe and J Hamburg. Coins minted during the Second World War include the mint marks A (Berlin) and B (Vienna). The mint mark A was also used for German mark coins minted in Berlin beginning in 1990 following the reunification of Germany. These mint marks have been continued on the German euro coins.

Between July 1, 1990 (the currency union with East Germany) and July 1, 1991, East German coins in denominations up to 50 pfennigs continued to circulate as Deutsche Mark coins at their face value, owing to a temporary shortage of small coins. These coins were legal tender only in the territory of the former East Germany.

Colloquial expressions [ edit ] In colloquial German the 10pf coin was sometimes called a groschen (cf. groat). Likewise, sechser (sixer) could refer to a coin of 5pf. Both colloquialisms refer to several pre-1871 currencies of the previously independent states (notably Prussia), where a groschen was subdivided into 12 pfennigs, hence half a groschen into 6. After 1871, 12 old pfennigs would be converted into 10pf of the mark, hence 10pf coins inherited the "Groschen" name and 5pf coins inherited the "sechser" name. Both usages are only regional and may not be understood in areas where a Groschen coin did not exist before 1871. In particular, the usage of "sechser" is less widespread. In northern Germany the DM 5 coin used to be also called a Heiermann, whereas in Bavaria the DM 2 coin was called "Zwickl" and this expression is now used for the '‚¬2 coin in the region.

Banknotes [ edit ] There were four series of German mark banknotes:

The first was issued in 1948 by the Allied military. There were denominations of DM 1 ' 2 , DM 1, DM 2, DM 5, DM 10, DM 20, DM 50 and DM 100, with two designs of DM 20 and DM 50.The second series (BdL) was introduced in 1948 by the Bank deutscher L¤nder, an institution of the western occupation government. The designs were similar to the US Dollar and French franc, as the job of designing and printing the different denominations was shared between the Bank of France and the American Bank Note Company. There were denominations of 5pf and 10pf, DM 5, DM 10, DM 20, DM 50 and DM 100 marks. The last of the banknotes (DM 5 and DM 10) were phased out by July 31, 1966.The third series (I/Ia BBk) was introduced in 1960 by the Bundesbank, depicting neutral symbols, paintings by the German painters, and buildings. There were denominations of DM 5, DM 10, DM 20, DM 50, DM 100, DM 500 and DM 1,000. The series ceased to be legal tender on June 30, 1995.The fourth (BBk III/III a) was introduced in 1990 by the Bundesbank to counter advances in forgery technology. The notes depicted German artists and scientists together with symbols and tools of their trade. This series added a DM200 denomination, to decrease the use of DM 100 banknotes, which made up 54% of all circulating banknotes, and to fill the gap between the DM 100 and DM 500 denominations. In 1997''1998, new versions of DM 50, DM 100 and DM 200 were issued with improved security elements.The notes with a value greater than DM 200 were rarely seen.

A reserve series (BBk II) was commissioned on July 1, 1960, consisting of DM 10, DM 20, DM 50 and DM 100 banknotes. 670 million BBk II banknotes in value of 25 billion marks were printed. The notes were printed between 1963 and 1974 in fear if the Eastern Bloc would start systematically counterfeiting the BBk I series of banknotes to cripple the economy, then they would quickly be replaced by emergency notes. Another reserve series for West Berlin (BBk IIa) was commissioned on July 1, 1963, consisting of DM 5, DM 10, DM 20, DM 50 and DM 100 banknotes. 115 million West Berlin banknotes were printed, total value 4 billion marks. 15 billion marks worth of the banknotes were held in Bundesbank's custom-built underground bunker in Cochem in Rheinland-Pfalz, the rest was stored in Bundesbank's vault in Frankfurt.

Banknotes of the third series (BBk I/Ia) [ edit ] In 1957, with Bank deutscher L¤nder and the states' central banks merging to form the Bundesbank, new banknotes were being designed, as "Bank deutscher L¤nder" on the previous series was no longer correct. The previous series' notes had been made out of less durable paper and had a rather short life. While previously damaged notes could be replaced from reserve stocks, this stock was also coming to an end, necessitating a reprint.

The penalty for counterfeiting and forgery of banknotes (imprisonment at least two years) appeared on the upper right corner of the reverse of all third series banknotes. Note this is the post-1970 variant, featuring "Freiheitsstrafe" instead of "Zuchthaus".

Typical security features at the time were guilloches, a multi-level head watermark and a security thread. Note numbers that fluoresced under UV light and green, yellow, and blue. 27 fluorescent fibers embedded in the paper appeared on most banknotes; however, some specimens without these features were in circulation. Starting in 1976, banknotes were equipped with machine-readable feature - a colorless inorganic oxide mixture applied to the security thread. Banknotes featuring that were designated BBk Ia within the Bundesbank. All banknotes of the third series bore the penalty for counterfeiting and forgery on the upper right corner of the reverse, from German penal code section 146: "Wer Banknoten nachmacht oder verf¤lscht, oder nachgemachte oder verf¤lschte sich verschafft und in Verkehr bringt, wird mit Zuchthaus/Freiheitsstrafe nicht unter zwei Jahren bestraft." ("Who falsifies or counterfeits banknotes, or procures falsified or counterfeit banknotes and releases them into circulation, is liable to imprisonment for at least two years".

The third series banknotes entered circulation on February 10, 1961, with the DM 20 note. DM 100 and DM 50 followed next year, and DM 5 and DM 10 in 1963. High-denomination DM 1000 and DM 500 followed in 1964 and 1965, respectively.

The banknotes were printed exclusively in West Germany - in Bundesdruckerei in West Berlin and in Giesecke+Devrient in Munich.

The third series banknotes ceased to be legal tender on June 30, 1995, when the fourth series notes had been in circulation for 3''5 years.

There were a total of five issues of the third series, main differences being the dates, and signatures of the Presidents and Vice Presidents of Bundesbank:[19][20]

Banknotes of the fourth series [ edit ] The design of German banknotes remained unchanged during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. During this period, forgery technology made significant advances and so, in the late 1980s, the Bundesbank decided to issue a new series of Deutsche Mark banknotes. The colours for each denomination remained unchanged from the previous series but the designs underwent significant changes and a DM 200 denomination was introduced. Famous national artists and scientists were chosen to be portrayed on the new banknotes. Male and female artists were chosen in equal numbers. The buildings in the background of the notes' obverses had a close relationship to the person displayed (e.g., place of birth, place of death, place of work), as well as the second background picture (Lyra and the musician Schumann). The reverses of the notes refer to the work of the person on the obverse.

The new security features were: a windowed security thread (with the notes' denominations in microprinting), watermarks, microprinting, intaglio printing (viewing-angle dependent visibility as well as a Braille representation of the notes denomination), colour-shifting ink (on the DM 500 and DM 1000 denominations), a see-through registration device and ultraviolet-visible security features.

First to be issued were the DM 100 and DM 200 denominations on 1 October 1990 (although the banknote shows "Frankfurt am Main, 2. Januar 1989"). The next denomination was DM 10 on 16 April 1991, followed by DM 50 on 30 September 1991.[22] Next was the DM 20 note on 20 March 1992 (printed on 2 August 1991). The reason for this gradual introduction was, that public should become familiar with one single denomination, before introducing a new one. The change was finished with the introduction of the DM 5, DM 500, and DM 1000 denominations on 27 October 1992. The last two denominations were rarely seen in circulation and all were introduced in one step. With the advance of forgery technology, the Bundesbank decided to introduce additional security features on the most important denominations (DM 50, DM 100 and DM 200) as of 1996. These were a hologram foil in the center of the note's obverse, a matted printing on the note's right obverse, showing its denomination (like on the reverse of the new euro banknotes), and the EURion constellation on the note's reverse. Furthermore, the colours were changed slightly to hamper counterfeiting.

1989 series [1] Archived 14 July 2014 at the Wayback MachineImageDimensionsValue in Euros ('‚¬)Main colorDescriptionDate ofObverseReverseObverseReverseFirst PrintingIssueWithdrawal122—62 mm'‚¬2.56GreenBettina von Arnim, historical buildings of BerlinBrandenburg Gate1/8/199127/10/199231/12/2001130—65 mm'‚¬5.11PurpleCarl Friedrich Gauss, historical buildings of G¶ttingenSextant2/1/198916/4/199131/12/2001138—68 mm'‚¬10.23AquaAnnette von Droste-H¼lshoff, historical buildings of MeersburgA quill pen and a beech-tree1/8/199120/3/199231/12/2001146—71 mm'‚¬25.56Olive GreenBalthasar Neumann, historical buildings of W¼rzburgPartial view of the W¼rzburg Residence2/1/198930/9/199131/12/2001154—74 mm'‚¬51.13BlueClara Schumann, historical buildings of LeipzigGrand Piano2/1/19891/10/199031/12/2001162—77 mm'‚¬102.26OrangePaul Ehrlich, historical buildings of Frankfurt am MainMicroscope2/1/19891/10/199031/12/2001170—80 mm'‚¬255.65RedMaria Sibylla Merian, historical buildings of NurembergDandelion, Inchworm, Butterfly1/8/199127/10/199231/12/2001178—83 mm'‚¬511.29BrownWilhelm and Jacob Grimm, historical buildings of KasselThe 'German Dictionary', Alte Bibliothek in Berlin1/8/199127/10/199231/12/2001Hologram variantAs previous2/1/19962/2/199831/12/20012/1/19961/8/199731/12/20012/1/19961/8/199731/12/2001 For table standards, see the banknote specification table.Spelling and pronunciation [ edit ] The German name of the currency is Deutsche Mark (fem., German pronunciation: [ËdÉ--ʏtÊƒÉ Ëmaʁk] ); its plural form in standard German is the same as the singular. In German, the adjective "deutsche" (adjective for "German" in feminine singular nominative form) is capitalized because it is part of a proper name, while the noun "Mark", like all German nouns, is always capitalized. The English loanword "Deutschmark" has a slightly different spelling and one syllable fewer (possibly due to the frequency of silent e in English, or due to English's lack of adjectival endings), and a plural form in -s.

In Germany and other German speaking countries, the currency's name was often abbreviated as D-Mark (fem., [Ëdeːmaʁk] ) or simply Mark (fem.) with the latter term also often used in English. Like Deutsche Mark, D-Mark and Mark do not take the plural in German when used with numbers (like all names of units), the singular being used to refer to any amount of money (e.g. eine (one) Mark and dreiŸig (thirty) Mark). Sometimes, a very colloquial plural form of Mark, M¤rker [Ëmɛʁkɐ] was used either as hypocoristic form or to refer to a small number of D-Mark coins or bills, e.g. Gib mir mal ein paar M¤rker ("Just give me a few marks") and Die lieben M¤rker wieder ("The lovely money again", with an ironic undertone).

The subdivision unit is spelled Pfennig (masc.; [Ëpfɛnɪ§] ), which unlike Mark does have a commonly used plural form: Pfennige ([ËpfɛnɪÉÉ] ), but the singular could also be used instead with no difference in meaning. (e.g.: ein (one) Pfennig, dreiŸig (thirty) Pfennige or dreiŸig (thirty) Pfennig). The official form is singular.

Reserve currency [ edit ] Before the switch to the euro, the Deutsche Mark was the largest international reserve currency after the United States dollar.

The percental composition of currencies of official foreign exchange reserves from 1995 to 2020.[23][24][25]

See also [ edit ] Economy of GermanyGerman euro coinsGerman Papiermark and NotgeldGerman ReichsmarkList of commemorative coins of the Federal Republic of GermanyAnnotations [ edit ] References [ edit ] ^ "Kosovo adopts Deutschmark". BBC. 3 September 1999 . Retrieved 22 June 2013 . ^ Derek Boothby (January''March 2004). "The Political Challenges of Administering Eastern Slavonia". Global Governance. Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations. 10 (1): 37''51 (15 pages). doi:10.1163/19426720-01001005. JSTOR 27800508. ^ "Determination of the euro conversion rates". European Central Bank. 1 January 1999. Archived from the original on 1 December 2007 . Retrieved 20 February 2008 . ^ "Exchanging DM for euro". Bundesbank. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015 . Retrieved 4 January 2015 . ^ "Why are Germans still using the deutsche mark?". theweek.com. 19 July 2012. Archived from the original on 13 December 2014 . Retrieved 27 April 2018 . ^ "Most Germans want Deutsche mark back, poll shows". reuters.com. 5 October 2011. Archived from the original on 21 May 2020 . Retrieved 24 September 2021 . ^ a b Nicholas Balabkins, "Germany Under Direct Controls: Economic Aspects of Industrial Disarmament 1945''1948", Rutgers University Press, 1964 p. 145 ^ Bundesbank.de Archived 2017-01-24 at the Wayback Machine Accessed 2015-01-04 ^ Tyler Cowen, "The Marshall Plan: myths and realities" in U.S. Aid to the Developing World, A Free Market Agenda Archived 2011-01-22 at the Wayback Machine, Heritage Foundation, p.65 ^ Tipton, Frank B. (2003). History of Modern Germany since 1815. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 511''13. ISBN 0-520-24050-2. ^ Sauermann, Heinz (1950). "The Consequences of the Currency Reform in Western Germany". Review of Politics. 12 (2): 175''196. doi:10.1017/S0034670500045009. JSTOR 1405052. S2CID 145428438. ^ J¶rg Roesler: Die Stuttgarter Vorf¤lle vom Oktober 1948. Zur Entstehung der Sozialen Marktwirtschaft in der Bundesrepublik Deutschlands, in: Jahrbuch f¼r Forschungen zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, No I/2007; Uwe Fuhrmann: Stuttgart 48 und die soziale Marktwirtschaft, in: Fuhrman et. a. (eds.): Ignoranz und Inszenierung, M¼nster 2012 ^ Binyon, Michael (11 September 2009). "Thatcher told Gorbachev Britain did not want German reunification". London: Times . Retrieved 30 April 2022 . ^ Ben Knight (8 November 2009). "Germany's neighbors try to redeem their 1989 negativity". Deutsche Welle. Archived from the original on 11 November 2009 . Retrieved 9 November 2009 . ^ "Coins of the Federal Republic of Germany". Coin and banknote collection. Archived from the original on 8 July 2009 . Retrieved 2 May 2010 . ^ The sculptor Richard Martin Werner designed the woman relief after his wife Gerda Johanna Werner (in German) . ^ Sammler.com Archived 2018-04-27 at the Wayback Machine Withdrawn on 1 July 1958 over confusion with the similarly designed DM 1 ^ "Deutsche Mark coins". Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). 2021 . Retrieved 2 June 2021 . ^ Zeitung, S¼ddeutsche. "DM-Mark-Scheine mit Sammlerwert". S¼ddeutsche.de (in German) . Retrieved 23 September 2021 . ^ "GERMANY F.R." banknote.ws . Retrieved 23 September 2021 . ^ "Kursf¤hige Bundesbanknoten" (PDF) . Deutsche Bundesbank. January 1986. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 August 2019. ^ Linzmayer, Owen (2012). "Federal Republic of Germany". The Banknote Book. San Francisco, CA: www.BanknoteNews.com. Archived from the original on 29 August 2012. ^ For 1995''99, 2006''20: "Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER)". Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund. 22 May 2021. ^ For 1999''2005: International Relations Committee Task Force on Accumulation of Foreign Reserves (February 2006), The Accumulation of Foreign Reserves (PDF) , Occasional Paper Series, Nr. 43, Frankfurt am Main: European Central Bank, ISSN 1607-1484 ISSN 1725-6534 (online). ^ Review of the International Role of the Euro (PDF) , Frankfurt am Main: European Central Bank, December 2005, ISSN 1725-2210 ISSN 1725-6593 (online). External links [ edit ] Coins of the Third ReichOverview of German Mark from BBC onlineHistorical US Dollars to German Marks currency conversion, 1913''2005Historical banknotes of Germany including East German banknotesPreceded by:Reichsmark, Rentenmark, AM-MarkReason: intended to protect West Germany from the second wave of hyperinflation and stop the rampant barter and black market tradeRatio: 1 DM = 1 RM (either) below 600 RM1 DM = 10 RM above 600 RMand each person received 40 DM

Currency of West Germany (incl. West Berlin) 21 (24 W-Berlin) June 1948 '' 30 June 1990Note: except of the state of the Saarland (1957''1959)Currency of Germany 1 July 1990 '' 31 December 2001Note: euro existed as money of account since 1 January 1999, with DM coins and banknotes being the German appearance of the euroSucceeded by:EuroReason: deployment of euro cashRatio: 1 euro = 1.95583 Deutsche Mark

Preceded by:French franc and Saar FrancReason: currency union (9 July 1959), after the Saarland had joined West Germany (1 January 1957)Ratio: 100 Francs = 0.8507 Deutsche Mark

Preceded by:Mark of the GDRReason: currency union (1 July 1990) preparing the German reunification (3 October 1990)Ratio: at par up to 4000 GDR marks2 GDR marks = 1 DM above 4000 GDR marks

Preceded by:Yugoslav new dinarReason: political and economic reasons

Currency of Kosovo, Montenegro 1999 '' 31 December 2001

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13 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.

10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.

11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,

14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

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Industry issues

1 minute read

On December 1st, the WFA Executive Committee met with Twitter's new leadership team to discuss Twitter's commitments to brand safety and the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), which Twitter reinforced.

WFA News

5 December 2022

WFA held this meeting to discuss advertiser concerns on the platform under Chatham House Rules. The conversation focused on Twitter's continued commitments to GARM around common definitions, common measures, common tools and independent verification.

Twitter's leadership was engaged and committed to working with GARM to document brand safety measures currently in place and develop a roadmap for future improvements, on an accelerated but mutually agreed timeframe.

The GARM Steer Team will work with Twitter and make this roadmap for improved brand safety measures public in due course.

Article details WFA News

5 December 2022

Contact us For more information or questions, please contact us

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By Amy Castor and David GerardSend us money! Our work is funded via our Patreons '-- here's Amy's, and here's David's. Your monthly contributions help greatly!Our patrons can also get a couple of ''Bitcoin: It Can't Be That Stupid'' stickers just by messaging one of us and asking.David has signed author copies of his books for sale.Sign up on Amy's blog to see every new post she makes as it goes up, and click here and enter your email address for every new post on David's blog as it goes up.the wonderful thing about bitcoin is that 'sorry i was too dumb to do things properly so it all collapsed' is not only a feasible explanation but historically likely

'-- Boxturret on SomethingAwfulShut up, SamIf you may be in legal trouble, any lawyer has one piece of advice: stop talking. If you've just filed a high-profile bankruptcy with maybe billions of dollars missing: stop talking. If you've got prosecutors sniffing around your activities: stop talking.

Sam Bankman-Fried never got the memo, or he did and threw it in the trash. In reference to his lawyers, he told Tiffany Fong: ''they know what they're talking about in an extremely narrow domain of litigation. They don't understand the broader context of the world.'' [YouTube; Twitter]

Despite producing reams of potential ''evidence'' that could one day be used against him, SBF will talk to any reporter, anywhere, any time of day. On Wednesday, November 29 he spoke on an NYT DealBook panel. On Thursday, November 30, he spoke to Good Morning America.

He loves the camera. But he still can't tell you where the money went.

In the DealBook interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, SBF said he ''never tried to commit fraud,'' and he didn't knowingly commingle $10 billion in customer funds. He frames the whole matter as he seemingly lent Alameda customer funds from FTX as a risk management problem that got out of hand. Well, it sure did that. [Video; Transcript]

George Stephanopoulos from Good Morning America, who actually flew to the Bahamas to talk to SBF, was a lot tougher on him. SBF again denied ''improper use of customer funds,'' saying he failed at oversight. ''You said one of your great talents in a podcast was managing risk.'' ''That's right.'' ''Well, it's obviously wrong.'' [GMA; Twitter]

As Lying for Money author Dan Davies points out, prosecutors just have to show that SBF intentionally deceived clients as to what was happening to their money. When you tell people their money is segregated and it's not, that's fraud. ''The offence was committed the minute it went in the wrong account.'' [Twitter]

If you ignore your lawyer because you're smarter than everyone, no lawyer is going to work with you. Martin Flumenbaum at Paul Weiss already dumped SBF. We're hearing unconfirmed rumors that David Mills, his father's colleague at Stanford, who was advising SBF, is also refusing to work with him further. [Semafor; Twitter]

A lot of FTX employees bailed after the company filed for bankruptcy. But a few have soldiered on '-- likely so they can nail SBF, who screwed them over about as much as he screwed over all of his customers and investors. While SBF is telling his side of the story to reporters, FTX employees are leaking emails. NYT wrote about the absolute chaos that FTX lawyers and execs endured in wresting power away from the deluded SBF in the wee hours of November 11. [NYT]

If Sam's lawyer had jumped in front of the camera and ripped Sam's larynx out with his bare hands, he could reasonably bill it as extremely valuable and important legal services to his client.

starting to think his strategy is to spend the next few months producing so much self incriminating material that any jury will die of old age before the trial ends pic.twitter.com/fSZGYciAsi

'-- Buttcoin (@ButtCoin) November 24, 2022Extremely predictably, there goes BlockFi In January, there were three big crypto lenders '-- Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi. Now all three are bankrupt, and our emails are clogged with new bankruptcy filings.

After weeks of frozen withdrawals, BlockFi filed for voluntary Chapter 11 on November 28 in New Jersey. [Petition, PDF; bankruptcy docket on Kroll; CNBC; press release]

BlockFi was already a dead firm walking. They were dead after Three Arrows blew up in May. FTX kept BlockFi's head above water with a $400 million credit facility '-- but then FTX imploded. [Twitter]

The New Jersey firm doesn't just have more liabilities than assets '-- a lot of the assets are missing too. All of BlockFi's cryptos were in FTX. They were using FTX as their crypto bank.

BlockFi has over 100,000 creditors. Assets and liabilities range between $1 billion and $10 billion. There's $1.3 billion in unsecured loans outstanding and $250 million in customer funds locked on the platform.

BlockFi has $256.5 million cash on hand '-- after selling their customers' crypto:

In preparation for these chapter 11 cases, BlockFi took steps to liquidate certain of its owned cryptocurrency to bolster available cash to fund its business and administrative costs. Through the process, BlockFi was able to raise $238.6 million of additional cash, for a total unencumbered cash position as of the Petition date of $256.5 million.

Ankura Trust is BlockFi's largest unsecured creditor to which it owes $729 million. Ankura is typically brought in to represent the interest of others in bankruptcy. If so, who are those creditors? We'd love to know.

FTX US is BlockFi's second-largest unsecured creditor, with a $275 million stablecoin loan. This is the credit facility that SBF ''bailed out'' BlockFi with in June.

BlockFi's fourth-largest unsecured creditor is the SEC '-- BlockFi still owes $30 million of its $50 million in penalties from February. The total settlement was $100 million, with half owed to the SEC and half owed to state regulators. [SEC; Twitter]

All the other creditors' names are redacted. Very crypto.

BlockFi is entangled in FTX in multiple ways. BlockFi had a $680 million loan to SBF's Alameda Research. This was collateralized by SBF's personal shareholding in popular day-trading broker Robinhood '-- just days before FTX filed for bankruptcy. BlockFi is suing SBF for his stake in Robinhood. It doesn't help that SBF was shopping his Robinhood shares around as collateral after he'd pledged them to the BlockFi loan. [Filing, PDF; Complaint, PDF; Bloomberg]

Crypto miners '-- we told you soWe set out in detail in August this year how publicly traded bitcoin mining companies were always going to leave their lenders and investors as the bag holders.

We predicted that the miners would default on billions of dollars in loans, leaving the lenders with worthless mining rigs and unsaleable piles of bitcoins. They would then go bankrupt '-- with all the paperwork in order.

The miners depreciated their mining rigs over five years '-- and not the 15 months they should have '-- to make their companies look like better investments.

And miners are now defaulting on their rig-backed loans. Lenders '-- New York Digital Investment Group, Celsius, BlockFi, Galaxy Digital, NYDIG, and DCG's Foundry '-- are getting stuck with worthless e-waste. [Bloomberg]

Iris Energy (IREN) faced a default claim from its lender NYDIG on $103 million ''worth'' of mining equipment. The company's miners aren't making enough money to service their debt. So Iris defaulted! And NYDIG now owns some obsolete mining rigs. [SEC filing, Global Newswire; Coindesk; CoinTelegraph]

Shares in Argo Blockchain (ARBK) dropped 40% after the firm announced that its plans to raise $27 million by selling shares were no longer happening. [Twitter; Decrypt]

Core Scientific hired law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges and financial advisors PJT Partners to help figure out ways to stave off bankruptcy. The options include exchanging existing debt for equity or additional debt, asset sales, equity, or debt financing. They're gonna go bankrupt '-- because that was always the exit strategy. [The Block]

Just how bad is the crypto collapse?My landlord friend in Dallas just asked me if I know anything about bitcoin miners:

''This bitcoin mining company defaulted, moved out, and left all their equipment behind.''

200 Antminers 🏃🏽''‚¸ðŸ'¨ pic.twitter.com/qUNStCYT5F

'-- Zack Guzmn (@zGuz) November 21, 2022Binance goes shoppingIn the financial crisis of 2008, when banks were dropping like flies, some big banks would buy smaller banks that had healthy books '-- so they could patch the holes in their own books. Bigger and bigger shells to hide the Ponzi under.

Crypto is doing the same. FTX was buying up, and planning to buy up, small bankrupt crypto firms to try to hide the hole in its own books. And Binance, the largest crypto exchange, just bought Sakuro Exchange BitCoin (SEBC), a Japanese exchange that is already licensed with the country's Financial Services Agency. [Binance; Bloomberg]

Japan learned its lesson early. Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, one of the first big bitcoin exchanges, blew up in 2014. Japan went on to become one of the first countries to regulate crypto exchanges with a licensing system. Crypto exchanges in Japan are required to keep customer assets separate, maintain proper bookkeeping, undergo annual audits, file business reports, and comply with strict KYC/AML rules. They are treated almost like banks! [Bitcoin Magazine]

Binance tried to set up operations in Japan in 2018, after getting kicked out of China '-- but Japan's FSA told Binance they needed to play by the rules and apply for a license or pack their bags. [Bitcoin Magazine]

Binance's bogus bailout fund Binance announced a $2 billion ''industry recovery fund'' to prop up all of the other flailing crypto firms that have been struggling since FTX blew up. They claim that 150 crypto firms have applied for a bailout. [Bloomberg]

Binance has its own stablecoin, BUSD, that it claims is run by Paxos and Binance, ''and is one of the few stablecoins that are compliant with the strict regulatory standards of NYDFS.'' The crypto bailout fund is $2 billion in BUSD.

BUSD is a Paxos-administered dollar stablecoin. Each BUSD is backed by an alleged actual dollar in Silvergate Bank, and attested by auditors. (If not actually audited as such).

That's true of BUSD on the Ethereum blockchain. It's not true of BUSD on Binance.

BUSD on Binance is on their internal BNB (formerly BSC) blockchain, bridged from Ethereum. It's a stablecoin of a stablecoin. Binance makes a point of noting that Binance-BUSD is not subject to the legal controls that Paxos BUSD is under. We're sure it'll all be fine if there are any issues, which there totally won't be. [Binance]

Treating FTX's claims about other crypto firms as confessions would have given you pretty detailed correct answers '-- it was all projection. FTX was accusing others of what they were doing themselves. You should look at what Binance has been saying the same way.

We're going to go so far as to assert that Binance is a hollow shell too, and the bailout fund is most likely for a hole in its own books.

Every one of the crypto companies accounts for their value in dollars by calculating their mark-to-market value. ''We have a billion dollars of $CONFETTI!'' Even if they couldn't get $10,000 in actual money for it.

All of crypto is bankrupt if you account for the crypto assets at realizable value rather than mark-to-market. Realizable value depends on the inflow of actual dollars into crypto '-- and that inflow has plummeted because the retail suckers went home.

All crypto companies are Quadriga. Pull back the curtain and you'll see Celsius/FTX-style non-accounting, a Google spreadsheet if you're lucky, and incompetence. Such utter blithering didn't-understand-the-question incompetence. It's been this way since 2011.

Tether is fine, you FUDsterTether has been issuing tethers by lending out its USDT stablecoin, rather than exchanging the USDT one-to-one for dollars (LOL).

As of Tether's attestation for September 30, 2022, 9% of USDT are loans to Tether customers. Tether claims these are collateralized '-- but they won't say who the borrowers are or what the collateral is. [Tether; WSJ, paywalled]

In their long-winded response to the WSJ writeup, Tether blames '.... the media. [Tether]

We know from the CFTC settlement in October 2021 that Tether was issuing USDT to its big customers with a kiss and a handshake. Now they're admitting it publicly.

Other crypto exchanges/firms in troubleCoinDesk's report on the hole in Alameda's balance sheet and Alameda's close ties to FTX did so much damage to the crypto industry '-- and to Coindesk's parent company Digital Currency Group '-- that the news site has attracted take-over interest. [Semafor]

CoinDesk did not blow apart the crypto industry. This was an unexploded bomb that was set up in May.

It was all going to explode eventually as soon as someone looked inside the box. As CZ told The Block's Larry Cermak in 2019: ''some things are better left unsaid.'' [Twitter]

Japanese social media company Line is shutting down Bitfront, a US-based crypto exchange that it launched in 2020. They said the closure was unrelated to ''certain exchanges that have been accused of misconduct.'' [Announcement; Bloomberg]

AAX exit scam completed. Hong Kong-based exchange AAX froze withdrawals on November 13, and its executives quietly slipped away as opposed to filing bankruptcy '-- social media pages removed, LinkedIn profiles deleted. Sources tell us that employees have been laid off and the founders are nowhere to be found. [Hacker News; AAX]

John Reed Stark: Since the FTX debacle, Big Crypto's SEC hit pieces and talking points calling for ''regulatory clarity'' are pure pretense and subterfuge, intended to distract and dissemble the truth '-- that the crypto-emperor has no clothes. [Duke FinReg Blog]

Image: Sam talking on GMA

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BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said that "the next generation for markets, the next generation for securities, will be tokenization of securities."

In the world of blockchain, tokenization refers to a process where a digital representation of an asset is created on a blockchain, authenticating its transaction and ownership history.

This approach enables a different way to trade assets like stocks, bonds, real estate, or even alternative assets like land, wine, or art, allowing the transfers to be visible on a public ledger.

Speaking at a New York Times DealBook event, Fink argued that tokenization will provide ''instantaneous settlement'' and ''reduced fees.'' Despite these advantages, he added that the development of this type of technology wouldn't disrupt BlackRock's business model.

Alongside the promise of blockchain, the CEO also touched on several current economic issues, including the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict , the changing role of China, and the global inflationary pressure that has impacted most developed economies this year.

But it's definitely not just BlackRock that is betting on tokenization as the future of financial services.

Flowcarbon, a start-up tokenizing carbon credits led by former WeWork founder Adam Neumann, recently attracted $70 million of investment from prominent investors such as a16z, General Catalyst, and Samsung Venture Investment.

In November, JPMorgan turned to Polygon to trade tokenized cash deposits in a Singapore-based trial via Onyx Digital Assets, a private blockchain created by the bank.

The bank has also promoted the benefits of tokenization in some of its whitepapers , saying tokenization could potentially enable financial services to be delivered ''in a more open manner.''

Despite his bullish view on the future of tokenization, the CEO said he believes that most cryptocurrency-related companies ''are not going to be around'' in the future, though he did say that blockchain technology will be ''very important.''

BlackRock hit by FTX contagion Commenting on the FTX scandal that has defined crypto markets over the past month, he said the FTX's fatal flaw was creating its own token.

One of the initial triggers of the FTX meltdown was Binance selling off its huge stock of FTX's FTT token near the beginning of this month, following reports of heavy cross-pollination between FTX and its sister hedge fund Alameda Research.

Fink clarified that the value of his firm's investment in the bankrupt exchange was $24 million, though it was held in a subsidiary ''fund of funds'' and not in the ''core part'' of BlackRock's business.

Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox.

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(NEXSTAR) '' Celine Dion revealed to her fans Thursday she has been diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects about 1 or 2 people per million, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The disease ''is characterized by fluctuating muscle rigidity in the trunk and limbs and a heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as noise, touch, and emotional distress, which can set off muscle spasms,'' according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS).

People with stiff-person syndrome often have a hunched-over or stiff posture, and may have trouble walking or moving. Some people may be ''afraid to leave the house because street noises, such as the sound of a horn, can trigger spasms and falls,'' NINDS explains.

Without ''normal defensive reflexes,'' people with stiff-person syndrome often suffer falls, and can injure themselves easily.

Choking back tears, Dion said her condition is forcing her to postpone shows scheduled for spring 2023.

''I wasn't ready to say anything before, but I'm ready now. I've been dealing with problems with my health for a long time, and it's been really difficult for me to face these challenges and to talk about everything that I've been going through,'' the Canadian singer said before revealing her diagnosis. ''We now know this is what's been causing all of the spasms that I've been having.''

Dion said the spasms affect ''every aspect'' of her life, making it hard for her to walk and even sing. ''I always give 100% when I do my shows, but my condition is not allowing me to give you that right now,'' she said.

The syndrome occurs about twice as often in women as in men, according to NINDS, though occurs in very small numbers overall. The cause isn't yet understood, but research suggests it may be an autoimmune issue in the brain and spinal cord.

NINDS says the rare condition is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson's or multiple sclerosis, among other diseases.

It can be treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg), muscle relaxants and pain relievers, but there is no known cure.

''I have to admit it's been a struggle,'' Dion said. ''All I know is that singing is what I've done all my life and it's what I love to do the most.''

The singer concluded by saying she plans to concentrate fully on her health and recuperation, and hopes to be back on stage performing soon.

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New York Times journalists, other workers on 24-hour strike By ALEXANDRA OLSON December 8, 2022 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) '-- Hundreds of journalists and other employees at The New York Times began a 24-hour walkout Thursday, the first strike of its kind at the newspaper in more than 40 years.

Newsroom employees and other members of The NewsGuild of New York say they are fed up with bargaining that has dragged on since their last contract expired in March 2021.

South Korea widens back-to-work orders on striking truckers By KIM TONG-HYUNG December 8, 2022 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) '-- South Korea's government expanded its back-to-work orders Thursday against thousands of cargo truck drivers who are staging a nationwide walkout over freight fare issues, saying a prolonged strike could inflict ''deep scars'' on the country's economy.

UK airport staff plan Christmas walkout, joining strike wave By JILL LAWLESS December 7, 2022 GMT

LONDON (AP) '-- Britain's Conservative government on Wednesday threatened ''tough'' action to curb strikes, as airport passport officers became the latest public sector workers to announce December walkouts.

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S. Korea sees easing disruption as truckers' strike extends By KIM TONG-HYUNG December 7, 2022 GMT

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) '-- Officials say South Korea's economy is recovering from the initial shock of a nationwide walkout staged by thousands of cargo truckers, even as their strike reached its 14th day on Wednesday amid a stalemate with the government over freight fare issues.

Minnesota nurses reach tentative contract, averting strikeDecember 6, 2022 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) '-- The union representing Minnesota nurses announced Tuesday that it has reached tentative contract agreements with 15 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth areas, averting a strike that was scheduled to begin Sunday.

Turkish strikes on US Kurd allies resonate in Ukraine war By ELLEN KNICKMEYER December 3, 2022 GMT

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) '-- Biden administration officials are toughening their language toward NATO ally Turkey as they try to talk Turkish President Recep Erdogan out of launching a bloody and destabilizing ground offensive against American-allied Kurdish forces in neighboring Syria.

Rail workers say deal won't resolve quality-of-life concerns By JOSH FUNK December 3, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- When BNSF railroad conductor Justin Schaaf needed to take time off from work this summer, he had to make a choice: go to the dentist to get a cavity in his molar filled or attend a party for his son's 7th birthday.

Congress votes to avert rail strike amid dire warnings By KEVIN FREKING and JOSH FUNK December 2, 2022 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- Legislation to avert what could have been an economically ruinous freight rail strike won final approval in Congress on Thursday as lawmakers responded quickly to President Joe Biden's call for federal intervention in a long-running labor dispute.

Minnesota nurses authorize second strike, starting Dec. 11December 1, 2022 GMT

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) '-- Nurses at 16 hospitals in the Twin Cities and Duluth areas have authorized workers to go on a second strike, which union leaders said Thursday will begin on Dec. 11 if a contract deal is not reached in coming days.

House votes to avert rail strike, impose deal on unions By KEVIN FREKING and JOSH FUNK December 1, 2022 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- The U.S. House moved urgently to head off the looming nationwide rail strike on Wednesday, passing a bill that would bind companies and workers to a proposed settlement that was reached in September but rejected by some of the 12 unions involved.

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EXPLAINER: What to know on Congress' bid to bar rail strike By HOPE YEN and JOSH FUNK November 29, 2022 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) '-- President Joe Biden is asking Congress to intervene to avert a potentially crippling freight rail strike before Christmas and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling a vote this week to do so, even if it means handing a defeat to Democratic allies in the labor movement.

Railroad unions decry Biden's plan to block possible strike By JOSH FUNK November 29, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- Railroad unions on Tuesday decried President Joe Biden's call for Congress to intervene in their contract dispute, saying it undercuts their efforts to address workers' quality of life concerns, but businesses stressed that it is crucial to avoid a strike next week that would devastate the economy.

Some University of California striking workers reach dealNovember 29, 2022 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) '-- Postdoctoral scholars and academic researchers on Tuesday reached a tentative labor agreement with the University of California but will remain on strike in solidarity with thousands of graduate student workers at all 10 of the university system's campuses.

Union journalists strike at Fort Worth Star-TelegramNovember 29, 2022 GMT

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) '-- Journalists with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper continued their strike Tuesday, claiming they've been pushed to the brink and that parent company McClatchy has refused to bargain in good faith over a new contract.

More than 150 agents back striking HarperCollins workers By HILLEL ITALIE November 28, 2022 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) '-- More than 150 literary agents, whose clients include Danielle Jackson, V.E. Schwab and L.A. Chandlar, have signed an open letter to HarperCollins vowing to ''omit'' the publisher from upcoming book submissions until it reaches an agreement with striking employees.

Railway workers in Austria to strike Monday in pay standoffNovember 27, 2022 GMT

BERLIN (AP) '-- Railway workers in Austria are set to hold a one-day strike on Monday after a failed round of talks in pay negotiations.

The Austria Press Agency reported Sunday that both sides said the fifth round of talks on pay for some 50,000 employees of about 65 railway operators, including the main national operator OeBB, had failed.

Teachers, lecturers join postal workers in UK strike action By SYLVIA HUI November 24, 2022 GMT

LONDON (AP) '-- Most schools in Scotland were closed Thursday as thousands of teachers walked off the job, joining scores of postal workers and university lecturers across the U.K. in industrial action to demand better pay and working conditions to cope with the country's cost-of-living crisis.

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A rail strike looms and impact on US economy could be broad By JOSH FUNK November 22, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- American consumers and nearly every industry will be affected if freight trains grind to a halt next month.

Starbucks workers strike at more than 100 US stores By DEE-ANN DURBIN November 17, 2022 GMT

Starbucks workers at more than 100 U.S. stores are on strike Thursday in their largest labor action since a campaign to unionize the company's stores began late last year.

The walkouts coincide with Starbucks' annual Red Cup Day, when the company gives free reusable cups to customers who order a holiday drink.

US and Russia clash over responsibility for missile strike By EDITH M. LEDERER November 17, 2022 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) '-- The U.S. and its Western allies clashed with Russia at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday over responsibility for a deadly missile strike in Poland near the Ukrainian border, an event the U.N.

Day 2 of academic workers strike at University of CaliforniaNovember 15, 2022 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) '-- Thousands of academic workers walked picket lines again Tuesday at all 10 University of California campuses in a statewide strike calling for better pay and benefits.

Contract talks produced ''good progress'' on Monday, the first day of the walkout, but then the university system informed the union that bargaining won't resume until Wednesday, according to Rafael Jaime, a local union president.

48,000 University of California academic workers on strike By JOCELYN GECKER and CHRISTOPHER WEBER November 15, 2022 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) '-- Tens of thousands of academic employees across the University of California's 10 campuses walked off the job Monday, demanding better pay and benefits in what union leaders say could be the largest work stoppage the prestigious public university system has ever faced.

HarperCollins union begins strike, citing wages, diversity By HILLEL ITALIE November 11, 2022 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) '-- Some 250 copy editors, marketing assistants and other employees at HarperCollins Publishers went on strike Thursday, with the two sides differing over wages and benefits, diversity policy and union protection.

Paris Metro workers strike for wage hike, disrupt commutes By JEFFREY SCHAEFFER and OLEG CETINIC November 10, 2022 GMT

PARIS (AP) '-- Striking workers shut down half of the Paris subway system Thursday, a nationwide day of walkouts and protests by French train drivers, teachers and other public-sector workers demanding the government and employers increase salaries to keep up with inflation.

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Potential railroad strike delayed until early December By JOSH FUNK November 9, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- The possibility of an economically devastating railroad strike has been pushed back into early December to allow time for engineers and conductors to vote on their agreements with the freight railroads and give more opportunity for the industry to renegotiate with two unions that rejected their deals last month.

Inflation strikes disrupt trains, flights in Greece, Belgium By ELENA BECATOROS November 9, 2022 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) '-- Workers walked off the job in Greece and Belgium on Wednesday during nationwide strikes against increasing consumer prices, disrupting transportation, forcing flight cancellations and shutting down public services in the latest European protests over the rising cost of living.

Belgian strike over cost of living hits traffic, companiesNovember 9, 2022 GMT

BRUSSELS (AP) '-- A nationwide strike over the cost of living increases caused by runaway inflation and massive energy bill hikes linked to the war in Ukraine snarled traffic through much of Belgium and affected businesses on Wednesday.

Kenya Airways pilots' strike set to end after 4 days By EVELYNE MUSAMBI November 9, 2022 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) '-- Pilots working for Kenya's national airline are set to resume work on Wednesday after a court ordered them to end their four-day strike.

The court on Tuesday also ordered Kenya Airways not to intimidate pilots who participated in the strike called by their union following the failure to resolve a dispute over a retirement savings fund.

General strike to disrupt services across Greece WednesdayNovember 8, 2022 GMT

ATHENS, Greece (AP) '-- A 24-hour general strike called by Greece's private and public sector unions was set to shut down most services around the country Wednesday.

Late Tuesday, aviation authorities announced that air traffic controllers and civil aviation workers would not participate in the strike after all.

Kenya Airways pilots strike over benefits, stopping flights By EVELYNE MUSAMBI November 7, 2022 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) '-- Pilots working for Kenya's national airline have been on strike for three days over a demand to honor a retirement savings plan, and it is estimated to be costing millions of dollars in losses daily.

Rail union approves deal offering hope of avoiding strike By JOSH FUNK November 5, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- Another one of the 12 railroad unions narrowly approved its deal with the major freight railroads Saturday, offering some hope that the contract dispute might be resolved without a strike even though two other unions rejected their agreements last month.

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Strike shuts down bus service in Orange CountyNovember 3, 2022 GMT

ORANGE, Calif. (AP) '-- Thousands of transit riders in one Southern California county found themselves without bus service Thursday after vehicle maintenance workers went on strike.

The strike against the Orange County Transportation Authority idled hundreds of buses serving nearly 5,500 bus stops in the county of more than 3 million residents.

Delta pilots authorize strike, but walkout remains unlikelyOctober 31, 2022 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) '-- Pilots at Delta Air Lines voted to authorize union leaders to call a strike, but it might be a largely symbolic gesture, as hurdles remain before the pilots can legally walk off the job.

Striking Weyerhaeuser workers in Pacific NW back to workOctober 29, 2022 GMT

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (AP) '-- Union workers at the timber company Weyerhaeuser have ended their strike and could be back on the job as early as next week in Oregon and Washington.

More than 1,000 employees took to the picket line for 46 days because of sticking points over health care costs in union negotiations, KLCC Radio reported Saturday.

Second railroad union rejects deal, adding to strike worries By JOSH FUNK October 26, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- A second railroad union rejected its deal with the major U.S. freight railroads on Wednesday, reflecting workers' increasing frustration with the lack of paid sick time and adding to concerns about the possibility of a strike next month that could cripple the economy.

Kentucky city's transit workers authorize possible strikeOctober 22, 2022 GMT

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) '-- Public transit workers in Louisville, Kentucky, have authorized a strike, but they aren't walking out just yet.

Union members with the Transit Authority of River City voted 95% in favor of the strike authorization Thursday, amid contentious contract negotiations, The Courier Journal reported.

Teamsters strike at food distribution facility endsOctober 21, 2022 GMT

PLYMPTON, Mass. (AP) '-- A nearly three-week strike by truckers at New England's largest wholesale food distributor has come to and end with a new labor agreement, the Teamsters union said.

The five-year agreement includes an immediate $5 per hour pay raise, an $11 per hour raise over the course of the agreement, improved retirement benefits, and keeps drivers on the union health insurance plan, the Teamsters Local 653 said in a Facebook post on Thursday.

Railroads reject sick time demands, raising chance of strike By JOSH FUNK October 21, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- The major freight railroads appear unwilling to give track maintenance workers much more than they received in the initial contract they rejected last week, increasing the chances of a strike.

Newsroom workers at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette go on strikeOctober 19, 2022 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) '-- Newsroom workers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette have gone on strike demanding that the company reinstate the terms of its previous contract and return to the bargaining table.

The Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh, which represents 101 workers, said its members began picketing Tuesday outside the newsroom on the city's North Shore and planned to continue the action Wednesday.

French strike pits workers vs. government as inflation bites By NICOLAS GARRIGA and BOUBKAR BENZABAT October 18, 2022 GMT

PARIS (AP) '-- Tens of thousands of French workers took to the streets Tuesday across the country, striking for pay hikes that keep up with rising inflation. The industrial action came after weeks of walkouts that have hobbled French oil refineries and sparked gasoline shortages around the country.

Philadelphia Museum of Art workers ratify pact, end strikeOctober 17, 2022 GMT

PHILADELPHIA (AP) '-- Workers at the Philadelphia Museum of Art are returning to work after reaching agreement on a contract that ended a strike of almost three weeks.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art Union announced Sunday night that members had ''voted 99 percent in favor'' of ratifying what it called ''our hard-won first contract.''

Pilots at Germany's Eurowings start 3-day strikeOctober 17, 2022 GMT

BERLIN (AP) '-- Pilots at Eurowings, German airline Lufthansa's budget subsidiary, have started their second strike this month in a dispute over working conditions.

The Vereinigung Cockpit union called pilots out on a three-day strike starting Monday morning.

In France, fuel crisis frays nerves and workers' resilience By JOHN LEICESTER October 15, 2022 GMT

VERSAILLES, France (AP) '-- Even close to midnight on a school night, the tipoff was too important to ignore: A nearby gas station had just been resupplied.

So Aicha Far scooped up her 6-year-old and set off into the night.

Strikes continue in French refineries, disrupt fuel supplies By ALEXANDER TURNBULL October 14, 2022 GMT

PARIS (AP) '-- Continuing strikes at TotalEnergies group refineries in France seriously disrupted fuel supplies Friday after the left-wing CGT union rejected a deal over a pay increase that two other unions had agreed to.

Nigerian lecturers end 8-month strike protesting conditions By CHINEDU ASADU October 14, 2022 GMT

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) '-- Nigerian lecturers have called off their 8-month-long strike to protest their conditions, the union's president told The Associated Press.

The strike was suspended early Friday after a meeting of union leaders considered compromises agreed upon with the government, said Emmanuel Osodeke, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.

French PM to requisition workers amid refineries strike By JADE LE DELEY and SYLVIE CORBET October 11, 2022 GMT

PARIS (AP) '-- French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne announced a decision to requisition workers operating petrol depots of ExxonMobil's French branch Esso and threatened to do the same for those of Total group, amid strikes that have led fuel pumps to run dry in the country.

Large rail union rejects deal, renewing strike possibility By JOSH FUNK October 10, 2022 GMT

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) '-- The U.S.'s third largest railroad union rejected a deal with employers Monday, renewing the possibility of a strike that could cripple the economy.

Latest in string of strikes brings most UK trains to a haltOctober 8, 2022 GMT

LONDON (AP) '-- Most train services across the U.K. were canceled Saturday as thousands of rail workers staged the latest in a string of strikes over jobs, pay and working conditions.

The 24-hour walkout by 40,000 cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers and station staff was the third in a week, and part of a surging wave of strikes from workers seeking pay raises to keep up with inflation that is running at almost 10%.

UK nurses vote on strikes as cost-of-living squeeze worsensOctober 6, 2022 GMT

LONDON (AP) '-- Britain's biggest nurses' union asked its 300,000 members Thursday whether they want to go on strike in a dispute over pay, and the U.K.'s electricity system operator warned of potential winter blackouts, in the latest evidence of the U.K.'s worsening energy and cost-of-living squeeze.

Pilots strike cancels flights at German carrier EurowingsOctober 6, 2022 GMT

BERLIN (AP) '-- A pilots strike at budget airline Eurowings has forced the German carrier to cancel hundreds of flights Thursday.

The Lufthansa subsidiary said about half of its 500 daily flights would be nixed, affecting tens of thousands of passengers.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:38

Twitter cofounder and former CEO Jack Dorsey expressed to Elon Musk in a tweet on Wednesday that, for the sake of transparency, the

Twitter Files be released to the public to "let people judge for themselves."

As of now, documents of what action took place to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story are in the hands of journalists Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss. The first round of files were revealed on Friday, with Taibbi providing a "

Supplemental" on Tuesday.

Dorsey said in his tweet: "If the goal is transparency to build trust, why not just release everything without filter and let people judge for themselves? Including all discussions around current and future actions? Make everything public now.

#TwitterFiles"

Several revelations have been made so far, with several chat logs being made public. The names of key players have been revealed, including former Trust and Safety Chief Yoel Roth, the

recently fired Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker, and former head of legal, policy, and trust Vijaya Gadde.

Taibbi's first thread on the Twitter files states explicitly that the vast amount of censorship was done "without the knowledge of CEO Jack Dorsey," and that situation was difficult to manage after Dorsey became involved.

"There are multiple instances in the files of Dorsey intervening to question suspensions and other moderation actions, for accounts across the political spectrum," Taibbi noted.

In November, Musk revealed that Twitter has

interfered with elections

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:37

US WNBA basketball superstar Brittney Griner arrives to a hearing at the Khimki Court, outside Moscow on June 27, 2022.

Kirill Kudryavtsev | AFP | Getty Images

WNBA star Brittney Griner is free Thursday after the Biden administration negotiated her release from a Russian penal colony in exchange for an arms dealer.

President Joe Biden signed off on the trade, which took place in the United Arab Emirates, even though it meant leaving behind Paul Whelan, an American corporate security executive who remains jailed in Russia.

The move marks one of the most high-profile prisoner swaps between Moscow and Washington since the Cold War, with the Kremlin seeing the return of Viktor Bout, who Russian President Vladimir Putin has been wanting to get back '-- and who had served 11 years of a 25-year sentence in the United States.

Griner's return to the United States will cap a monthslong saga that began in February when she was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport after Russian authorities said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage. She was later jailed on drug charges.

The 32-year-old Phoenix Mercury player was the subject of prolonged and often public negotiations between the two countries after a trial that underscored frayed relations amid Russia's war in Ukraine. Biden's administration had sought the release of both Griner and Whelan.

"I'm telling you, I am determined to get her home and get her home safely '-- along with others, I might add," Biden said of the situation on Nov. 9.

Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who was detained and accused of espionage, stands inside a defendants' cage during his verdict hearing in Moscow, Russia June 15, 2020.

Maxim Shemetov | Reuters

Whelan is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being accused of spying, which the U.S. has denied. People familiar with the negotiations for his release say the Russians refused to release Whelan without getting a Russian spy in return. The U.S. insists it does not have any Russian spies in its custody, and thus no one to trade to meet the Kremlin's demand.

Griner's release marks a stunning turn of events from last month, when she began serving a nine-year sentence at a Russian penal colony more than 200 miles east of Moscow.

During her trial in July, Griner pleaded guilty but said she had no criminal intent. Griner said the canisters, which she had been prescribed to treat chronic pain, were packed inadvertently as she hurriedly prepared for her flight.

As her trial neared its end in early August, it became public that the U.S. put a prisoner swap offer on the table for Moscow to consider. Russia called for "quiet diplomacy" but said after her sentencing that it was ready to discuss a deal.

NBC News reported in July that the U.S. proposed a prisoner exchange with Russia for the release of Griner and Whelan, who has been detained since 2018. That deal, two sources familiar with the matter confirmed at the time, would have included the U.S. releasing Bout, known as the "Merchant of Death" because he was considered one of the world's largest illicit arms dealers.

Viktor Bout is escorted by members of a special police unit after a hearing at a criminal court in Bangkok October 5, 2010.

Sukree Sukplang | Reuters

Bout was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison in 2012 after he was convicted of selling arms to Colombian rebels, which prosecutors said were intended to kill Americans. The Kremlin has been demanding his release over the past decade, saying he was unfairly targeted.

The Washington-Moscow swap marks the most prominent diplomatic engagement between the two countries since the U.S. and its allies firmly backed Kyiv and condemned the Kremlin for launching the war against its neighbor in February.

The Biden administration has faced tremendous pressure to help bring home the 6-foot-9 Houston native. Griner's teammates, family and friends, as well as a number of U.S. celebrities lobbied for her return.

Griner's release is the second publicly known U.S. prisoner swap with Russia since the war in Ukraine started. American Trevor Reed was released in April after spending nearly three years in a Russian jail. The former Marine was freed in a prisoner exchange that saw Biden commute the sentence of Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving time in Connecticut who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the U.S. in 2010.

US Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) basketball player Brittney Griner, who was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport and later charged with illegal possession of cannabis, waits for the verdict inside a defendants' cage during a hearing in Khimki outside Moscow, on August 4, 2022.

Evgenia Novozhenina | AFP | Getty Images

With the United States and its Western allies confronting the realities of a new Cold War with Russia in the wake of the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, the high-stakes swap will evoke memories of Soviet-era trades involving spies.

One of the most well known Cold War swaps involved American pilot Francis Gary Powers, whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. He was traded in 1962 for Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in an exchange on a fog-shrouded bridge between West Berlin and East Germany.

The largest U.S.-Russian spy swap since the Cold War came in 2010 when 10 Russian agents, including Anna Chapman, were exchanged for four other Russians accused of spying for the West '-- among them Sergei Skripal, who was later poisoned with a nerve agent in the United Kingdom. The British government blamed Moscow for the poisoning.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:36

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) participates in a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, October 23, 2019.

Erin Scott | Reuters

House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters told Democrats she doesn't plan to subpoena former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to testify at Tuesday's hearing about the crypto exchange's rapid demise, according to people with direct knowledge of the conversation.

Waters informed committee members of her decision at a private meeting Tuesday with Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler on Capitol Hill, these people said, declining to be named in order to speak freely about private conversations.

Those at the meeting say Waters said she wants committee staff to try to convince Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify, those with knowledge of the meeting said. As of late Wednesday, Bankman-Fried has yet to agree to voluntarily testify to the House committee, two of the people explained.

Waters, who will lose the chair title when Republicans take control of the House on Jan. 3, could end up deferring to Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the panel's top Republican and likely next chair, to decide whether to subpoena Bankman-Fried in the next congressional session if the FTX founder declines to voluntarily testify under oath next week.

Bankman-Fried has been under scrutiny by federal investigators and lawmakers on Capitol Hill since his cryptocurrency exchange suddenly collapsed last month, bringing to light a host of questionable transactions. Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, announced that his committee will hold a hearing on FTX's implosion on Dec. 14. The company's crash arrived after FTX reportedly transferred billions of dollars in client funds to Bankman-Fried's trading firm, Alameda Research.

Waters invited Bankman-Fried to voluntarily testify before the panel and could always change her mind and subpoena him before Tuesday. A committee spokeswoman declined to comment. The committee and Waters tweeted in response to this story that a subpoena for Bankman-Fried is "is definitely on the table. Stay tuned."

Bankman-Fried tweeted his answer to Waters, saying he felt it was his "duty" to explain what happened, although it might not happen next week. John Jay Ray III, the new FTX CEO, is scheduled to testify at next week's House hearing.

"Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain," Bankman-Fried said. "I'm not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify."

Bankman-Fried's fall from grace was swift and unforgiving after spending years as the crypto "darling" on Capitol Hill. He donated almost $40 million toward the 2022 congressional midterm elections, with much of it going to Democrats.

Nishad Singh, who became FTX's lead engineer in 2019 following a stint at Bankman-Fried's trading firm Alameda Research, has donated more than $13 million to Democratic Party causes since the start of the 2020 presidential election.

Ryan Salame, the co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, donated another $23 million, with most of his contributions benefiting Republicans.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:35

Several high level Biden Administration officials will participate in a conference Wednesday and Thursday where organizers have declared the zoonotic origin theory of Covid-19 as ''science,'' and the ultimate result of human impact in the environment.

The Global Health Council (GHC), an outfit funded by the U.S. government and the Gates Foundation, along with smaller private donors, will kick off its annual conference Wednesday afternoon. The GHC is a leftwing organization aligned with climate change fanaticism and the priorities of the degrowth movement, and it seeks to promote ESG policies to facilitate these outcomes.

On Thursday morning, Jim Levy, a top State Department official, will appear on a GHC panel that declares, ''Important new science strongly supports zoonotic origins for COVID-19,'' adding that ''human impact on ecosystems'' might be to blame for the outbreak.

Levy will be joined by a VP at EcoHealth, the Wuhan lab-linked organization that attempted to cover up its role in conducting dangerous coronavirus experiments in China, which were funded in part by Anthony Fauci's NIAID.

The panel description reveals an emphasis on rolling back human impact on the environment. This notion forms the core objective for the climate hysteria movement, which is fully embraced by the U.S. Government Health establishment. In addition to supporting the zoonotic origin theory, these actors now speculate, without evidence, that human interference in the environment may have caused the claimed zoonotic spillover event.

The panel is sponsored by Preventing Pandemics At The Source (PPATS), a spin off of a non-profit outfit called Dalberg Catalyst, which has also received millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation and The Rockefeller Foundation . Additionally, a senior World Economic Forum official sits on its board. The billionaire-funded PPATS acts to disseminate the evidence-free notion that human impact is driving pandemics. Last week, Anthony Fauci published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine embracing the idea that the pandemic was caused by human ''encroachment on nature.''

Levy is far from the only Biden Admin official appearing at the event. He will be joined at the conference by top officials from the State Department, Treasury Department, and National Security Council.

Now three years into Covid hysteria, there remains deep suspicions about the role played by both the U.S. government health establishment and their Chinese counterparts in potentially sparking the outbreak. Investigators and journalists have pointed to the dangerous U.S. and Chinese Communist Party-funded coronavirus experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the potential epicenter for the pandemic.

The U.S. government health establishment, through Dr Anthony Fauci and his colleagues, have long insisted upon a ''zoonotic origin'' for the outbreak, claiming that the virus made the leap from bats to humans at a nearby wet market in Wuhan, China.

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For the dangerous virus research, the EcoHealth Alliance served as the funding and research bridge between the U.S. and Chinese health establishments. EcoHealth '-- and particularly its leader, Peter Daszak '-- has come under lots of scrutiny in recent years. The outfit has received millions of dollars in grants from the Fauci-led NIAID specifically to study and conduct experiments on gain of function research related to coronaviruses. Many of these initiatives were launched at the infamous Wuhan virology lab. The U.S. health establishment continues to fund EcoHealth despite its role in the gain of function controversy.

For several years, top U.S. government health officials (Fauci, former NIH Director Francis Collins, etc.) and their partners at EcoHealth have sought to delegitimize and demonize any scientists and journalists who raise questions about the zoonotic origin theory. Daszak, for his part, has refused to comply with congressional Covid-19 origins investigations.

The Biden Administration has yet to provide much clarity over its current position on the lab leak vs zoonotic origin debate. Through their robust attendance at the Global Health Council conference, it appears the Biden Administration is more than comfortable continuing to endorse the zoonotic origin camp.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:34

Customers can say ''Alexa, thank my driver,'' and the driver of their most recent delivery will be notified of their gratitude. Drivers who receive the first 1M thank-you's will also receive $5 per thank you!

Since Amazon opened its digital doors in 1994, not only has selection grown, but so has the ability to deliver quickly and conveniently. So much so, that we hit a major package milestone'--15 billion Amazon packages delivered in the U.S. But for drivers, it's more than just the packages that they deliver'--they form relationships with customers, provide support to the community in tough moments, and sometimes play the role of the unexpected hero.

We've heard many examples through social media, emails, phone calls, and when talking with friends and family. You can even read some of them for yourself . Now, we'll provide customers with the opportunity to say thanks each and every day'--with the help of Alexa. We developed an Alexa feature that allows customers to directly thank their drivers for making their deliveries . This new feature is available to U.S. customers with an Alexa-enabled device (Echo, Echo Show) or the Alexa or Amazon Shopping mobile apps, making it easy to thank drivers in the U.S. anywhere.

Starting December 7, any time a customer says ''Alexa, thank my driver,'' the driver who delivered their most recent package will be notified of the customer's appreciation. And, in celebration of this new feature, with each thank-you received from customers, drivers will also receive an additional $5, at no cost to the customer. We'll be doing this for the first 1 million thank-you's received. And, the five drivers who receive the most customer ''thank-you's'' during the promotional period, will also be rewarded with $10,000 and an additional $10,000 to their charity of choice.

We love hearing the countless stories from customers about the many ways delivery drivers make their lives better. We are excited for this new opportunity to thank these everyday heroes and giving our customers the ability to help us do it.

Amazon has a long-standing commitment to empowering and investing in delivery drivers. While this thank-you is another moment for us to express our gratitude, it certainly will not be the last, and we look forward to finding additional opportunities to celebrate the drivers who deliver smiles for customers.

Thank you, delivery drivers, for helping us deliver for customers this holiday season and every day.

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:32

The UK could see 'significant snow' next week as early warning signs of disruptive cold weather develop in the Atlantic, with the Met Office warning the approaching cold snap could see temperatures in the double digits below freezing.

The Met Office today said a brutal blast of Arctic air from Norway could whip through the country for at least a week.

Dubbed the 'Troll of Trondheim', it could arrive as early as tonight and will see snow showers and ice form across large parts of Britain - with temperatures expected to fall to around -10C by the weekend.

Early modelling for the middle of next week suggests that snow could hit the country when a low pressure system drifts up and moist air hits the colder temperatures bringing heavy snow across parts of the south, Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin said in a long-range forecast.

He said there could be 'significant' snow in central parts of England and Wales in one of the predicted models for next week.

Mr Deakin said that if the low pressure system heads towards France instead, it would leave the UK with cold north and north-easterly winds for a longer time, but with snowfall confined to the south of England.

In London, mayor Sadiq Khan agreed to implement emergency planning which includes sheltering homeless people in the capital against the severe weather.

There are currently yellow weather warnings in place into Friday as the Met Office predicts icy conditions with overnight double-digit sub zero temperatures in exposed parts of the UK could last for at least a week.

One model suggested snow will hit the south of England and move north, bringing more 'significant snow', the Met Office said

Another model suggested the snow could be focused in the south of England. The presence of snow will depend on the movement of the low pressure system in the Atlantic

The Met Office has issued yellow weather alerts for much of Scotland, England and Wales from today (left) through tomorrow (centre) until Friday (right)

A workman clearing snow from the pavements in Tomintoul, Scotland

A car battles an icy A939 in Scotland as an Arctic chill sweeps Britain

Cold snap to last AT LEAST a week, Met Office warns Icy conditions with overnight double-digit sub zero temperatures in exposed parts of the UK could last for at least a week, the Met Office has said.

The forecaster extended Wednesday's yellow weather warnings into Thursday and Friday, with ice in coastal and northern England, with both snow and ice expected in northern Scotland.

Arctic air, dubbed the Troll of Trondheim, will quickly move south during Wednesday, leaving most of the country in its grip by Thursday morning.

Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said: 'We are in this pattern for seven days at least.

'We could see it continue for a while longer, there's uncertainty in the evolution and how long it will last.

'However, the pattern for the next seven days is that it will remain cold and we will see double digit minus figures overnight in areas that are prone to frosts and areas where there is lying snow.'

There was no expectation of widespread heavy snow, but wintry showers were expected during the cold spell, particularly on higher ground and by the coast, Mr Madge said.

Cold air from the north tended to contain less moisture than from the west, meaning less cloud cover and therefore lower overnight temperatures.

Mr Madge said although this will be a cold snap, it will not be as tough as the 'hard December' of 2010.

Up to four inches of snow are predicted to fall this week above 650ft with temperatures set to plummet.

But forecasters warned even at lower levels, the mercury will drop and up to 2in of snow could fall.

A strong northerly wind is also likely to produce 'drifting and blizzard conditions' in some areas, according to meteorologists.

'In the southern half of Britain temperatures will probably plunge to between -5C and -10C in some locations and in the Welsh valleys they may fall below -10C,' The Weather Outlook forecaster Brian Gaze told Express.

'Forecast details become much more uncertain next week, but some computer models are showing areas of low pressure starting to push up from the southwest.

'It is only one possible scenario being shown by computer models at the present time, but if it happens the chance of disruptive snow in the southern half of Britain will increase.'

Met Office Deputy Chief Meteorologist, Jason Kelly, said that next week will see wintry showers, mainly for coasts, and freezing fog patches inland.

'An area of low pressure may then threaten southern and southwestern parts of the UK through mid-week,' he explained.

'Confidence in the exact track of this system is low, but should it push precipitation into the UK, then this would readily turn to snow, with a lower chance of freezing rain.

'How far north the milder air gets is also open to a lot of uncertainty, but for now, many central and northern areas are likely to remain in the Arctic airmass.'

It comes as public health chiefs today urged people to prioritise heating their living rooms during the day to survive the cold.

The UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) said main rooms should be kept to at least 18C to avoid dangerous conditions amid fears cost of living pressures will stop households from turning on the central heating even with temperatures reaching -10C.

Racing has been cancelled at Hexham, Northumbria due to the cold, with further disruption for sports and on the public transport system expected in the coming days.

Elsewhere, desperate families are taking drastic measures to stay warm such as spending the day in only one room, only turning on the heating once a week, and covering walls with cardboard to serve as temporary insulation.

The Met Office has extended Wednesday's yellow weather warnings into Thursday and Friday, with ice in coastal and northern England, with both snow and ice expected in northern Scotland.

There is also a risk of wintry snow showers extending across the north and west of England, while freezing fog is also expected to develop by the weekend.

Dangerous conditions on the A969 in Scotland as the 'Troll of Trondheim' batters Britain

A gritter is pictured spreading salt across the M42 near Birmingham as a fresh blast of Arctic cold weather is set to batter Britain until Friday

A car battles through snow covered streets in the village of Tomintoul in the Cairngorms today

An ambulance driving down the A939 in Scotland amid snowfall

What is the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol? Everything you need to know What is the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP)?

SWEP is a temporary response to a heightened risk of death due to the weather. The alert requires social and healthcare services to target services for high-risk groups of people.

Is it the same as winter shelters?

No. It is additional to winter shelters, because it is coordinated by the Local Authority, may open at any time of year and does not have restrictions on access.

Who delivers SWEP?

The Local Authority commissions SWEP. The provider varies depending on the local context - eg, SWEP sometimes forms part of a wider contract such as an expectation that communal space in a hostel will be opened. It may also be via B&Bs or hotels, or spot purchasing of beds in shelters or hostels.

Who decides when to trigger SWEP?

Each Local Authority is responsible for triggering SWEP, and in some areas there is additional coordination.

How does it work in London?

As well as individual borough responses, the Greater London Assembly commissions 'overflow' SWEP beds that open when London-wide SWEP has been activated and local SWEPs reach capacity.

How long does SWEP last?

It's up to the Local Authority. Some SWEPs will last for a single night and close as soon as the weather improves slightly. Others have a protocol that includes minimum opening.

Some SWEPs make a commitment to offering shelter until the people accessing SWEP have been offered a route off the street, such as a bed in a non-emergency shelter or hostel.

Met Office spokesman Grahame Madge said: 'We are in this pattern for seven days at least.

'We could see it continue for a while longer, there's uncertainty in the evolution and how long it will last.

'However, the pattern for the next seven days is that it will remain cold and we will see double-digit minus figures overnight in areas that are prone to frosts and areas where there is lying snow.'

Wintry showers were expected during the cold spell, particularly on higher ground and by the coast, Mr Madge said.

Cold air from the north tended to contain less moisture than from the west, meaning less cloud cover and therefore lower overnight temperatures.

Mr Madge said although this will be a cold snap, it will not be as tough as the 'hard December' of 2010.

That winter, Britain faced record-breaking amounts of snow fall and average temperatures throughout the month slipped to a record -1C.

In London, homeless people are to be sheltered with temperatures set to plummet below freezing.

All boroughs have committed to the Mayor's 'In for Good' principle, meaning no one will be asked to leave accommodation until a support plan is in place to end their rough sleeping, regardless of an increase in temperature.

Latest figures show the number of people sleeping rough in London has jumped 24 per cent in the past year, with more than 3,600 sleeping on the capital's streets between June and September. Rough sleeping services are also helping more people than ever before.

Mr Khan said: 'Too many people are facing a freezing winter on the streets of the capital without the safe, secure accommodation they need.

'Across the capital, we are doing everything we can to prevent anyone sleeping rough in these freezing conditions as we work to build a fairer and safer London for everyone.

'I am also encouraging Londoners to download the Streetlink app or use the Streetlink website to connect people they see sleeping rough with local support services.

'London's councils and charities will be working even harder this week to support some of the most vulnerable people in our city.'

The scheme operates when temperatures drop to below freezing.

The Met Office also warned Scots to expect 'some injuries from slips and falls on icy surfaces' and 'some icy patches on some untreated roads, pavements and cycle paths'.

Senior meteorologist Alex Burkhill said: 'The warning will affect the northern third of Scotland.

'We have a cold northerly wind with plenty of showers and as the temperature drops this will fall as snow.

'It is going to be pretty horrible conditions, with temperatures dropping overnight and remaining cold in the day.'

What is a level 3 cold weather alert? The Met Office has triggered a level 3, or amber, cold weather alert warning of severe conditions in England from 6pm tomorrow to 9am on Monday December 12.

The alert means the cold weather could increase health risks to vulnerable people and it requires social and healthcare services to take action to protect high-risk groups.

The Met Office said air from the Arctic will spread south across the country from late tomorrow evening with very cold nights expected as well as frosts.

Wintry showers are also likely in coastal areas bringing risks of icy patches on roads.

He added: 'Areas which do see snow fall can expect some blizzards due to that strong northerly wind.

'Because there are showers forecast, there could be some parts within the warning area that don't actually see snowfall, but there is a pretty significant risk there will be something.'

Road maintenance team Bear NW Trunk Roads said it was working 'round the clock' to ensure routes remain open.

A statement from the organisation said: 'We will have 29 gritters out making sure the roads are safe from 2pm today and will have a further 18 patrolling the routes to make sure they stay safe.'

Bosses at Glencoe Mountain Resort in Argyll have spent the past few weeks manufacturing snow ahead of the sledging season, which reopens tomorrow.

The Met Office said it expected conditions to remain cold into next week with temperatures remaining 'well below average for the time of year'.

Its deputy chief meteorologist, Rebekah Sherwin, admitted: 'More severe weather warnings could be needed as we head through the week.'

People should expect snow showers and ice to cause travel disruption and a risk of slippery surfaces.

A family out in the snow in the village of Tomintou in the Cairngorms

Frost coats the grass in Argyll this morning as an Arctic blast hits Britain

The sun rises over a foggy Worcestershire as seen from the Malvern Hills

Forecasters issued the second highest level of alert '' amber '' with wintry showers and snow predicted to hit from tomorrow evening until next Monday. The amber warning is triggered when temperatures drop to an average of 2C or below for at least 48 hours

How to prepare for cold snap: Check your tyres and keep your rooms warm The RAC has advised motorists to check their vehicles are 'winter ready', with properly inflated tyres that have good tread.

The Met Office has advised people to try and maintain indoor temperatures of at least 18C, stating that this is particularly relevant for those who are not mobile, have a long-term illness or are 65 or over.

It has also asked people to 'look out for friends and family who may be vulnerable to the cold', ensuring they have access to warm food and drinks and are managing to heat their homes adequately.

The charity Age UK has advised maintaining a supply of food and medicine to reduce the number of outdoor trips and torches with spare batteries in case of a power cut.

The Met Office's long range forecast suggests that the cold snap may not last until Christmas and the New Year, when it could get milder - although wetter and windier in southern and western areas.

The long-range forecast predicts that the north and east are 'most likely to hold on to colder conditions for longest'.

Downing Street said it is confident that the UK has sufficient energy supplies, as the country braces for severe cold weather in the coming days.

The Prime Minister's spokesman said: 'The UK has a diverse energy supply via renewables or otherwise. So we are confident we have diverse supply.'

He said the Government had never sought to be 'prescriptive' with advice for the public.

'The Government has for some time now provided advice to the public should they wish to find ways to save energy '' that's available in the Help for Households website.'

He added that the Government would be launching a campaign to 'further boost' that information.

The Met Office's cold weather alert system operates in England from November 1 to March 31 in association with the UKHSA.

The system has five levels of response based on cold weather thresholds, designed to trigger an alert when severe cold weather is likely to significantly affect people's health.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:30

Ted Cruz's daughter, 14, is hospitalized with self-inflicted knife wounds on her arms: Texas senator's representative says 'this is a family matter, and thankfully their daughter is okay'Cruz's 14-year-old daughter Caroline was hospitalized in Houston last nightThe teenager is expected to recover, according to reps for the Senator Cruz and his wife Heidi have two daughters - Catherine, 11, and Caroline, 14If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or dial 988 By Alyssa Guzman and Natasha Anderson For Dailymail.Com

Published: 23:31 EST, 6 December 2022 | Updated: 17:10 EST, 7 December 2022

Senator Ted Cruz's 14-year-old daughter has been hospitalized with self-inflicted knife wounds.

Representatives for Cruz, who has two daughters, said in a statement last night: 'This is a family matter, and thankfully their daughter is OK. There were no serious injuries.

'The family requests that the media respect their daughter's privacy at this time.'

Cruz has two daughters Catherine, 11, and Caroline, 14.

Houston Police received a call to the family's home shortly before 8pm on Tuesday night.

Senator Ted Cruz with his wife Heidi and daughters Catherine and Caroline during his 2016 campaign. Caroline was hospitalized last night but is expected to recover

Police were seen outside of Cruz's decorated lawn in Houston, Texas

Cruz was not home at the time and is currently in Washington DC and it is unknown if he will travel home following the incident (pictured: a police car outside his home on Tuesday)

If you or someone you know is in emotional distress or considering suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or dial 988.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:28

Privately held Plaid has joined the wave of technology companies trimming their forces, announcing plans Wednesday to lay off about 260 workers.

Chief Executive Zach Perret detailed the cuts in a message to employees that was posted on the company's corporate site. Like numerous other tech executives recently, he explained that Plaid made hiring moves in the wake of booming, pandemic-fueled growth that no longer align with the economic reality.

''Macroeconomic conditions have changed substantially this year,'' he said. ''Despite being well-diversified across every category of financial services, we are seeing customers across the industry experiencing slower-than-expected growth. The simple reality is that due to these macroeconomic changes, our pace of cost growth outstripped our pace of revenue growth.''

The layoffs ''will allow us to continue to operate from a position of strength so we can best support our customers and the millions of consumers we jointly serve for the long term,'' Perret continued.

The cuts represent about 20% of the company's count of roughly 1,250 employees.

Plaid, which enables consumers to link their financial information with apps and services that seek to access it, was valued at $13.4 billion in an April 2021 funding round. That came shortly after Visa Inc. V, -0.61% and Plaid mutually agreed to call off their planned merger arrangement, which had been the subject of regulatory opposition.

Other companies that have announced recent layoffs include Pinterest Inc. PINS, -0.18% , Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.24% and Meta Platforms Inc. META, -0.17% , the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

See also: Pinterest is the latest social-media company to cut staff

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:25

Singer Rod Stewart has revealed he called an ambulance after his son, aged 11, turned blue and collapsed while watching a football match.

A suspected heart attack was at first thought to be the cause of the medical event.

The Evening Standard reports the rock veteran, 77, recalled his son going ''blue and unconscious'' while playing for his Young Hoops Under-12s team.

Although the hitmaker didn't share further details of when the incident occurred, he confirmed an ambulance did attend.

Stewart revealed to FourFourTwo magazine: ''We thought my boy had a heart attack.

''He was going blue and was unconscious until he calmed down. It was scary, but it turned out to be a panic attack. The lad wanted to do well, pulled on the Hoops in Scotland for his dad.

File/Sir Rod Stewart with his wife, Penny Lancaster and children Alastair and Aiden after he received his knighthood in recognition of his services to music and charity at Buckingham Palace on October 11, 2016 in London, England. (David Parker '' WPA Pool/Getty)

''Another boy fell backwards and banged his head '' he's still not back. In all of my days watching football, that's the only time two ambulances had been called.''

He shares his son Aiden with his wife Penny Lancaster Stewart, whom he wed in 2007.

The Maggie May singer also has seven other children.

His offspring are from romances with five different women. He has two sons with current wife Penny, 51, model Alastair, 16 and Aiden.

Kimberly, 43, and Sean, 42, are from Rod's first marriage to actress, Alana Stewart, 77, and daughter Ruby, 35, is from his relationship with model Kelly Emberg, 63.

Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:21

A 'traffic filter' program that fines residents for traveling outside their neighborhoods too often is raising eyebrows

The city of Oxford has embraced the concept of limiting citizens' personal travel to fight climate change, an idea once dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

The Oxfordshire County Council's so-called 'traffic filter' system, adopted last week, has gone viral, denounced as the first step toward ''climate lockdowns'' by climate skeptics and civil liberties activists.

The city will be divided into six ''15-minute neighborhoods,'' containing all local necessities, with residents required to register their cars so their comings and goings can be tracked by a network of cameras. They are allowed unlimited movement in their own neighborhood, but in order to drive through the filters, they must apply for a permit.

Even then, they are only granted access to other neighborhoods for an average of two days per week. Those who exceed their travel allotment will be fined.

Thousands of residents have expressed concern about the project, which has previously been rejected under a different name - including 1,800 who signed a single petition over worries it would actually increase congestion. However campaign director for Oxfordshire Liveable Streets, Zuhura Plummer, claimed that the initiative would ''save lives and make our city more pleasant now and for future generations,'' citing an ''official analysis'' that projected 35% less traffic, 9% fewer road casualties, 15% faster bus times, and 91% less air pollution.

The city will also benefit financially, with any driver caught passing through a filter without an exemption or a permit being charged a £70 penalty (just over $85) per violation. Planners expect the city could make as much as £1.1 million per year from fines.

Climate skeptics have attempted to raise the alarm about the measure since its passage, describing it as the first step toward the kind of ''climate lockdowns'' media outlets like The Guardian warned about at the height of the pandemic.

Economics professor Mariana Mazzucato outlined a grim future in which people would be required to submit to ''climate lockdowns'' for part of the year, barred from using personal vehicles and consuming red meat, while fossil fuel companies would be prohibited from drilling - all in the name of warding off catastrophic global warming.

When the essay was met with widespread public backlash, mentions of the phrase 'climate lockdown' were promptly scrubbed from news headlines, and the very notion of a government-mandated climate lockdown was declared a conspiracy theory.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:20

By Jo Nova

T he 15 Minute City is a UN and WEF plan, because they care about you want you to drive less.

A cartoon from the WEF just for you good girls and boys:

In the WEF's own words '-- this rearrangement of cities is absolutely about climate change:As climate change and global conflict cause shocks and stresses at faster intervals and increasing severity, the 15-minute city will become even more critical.

And the solution was the pandemic (they really say that):

The obvious, yet incomplete, answer is the pandemic'.... with COVID-19 and its variants keeping everyone home (or closer to home than usual), the 15-minute city went from a ''nice-to-have'' to a rallying cry. Meeting all of one's needs within a walking, biking or transit distance was suddenly a matter of life and death.

And then the dark hand of the totalitarian managers appears, as James Woudhuysen, warned in Spiked in late October:

The madness of the '15-minute city'The green agenda is taking inspiration from the illiberal days of lockdown.

To this end, Oxfordshire County Council, which is run by Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, wants to divide the city of Oxford into six '15 minute' districts. In these districts, it is said, most household essentials will be accessible by a quarter-of-an-hour walk or bike ride, and so residents will have no need for a car.

On the surface, these 15-minute neigbourhoods might sound pleasant and convenient. But there is a coercive edge. The council plans to cut car use and traffic congestion by placing strict rules on car journeys.

Residents will have to register their cars with the council and they will be tracked to count their journeys through the key gateways. It's the social credit scheme that starts with your car and works like anti-frequent-flyer points.

Under the new proposals, if any of Oxford's 150,000 residents drives outside of their designated district more than 100 days a year, he or she could be fined £70.

The concept of the 15-minute city was born with 'C40'. Chaired today by London mayor Sadiq Khan, C40 calls itself a 'network of mayors of nearly 100 world-leading cities collaborating to deliver the urgent action needed right now to confront the climate crisis'.

Climate lockdowns? Seriously?It all sounds a bit ridiculous to suggest a lockdown ''for the climate'' but listen to the BBC. They're working awfully hard to persuade us '-- they obviously think voters won't want this. Here they are connecting the ''15 Minute City'' to the fun of covid lockdowns, and setting this up as though it's totally normal for the government to decide who your friends are:

How '15-minute cities' will change the way we socialiseAnd furthermore lockdowns in Paris were great social moments where we all made friends. Who knew how much fun it would be to be told you couldn't drive far?

.. for Fraioli, the two-month lockdown that began on 17 March '' confining her to a 1km radius of her home '' gave her a nuanced, enriching view of her neighbourhood. ''I discovered it's possible to feel like you're in a small village in Paris,'' she says. ''To get to know your neighbours, to maintain good links with shopkeepers, to favour local craftsmen and shops over large supermarkets. I even joined a citizens' movement where people prepare food baskets for homeless people. I thought I would have a hard time living the lockdown, but I was perfectly at home, in a quiet place.''

I don't seem to recall ''getting to know neighbours'' as being part of any lockdown anywhere?

And lookout '-- the 15 minute city is not just Oxford, but turning up in Brisbane, Melbourne, Barcelona, Paris, Portland and Buenos Aires. It's everywhere.

Oxford City Council is moving faster than the restApparently, not enough people are catching buses or riding bikes. But instead of making that more appealing, the totalitarians will force it through tracking and fines. Oxfordshire has just approved on November 29th, the ''traffic filters'' trial which will turn the city into a ''fifteen minute city''. The Trial will start in Jan 2024.

It's a crowded area, Oxfordshire, and no one likes traffic congestion, but in a free world the problem is self-limiting as drivers get fed up with delays and exorbitant parking costs, and they car-pool or choose to catch the bus or ride a bike. But in Big Nanny State the local rulers start making rules about who can and can't visit and how often, and they want your car registered on their own special list with cameras to track you and fines to punish you. They offer exemptions of course, but then you have to apply for them and get permission.

Oxfordshire County Council Pass Climate Lockdown 'trial' to Begin in 2024 Vision News, November 30th

Oxfordshire County Council yesterday approved plans to lock residents into one of six zones to 'save the planet' from global warming. The latest stage in the '15 minute city' agenda is to place electronic gates on key roads in and out of the city, confining residents to their own neighbourhoods.

Under the new scheme if residents want to leave their zone they will need permission from the Council who gets to decide who is worthy of freedom and who isn't. Under the new scheme residents will be allowed to leave their zone a maximum of 100 days per year, but in order to even gain this every resident will have to register their car details with the council who will then track their movements via smart cameras round the city.

Every resident will be required to register their car with the County Council who will then monitor how many times they leave their district via number plate recognition cameras.

In the end, these aggressively overmanaged schemes mean more paperwork, more tracking, more jobs for bureaucrats and more free passes for ''friends'' of Big Government.

The more rules you have the more corrupt the system gets. For example, some city blocks are included in the favored list with 100 passes, while others get just 25 '-- so the property values of the inner circle addresses rise. As a bonus, in years to come property developers ''in the know'' and on the favoured list with certain councilors can arrange for rezoning on the right day (the one after they buy the property) and voila '-- that's a nice capital gain for them

''Reconnecting Oxford'' wants to end these artificial blockagesThe councilors held a major consultation process but apparently knew the outcome. It says rather a lot about the attitude of one councilor who said it was going ahead whether people liked it or not.

Traffic filters will divide city into six ''15 minute'' neighbourhoods, agrees highways councillorOxford Mail, October 24

ROAD blocks stopping most motorists from driving through Oxford city centre will divide the city into six ''15 minute'' neighbourhoods, a county council travel chief has said.

And he insisted the controversial plan would go ahead whether people liked it or not.

Businesses in Oxford are not impressed:

Hotelier Jeremy Mogford, who owns the Old Bank Hotel in High Street and the Old Parsonage Hotel and Gees, both in Banbury Road, described the plan as disastrous for business.

He previously told the Oxford Mail: ''What we have is people making decisions that don't live in the city centre or spend much time in the city.

''The council has adopted the position that climate change is real''Skeptic and long range weather forecaster Piers Corbyn spoke to the council to warn them:

[Piers Corbyn said] ''The point is that the basis of these documents are false '' man-made climate change does not exist and if you don't believe me, look at the sky. You should have a special meeting to discuss whether man-made climate change exists or not.''

Responding to Mr Corbyn's claims, councillor Andrew, the council's cabinet member for highways management, said: ''Mr Corbyn said climate change is not real '' this council has formally adopted a position that climate change is real.

''Mr Corbyn you are wrong, we are right.''

Well that's it then. Councils control the weather. If this had nothing to do with climate change they could have said ''we'll see'' and dismissed him anyway. But they have to believe'...

Oxfordshire council has already infuriated local businesses earlier this year with road closures and traffic calming measures which have reduced the customer base significantly. Drivers destroyed 20 bollards in less than three weeks, and one frustrated cafe owner put up a giant billboard in protest saying ''So much for democracy''. Even cyclists don't like the traffic slowing measures, saying their road trips are more dangerous. There is at least one Oxford protest group that seems to have some success in stopping the road closures.

So who does want the traffic filters? Oxford University and the bus companies, and the council which expects to make £1.1m from fining errant drivers.

From the Oxford City Council Consultation page we see the plan is to reduce journeys that you think are necessary but the councilors don't.

Why are we introducing trial traffic filters?

Across our county, we want to reduce unnecessary journeys by private vehicles and make walking, cycling, public and shared transport the natural first choice.

This will help us deliver an affordable, sustainable and inclusive transport system that enables the county to thrive whilst protecting the environment and making Oxfordshire a better place to live for all residents.

And it is about ''protecting the environment'' by tracking you and resisting your movement.

Canterbury is planning something spookily similar '''' dividing up the city into five different districts with drivers unable to cross between zones without being fined. The old grid system of cities made for shorter distances and more choices. The new system offers only more obstacles and less freedom.

h/t David Maddison, John Connor II and Tonyb

UPDATED: the post has been re-edited to clarify exactly what is happening at Oxford, and to spell out the link between the ''15 minute cities'' plan and climate change and pandemic lockdowns, thanks to comments from Tonyb.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:13

BERLIN, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss is one of the last descendents of a dynasty that once ruled over swathes of eastern Germany. He is suspected of hoping to become the country's new leader in a violent coup to overthrow the democratic order.

The 71-year-old was one of 25 members and supporters of a far-right group planning the alleged putsch who were arrested early on Wednesday in nationwide raids, according to the authorities.

The real estate developer has for years publicly advocated the theory life was better worldwide under monarchy. He stems from House of Reuss, which for centuries ruled over parts of present-day Thueringen state until Germany's 1918 revolution that led to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.

Neither the House of Reuss nor Prince Reuss' Office responded to requests for comment.

He said in a 2019 speech to the World Web Forum - which describes itself as bringing together progressive minds to empower positive radical change - that in the principality of Reuss people led "happy lives" because the tax rate was just 10% and the structures were "straightforward and transparent".

"If things didn't work well, you just went to the prince," Heinrich said. "Who are you supposed to turn to today? Your parliamentarian, the local, federal or EU level? Good luck!"

In the speech, peppered with anti-Semitic conspiracies, he said Germany had been a vassal state government since World War Two and needed to regain its sovereignty through a peace deal.

He said monarchies worldwide including that of France had been overthrown due to the meddling of foreign powers which wanted to establish corporate structures in the pursuit of profit. The people had suffered as a result, he said.

HOLY ROMAN EMPERORProsecutors said on Wednesday Heinrich had reached out to representatives of Russia, whom the group saw as its central contact for establishing its new order. They said there was no evidence the representatives had reacted positively to the request. The Kremlin said there could be no question of any Russian involvement in the alleged plot.

Heinrich was arrested at his house in Frankfurt, led out by balaclava-clad policemen in handcuffs, sporting mustard-coloured corduroy trousers and a tartan-patterned jacket, with long grey hair.

Police also searched his hunting lodge in Thueringen where he was suspected of stockpiling weapons, according to the Ostthueringer newspaper. The state in eastern Germany is known for the long-standing strength there of the far right.

The federal prosecutors' office declined to comment on the report, saying only there had been a raid in that area.

It also declined to comment on how, if at all, Heinrich was involved in the far-right "Reichsbuerger" movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state, and which prosecutors say inspired the group of suspects arrested.

The Reuss dynasty named all its male children Heinrich or Henry after the end of the 12th century in honour of Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, who bequeathed them the estates of Weida and Gera, now towns in Thueringen state.

While officially, there are no princes and princesses any more in Germany, some descendents like Heinrich have continued to use the title. He had named his real estate and financial services company, based in Frankfurt, the "Buero Prinz Reuss".

The House of Reuss, currently headed by Heinrich XIV who lives in Austria, has however previously distanced itself from Heinrich XIII, calling him a confused man peddling conspiracy theories, according to local media.

Reporting by Sarah Marsh;Editing by Alison Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 13:02

BERLIN (AP) '-- German police rounded up dozens of people including a self-styled prince, a retired paratrooper and a former judge Wednesday, accusing the suspects of discussing the violent overthrow of the government but leaving unclear how concrete the plans were.

A German official and a lawmaker said investigators may have detected real plotting, drunken fantasizing, or both. Regardless, Germany takes any right-wing threat seriously and thousands of police officers carried out pre-dawn raids across much of the country.

''We're talking about a group that, according to what we know so far, planned to violently abolish our democratic state of law and an armed attack,'' on the German parliament building, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said.

Sara Nanni, a lawmaker with the Green party, part of the German government, suggested the group may not have been capable.

''More details keep coming to light that raise doubts about whether these people were even clever enough to plan and carry out such a coup,'' Nanni said in a post on the social network Mastodon. ''The fact is: no matter how crude their ideas are and how hopeless their plans, even the attempt is dangerous!''

Federal prosecutors said the group is alleged to have believed in a ''conglomerate of conspiracy theories consisting of narratives from the so-called Reich Citizens as well as QAnon ideology. '' Adherents of the Reich Citizens movement reject Germany's postwar constitution and have called for bringing down the government, while QAnon is a global conspiracy theory with roots in the United States.

The Reich Citizens scene has been under observation by Germany's domestic intelligence agency since 2016. Authorities estimate that the loose-knit movement has about 21,000 adherents.

Prosecutors said the suspects also believe Germany is ruled by a so-called ''deep state.''

One of the alleged ringleaders arrested Wednesday is Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss, a 71-year-old member of the House of Reuss who continues to use the title despite Germany abolishing any formal role for royalty more than a century ago.

Federal prosecutors said Reuss, whom the group planned to install as Germany's new leader, had contacted Russian officials with the aim of imposing a new order in the country once the German government was overthrown. There is no indication that the Russians responded positively.

Police also detained Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, a judge and former lawmaker with the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

Alternative for Germany, which is known by its acronym AfD, has increasingly come under scrutiny by security services due to its ties with extremists.

AfD's co-leaders, Tino Chrupalla and Alice Weidel said they had only learned of the alleged coup plans through the media, and condemned them.

''We have full confidence in the authorities involved and demand a swift and comprehensive investigation,'' they said in a statement.

Chief federal prosecutor Peter Frank said some 3,000 officers were involved in the raids conducted at 150 sites in 11 of Germany's 16 states.

Officers detained 22 German citizens on suspicion of ''membership in a terrorist organization,'' prosecutors said. Three other people, including a Russian citizen, were held on suspicion of supporting the organization, they said. An additional 27 people were under investigation.

One of those arrested was a soldier serving on the support staff for Germany's special forces unit KSK in the southwestern town of Calw. The unit has received scrutiny over what officials called some soldiers' far-right beliefs.

Along with detentions in Germany, prosecutors said one person was detained in the Austrian town of Kitzbuehel and another in Italy.

The latter suspect, a 64-year-old German citizen who is a former officer in the German army special forces, is accused of being part of a criminal organization that aimed to ''subvert the German democratic order by any means - including criminal - and replace it with another unidentified form of state,'' police said in a statement, adding that extradition proceedings were underway.

''Of course, there are many people who grandstand and tell confused tales after drinking alcohol,'' German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann said. ''In this case, however, there were such strong suspicions that the group wanted to take violet action that the investigating judge at the Federal Supreme Court ordered the investigative measures to be taken.''

Some of the group's members had made ''concrete preparations'' to storm Germany's federal parliament with a small armed group, according to prosecutors.

Wednesday's raids showed that ''we know how to defend ourselves with full force against the enemies of democracy,'' Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.

''The investigation offers an insight into the depths of the terrorist threat within the Reich Citizens milieu,'' Faeser said. ''Only the further investigation will provide a clear picture of how far the coup plans had come.''

Officials have repeatedly warned that far-right extremists pose the biggest threat to Germany's domestic security. This threat was highlighted by the killing of a regional politician and the deadly attack on a synagogue in 2019. A year later, far-right extremists taking part in a protest against the country's pandemic restrictions tried and failed to storm the Bundestag building in Berlin.

Faeser announced this year that the government planned to disarm about 1,500 suspected extremists and to tighten background checks for those wanting to acquire guns as part of a broader crackdown on the far right.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 12:59

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday on a case in which the North Carolina state legislature is pushing the independent state legislature theory, a radical idea that existentially threatens free and fair elections.

It entails a very selective reading of two constitutional clauses, concluding that the state legislature '-- and only the legislature '-- has any power over federal elections. A maximal reading of the theory nullifies state courts, state constitutions, gubernatorial vetoes and voter-passed ballot initiatives when it comes to voting laws, election administration and redistricting.

The theory would imbue state legislatures with untold power, an even greater risk given Republicans' success in gerrymandering many statehouses so completely that they govern far to the right of their constituents.

''Completely freed of the ordinary checks and balances that are essential to liberty, the legislature's power would be unfathomable,'' voters opposing the North Carolina legislature wrote in a reply brief. ''It is hard to imagine a more direct affront to federalism.''

Listen liveYou can stream oral arguments here.

The order in which the attorneys will speak todayDavid Thompson for North CarolinaNeal Katyal for private respondentsDonald Verrilli for state respondentsSolicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar for the United States, supporting the respondentsWhere the justices standEarlier this year, TPM ran through the clues that were already on record about where each justice stands on the independent state legislature theory. Read that here.

More Less

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday on a case in which the North Carolina state legislature is pushing the independent state legislature theory, a radical idea that existentially threatens free and fair elections.

It entails a very selective reading of two constitutional clauses, concluding that the state legislature '-- and only the legislature '-- has any power over federal elections. A maximal reading of the theory nullifies state courts, state constitutions, gubernatorial vetoes and voter-passed ballot initiatives when it comes to voting laws, election administration and redistricting.

The theory would imbue state legislatures with untold power, an even greater risk given Republicans' success in gerrymandering many statehouses so completely that they govern far to the right of their constituents.

''Completely freed of the ordinary checks and balances that are essential to liberty, the legislature's power would be unfathomable,'' voters opposing the North Carolina legislature wrote in a reply brief. ''It is hard to imagine a more direct affront to federalism.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 12:57

Mother Jones

Editor's note: The below article first appeared in David Corn's newsletter, Our Land. Subscribing costs just $5 a month'--but you can sign up for a free 30-day trial of here. And please also check out David's new New York Times bestseller: American Psychosis: A Historical Investigation of How the Republican Party Went Crazy.

Russian denialism is the original sin of the Trump era. In 2016, Vladimir Putin attacked the US election. This has been documented by Democratic and Republican congressional investigations, Robert Mueller, the US intelligence committee, and independent cybersecurity experts. The assault was mounted to help Donald Trump win the presidency. And we saw it with our own eyes, as cyber-pilfered documents were released by WikiLeaks, first to derail the Democrats' convention and then in the final weeks of the general election to hamper Hillary Clinton's campaign. Yet Trump both denied Moscow's assault was real'--which aided and abetted the Russian operation by providing cover for it'--and sought to benefit from it, as detailed in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report released two years ago when Republicans controlled the Senate. That report also shockingly revealed there was a ''direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services'' while Moscow was clandestinely endeavoring to elect Trump president.

Trump and his allies engaged in a profound betrayal of the United States to gain the White House, assisting an act of war mounted by a foreign adversary. As the Senate report put it, ''The Trump campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian interference effort.'' After Trump's narrow victory, he and his comrades in the GOP and right-wing media continued to deny Putin's attack'--calling it a hoax'--to hide his treachery and erase the dark stain on his presidency.

This effort begot numerous phony scandals'--such as Spygate (the false claim that the Obama administration spied on Trump) and Ukraine-gate (the baseless assertion that Ukraine, not Russia, was somehow responsible for the hack of the Democratic Party servers)'--and an obsessive focus on problems with the Steele dossier and its misuse by the FBI to obtain a surveillance warrant on one former Trump campaign adviser. Anything to deflect from the key issue: Trump reached the White House partly due to a clandestine Russian operation he had assisted and even encouraged. To a large extent, this grand disinformation campaign succeeded. The issue eventually receded and played little, if any role, in the 2020 election.

Why bring this up now? Because Trump-Russia denialism is at the heart of the right's latest attempt to cook up another sham scandal to tar President Joe Biden and bolster Trump's dangerous and fraudulent charge that the 2020 election was stolen from him. This campaign is being enabled by the wealthiest person in the world, Elon Musk, and, worse, it is being exploited by Trump to call for the ''termination'' of the US Constitution.

On Friday afternoon, Musk made a surprise announcement: Within hours, Twitter would feature a report on how the social media site had handled the story of Hunter Biden's laptop in October 2020. It would tell us, Musk promised, what ''really happened with the Hunter Biden story suppression by Twitter.''

Back then, the New York Post published a supposed bombshell report revealing that Rudy Giuliani, Trump's chief henchman, had come into possession of the contents of a laptop previously owned by Biden's son and that the computer supposedly contained information proving the unfounded allegation that Biden, as vice president, had pushed for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor to protect Hunter and Burisma, an Ukrainian energy company of which the younger Biden was a board member. This posed a challenge for news organizations and social media outlets. The story might be a Watergate-sized scoop that could undo Biden's presidential campaign. Then again, it might be a disinformation operation being facilitated or carried out by Rupert Murdoch's right-wing outlet. Should the story be amplified? Linked to? Cited? Twitter blocked its users from tweeting a link to the New York Post article and tagged it as ''hacked material.'' The company suspended the newspaper's Twitter account for several days. Yoel Roth, then Twitter's chief for trust and safety, recently stated that Twitter took these steps because it could not verify the story.

Ever since, Trumpers and right-wingers have howled that the suppression of the New York Post story was the result of a diabolical plot to protect Biden, with the culprits being the Deep State, the liberal media, and other usual suspects. Some insist that Trump lost'--though he didn't really lose, right?'--because this October Surprise was smothered. And Musk, who has become an ally of the alt-right, seems to have bought into this conspiracism.

After Musk acquired Twitter, he decided to revisit this episode. He turned over Twitter's internal records to Matt Taibbi to report on what had occurred within Twitter regarding the Biden laptop. Taibbi was both an odd and predictable choice. An ex-lefty journalist with a checkered past, Taibbi, along with his pal Glenn Greenwald, has been for years a Trump-Russia denialist, dismissing all talk of Russia's attack on the 2016 election and the Trump campaign's interactions with Russians as a hoax. Beyond that, he and Greenwald have forged a narrative in which cancel culture and the flaws of liberal journalists are far more important than Trump's authoritarian threat to the nation, his transfer of wealth to the rich (via loaded tax cuts), his mismanagement of the Covid pandemic (which led to the preventable deaths of probably hundreds of thousands of Americans), his personal corruption (Saudi money, anyone?), his climate denialism, his incitement of political violence, his effort to overturn an election, or anything else. Curiously, Taibbi, who poses as a champion of transparency and journalistic ethics and a foe of mainstream media hypocrisy and its alleged collusion with corporate and government forces, noted in his Substack newsletter that he had agreed to certain ''conditions'' to gain access to the Twitter material. Yet he did not identify these conditions. What deal did he cut with Musk?

On Friday night, Taibbi, citing those internal documents, posted a long Twitter thread that reported on how Twitter had dealt with the Biden laptop story. But the thread did not reveal a massive conspiracy. It showed Twitter employees scrambling to manage a tough issue. As New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo noted, the thread amounted to a ''half dozen screenshots of content moderation policy executives earnestly debating content moderation policy.''

Though Musk, in a tweet, claimed Taibbi's report showed ''government involvement in censoring people on Twitter,'' that was not the case. No one in the government had pushed Twitter to shut down the laptop story. The Biden campaign'--which was not a government entity'--did ask Twitter to block the sharing of dick pics from the laptop, a request in line with Twitter's rules and reportedly honored. According to Taibbi's thread, in 2020 the Trump White House also asked Twitter to repress material, and the company assented. Hardly evidence that Twitter was covertly plotting with the Biden camp to crush Trump.

Musk demonstrated tremendous ignorance and bad faith. In response to a Taibbi tweet citing a Twitter document saying that requests from the ''Biden team'' were ''handled,'' Musk tweeted, ''If this isn't a violation of the Constitution's First Amendment, what is?'' As conservative (non-Trumper) writer David French pointed out, ''Biden was not president in 2020, and therefore there was no government involvement in his campaign's requests. The First Amendment is not implicated when only private actors are involved.'' Kevin Fox, a tech developer, put it this way: ''A political campaign sends Twitter a list of tweets that refer to the campaign and violate Twitter's terms of service and Twitter takes them down. This is what Elon Musk says tonight is a 'blatant violation of the 1st Amendment', as he willfully misrepresents the facts.''

The bottom-line: The Taibbi thread showed no conspiracy, just a hot mess. Twitter employees were in a difficult situation, striving to figure out what to do about the laptop article.

Here's where Trump-Russia denialism comes in.

One reason why folks at Twitter and elsewhere were worried about the authenticity of the laptop story was the 2016 election. The Russians then had used American social media and news outfits to advance their operation against the Clinton campaign. Russian cyber operatives had clandestinely exploited Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to spread messages to sow political discord in the United States and assist Trump. And American media organizations eagerly ran anti-Clinton stories based on the material hacked by the Russians and released by WikiLeaks, and they mostly ignored the larger story that the American political system was under attack from Moscow. Consequently and justifiably, media companies and tech firms in 2020 did not want to become, once again, unwitting accomplices of a Russia disinformation campaign'--and, at the time of the New York Post story, one was underway.

Indeed, Twitter and others had good reason to be suspicious about the Hunter Biden story, given its origins. For over a year, Giuliani and other Trumpers had been trying to gin up a scandal about Biden and Ukraine. As part of this endeavor, Giuliani had been working with a Ukrainian parliamentarian named Andriy Derkach, who was promoting the unproven allegation Biden had improperly forced the firing of that Ukrainian prosecutor to help Hunter and Burisma. And Derkach was bad news.

Weeks before the laptop story, the US Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on Derkach'--the son of a former KGB official'--and dubbed him ''an active Russian agent for over a decade.'' It was the Trump administration that declared Derkach was one of a group of ''Russia-linked election interference actors.'' The Treasury said he had maintained ''close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services'' and had ''directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in an attempt to undermine the upcoming 2020 US presidential election.'' Steve Mnuchin, Trump's own Treasury secretary, proclaimed, ''Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.'' Previously, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence had told Congress that Derkach was ''spreading claims about corruption'' as part of the Kremlin's effort to undermine Biden's campaign.

Here was yet another Russian attack on a US election, and Giuliani was in league with one of its perps. This was all public information when the laptop story broke. And, as the New York Post reported, Giuliani had a starring role in this caper, for he was the source who had shared the laptop with the New York Post. Of course, this rendered the whole thing suspect. Plus, the New York Post story presented as fact the debunked allegation that Biden had corruptly pushed to fire the prosecutor to aid his son and Burisma. (I went into all the details when the New York Post article first appeared.) So Murdoch's propaganda outfit was citing the laptop to back up the Russia-pushed Ukrainian bunk. This story'--through Giuliani'--was directly connected to a Kremlin disinformation operation'--which, I repeat, had been identified by the Trump administration.

Moscow was at it again, according to Trump's own appointees. Thus, there was cause to wonder about this Giuliani-linked laptop story and to be cautious about spreading it. Perhaps Twitter made the wrong call. But it was not pressured by the Deep State or anyone else to do so. At the time, Russia was scheming to discredit Biden, and Giuliani was colluding with this endeavor. Whether the laptop was real or not'--whether the data on it could be trusted or not'--the New York Post was eagerly using it to bolster a false narrative being promoted by a Russian agent. That's what made the story problematic. Even today, there's still a question about what can and cannot be authenticated on the Biden laptop, as the Washington Post recently reported. (The question of whether Hunter Biden had traded on his father's position as veep to enrich himself is definitely a legitimate subject for journalists'--as is Jared Kushner's recent acquisition of $2 billion in funding from the Saudis. But in this episode, the main and unproven charge was that Joe Biden had allegedly abused his power.)

Had the nation fully accepted the reality of Russia's attack on the 2016 election and had the Trump administration's own conclusion that Putin in 2020 was once more trying to assist Trump via information warfare been widely recognized (and acknowledged by Trump and his loyalists), the New York Post story would have been clearly seen for what it mainly was: an amplification of Moscow's anti-Biden skullduggery. Context matters. This story did not appear out of the blue. Yet the Trump-Russia denialism of 2016 had fostered an atmosphere in which talk of Russian interference was routinely dismissed by the right'--and by such Russian hoax hoaxers as Taibbi and Greenwald. Giuliani was publicly working in the open with a Russian agent in this operation, and that didn't spark a full-scale scandal.

What Twitter did at the time, right or wrong, was not as significant as the joint Russia-Giuliani operation. Yet Trump World denizens have focused on the handling of the New York Post story to concoct yet another deflective scandal. Musk and Taibbi have played right into their hands. I saw this personally in recent days as a swarm of right-wing trolls and bots (Russian?) on Twitter assailed me and others who questioned Twittergate. They angrily insisted that Taibbi's thread confirmed that Big Tech, the Deep State, and the media were all part of a villainous cabal that had sinisterly manipulated the 2020 election and denied Trump reelection. (Many noted that I was heading for the hoosegow.) Their rage and paranoia had been fed by Musk and Taibbi. Some even claimed this was more proof that the Trump-Russia scandal had been a con. Fake news.

Republicans, no surprise, leaped to embrace this new bogus scandal. GOP House leader Kevin McCarthy exclaimed, ''We're learning in real-time how Twitter colluded to silence the truth about Hunter Biden's laptop just days before the 2020 presidential election.'' He suggested House Republicans would launch an investigation once they take over in January. Expect it to get the full Benghazi treatment.

How did Trump respond to Taibbi's nothingburger? In a social media post, The Former Guy insisted it revealed ''MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD AND DECEPTION.'' He called for throwing out the 2020 election results and noted that ''fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination'' of the US Constitution. He essentially asserted he should now be installed as president. Or, perhaps more accurately, dictator.

This is what Musk and Taibbi'--and their enablers'--wreaked: a former president and current presidential candidate exploiting their alt-right kowtowing to call for the suspension of constitutional governance. What's next? A call for armed resistance? Good work, fellas. This is exactly what the Russians want: division-driven politics in the United States that covers up their repeated efforts to boost a bigoted, narcissistic, and chaos-fomenting authoritarian. In his few short weeks as the uber-man of Twitter, red-pilled Musk has done much damage to the site and its brand. Advertisers are fleeing, trolls and bots are being empowered, and racists, antisemites, and Nazis have been welcomed back online. Moreover, Musk has now fueled the irrational paranoia of far-right extremists and bolstered support for Trump's dangerous claims that he and his followers are victims of nefarious and evil schemers. Musk's machinations may be doing more than breaking Twitter. They are contributing to the breaking of the nation.

Note to Readers: Speaking of Twitter, like many users, I've formulated an exit strategy. Just in case. You can find me at these two other social media sites now: At Post.News, I'm @davidcorn, and you can look me up at Mastodon at mastodon.social/@DavidCorn. As always, you can also follow me on Facebook at www.facebook.com/davidcorndc. Due to Facebook's censorious algorithms, you usually won't get my updated posts in your feed, unless you take additional steps to receive them. But you can always check out that page by going to it directly. As for Twitter, I will keep you posted on my thoughts regarding remaining on the site.

Top image credits: Roy Rochlin/FilmMagic/Getty; Dennis Van Tine/STAR MAX/IPx/AP; Handout Cabinet Belgian Prime Minister/AFP/Getty

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 12:53

Prominent Jewish and human rights leaders are circulating a letter asking the former president to distance himself from West and Nick Fuentes. A Trump advisor responds: ''I've seen it, and I do not care."

Republican Jewish activists, leaders, and perennial GOP donors are waging a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign to force Donald Trump into denouncing and disowning rapper Kanye West, Trump's on-and-off friend and political supporter.

It's not working.

According to three sources with knowledge of the matter, this multi-pronged '-- and so far unsuccessful '-- effort to get Trump to denounce West follows the ex-president's ''Nazi'' Mar-a-Lago dinner last month with the anti-Semitism-spewing, Hitler-lauding West and fascist youth leader Nick Fuentes.

High-profile Jewish Trump supporters and conservative pro-Israel donors have angrily demanded an audience with the ex-president. Some have managed to get on the phone with Trump, only to be told that the former president has supposedly done all he can, and that he's already done so much ''for the Jewish people'' and Israel. ''I begged him, and it didn't work'...as expected,'' one of these individuals, who spoke to Trump, recounts to Rolling Stone.

Others have urgently reached out to Trump's Jewish son-in-law and former top White House adviser Jared Kushner, only to have their messages left unreturned. And though a handful of Trump's prominent Jewish allies and campaign donors have spoken out against the ex-president's dinner with West and Fuentes, a much larger number have been keeping quiet. Some out of fear of Trump's retaliation, others out of a fear of potential loss of access, especially if he retakes the White House in 2025.

For days, however, a loose network of anti-genocide activists, Jewish Republicans, and other Jewish figures and leaders have circulated a draft letter that several of them intend to deliver to Trump soon, according to different copies and revisions reviewed by Rolling Stone. Organizers are hoping that a critical-mass number of recipients '-- particularly pro-Trump conservatives '-- end up signing, though those involved with the project are cognizant of the widespread fears of crossing Trump.Editor's picks

''Please condemn Kanye, Fuentes, and all of their ilk who claim to be your supporters and admirers,'' reads a draft of the letter. ''Pledge publicly never again to grant them a meeting or a platform until they apologize for, and utterly repudiate, their vile hate and antisemitism, or risk losing the admiration of those Jews who heretofore have been so grateful for your having stood with Israel and the Jewish people in their hour of need. Failure on your part to condemn Ye, Fuentes, and all who share their vile ideology and who call themselves part of your base, will inevitably provoke a widespread and irrevocable repudiation of your candidacy and your legacy. The world is watching, Mr. President, as is a grateful Jewish community, along with your beloved children and grandchildren. The time to act is now.''

One of the letter's principal co-authors is Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a media figure and a longtime fixture of conservative pro-Israel circles. The rabbi has repeatedly called Trump the ''greatest friend Israel ever had in the White House'' and says he was ''incredibly pro-Trump, [though] only on Israel.'' Boteach has maintained close relationships with some of Trump's inner circle and several of the former president's biggest acolytes. But in recent years, the rabbi has grown increasingly critical of Trump and his MAGA cohort, including on issues related to the authoritarian election-denialism that's proliferated within the mainstream GOP.

Boteach previously described the letter as an ''ultimatum'' to Trump but now characterizes it as a ''declaration.'' Though the final, signed version of the letter hasn't yet been sent to the ex-president as of Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter says a copy of it has already leaked to a number of Trump advisers in recent days.

Trumpland is signaling it won't have much of an effect: ''I've seen it, and I do not care,'' one Trump adviser says.Related

A version of the letter to Trump charges that ''you certainly knew that Kanye West had been on a weeks-long diabolical campaign against Jewry, essentially describing our community publicly as leaches, bloodsuckers, and parasites'...We cannot comprehend why you have been utterly silent about your dinner guest, whom you personally defended after being criticized and who praised the man who murdered six million Jews. As you know, Hitler would have, God forbid, murdered your own Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren, so why would give his supporters the time of day, let alone a seat quite literally at your table.''

In the time since the now-infamous dinner, some of Trump's former administration officials and allies have publicly criticized the ex-president's decision. Many leading Republicans, including Trump's likely 2024 primary foe, Florida's governor Ron DeSantis, have either kept their mouths shut, or opted to stay in the good graces of the party's leader and not offend Trump. In private, whenever Trump has heard of a Jewish supporter of his openly chastising him about the West/Fuentes dinner, he has responded by bashing the objector as disloyal and unfair.

The draft letter addresses that argument: ''Your unstinting support for Israel does not in any way excuse your breaking bread with would-be Nazis.''

Late last month, Trump did end up publicly trashing West for being ''a seriously troubled man, who happens to be black.'' However, Trump was not expressing any anger at the famous rapper's embrace of fascism or anti-Semitism; Trump was merely mad that West had been rude to him.Trending

According to Boteach, the letter is still privately circulating among human rights advocates, Jewish Republican supporters and donors to the former president. He says it has also been sent to ''some former leaders of AIPAC,'' who are currently seeking approval to sign their names. ''Not one major supporter of the president has told me not to circulate this letter, and there was one who said they could not sign it, but would call the former president directly to express their strong feelings on the subject,'' the rabbi says in a phone interview.

Boteach continues: ''To those who have been making personal appeals to Trump to denounce Kanye West, including personal friends of mine, I ask: Has the Jewish community really been reduced to begging a former president to distance himself from Hitler-praising neo-Nazis? Have we no self-respect? '... If Trump cannot condemn a Hitler-praising dinner guest, then he gets nothing, and the pro-Israel community must move on.''

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 12:51

Americans received their first Covid-19 vaccine doses in December 2020, which means we are now approaching the beginning of the third year of the pandemic's vaccine phase. And yet hundreds of Americans are still dying each day. Who are they? The data offers a straightforward answer: older adults.

Though it's sometimes uncomfortable to say it, mortality risk has been dramatically skewed by age throughout the pandemic. The earliest reports of Covid deaths from China sketched a pattern quickly confirmed everywhere in the world: In an immunologically na¯ve population, the oldest were several thousand times more at risk of dying from infection than the youngest.

But the skew is actually more dramatic now '-- even amid mass vaccinations and reinfections '-- than it was at any previous point over the last three years. Since the beginning of the pandemic, people 65 and older accounted for 75 percent of all American Covid deaths. That dropped below 60 percent as recently as September 2021. But today Americans 65 and over account for 90 percent of new Covid deaths, an especially large share given that 94 percent of American seniors are vaccinated.

Yet these facts seem to contradict stories we've told about what drives vulnerability to Covid-19. In January, Joe Biden warned that the illness and death threatened by the Omicron variant represented ''a pandemic of the unvaccinated.'' But that month, in which nearly 85,000 Americans died, the unvaccinated accounted for 59 percent of those deaths, down from 77 percent the previous September, according to analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The share of deaths among older adults that January was nearly 74 percent.

Over the months that followed, the unvaccinated share of mortality fell even further, to 38 percent in May 2022. The share of deaths among people vaccinated and boosted grew significantly as well, from 12 percent in January 2022 to 36 percent in April. Those levels held roughly steady throughout the duration of the summer, during which time just about as many boosted Americans were dying as the unvaccinated. The share of deaths among older adults kept growing: In April, 79 percent of American deaths were among those 65 and older. In November, 90 percent.

As many Twitter discussions about the ''base rate fallacy'' have emphasized, this is not because the vaccines are ineffective '-- we know, also from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, that they work very well. Estimates of the effectiveness of updated bivalent boosters suggest they reduce the risk of mortality from Covid in Americans over the age of 12 by more than 93 percent compared with the population of unvaccinated. That is a very large factor.

But it isn't the whole story, or vaccinated older adults wouldn't now make up a larger share of Covid deaths than the unvaccinated do. That phenomenon arises from several other factors that are often underplayed. First is the simple fact that more Americans are vaccinated than not, and those older Americans most vulnerable to severe disease are far more likely to be vaccinated than others.

It is also partly a reflection of how many fewer Americans, including older ones, have gotten boosters than got the initial vaccines: 34 percent, compared to 69 percent. The number of those who have gotten updated bivalent boosters is lower still '-- just 12.7 percent of Americans over the age of 5.

Finally, vaccines are not as effective among older adults because the immune system weakens with age. It's much harder to train older immune systems, and that training diminishes more quickly. In Americans between the ages of 65 and 79, for instance, vaccination reduced mortality risk from Covid more than 87 percent, compared to the unvaccinated. This is a very significant reduction, to be sure, but less than the 15-fold decline observed among those both vaccinated and bivalent-boosted in the overall population. For those 80 and above, the reduction from vaccination alone is less than fourfold.

That is a very good deal, of course. But it also means that, given the underlying age skew, a twice-boosted 87-year-old shares a similar risk of Covid death as a never-vaccinated 70-year-old. Which is to say, some real risk. If it was ever comfortable to say that the unconscionable levels of American deaths were a ''pandemic of the unvaccinated,'' it is surely now accurate to describe the ongoing toll as a ''pandemic of the old.''

So why aren't we?

One answer is that as a country, we prefer just to not see those deaths at all, regarding a baseline of several hundred deaths a day as a sort of background noise or morbid but faded wallpaper. We don't need to understand who is dying or why in part because we don't want to reckon with the fact that around 300 Americans are now dying from Covid-19 every day, at a rough pace of about 100,000 per year, making it the country's third leading cause of death. This is normalization at work, but it is also a familiar pattern: We don't exactly track the ups and downs of cancer or heart disease either.

Another answer is that '-- partly to promote good behavior, partly to more easily blame others for our general predicament '-- the country spent a lot of time emphasizing what you could do to protect yourself, which left us without much of a vocabulary to describe what underlying vulnerability inevitably remained. Vaccine refusal was a cancer on the American experience of the Covid years '-- that is undeniable. But we got so comfortable equating personal choices and individual risk that even identifying vulnerabilities came to feel like an accusation of irresponsibility. And where does that leave older adults? In a pandemic of the unvaccinated, what do you say to or about the 41 percent of Americans who died in January who'd gotten their shots? Or the roughly 60 percent of them that died this summer?

Many of us were also turned off by dismissive rhetoric from the beginning of the pandemic, when those minimizing the threat pointed to the disproportionate risks to the very old as a reason to not worry all that much about limiting spread. The country as a whole may be ageist, without all that much empathy for the well-being of octogenarians and nonagenarians. But hearing the conservative commentator Ben Shapiro or the Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick so blithely dismissing the deaths of older adults in 2020 probably made the whole subject seem considerably more taboo to the rest of us than it might've been otherwise.

Throughout the last few years, the country has also struggled to consider individual risk and social risk separately. In the first year of the pandemic, we seemed to build our sense of individual risk backward from the social need to limit spread '-- underemphasizing some of the differential threat and focusing instead on universal measures like social distancing and mask wearing. With the arrival of vaccines, we began to build a collective picture of social risk in the opposite way, up from an individual basis instead.

The picture that resulted was hugely relieving to most of us without being, at the highest levels, misleading: Vaccination and natural immunity had indeed dramatically reduced the country's overall mortality risk. But while it's comforting to believe that protection is a choice, for some populations it isn't. And in moving pretty swiftly from treating everyone as high-risk to treating everyone as low-risk, we neglected to pay much attention to the differential of risk: that even if the average American had reduced his or her chances of dying by a factor of five or 10, 300 or more Americans might still be dying each day for many months, and there were probably some targeted things to do about that.

What are they? There is no simple or silver-bullet solution, which may be another reason we've spent more energy on the need for vaccination than on the vulnerabilities of age (that is, the fix is far more straightforward). But clearer communication '-- from public health officials to politicians and the media '-- about differential risk could nevertheless help, emphasizing not just that more shots are good but that different groups probably need different approaches, and that even with up-to-date vaccination and bivalent boosting, infection represents a considerable threat to older adults.

More targeted guidance might also underline the way that boosters still deliver what would have seemed like mind-blowing reductions in risk two years ago, even if they don't eliminate it entirely, and point to certain settings where rapid testing should continue or be reinstituted (nursing homes, say). And there is surely much more to be done to aggressively promote treatments like Paxlovid, which are being criminally underutilized given their efficacy in vulnerable populations. (Their efficacy for younger and healthier people remains a kind of open question.) And while infrastructure investments and other mitigation strategies do not come as cheaply as communication, there is a bundle of things we know could help reduce transmission almost invisibly, without really burdening individuals: higher indoor air quality standards, for instance. You might even choose to target those investments and improvements less in schools than in care facilities, too.

Would all that be sufficient? Probably not to eliminate some ongoing death toll, unfortunately, given how promiscuously the disease is spreading. But it would presumably reduce by some fraction those hundreds of deaths we're seeing each day. At the moment, the country is treating those deaths as the cost of normalcy.

David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells), a writer for Opinion and a columnist for The New York Times Magazine, is the author of ''The Uninhabitable Earth.''

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:42

The Netherlands is expected to formally apologise for its role in 250 years of slavery but the planned move is threatening to cause a split in the country, with some critics calling it ''complete nonsense''.

The prime minister, Mark Rutte, will deliver a public message on 19 December that will aim to ''do justice to the meaning and experience of past slavery'', according to a parliamentary briefing. It is widely anticipated that this will be an apology for the 250 years in which the Dutch funded an economic and cultural ''Golden Age'' by exploiting more than 600,000 people from Africa and Asia '' about 5% of the 12 million enslaved by Europeans from the 17th to the 19th century. According to broadcaster NOS, plans include '‚¬200m for awareness projects and '‚¬27m for a slavery museum.

However, groups including the Nationale Reparatie Commissie in Suriname, which was colonised by the Dutch, have already protested that the Netherlands is proceeding in a ''hasty and tarnished'' way, with a lack of consultation that some believe has echoes of colonialism.

Yet pressure has been growing for national government action. In October, a parliamentary majority supported making an official apology after a working group reported on a research trip to Suriname, Cura§ao and Bonaire. In the past 18 months, the mayors of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague, as well as the management of De Nederlandsche Bank, have apologised for their institutions' role in, and enrichment from, slavery.

Don Ceder, an MP for the ChristenUnie party who was on the trip, is a leading advocate for action. ''An apology is important for the Netherlands as a society in our attempts to combat division and polarisation within a multicultural society,'' he said. ''It's hard to believe for some, but my recent visit showed me that the slave trade and the economy that was built in the former colonies still affects these countries till this day.''

Since research shows that 70% of the African-Caribbean community in the Netherlands, which mostly consists of descendants of the enslaved, considers an apology important, he said, ''the persistent [absence] of an apology by the Dutch government has had more disruptive consequences for reconciliation than people seem to realise''.

Sharon Dijksma, mayor of Utrecht, said it would be an important recognition that the elites of former times had wrongfully profited from a trade with lasting effects. ''For descendants of enslaved people, this is something that still has impact in their daily lives right now,'' she said. ''It is important to realise that, of course, Utrechters today were not involved and are not responsible for what our ancestors did wrong in the past. But that doesn't mean you cannot take up the role of actually saying sorry, recognising that what happened historically was wrong and a crime against humanity.''

Linda Nooitmeer, chair of NiNsee, the Dutch institute for the study of slavery, said an apology was welcome, but was only the start in addressing inequality, investing in fair chances for ethnic minorities and disadvantaged communities.

''Monuments, research '' but also apologies '' should not be the 'mirrors and crystals' of the 21st century,'' she said. ''During the slave period, people were bought with mirrors and crystals. Even when apologies are made at the highest level, people have to live the apology and know what it means. We have to deal with views on people of African descent today.''

The Netherlands has been struggling with reports of systematic racism in its police force, and in 2020, the then UN rapporteur on racism, Tendayi Achiume, said that a self-image of ''tolerance'' was blocking the tackling of discrimination. Earlier this year, deputy finance minister Marnix van Rij admitted there was institutional racism in the Dutch tax office, after tens of thousands of parents, often dual nationals, were falsely accused of childcare benefits fraud.

Every year, there are aggressive protests supporting some towns that still black up Zwarte Piet clowns in children's St Nicholas celebrations. On average, people with migrant origins have smaller houses, lower educational levels and incomes, and worse health, according to a report last week by Statistics Netherlands. An apology for slavery is a contentious topic, however, and in July 2020, Rutte said it would ''only have a polarising effect''. Almost half of the Dutch do not support apologising, and 38% do, according to pollsters I&O.

''Support among people in the Netherlands without a recent history of migration has gone up,'' said I&O researcher Asher van der Schelde. ''Most people with migrant roots already supported an apology. People who are for an apology say we must recognise historical fact, and some say it can be helpful to the descendants of enslaved people. People who are against say it is a long time ago, it doesn't matter, it's about another generation. I think the fear is that if you offer an apology, you suddenly have to pay compensation.''

It is vital to listen to opinions in communities affected by slavery, according to a historian of Suriname at the University of Amsterdam, Rosemarijn H¶fte. ''The king really needs a role,'' she said. ''The king apologised in Indonesia for excessive violence in colonial times and said he was aware that this has an effect on many generations. Why would the Caribbean be any different? If you want to do this right '... it needs to be with ceremonies. It is very emotional and you need to do this together.''

Some believe the Dutch '' one of the last western nations to abolish slavery, on 1 July 1863 '' may set a precedent for the UK after both King Charles III and the Prince of Wales expressed ''personal'' and ''profound'' sorrow in speeches in Rwanda and Jamaica earlier this year.

But others believe an apology is cheap gesture politics. The historian Maarten van Rossem said: ''It is hugely trendy nowadays to make apologies for appalling things that happened in the past. I think it is complete nonsense to offer apologies for things you are not guilty of doing. If we have to say sorry for slavery, then so ought all western governments that were involved. Should France apologise for the occupation of the Netherlands at the end of the 18th century? Should the Americans apologise for pretty much everything?

''It's a pointless process. Spend the money on doing something about appalling situations today, like forced labour or discrimination, rather than saying sorry for something that happened 11 generations ago.''

But Nooitmeer believes both actions and words are valuable. ''When it was clear slavery would be abolished in Suriname, the enslaved had to change their names,'' she said. ''One ancestor on my father's side six generations ago decided to give the family the name Nooitmeer. Nooit meer slavernij. Never again.''

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 14:24

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 12:34

Image source, DPA Picture Alliance Image caption, Among the 25 detained was a minor aristocrat called Heinrich XIII

Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.

The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared to storm the parliament building, the Reichstag, and seize power.

A minor aristocrat described as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, is alleged to have been central to their plans.

According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states.

The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsb¼rger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been in the sights of German police over violent attacks and racist conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognise the modern German state.

Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a "deep state".

Plotters prepared to kill for their ends

An estimated 50 men and women are alleged to have been part of the group, said to have plotted to overthrow the republic and replace it with a new state modelled on the Germany of 1871 - an empire called the Second Reich.

"We don't yet have a name for this group," said a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office.

Three thousand officers took part in 130 raids across much of the country, with two people arrested in Austria and Italy. Those detained were due to be questioned later in the day.

Image source, Reuters

Image caption, Police carried out raids across 11 of Germany's 16 states

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted that a major anti-terror operation was taking place and a suspected "armed attack on constitutional bodies was planned".

The federal prosecutor's office said the group had been plotting a violent coup since November 2021 and members of its central "Rat" (council) had since held regular meetings.

They had already established plans to rule Germany with departments covering health, justice and foreign affairs, the prosecutor said. Members understood they could only realise their goals by "military means and violence against state representatives", which included carrying out killings.

Investigators are thought to have got wind of the group when they uncovered a kidnap plot last April involving a gang who called themselves United Patriots.

They too were part of the Reichsb¼rger scene and had allegedly planned to abduct Health Minister Karl Lauterbach while also creating "civil war conditions" to bring about an end to Germany's democracy.

A former far-right AfD member of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, is suspected of being part of the plot, and of being lined up as the group's justice minister. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who was among the 25 people arrested, returned to her role as judge last year and a court has since turned down attempts to dislodge her.

A prominent lawyer was pencilled in to handle the group's foreign affairs, with Prince Heinrich as leader.

Aristocrat 'fuelled by conspiracy theories'

Heinrich XIII comes from an old noble family known as the House of Reuss, which ruled over parts of the modern eastern state of Thuringia until 1918. All the male members of the family were given the name Heinrich as well as a number.

Descendants still own a few castles and Heinrich himself is said to have a hunting lodge at Bad Lobenstein in Thuringia.

The rest of the family have long distanced themselves from the minor aristocrat, with one spokesman telling local broadcaster MDR during the summer that Heinrich was an "at times confused" man who had fallen for "misconceptions fuelled by conspiracy theories".

As well as a shadow government, the plotters allegedly had plans for a military arm run by a second ringleader identified as R¼diger von P.

They were made up of active and former members of the military, officials believe, and included ex-elite soldiers from special units. The aim of the military arm was to eliminate democratic bodies at local level, prosecutors said.

R¼diger von P is suspected of trying to recruit police officers in northern Germany and of having an eye on army barracks too. Bases in the states of Hesse, Baden-W¼rttemberg and Bavaria were all inspected for possible use after the government was overthrown, officials said.

One of those under investigation had been a member of the Special Commando Forces, and police searched his home and his room at the Graf-Zeppelin military base in Calw, south-west of Stuttgart.

Another suspect has been identified as Vitalia B, a Russian woman who was asked to approach Moscow on Heinrich's behalf. The Russian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that it did not "maintain contacts with representatives of terrorist groups and other illegal entities".

Several violent attacks have been linked to Germany's far-right in recent years. In 2020, a 43-year-old man shot dead nine people of foreign origin in the western town of Hanau, and a Reichsb¼rger member was jailed for killing a policeman in 2016.

The Reichsb¼rger movement is estimated to have as many as 21,000 followers, of whom around 5% are considered to belong to the extreme right.

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:22

By Naomi Wolf

A document just released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) openly admits that the infamous PCR test for the Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) was developed not with actual samples of the Chinese Virus, but rather what appears to be genetic material from a common cold virus.

Since the Fauci Flu in any of its ''variant'' forms has yet to be properly isolated, the FDA instead used regular cold/flu viruses to produce PCR tests '' meaning everyone who tests ''positive'' for Chinese Germs is actually just testing positive for the seasonal flu.

This would, of course, explain why the flu nearly disappeared in 2020, as everyone who got sick was assigned a ''covid'' diagnosis. Many were saying this from the beginning and being called ''conspiracy theorists,'' but now the FDA is fessing up to the truth that this whole thing was a scam all along.

In the FDA document, it is clearly stated that ordinary seasonal flu genetic material was used as the testing marker in the PCR test kits because the authorities knew that many people would test ''positive'' for it, thus allowing them to use these results to create the ''covid'' narrative.

It is somewhat of a lengthy read, but have a look for yourself and see the deception in plain sight. There is no legitimate test out there that accurately identifies the presence of the Fauci Flu, and this is the smoking gun. From the document:

Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV were available for CDC use at the time the test was developed and this study conducted, assays designed for detection of the 2019-nCoV RNA were tested with characterized stocks of in vitro transcribed full length RNA (N gene; GenBank accession: MN908947.2) of known titer (RNA copies/µL) spiked into a diluent consisting of a suspension of human A549 cells and viral transport medium (VTM) to mimic clinical specimen.

Another revelation in the document is the admission by the FDA that test results are ''pooled'' together to produce numbers that are inaccurate. The FDA is quite literally manufacturing data as part of the plandemic narrative, and it is all revealed in the document.

Fraudulent PCR tests are being used to push vaccine genocide

What this all proves is that the plandemic narrative, as it was spread over the past year and a half, is contrived and false. What people are truly testing ''positive'' for remains unknown, or is just the common flu, because the tests are inherently fraudulent.

If more people would simply take a closer look at the facts, perhaps we could put a stop to the government's vaccine genocide agenda, which aims to forcibly vaccinate everyone against their will under the cover of a public health ''emergency.''

Though we are not quite at that point as of yet, the Biden regime is moving full-steam ahead with plans to deprive Americans of work, an education and even food if they refuse to take a Trump Vaccine to help ''save lives.''

We are at a crossroads as a society where the time is now to decide if we are going to allow this type of medical fascism to persist, or if we are finally going to just say no to government tyranny.

Especially with regard to children, what the government is pushing using these fraudulent PCR tests as backing is nothing short of genocide. And unless we stop it, it will eventually affect us all.

''If the vaccine works, then the vaccinated should be protected from the rest of us,'' one of our commenters rightfully pointed out. ''If the vaccinated still contract the virus or any variant, then the vaccine doesn't work, so why do they insist that I take it?''

''If they say that they are catching the variants from us unvaccinated, what proof do they have to back that up? How can they say for sure that they didn't catch it from another vaccinated person? They can't. Seeing that the vaccinated can contract it, they must also be able to spread it.''

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:16

With Daniel Lippman

POSSIBLE JCPA INCLUSION IN NDAA TRIGGERS SWIFT PUSHBACK: A broad coalition of groups opposed to the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act sprang into action on Monday after draft text began circulating indicating the bill could be tucked into the compromise version of the NDAA set to be unveiled at any moment.

'-- The swift pushback against including the measure, which would allow media outlets to collectively bargain with tech platforms like Meta and Google over payments for their content to appear on those sites, was headlined by a blistering statement from Meta threatening to yank news content from its platforms altogether, should the JCPA pass.

'-- The company's argument, issued through spokesperson Andy Stone, basically boiled down to this: News needs us more than we need news. Stone warned that the company, which followed through with the same threat over similar legislation in Australia '-- if only temporarily '-- would not ''submit to government-mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions.''

'-- ''No company should be forced to pay for content users don't want to see and that's not a meaningful source of revenue,'' Stone said, alleging the bill would result in ''a cartel-like entity which requires one private company to subsidize other private entities.''

'-- The bill's supporters rushed to condemn Meta's ultimatum. The News Media Alliance, which represents thousands of publishers including POLITICO parent company Axel Springer, denounced the threat as ''undemocratic and unbecoming,'' while pointing to the success of similar policies elsewhere.

'-- ''Meta's efforts to blackmail Congress prove again why this monopoly is a threat to democracies worldwide,'' said Matt Stoller, the director of research at the progressive American Economic Liberties Project. Stoller urged Congress to ''quickly pass'' the JCPA, calling it ''a vital lifeline to media outlets that are being eaten alive by Big Tech's business model.''

'-- Still, much of the reaction united groups that are typically at loggerheads '-- including on other high-profile pieces of antitrust legislation aimed at reining in tech giants '-- in opposition to the JCPA.

'-- The conservative tech lobbying group NetChoice quickly announced plans to roll out a six-figure ad buy set to begin today on Fox News, cable and online within the Beltway, labeling the push a ''power grab'' by congressional Democrats ''to bail out their allies in the liberal media'' and ''silence conservative voices'' '-- though one of JCPA's key backers is Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

'--The Koch-backed Americans for Tax Reformissued its own plea aimed at Republicans, warning against ''greenlighting collusion between Big Tech and legacy media under the flimsy guise of 'protecting local journalism.'''

'-- The left-leaning tech lobbying group Chamber of Progress and the Computer & Communications Industry Association also called on lawmakers to think twice about wrapping JCPA into the NDAA. But they were joined in their letter to congressional leadership by groups like Fight for the Future, a progressive advocacy group that has been among the most vocal organizations pushing for antitrust bills, the ACLU, the libertarian R Street Institute and more.

Good afternoon and welcome to PI. Send K Street tips: [email protected] . And be sure to follow me on Twitter: @caitlinoprysko.

RIVERA HIT WITH FARA CHARGES: ''A former Miami congressman who signed a $50 million consulting contract with Venezuela's socialist government was arrested Monday on charges of money laundering and representing a foreign government without registering,'' The Associated Press' Joshua Goodman and Terry Spencer reported.

'-- ''David Rivera, a Republican who has been marred by scandals stretching back to his days in Congress from 2011 to 2013, was arrested at Atlanta's airport, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami.''

'-- ''The eight-count indictment alleges Rivera at the start of the Trump administration was part of a conspiracy to lobby on behalf of Venezuela to lower tensions with the U.S., resolve a legal dispute with a U.S. oil company and end U.S. sanctions against the South American nation '-- all without registering as a foreign agent.''

'-- Rivera's indictment shouldn't come as too much of a surprise '-- a U.S. subsidiary of the state-run Petr"leos de Venezuela, S.A.sued the former congressman back in 2020 for breach of contract related to his consulting work for the oil company, prompting calls from lawmakersand watchdogs alike for probes into whether Rivera violated FARA.

'-- Still, the indictment handed down by a grand jury signals the department isn't yet letting up on its aggressive enforcement posture, including for high-profile targets.

FTX'S OTHER BIG DONOR: FTX's co-CEOs Sam Bankman-Fried and Ryan Salame got much of the attention for their fast ascensions into political megadonor status, but another executive at the since-collapsed crypto exchange also dropped some serious coin on campaigns in recent years, as chronicled by CNBC's Brian Schwartz.

'-- ''A year after Nishad Singh became the company's director of engineering, he quietly emerged as a reliable political donor for Democrats,'' donating ''more than $13 million to party causes since the start of the 2020 presidential election, according to state and federal campaign finance records.''

'-- ''Singh donated $8 million to federal campaigns in the 2022 election cycle, and all of it went to Democrats, according to the nonpartisan campaign watchdog OpenSecrets. He was among a handful of former senior officials at FTX who were deeply involved with financing the 2022 midterms.''

'-- ''The sum makes him the 34th highest donor to all federal campaigns across the country during the latest election, ahead of other party donors such as billionaires Tom Steyer and angel investor Ron Conway, OpenSecrets said. Singh's only recorded campaign donation before he took the senior role at FTX was a $2,700 contribution in 2018 to Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., a member of the House Financial Services Committee.''

RODNEY DAVIS' TOP AIDE HEADS DOWNTOWN: Bret Manley has joined Elevate Government Affairs as an executive vice president after around 15 years on the Hill. Manley was most recently chief of staff to Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), who is leaving office at the end of the year after losing a primary challenge. Manley also worked briefly at the Association of American Railroads and before that was an aide to former Reps. Jeff Denham and Gary Miller.

ICYMI '-- CONTOURS OF A CANNABIS DEAL COMING TOGETHER: ''The package of cannabis legislation built around the SAFE Banking Act will reportedly include the HOPE Act and the GRAM Act, according to three people familiar with the discussions,'' POLITICO's Natalie Fertig reports.

'-- ''The HOPE Act would create grant funding for states to expunge cannabis-related records, and the GRAM Act would protect gun rights for marijuana users in legal jurisdictions. A bipartisan group of senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have been working on a package around SAFE, with hopes of including it in the National Defense Authorization Act, which is expected to come to the floor later this week.''

'-- ''While senators on both sides of the aisle say the votes are there for the bill, it must pass the difficult test of receiving sign-off from Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is not a strong supporter of any cannabis legislation,'' and who earlier today threw cold water on the notion of including cannabis provisions in the defense bill.

MORE ARTISTS BACK RADIO ROYALTIES BILL: Ahead of a markup tomorrow on the American Music Fairness Act, which would grant performance royalties for plays on broadcast radio, another 40 artists have thrown their support behind the measure.

'-- Harry Belafonte, Randy Travis, Elvis Costello, Common, Jack White, The Roots and more added their signatures to a Nov. 1 letter asking Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to take up the bill in his committee. The original letter was signed by five dozen musicians.

'-- The House Judiciary Committee announced last week that it would mark up the radio royalties bill, a major step for the push from the recording industry but one that is likely to come too late for passage in both chambers of Congress before lawmakers finish their work for the year.

'-- In a statement last week, the National Association of Broadcasters' Curtis LeGeyt pointed out that a resolution opposing such royalties has more than 250 co-sponsors in the House, signaling that the American Music Fairness Act wouldn't have the votes if the bill made it to the floor.

'-- Stephen Rickard is leaving the Open Society Foundations, where he is executive director, after two decades. He is going to GeorgetownLaw, where he'll serve as a fellow at the Human Rights Institute.

'-- Boundary Stone Partners has added Dan Birns as a vice president supporting the batteries team and Rachael Grace as a vice president in the buildings and industrial decarbonization practice. Birns was most recently a senior adviser in the Bureau of Energy Resources at the State Department and Grace was most recently senior policy director at Rewiring America.

'-- Kenneth Moton has joined Actum as a senior vice president on public affairs and media strategy teams. He was most recently a correspondent at ABC News.

'-- Jonathan Gold is now senior associate director of post-acute payment policy at the American Hospital Association. He was previously director of government relations at the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association.

'-- Susan Askew is now PAC and political advocacy director at AdvaMed. She was most recently executive director of ICSC PAC, the political action committee for the International Council of Shopping Centers.

'-- Cassidy & Associates has hired Virgilio ''Lio'' Barrera as a senior vice president. He was most recently director of government and public affairs at Holcim and is a Martin Heinrich and Mark Udall alum.

'-- Matt DeLuca has launched MD Digital Strategies, a digital marketing management consulting firm. He previously led advertising and digital marketing efforts at Golin, Edelman, AARP, Engage and Boeing.

'-- Tommy Mattocks is now senior press representative at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He most recently was director of comms at the Aerospace Industries Association and is a POLITICO alum.

None.

Community Solar Action Fund (Hybrid PAC)LABOR PARTY of TEXAS (PAC)

Banner Public Affairs, LLC: Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation DistrictDowns Government Affairs: Community College Alliance For Agriculture AdvancementEb Consulting: Francis EnergyFgs Global (US) LLC (Fka Fgh Holdings LLC): National Rural Water AssociationFranklin Square Group, LLC: Biofire Technologies Inc.Grassroots Political Consulting LLC: Amerivita Home CareHolland & Knight LLP: Peak Minerals Inc.Horizons Global Solutions LLC: Transcend EngineeringHusch Blackwell Strategies: Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP (On Behalf Of Silgan Containers)Kadesh & Associates, LLC: The O Team, LLCPatterson Earnhart Real Bird & Wilson LLP: Standing Rock Housing AuthorityPotomac Strategic Development Company, LLC: CymantixPotomac Strategic Development Company, LLC: Plasan North AmericaThe Roosevelt Group: 202 Group Bluevoyant FederalThe Roosevelt Group: Dish WirelessThe Roosevelt Group: Global Technical SystemsThe Roosevelt Group: Matrix Design Group On Behalf Of The State Of ArkansasTiber Creek Group: Nvidia CorporationVon Batten-Montague-York: The Clan Leaders Of The Sool, Sanaag, And Cayn RegionsWilliams And Jensen, Pllc: Clark Street Associates On Behalf Of Hid Global

Guarding Against Pandemics, Inc.: Guarding Against Pandemics, Inc.Phoenix Global Organization Incorporated: Tesla Global Holdings Corporation

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:13

A restaurant in Richmond last week canceled a reservation for a private event being held by a conservative Christian organization, citing the group's opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

''We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe and this was the driving force behind our decision,'' read an Instagram post from Metzger Bar and Butchery, a German-influenced restaurant in the Union Hill neighborhood whose kitchen is helmed by co-owner Brittanny Anderson, a veteran of TV cooking shows including ''Top Chef'' and ''Chopped.'' ''Many of our staff are women and/or members of the LGBTQ+ community. All of our staff are people with rights who deserve dignity and a safe work environment. We respect our staff's established rights as humans and strive to create a work environment where they can do their jobs with dignity, comfort and safety.''

The group, the Family Foundation, was set to host a dessert reception for supporters on Nov. 30, the group's president, Victoria Cobb, wrote in a blog post describing the incident. About an hour and a half before it was slated to start, one of the restaurant's owners called to cancel it, she wrote. ''As our VP of Operations explained that guests were arriving at their restaurant shortly, she asked for an explanation,'' Cobb wrote. ''Sure enough, an employee looked up our organization, and their wait staff refused to serve us.''

The Family Foundation is based in Richmond and advocates for ''policies based on biblical principles.'' It has lobbied against same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

In an interview, Cobb said that since she posted about it, she has heard from people alarmed by the story and from other dining establishments making it clear they would be welcome. ''A lot of people are outraged that a restaurant wants to make a litmus test at the door,'' she said. ''Everyone should be concerned that people are being denied service based on their politics.''

In her blog post, Cobb likened the restaurant's move to establishments that refused to serve Black customers in the 1950s and '60s, and she decried what she called a ''double standard'' by liberals who think a Colorado baker should not be allowed to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple.

Legal experts say neither of those are apt analogies. While it's illegal to discriminate against someone because of their race or religion, the restaurant's refusal had to do with the group's actions, said Elizabeth Sepper, a professor at the University of Texas. ''It's about the overall positions and policies the group has taken '-- it's not about Christian vs. non-Christian,'' she said. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, D.C., Seattle and the Virgin Islands specifically protect people from being refused service because of their political affiliation or ideology.

Reached by phone, Metzger co-owner Kjell Anderson said the owners had no comment beyond the Instagram post.

Restaurants have made news for taking issue with their patrons' politics. Sarah Sanders, then the White House press secretary and now the governor-elect of Arkansas, was asked to leave the Red Hen in Lexington, Va., in 2018. The owner of the restaurant, Stephanie Wilkinson, wrote that she thought Sanders was ''a person whose actions in the service of our country we felt violated basic standards of humanity.'' And a judge in 2018 sided with a New York bar that ejected a customer for wearing a ''Make America Great Again'' hat in support of President Donald Trump.

If past is prologue, Metzger's move '-- which was first reported by Virginia Business '-- is likely to bring it both criticism and support. Wilkinson described the aftermath of the incident with Sanders '-- which made headlines around the world '-- as intense. Her phone lines were hacked, she and her staff had private information about them posted online, and many of them received death threats. People took to Yelp, leaving fake negative reviews, and made reservations they had no intention of keeping. But Wilkinson said people also showed their support by driving in from miles away and by donating to local charities.

As of Tuesday, Metzger's Yelp page was frozen and an ''Unusual Activity Alert'' was added. ''This business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on the news,'' the notice reads. ''While we don't take a stand one way or the other when it comes to this incident, we've temporarily disabled the posting of content to this page as we work to investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events.''

The restaurant and the foundation used interest in the event to fundraise. Metzger on Saturday posted an image of a bourbon-based cocktail dubbed ''Cracks in the Foundation'' and said it would donate the profits from its sale to Equality Virginia, a group that advocates for LGBTQ rights. ''We are so grateful to our many guests and neighbors for their support the past few days!'' read the Instagram post. ''To say thank you we are donating all proceeds from this cocktail to @equalityva tonight!''

And in its blog post describing the incident, the Family Foundation sought donations, too. ''Will you consider a donation today to support our efforts to ensure that no Virginian will ever have to worry about being refused a simple meal because of his or her religious beliefs?'' the post read.

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:10

German police arrested 25 people suspected of plotting to overthrow the state in raids across the country early Wednesday.

Authorities accused most of those arrested of being part of a ''terrorist organization'' according to the public prosecutor's statement, while the remaining three '-- including a Russian national '-- were detained for being supporters.

''It's suspected that an armed attack was planned against constitutional bodies,'' Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted.

Germany disbands elite military unit after reports of right-wing extremism

The raids took place in 11 of Germany's 16 states and marked one of the largest such anti-terrorism operations ever carried out in the country, according to the German press.

The statement from Germany's federal public prosecutor released Wednesday said the group's members subscribed to a range of conspiracy theories including QAnon and the right-wing extremist Reichsb¼rger movement, which denies the existence of the modern German state. ''The accused are united by a deep rejection of state institutions.''

The group was prepared to use violence and accepted that deaths would happen, the statement added. Its central ''council'' was headed by an individual named as Heinrich XIII P.R., who had reached out to Russian representatives inside Germany '-- although the prosecutor stated that there were no indications so far that there had been a positive response to his overtures. German press identified the individual as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, a descendant of the House of Reuss, a royal dynasty from the German state of Thuringia.

''Since November 2021, the members of the 'Council' have regularly met in secret to plan the intended takeover of power in Germany and the establishment of their own state structures,'' the statement read, adding that they had created a structure similar to a government cabinet with departments for justice, foreign affairs and health.

The council also had a military arm, which would have been involved in the armed takeover of the state. This body included former members of Germany's armed forces, and recruitment efforts were targeted toward members of the military and police, the prosecutor said.

The barracks of a unit of Germany's Special Forces Command, known as the KSK, was among the locations raided, Der Spiegel magazine reported. The German Defense Ministry disbanded one unit of the elite counterterrorism force in 2020 and announced a restructuring due to suspected extreme right-wing ties of its members.

According to Germany's Die Zeit newspaper, one of the defendants posted on Telegram shortly before the raids that public prosecutors, judges and health authorities would ''soon find themselves in the dock at Nuremberg 2.0,'' in reference to the trials of Nazi war criminals held after World War II.

The suspects will appear in court on Wednesday and Thursday.

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 03:40

Mainstream Republicans on Tuesday rallied behind a resolution sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to audit U.S. military and economic aid for Ukraine, sending their strongest signal yet that the Biden administration will face stricter scrutiny of its support for the war effort when control of the House shifts next year.

The measure, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was defeated in a 26-to-22 vote because of the unity of Democrats, who still control the panel and said the measure risked sending a message to Ukraine that America's support for the war was in question.

''This is not the time for us to be divided,'' said Rep. Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the committee's top Democrat. ''We've held together with NATO and the E.U. and our allies. Let's not fall into this trap.''

Pressure builds to step up weapons tracking in Ukraine

Republicans rejected that argument, however, and backed Greene's resolution '-- endorsing the legislation of a politician who has quickly transformed from fringe House member to influential party power broker.

Offering a glimpse of the upcoming fights in Congress, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the committee's top Republican, said the administration should brace for ''responsibility and accountability.''

''The era of writing blank checks is over,'' he said, echoing a phrase used in October by Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif), who is seeking to become the next House speaker. McCarthy later clarified that he supported aid to Ukraine but wanted to exercise more oversight of the assistance.

President Biden has committed tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine.

Before Tuesday's vote, it was unclear if mainstream Republicans would support the measure by Greene, a fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump whose opposition to Ukraine aid has prompted extensive internal debates within a party led by longtime advocates for the use of military force around the world.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is trying to become more powerful, even as Trump looks weaker

The measure requires the executive branch to transmit to Congress all documents and communications related to U.S. assistance for Ukraine no later than ''14 days after the date of the adoption of this resolution.''

Hawkish Republicans said Tuesday they could support the measure because it did not claw back any current or future funding for Ukraine.

''All this is about is accountability. This is about transparency. What are we afraid of? We have billions upon billions of dollars that are flowing to another country,'' said Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee.

Democrats said Republican priorities were out of whack at a time when Russian missile attacks were raining down on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilian targets in the middle of winter. ''There will be plenty of time to look at transparency and accountability,'' Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) said. ''Right now we're in the middle of a war.''

Support slipping for indefinite U.S. aid to Ukraine, poll finds

Co-sponsors of the resolution included right-wing Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Barry Moore (Ala.), and Andrew S. Clyde (Ga.). But it earned the support of moderates including McCaul and Peter Meijer of Michigan.

Though it was voted down, Greene said she would reintroduce the resolution in the next Congress once Republicans hold the majority.

''We take over in January! This audit will happen!'' she tweeted after the vote.

The Tuesday vote follows a consistent drop in support for aid to Ukraine among Republicans, according to recent polling.

The latest survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs released on Monday found 55 percent of Republicans saying they support sending military aid, compared with 68 percent in July and 80 percent in March. Half of Republicans favored providing economic assistance to Ukraine last month, compared with roughly three-quarters in March, according to the Chicago Council's findings.

Across the political spectrum, more than two-thirds of respondents supported supplying Ukraine with weapons and economic assistance, and about three-quarters backed accepting Ukrainian refugees and sanctioning Russia, according to the survey, which was conducted last month.

The United States has announced 25 tranches of military aid to Ukraine since August 2021. Last month's $400 million package included additional arms, munitions and equipment, and it brought total U.S. military assistance to Ukraine to nearly $20 billion since President Biden took office.

The United States is also sending $53 million to help repair Ukraine's electrical systems, which have sustained significant damage from Russian missile strikes in recent weeks.

Understanding the Russia-Ukraine conflict

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Tue, 06 Dec 2022 21:28

https://sputniknews.com/20221206/argentinas-vp-given-6-years-in-prison-barred-from-holding-public-office-in-corruption-case-1105116965.html

Argentina's VP Given 6 Years in Prison, Barred From Holding Public Office in Corruption Case

Argentina's VP Given 6 Years in Prison, Barred From Holding Public Office in Corruption Case

A three-judge panel sentenced Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner on Tuesday to serve six years in prison in a corruption trial that has... 06.12.2022, Sputnik International

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A three-judge panel sentenced Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner on Tuesday to serve six years in prison in a corruption trial that has engulfed much of the South American nation. A lifetime ban from holding public office was also handed down.Prosecutors were asking for a 12-year prison sentence along with a lifetime ban. An appeal from Fernndez is expected. Fernndez will not have to serve her sentence in the immediate future because she has immunity as a head of state. Two-thirds of lawmakers in Argentina's upper chamber of congress would have to vote to strip her of her immunity, which is not expected because of her allies' control of that chamber.The next Presidential election is scheduled in less than 11 months, and Fernndez has stoked rumors that she may run for the position again. She served as President of Argentina from 2007 to 2015.Fernndez was accused of graft and having an illicit association with a construction magnate Lzaro Bez during her time as President, which led to 51 public work contracts going to Bez in exchange for bribes.Fernndez says the charges against her are politically motivated and accused the prosecutors of lying. She denies all wrongdoing.Bez was also a supporter of Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner's husband Nestor Kirchner, who served as President from 2003 to 2007. Nestor Kirchner died suddenly in 2010.Bez was sentenced to 12 years in prison last year for money laundering. Due to her likely appeal, Fernndez should be able to run for President in 2023 if she chooses. The appeal could take years and the ban will not take effect until it is finished.Followers of Fernndez, including some trade unions, threatened to shut down the country if she is found guilty. Ahead of the verdict, her supporters packed the streets in Buenos Aires.MORE DETAILS TO COME.

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20:58 GMT 06.12.2022 (Updated: 21:25 GMT 06.12.2022 ) Being updated

A three-judge panel sentenced Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner on Tuesday to serve six years in prison in a corruption trial that has engulfed much of the South American nation. A lifetime ban from holding public office was also handed down.

Prosecutors were asking for a 12-year prison sentence along with a lifetime ban. An appeal from Fernndez is expected.

Fernndez will not have to serve her sentence in the immediate future because she has immunity as a head of state. Two-thirds of lawmakers in Argentina's upper chamber of congress would have to vote to strip her of her immunity, which is not expected because of her allies' control of that chamber.

The next Presidential election is scheduled in less than 11 months, and Fernndez has stoked rumors that she may run for the position again. She served as President of Argentina from 2007 to 2015.

Fernndez was accused of graft and having an illicit association with a construction magnate Lzaro Bez during her time as President, which led to 51 public work contracts going to Bez in exchange for bribes.

Fernndez says the charges against her are politically motivated and accused the prosecutors of lying. She denies all wrongdoing.

In a live stream after the verdict was announced, Fernndez said that the charges against her were politically motivated. ''This [the actions of the judiciary] is a parallel state and mafia,'' she said.

Bez was also a supporter of Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner's husband Nestor Kirchner, who served as President from 2003 to 2007. Nestor Kirchner died suddenly in 2010.

Bez was sentenced to 12 years in prison last year for money laundering.

Due to her likely appeal, Fernndez should be able to run for President in 2023 if she chooses. The appeal could take years and the ban will not take effect until it is finished.

Followers of Fernndez, including some trade unions, threatened to shut down the country if she is found guilty. Ahead of the verdict, her supporters packed the streets in Buenos Aires.

MORE DETAILS TO COME.

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Archived Version

Tue, 06 Dec 2022 17:36

Mr. Musk, the social media service's new owner, has been looking for ways to generate more revenue at the company.

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Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco. Elon Musk, the company's new owner, has moved rapidly to overhaul the social media service. Credit... Jim Wilson/The New York Times SAN FRANCISCO '-- With little warning, in front of hordes of listeners, Elon Musk on Wednesday laid out his most comprehensive overview for Twitter's business since he took control of the company less than two weeks ago.

In a gathering on Spaces, Twitter's live audio feature, Mr. Musk spent an hour on Wednesday morning talking about his plans for the social media service, positioning it as a competitor to more than just classic social networks like Facebook.

The world's richest man said Twitter would make money from content creators and delve deeper into video, business segments that TikTok has mastered. He discussed a vision for Twitter to process payments, complete with connected debit cards and bank accounts, which echoed PayPal, the digital payments company he helped found. Mr. Musk has said that he ultimately hopes to transform Twitter into an ''everything app'' modeled after WeChat, a Chinese social media platform that is used by more than a billion people to find news, hail cabs and order food.

The meeting was ostensibly organized for Twitter's advertisers, with whom Mr. Musk has had a volatile relationship in his short time at the helm. He has swung from conciliatory meetings with Madison Avenue executives to threats to put them through a ''thermonuclear name & shame'' as some brands paused their spending on Twitter because of fears of how his ownership might change the platform's content.

Mr. Musk promised advertisers that Twitter was still committed to them and their concerns about problematic content, which proliferated on the platform during the midterm elections on Tuesday. But his presentation ranged far beyond advertising, offering more details about his plans than the often-contradictory tidbits that had seeped out in recent days.

''The rate of evolution of Twitter will be an immense step change compared to what it has been in the past,'' the 51-year-old said.''You know, if nothing else, I am a technologist and I can make technology go fast. And that's what you'll see happen at Twitter.''

Twitter has undergone a frenzy of changes since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion buyout of the company on Oct. 27. He laid off half of its work force last week and added, then delayed, a plan to boost revenue by charging users $8 per month to receive a coveted verification check mark on their profiles. He and his advisers have also discussed allowing users to pay a fee in order to send a direct message to celebrities on the platform and adding ''pay-walled'' videos.

More on Elon Musk's Twitter Takeover An Established Pattern: Firing people. Talking of bankruptcy. Telling workers to be ''hard core.'' Twitter isn't the first company that witnessed Elon Musk use those tactics. Resolving a 'Misunderstanding': After Mr. Musk accused Apple of threatening to pull Twitter from its App Store, it appears that a potential feud between the tech titans has been avoided. A 'War for Talent': Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check. Unpaid Bills: Mr. Musk and his advisers have scrutinized all types of costs at Twitter, instructing staff to review, renegotiate and in some cases not pay outside vendors at all. A self-described ''free speech absolutist,'' Mr. Musk has also said that he would roll back many of Twitter's content rules, though he has changed nothing yet and plans to form a council in the coming months to advise him on those decisions. Mr. Musk is under financial pressure for Twitter to be a success. His acquisition was the largest buyout ever in the technology industry. He also loaded the company with $13 billion in debt to get the deal done, which will require it to pay more than $1 billion in interest annually. And Twitter has historically lost money and grown at a slower rate than some of its competitors.

Mr. Musk and his confidants have brainstormed ideas for Twitter's business for weeks, taking action on some of them. Last week, the company filed registration paperwork to pave the way for it to process payments, according to a filing with the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, which was obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Musk has often mused about incorporating payments into Twitter. On Wednesday, he said that he envisioned users connecting their online bank accounts to the social media service, with the company moving later into ''debit cards, checks and whatnot.'' Turning Twitter into a payments processor would be a return of sorts for Mr. Musk to his early days in the tech industry. In 1999, he helped found X.com, an online bank that later became PayPal.

Businesses that conduct money transfers, exchange currency or cash checks are required to register with FinCEN, and to report suspicious transactions to the agency. A FinCEN spokeswoman said the agency does not comment on specific businesses.

Before Mr. Musk took the reins at Twitter, the company had dabbled in financial services. Last September, it added a tipping feature that allows users to make small donations to their favorite Twitter creators, using cash or cryptocurrency. It has also let people charge subscription fees for exclusive content, like newsletters, and takes a small cut of their earnings.

But Twitter lacks sophisticated payments systems, which could generate revenue for the company if Mr. Musk can build them and convince people to use them.

The billionaire also offered several other ideas for making money in his session with advertisers, though he was sometimes short on specifics.

Mr. Musk said that video ''is an area that we're going to invest in tremendously.'' He suggested that users who pay for the Twitter Blue subscription service will initially be able to post 10-minute clips, then 42-minute videos and then eventually ones that are several hours long.

He added that helping content creators make money off their posts was a ''no-brainer,'' and said that he wanted users to be able to buy products ''effortlessly'' on Twitter with a single click.

Mr. Musk was also enthusiastic about charging for account verification, denoted by a blue check mark, saying that the $8 monthly fee would raise the cost of creating a fake account so that fraudsters eventually ''will stop trying.'' He likened content produced by unverified accounts to the sort of emails that end up in the spam folder '-- viewable but not as easily available '-- and that people will end up looking largely at Twitter's verified accounts.

To address concerns that paying for verification can cause confusion if some people pretend to be who they aren't, Mr. Musk cautioned that Twitter ''will actively suspend accounts engaged in deception or trickery.'' He described the system as ''a leveling of the playing field,'' a departure from ''the lords and peasants situation where some people have blue check marks and some don't.''

Advertisers were not exempt, he said, though he added that if they really didn't want to pay, ''I'll pay for them.''

A separate verification mark, a gray badge that was rolled out to major media, corporate and government organizations, appeared briefly and then disappeared on Wednesday after Mr. Musk tweeted that he ''killed it.'' On Wednesday's call, he said the mark was ''an aesthetic nightmare'' and also ''simply another way of creating a two-class system.''

Mr. Musk spoke about trying to make ads on Twitter more relevant to users while also protecting advertisers '-- who provide about 90 percent of the company's revenue '-- from hate speech and misinformation. He said the best way for companies to understand how Twitter was addressing concerns about brand safety was to continue to use the platform.

''I understand if people wanted to kind of, you know, give it a minute and kind of see how things are evolving,'' he said when asked by Robin Wheeler, Twitter's new head of ad sales, about an advertising pullback by companies such as General Mills and United Airlines. ''Actually, we've been more rigorous about clamping down on bad content and bots and trolls, not less. So my observation of Twitter over the past few weeks is that the content is actually improving.''

He added that he also planned to push ''Community Notes,'' an ''epic'' feature previously known as Birdwatch that lets users add context to tweets. Mr. Musk said it will help improve accuracy on the platform and reduce the need for content rules, a belief that many misinformation researchers do not share.

Ultimately, he said, referring to a tweet earlier in the day about experimentation, ''the intent is not to do dumb things. We're not aspirationally dumb. We're aspirationally, you know, not dumb.''

Ryan Mac contributed reporting.

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Archived Version

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:02

CNN '--

For days, Twitter owner Elon Musk had teased a massive bombshell disclosure based on internal company documents that he claimed would reveal ''what really happened'' inside Twitter when it decided to temporarily suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden and his laptop.

But on Friday, instead of releasing a trove of documents to the public, Musk's big reveal pointed to a series of tweets by the journalist Matt Taibbi, who had been provided with emails that largely corroborated what was already known about the incident.

Attracting thousands of retweets, Taibbi's winding tweet thread reaffirmed how, in the initial hours after the Post story went live, Twitter employees grappled with fears that it could have been the result of a Russian hacking operation.

It showed employees on Twitter's legal, policy and communications teams debating '' and at times disagreeing '' over whether to restrict the article under the company's hacked materials policy, weeks before the 2020 election, where Joe Biden, Hunter Biden's father, ran against then-President Donald Trump.

While some questioned the basis for the decision and warned that Twitter would be inviting allegations of anti-conservative bias, others within the company, including senior officials, said the circumstances surrounding the Post story were unclear and recommended caution, according to screenshots of internal communications shared by Taibbi.

(Then-CEO Jack Dorsey '' whom Taibbi said was not involved in the decision '' has told US lawmakers that in hindsight, suppressing the story was a mistake.)

The emails Taibbi obtained are consistent with what former Twitter site integrity head Yoel Roth told journalist Kara Swisher in an onstage interview earlier this week. During that interview, Roth said he felt at the time that the Post reporting bore the hallmarks of a Russian hack-and-leak operation, an assessment that was shared at the time by dozens of former US intelligence officials. Roth did not respond to CNN's request for comment.

The Taibbi posts undercut a top claim by Musk and Republicans, who have accused the FBI of leaning on social media companies to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop stories.

Musk tweeted Friday night, amid the Taibbi posts, that Twitter had acted ''under orders from the government.''

Taibbi said in his series of tweets that ''there is no evidence - that I've seen - of any government involvement in the laptop story.''

Lawyers for Facebook parent company Meta have made similar comments in recent weeks, disputing claims from Republicans that the FBI coerced Facebook to suppress the laptop stories.

Taibbi said the material he reviewed referenced general FBI warnings about potential attempted Russian interference in the elections, which also dovetails with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's public account of Facebook's handling of the New York Post story and affirms how Twitter was on high alert for possible foreign meddling.

In the wake of the article's suppression, Taibbi said one Democratic congressman, California Rep. Ro Khanna, wrote to Twitter's chief legal officer suggesting it was a bad look and a departure from First Amendment ideals to suppress a news report containing details that affect a presidential candidate. Khanna noted in the email he was saying this even though he was a ''total Biden partisan.'' Khanna did not respond to a request for comment.

The tweet thread also highlighted how officials from both political parties routinely wrote to Twitter asking for specific tweets to be removed. Taibbi included a screenshot of an email from the ''Biden team'' asking to delete tweets. A CNN review of those tweets on an archive site showed some purported photos of Hunter Biden, including nudity, that may have violated Twitter policy.

Taibbi said the contact from political parties happened more frequently from Democrats, but provided no internal documents to back up his assertion. He also did not say that Democrats requested that Twitter suppress the Post story, and his account did not suggest that the US government had ever pressured Twitter to suppress the story.

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Archived Version

Mon, 05 Dec 2022 15:14

By Dave DeCamp

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Saturday delivered a speech where he reaffirmed that the Pentagon's top priority is countering China, which he accused of seeking to reshape the so-called ''international order.''

''Now, the National Defense Strategy is clear-eyed about our main competitors. And that starts with the People's Republic of China (PRC),'' Austin said at the Reagan National Defense Forum.

Austin said that China is the ''only country with both the will and, increasingly, the power to reshape its region and the international order to suit its authoritarian preferences.'' He said the US ''won't let that happen'' and that the Pentagon is ''aligning our budget as never before to the China challenge.''

The former Raytheon board member set a dramatic tone and said the next few years will ''set the terms of our competition'' with China and will ''determine whether our children and grandchildren inherit an open world of rules and rights '-- or whether they face emboldened autocrats who seek to dominate by force and fear.''

A day earlier, Austin unveiled the new Northrop Grumman-made B-21 Raider bomber, the first new American aircraft bomber in 30 years. Austin said Saturday that the B-21 is ''the long-range strike stealth bomber that will soon be the backbone of the Air Force bomber fleet.''

Austin unveiling the B-21 on Friday (DOD photo)The B-21 is part of the modernization of the US nuclear triad, which could cost up to $1.5 trillion, and US military officials have made clear the new bomber is meant to intimidate China.

Last year, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he wanted to see the US invest in new military technologies that will ''scare China'' and that the B-21 would be ''very intimidating.'' He later said that his priorities as Air Force secretary are ''China, China, and China.''

Source: Antiwar

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 14:47

As a doctor, I thought my student loans were the worst debt I would encounter. But the past two months I’ve spent at work in a pediatric hospital in Baltimore have made paying them off seem like child’s play. Pediatricians like me are currently overwhelmed amid a resurgence of respiratory viruses. Infants and toddlers, unable to catch their breath from pneumonia or bronchiolitis (an infection of the small airways in the lung), are filling America’s pediatric emergency departments, hospital beds, and intensive care units. Where I work, sick kids have filled our waiting rooms, then filled our makeshift second waiting rooms, and finally filled the emergency medical tents we erected outside. While RSV and influenza have been the predominant viruses, numerous co-conspirators—parainfluenza, human metapneumovirus, rhinovirus, enterovirus, and COVID-19—are also causing havoc.

So why are kids getting sick with every virus everywhere, all at once? Most experts have converged upon an answer: We are paying back a collective “immunity debt,” one accrued from the quiescence of traditional respiratory viruses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The prevalence of these infections plummeted due to the nonpharmaceutical interventions, or NPIs (things like masking, remote work and learning, enhanced hygiene, and isolation of those who are ill), that were put in place to slow SARS-CoV-2 but had profound effects on other viruses, essentially halting their spread around the world. Fewer recent infections led to less immunity, which meant more—and more severe—infections once viruses staged their comeback. Sprinkle in the return of cold weather and a widespread reversion to pre-pandemic living, and voilà: The usual winter wave of viruses has become a tsunami.

As to why so many newborns are falling ill, it’s likely they inherited their debt from mom. Like kids, fewer moms were sick the past two years with non-COVID-19 respiratory pathogens, which means fewer babies received protective antibodies through the placenta and from breast milk. (To be clear, this does not mean that a pregnant person should go out and get infected in order to confer their child antibodies. Getting infected in order to stave off future infection is always a losing strategy.)

Immunity debt is not a new idea, though the specific coinage is fairly recent (and some experts bicker over the specifics of what the phrase does and does not mean). Its painful lesson has been learned by American honeymooners who drink the tap water in Cancún, Nigerian Americans who skip malaria prophylaxis while visiting their cousins outside Abuja, and unvaccinated seniors who were hospitalized from COVID-19 while their boosted peers suffered a mere head cold. At its heart, immunity debt is Immunology 101: Hosts whose immune systems haven’t been properly primed are more prone to infection and severe disease.

Select skeptics have questioned whether immunity debt, at least by itself, explains what we’re seeing. Researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital are investigating whether a new strain of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which began circulating the summer before the pandemic, may be partially to blame. It could be, though it wouldn’t explain the rise we are seeing in other respiratory viruses as well.

Other experts have speculated that prior COVID-19 infections are causing immune suppression, and that this is to blame for the current viral resurgence. While such a phenomenon is known to occur following measles infections, the data for COVID-19 infection doing the same damage is unconvincing. A study conducted by the National Institutes of Health, which compared individuals recovered from COVID-19 with noninfected controls, found no significant long-term differences in immune function. Some researchers have found detectable immune system changes in patients with long COVID, but not all immune system changes in the lab lead to a greater susceptibility to infection in the real world. In fact, in the short term, the immune response to COVID-19 actually seems to make it less likely the host will be infected with a second virus, through a phenomenon known as viral interference. Then there are epidemiologic observations: Abnormal RSV outbreaks also occurred in China, New Zealand, and Australia after COVID-19 precautions were lifted. These countries all had low COVID-19 transmission at the time, suggesting that even if they play a role, COVID-19 infections aren’t the main culprits behind the current deluge of other infections.

If our pediatric EDs and ICUs are indeed being overrun due to immune debt caused by COVID-19 precautions, does that mean their implementation was unwise in the first place? Or that we should abandon them going forward? Or should we instead double down on the precautions in an attempt to keep respiratory viruses away for good?

While fewer viral infections are good, so is hugging grandma, in-person school, and play dates with friends. Permanently suppressing respiratory viruses is nothing like eliminating foodborne illness, diarrheal disease, or malaria. Pasteurization, sewage systems, water purification, and mosquito control require minimal behavior change and have mostly positive side effects easing uptake, whereas masks are uncomfortable, social distancing is a drag, and wanderlust is widespread. Hope remains for lasting improvements in ventilation, sick-leave policies and culture, and hand hygiene, but it is clear the suite of interventions which were required for sustained community suppression of respiratory viruses has proved both prohibitively painful and politically unpalatable. Respiratory viruses are here to stay.

But we can be more clever in living with these microbes. While RSV and influenza slumbered these past few years, society was learning an unprecedented amount about their behavior and the effect public health actions have on them. This knowledge allows us to employ nonpharmaceutical interventions more strategically going forward. Some interventions, such as improved ventilation, might sustainably reduce the total number of infections. Other strategies, like masking, travel restrictions, and social distancing, are, as we’ve seen firsthand, unlikely to last. Using interventions in this second category therefore accrues immunity debt (during a period of wide uptake), which will be painfully paid off with widespread surges (when these measures are inevitably dropped).

Notably, this debt may be worthwhile when the benefit of temporarily avoiding infection is worth the risk of future disease and the annoyance of NPIs. For example, when health care systems are becoming overwhelmed, using NPIs to “flatten the curve” and allow provision of proper care is prudent. Indeed, without such interventions early on in the pandemic, health systems would have completely collapsed, costing countless lives. Amid the current upswing in pediatric illness, it makes sense to temporarily re-implement precautions such as masking, surface disinfection, and frequent hand hygiene, especially around infants and young children.

Another time taking on immune debt makes sense is when an individual (or a close contact) is facing a transient period of severe disease risk. In pediatrics, the main application is protecting newborns during the first months of life, when children are uniquely vulnerable. For babies with underlying risk factors for severe disease from respiratory viruses—prematurity, lung disease, congenital heart disease, or complex medical conditions—it’s wise to play it safe for a little longer, especially during their first fall and winter. Sure, shielded children will be more susceptible that second cold and flu season compared with their previously infected peers, but giving their immune system and lungs an extra year to mature means their risk overall has decreased. Similar logic applies to other groups temporarily facing increased risk, such as cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, anyone who is about to have an important surgery, and those whose booster is right around the corner.

Vaccines are ultimately the safest way to live with infectious organisms. Some critics have alleged that the entire concept of immunity debt is anti-vaccine, suggesting that the term insinuates that infections are the only way to prevent immunity debt. Nonsense. The infectious disease experts who coined the phrase used it to argue vociferously for the importance of inoculation. Vaccines are immunology’s free lunch. They can prevent us from going into debt by keeping the immune system primed, without the risks that come from the disease itself. Staying up to date on COVID-19 and flu shots can help prevent infections and severe disease from the viruses. (Notably, this year’s flu vaccine matches circulating strains of the virus well, according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.) Remaining on track with—or catching up to—standard childhood vaccines adds yet another layer of protection by decreasing the risk of common complications of viral illnesses like bacterial pneumonias and ear infections, which are (predictably) also surging. Select high-risk infants are eligible for monthly preventive injections, a tactic known as passive immunization, to decrease their risk of RSV. A vaccine against RSV appears to even be around the corner. Multiple promising candidates have recently been shown to work in clinical trials.

Paying back debt is painful, especially when it’s children who are being made to suffer. But we can’t fight back if we deny the problem by smearing anyone who acknowledges immunity debt as anti-vax or anti-mask. Temporarily employing masks and increased hand and surface hygiene to bend the curve and protect those most vulnerable is reasonable while RSV and flu are surging, but the current pediatric crisis neither implies that eternal masking is needed nor that it was useless before. The tincture of time will primarily heal this problem. Pediatric infections are likely to diminish in the next year or two, as our immunity debt shrinks. New vaccine technologies on the horizon will likely add additional relief. Our collective efforts to stem the tide of the pandemic saved countless lives; it was ultimately good debt.

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 14:31

Brandon Magnus/Getty Images

Anti-Semitism-spouting entertainer/entrepreneur Kanye West surfaced on social media Sunday night to post a bizarre rant about Elon Musk and former President Barack Obama.

How we got here: On Thursday, West appeared to reach rock bottom in his descent into anti-Semitism when he performed essentially an extended infomercial for Hitler on Alex Jones's show.

That descent continued hours later when West posted an image of the swastika photoshopped inside of the Star of David on Twitter Thursday night.

Musk replied to West that an unflattering tweet about himself was ''fine,'' but said of the Swastika post ''This is not.''

''I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,'' Musk announced.

''Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, not an unflattering pic of me being hosed by Ari.''

''Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight!'' he added.

But on Sunday, West popped his virtual head up on his Instagram account to, in a reminder of just how unwell he is, accuse Musk of being a hybrid clone. West wrote:

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS ELON COULD BE HALF CHINESE? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN HIS PICS AS A CHILD?TAKE A CHINESE GENIUS AND MATE THEM WITH A SOUTH AFRICAN SUPER MODEL

AND WE HAVE AN ELON

I SAY AN ELON BECAUSE THEY PROBABLY MADE 10 TO 30 ELON'S AND HE'S THE FIRST GENETIC HYBRID THAT STUCK '.... WELL LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT OBAMA

I'M SORRY FOR USING CURSE WORDS IN CHURCH BUT I DON'T HAVE ANOTHER WORD FOR OBAMA YET

YE24 LET'S UNIFY AND FIND OUT LUAFO

In a comment on that post, West also wrote:

On Jay Zs birthday Future president of the United States Ye uses Mark Zuckerberg's platform to incite a mass investigation of Elon Musk's childhood photos in the midst of Balenciagagate I call this The theory of everything Problem

According to right-wing troll Ali Alexander, West is considering posting to an account on Telegram.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 14:21

The 44-year-old president of Ukraine has earnt a place in history for his extraordinary display of leadership and fortitude.

Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, recently interviewed Zelenskyy in Kyiv: https://on.ft.com/3UxkgIF

Nine months into a brutal struggle for national survival against Russian invaders, Volodymyr Zelenskyy looks tired, with dark circles under his eyes. What he would like to be doing instead of confronting a merciless invader is fishing with his son. ''I just want to catch a carp in the Dnipro river,'' he says. For a taste of normal life, the unlikely president may still have a long wait, despite the surprising streak of battlefield successes for Ukraine's forces. But the folksy message is characteristic of a leader who still depicts himself as an everyman with humble tastes and a deep sense of humanity, qualities that have earned him the admiration of Ukrainians and their supporters abroad.

It is the mirror image of the fictional ordinary-guy-turned-president he played in a satirical hit television series that skyrocketed him to fame. It is also the antithesis of Russian president Vladimir Putin, hidden away in the Kremlin, whose obsession with rebuilding an empire has cost tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of lives. Written off by many Ukrainians before the February invasion as something of a joke, an amateur struggling to rise to the challenge of high office, the 44-year-old Zelenskyy has earned a place in history for his extraordinary display of leadership and fortitude. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a former comic actor who won his election as president with an overwhelming majority, inherited a country that had been at war with Russia since it first invaded in 2014, Ukraine surprised the world by fending off the Russian assault on Kyiv and with its counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson provinces. It has retaken half of the territory Moscow's troops had seized this year.

Zelenskyy's forces now are pressing ahead in the south and the east, even as winter sets in, with the goal of liberating all Ukrainian territory, including the Donbas region and Crimea. Just as Winston Churchill went on the radio to rally his country during the Blitz, Zelenskyy has used social media to campaign relentlessly for western military and financial support, turning the plight of his people into moral leverage over leaders in Europe and the US. He has persuaded Europeans to bear the huge costs of standing up to Putin and to offer Kyiv a path to EU membership. Along the way, he has become a standard bearer for liberal democracy in the wider global contest with authoritarianism that could define the course of the 21st century.

Zelenskyy has also come to embody the courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people in their fight against Russian aggression. It is for these reasons that the Financial Times has chosen Zelenskyy as the person of the year. In an interview with the FT, Zelenskyy recalls the early days of the invasion and says he is not really courageous: ''I am more responsible than I am brave'‰.'‰.'‰.'‰I just hate to let people down.'' Zelenskyy's powerful chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, recalls how three years ago he told a group of western journalists that ''our president would be the most famous and strongest leader of his time''. He adds: ''I won't say I told you so, but I was right.''

A close call Zelenskyy's decision to remain in Kyiv at the start of the invasion rather than accept a US offer of evacuation was one of the most consequential moments in the war, galvanising Ukraine's military and its people to resist. It was a surprise to Ukrainians and western allies, who had low expectations of the country's political leaders. For days before the invasion, Zelenskyy seemed in denial about the prospect of an all-out Russian assault on his country. ''I'm the president of Ukraine and I'm based here and I think I know the details better here,'' he told reporters after speaking to US President Joe Biden. When the invasion started 10 days later, it was unclear whether Zelenskyy would survive the day. He was asleep beside his wife, Olena Zelenska, at the presidential palace in Kyiv as the first missiles struck and Russian tanks streamed across the border. Russia, the president would later say, had marked him ''target number one'' and his family ''target number two''. While Olena and their children were evacuated to an undisclosed location, the president was moved with staff and bodyguards into an underground bunker in the palace. Soon after, Russian special forces were parachuted in. Local collaborators who had infiltrated the ranks of the Ukrainian security service and quietly moved into safe houses close to the government quarter attempted to storm his office. They were unsuccessful, but it was a close call.

EU leaders were horrified when Zelenskyy told them by video link that it might be the last time they saw him alive. But later that night Zelenskyy, standing out in the open near the presidential office and flanked by his closest advisers, sent a message by video selfie that millions of Ukrainians had wanted to hear: ''The president is here. We are all here. Our soldiers are here.''

Nine months later, Russian forces are long gone from Kyiv '-- although they continue to menace the capital with weekly missile strikes against the power network, plunging millions into darkness. At the presidential palace, no one is taking chances: sandbagged shooting positions are placed along the corridors as if Russian special forces could again storm the building. Life imitates art Zelenskyy was born into a Ukrainian-Jewish family in Kryvyi Rih, a steelmaking city in south-central Ukraine. In the post-Soviet 1990s it was a rough-and-tumble type of place where a youngster like Zelenskyy had to make his own luck, but his upbringing was relatively comfortable. His mother is an engineer and his father a computer science professor. He was the teachers' pet in school, he said, because he was very dependable and funny. ''Everybody loved me. I was the energy of every group,'' he says. Zelenskyy met Olena in school and they grew close at university, where he studied law and she studied architecture. They went on to form a wildly successful comedy troupe and production company. Named after the district where they grew up, Kvartal 95, it toured Ukraine and Russia, before producing a hit TV series that launched Zelenskyy's career in politics.

He announced his presidential run on New Year's Eve in 2018, with an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform strikingly similar to that of the character he played on TV. Less than four months later, he defeated incumbent Petro Poroshenko by a landslide, winning 73 per cent of the vote. The political novice inherited a country that had been at war with Russia since it first invaded in 2014 and he vowed to bring peace. Ukrainians, tired of Poroshenko's broken promises and militant attitude, saw Zelenskyy, a native Russian speaker supposedly viewed more positively in Moscow, as someone who just might be able to hammer out a deal to end the bloodshed.

Putin, it turned out, was not open to any compromise. On other fronts, Zelenskyy's record during the first two and half years of his presidency was mixed at best. He passed important reforms, including on land sales, but made little headway in tackling corruption or reducing the influence of Ukraine's oligarchs. He governed via a small clique of trusted but often ill-qualified lieutenants, many of them longtime friends or associates from his show business career. ''There's a lot of strange people around him, a lot of strange decisions,'' says a former member of his government. Some accused Zelenskyy of an authoritarian streak. He fired officials for failing to produce instant results. An anti-oligarch law passed in 2021, although perhaps well intentioned, in effect gave the president arbitrary powers for pursuing personal or political vendettas. His attempt to have his predecessor Poroshenko, a confectionery magnate, prosecuted for treason was denounced by western capitals. Even some of Zelenskyy's staff admit he can be thin-skinned. He himself says one thing he has learnt since February is ''don't be offended by the small things''.

Diplomats who have followed his presidency say he distrusts western motives and still fears betrayal. 'Fate has chosen us' Doubts about Zelenskyy's suitability to lead his nation in war dissipated with Russia's attack. The president appeared to step into a new role '-- along with new khaki garb. Iuliia Mendel, who served as Zelenskyy's press secretary, says he lacked the experience and discipline to be a great peacetime leader but was better suited to lead during the tumult of war. ''He is a person of chaos,'' she says. ''In war, it is chaos. He feels at home.'' Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament and a close political ally, noted the change at the first meeting of the National Security and Defence Council on February 24. ''He was in a very, very, I would say, combative mood. And he said, look, history has chosen us. Fate has chosen us. And now we have to live up to that.''

It was not just the military that needed to mobilise but the entire state. Zelenskyy streamlined decision-making between his office, government and parliament. He also learnt to make decisions swiftly, identifying it as the key to success, and to delegate tasks, trusting others to carry them out. Operational decisions were left to military commanders, allowing forces the flexibility to react quickly to conditions on the battlefield. But it is Zelenskyy's never-ending communications that have been most remarkable. His nightly video messages and Telegram posts have been a tonic for a weary population. A message directed at Moscow in September '-- ''Without light or without you? Without you'' '-- turned into a social media rallying cry for many Ukrainians. Zelenskyy has addressed countless parliaments, conferences and events '-- from the Grammy Awards to the Glastonbury Festival. Each time he has tailored the message to the audience, often appealing to the hearts and minds of the people over their governments. He has used his pulpit to press '-- and sometimes shame '-- governments into providing vast quantities of weapons. In a speech to the Bundestag in March, he skewered German leaders for putting their economic interests before security, saying they were adding stones to the new Berlin Wall that Russia was building across Europe. Western officials on occasion found that agreements discussed in private were immediately relayed on social media by the president or his staff, giving partners no room to back out.

His communication has rarely gone awry, although it has grated with some allies. One exception to Zelenskyy's sure-footed messaging was his insistence that a missile strike that killed two people in Poland on November 15 was Russia's doing. Although Polish and US officials said it was likely to have been a stray Ukrainian anti-aircraft rocket, Zelenskyy called it a ''very significant escalation'' that required an allied response '-- putting him at odds with Washington, Warsaw and other European capitals anxious not to get sucked into the war. A peacetime leader? Ukraine's torment is far from over. Evicting Russian troops from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south will be difficult enough, let alone from the well-defended positions in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea, areas occupied for eight years. Nonetheless, Ukrainians are already debating whether their leader, like his illustrious British predecessor, may be the right man for a war of national survival but the wrong one for the peace that follows. Victory will not only belong to Ukraine's president. Some Ukrainians are making a name for themselves in the war and have political ambitions.

The astonishing mobilisation of Ukrainian civil society since February can be expected to make the country more demanding of its leaders. When the fighting eventually comes to an end, Zelenskyy will face tough questions about the failure to sufficiently prepare Ukraine for a full-blown invasion. The security services did not lay mines or blow up bridges along Russia's lines of attack from the north and south, leading large swaths of territory to be captured quickly and easily by Putin's troops. Zelenskyy says that despite the public warnings by western officials, Kyiv was never given intelligence it could act on about the impending Russian attack. ''Nobody showed us specific material saying it would come from this or that direction,'' he says. Zelenskyy repeatedly attempted to call Putin in the run-up to the invasion. He wanted to tell him it would be a ''great mistake, a great tragedy'' but the Russian leader would not take his calls. ''We are fighting against insane people,'' says Zelenskyy of the Russian leadership. He is adamant that Ukraine must liberate all of its territories from Russian occupation, otherwise the war will simply resume at a later date. But the success of Ukraine's counteroffensives will hinge on the amount of advanced weaponry its supporters and, above all, the US are willing to supply.

The interests of Kyiv and the west could diverge. Death, destruction and anger over Russian war crimes have hardened Ukrainian public opinion against compromises with Moscow. Some allies fear a Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea could lead to a dangerous escalation by Putin, possibly with nuclear weapons. Already there are faint calls for negotiating with Russia, appeals that Zelenskyy rejects. ''The world is not a doctor with extensive experience, it is not Putin's doctor, and Putin is not a patient of this world.''

Despite the ''absolute evil'' of Russia's war, the former comic actor still finds moments for humour, just as millions of Ukrainians find succour by sharing memes and jokes about their Russian attackers on social media. ''If you don't sometimes smile because of these people you enter a depression, and you can't make decisions when in a depression,'' he says. Last week, Russian missile strikes left millions of Ukrainians and swaths of the country, including the capital, without running water for more than 24 hours after power was cut. The president's office was no exception. Zelenskyy recalls with a chuckle how a visitor to his office had asked to borrow his toilet. ''I refused. I said: 'I know what it will be like in several hours.' It was very funny.''

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:44

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari urges heads of states from neighboring states participating in the Lake Chad Basin Commission to confront the issue of Western arms smuggling from Ukraine.

Former General and Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari (AP)Weapons supplied to Ukraine from Western countries are "starting to flow" into the Lake Chad basin region, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari warned this week.

Addressing the heads of states from neighboring states participating in the Lake Chad Basin Commission on Tuesday in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, the president said, "Regrettably, the situation in the Sahel and the raging war in Ukraine serve as major sources of weapons and fighters that bolster the ranks of the terrorists in the region."

Buhari then urged his counterparts to increase security cooperation in order to confront the issue of arms smuggling.

The Nigerian president agreed to step up military coordination in their countries' war against Boko Haram and ISIS terrorists, who are now apparently receiving weapons from Ukraine, alongside the leaders of Benin, Chad, Niger, and the Central African Republic.

Last month, Finnish police said that some of the "huge quantities" of weapons being shipped to Ukraine had made their way to Finland, where "three of the world's largest motorcycle gangs" now operate, including Bandidos MC, which "has a branch in every major city in Ukraine."

In August, an American news outlet unmasked that a shockingly large amount of weaponry heading for Ukraine was untraceable. "Like 30% of it reaches its final destination," said a tweet that was later deleted after a swarm of online trolls attacked it.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had previously said the arms supplied by the West to Ukraine were ending up on the black market and spreading across West Asia.

Similarly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had pointed out that Stingers and Javelin missiles, supplied by the West to Kiev, were already being sold at a discount on the black market and have surfaced in Albania and Kosovo, which Russia has warned for so long.

Ukraine has received billions and billions of dollars in donated arms from the United States and its allies such as the United Kingdom and other NATO states in the past few months.

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:44

''I was a very strong supporter of the vaccine mandate when we did it, a very strong supporter of the Covid restrictions put in place by DoD and others,'' he added. ''But at this point in time, does it make sense to have that policy from August 2021? That is a discussion that I am open to and that we're having.''

The defense bill is set to be unveiled Monday and House leaders plan to hold a vote on the $847 billion policy measure sometime next week. Negotiators had hoped to file the legislation on Friday, but congressional leaders were still ironing out several outstanding issues, apparently including the vaccine policy.

Undoing the policy '-- a measure that neither the House nor Senate included in their versions of the defense bill '-- would be a win for Republicans who argue forcing troops to get the shot or leave the military is exacerbating a recruiting and retention crisis. Thousands of troops have been kicked out for refusing the vaccine.

GOP leaders are planning to focus on the policy when they take control of the House, if it isn't rolled back before then.

Republican lawmakers and governors have pressed hard to undo the mandate in recent days. A group of 13 Republican senators, led by Rand Paul of Kentucky, have promised to try to block the bill unless they're granted a vote on an amendment to bar kicking out military personnel solely for refusing a Covid-19 vaccine and reinstate separated troops with back pay.

And Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has pushed legislation to suspend the policy when the military isn't meeting its target levels for personnel.

While negotiators are willing to entertain the possibility of undoing the policy, Smith said GOP calls to reinstate or grant back pay to troops who refused the shot amounted to a red line. He called the push ''a horrible idea.''

''The one thing that I was adamant about '-- so were others '-- is there's going to be no reinstatement or back pay for the people who refused to obey the order to get the vaccine,'' Smith said. ''Orders are not optional in the military.''

''Now what the policy should be from this point forward? That's a question we were willing to ask about,'' he said.

Smith all but endorsed the idea that the need for mandating the armed forces receive a Covid vaccine has passed.

He said the ''pandemic has winded down,'' noting that most law enforcement and health officials in his home state of Washington are no longer required to be vaccinated.

''We were very, very aggressive in Washington state on a wide variety of Covid policies,'' he said. ''Vaccine mandates have been lifted by a wide variety of agencies '-- police departments, fire departments, health departments '-- because of where we're at right now and the effect of the vaccine and the effect of people who caught the disease.''

He also noted that the current Pentagon policy does not require booster shots for the coronavirus.

''At this point, let's say you got those two shots or that one shot in March of 2021,'' Smith said. ''Those people can serve, but someone who hasn't gotten anything can't?''

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 03:54

There was a time when the disclosure of a back channel for politically motivated censorship would have generated widespread acclaim and called for awards. This is not that time. Just ask Matt Taibbi.

No one is suggesting that the New York Post should receive a Pulitzer Prize for its long fight to prove the truth about the Hunter Biden laptop. Despite an alliance of most of the media and political establishment arrayed against it, the New York Post fought censorship and unrelenting attacks to bring this massive influence peddling operation to light. (Of course, the New York Times and Washington Post can keep Pulitzer Prizes for reporting on debunked Russian collusion claims created and pushed by the Clinton campaign).

In the case of journalist Matt Taibbi, his analysis of thousands of documents has met with the standard scorched earth campaign from liberal reporters and pundits.

As discussed in today's Hill column, the document dump confirmed what had long been suspected: Biden and Democratic party officials succeeded in getting Twitter to block the New York Post story and suspend those who even tried to retweet or link to the story before the election.

I will not repeat the content of those emails on how Twitter ''handled'' demands from the Biden campaign and the DNC for censorship. Musk gave the material to Taibbi to synthesize the voluminous record. That is when the familiar media flash mob formed.

NBC Reporter Ben Collins attacked Taibbi on Twitter and said ''Imagine throwing it all away to do PR work for the richest person in the world. Humiliating s***.''

New York Times contributor Wajahat Ali also attacked Taibbi:

''Matt Taibbi'...what sad, disgraceful downfall. I swear, kids, he did good work back in the day. Should be a cautionary tale for everyone. Selling your soul for the richest white nationalist on Earth. Well, he'll eat well for the rest of his life I guess. But is it worth it?''

So Taibbi's reported downfall as a writer is due to his role in disclosing a massive censorship system operated at the direction or behest of one political party and one political family. He is ''disgraceful'' because he is suggesting that the media and social media companies should not have censored a story on a multimillion dollar influence peddling scheme run by the Biden family.

Taibbi is not alone in such disgrace, according to Ali. He has also attacked former New York Times writer Bari Weiss, including for her statement that she was tired of the pandemic as being somehow racist. (''It reflects America's cruelty, right?'...we have also had cruelty, White supremacy, misogyny. America says go ahead and die, but just don't die on my lawn.'')

Of course, Ali may be right on what it takes today to be accepted as a journalist. Taibbi is now persona non grata as opposed to Ali, who is routinely invited to write for publications like the New York Times and the Daily Beast despite a litany of controversies.

In one column, Ali suggested white Republican voters would prefer to burn down their own homes then rent to a minority member and compared them to the Al Qaeda terrorists on Flight 93 . He then wrote off most of them as ''lost. It's going to be a long, ugly, violent death rattle of a death cult.''

In today's world, the New York Times bans Sen. Tom Cotton for his view on the use of the military to quell violent protests, but publishes Ali who told people not to ''waste your time reaching out to Trump voters as I did.''

''Reaching out'' apparently means calling them virulent racists storming an airplane cockpit. That is the model of real journalism and commentary, not some journalist detailing a politically driven censorship system on social media.

Most critics like MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan attacked Musk or Taibbi while omitting any discussion of the details in these documents. Hasan simply declared that the full transparency ordered by Musk is just one of those ''nakedly and cynically right-wing narratives . . . But sure, the laptop! The laptop! The laptop!''

There is a simple reason for this evasion and enmity. The media is too invested in the suppression of this story to now acknowledge that this was a scandal involving both massive influence peddling and massive censorship to cover it up.

I previously wrote a column on the one year anniversary of the Hunter Biden laptop story that marveled at the success of the Biden family in making the scandal vanish before the 2020 election. It was analogized to Houdini making his 10,000-pound elephant Jennie disappear in his act. The Biden trick, however, occurred live before an audience of millions.

The key to the trick was involving the media in the original illusion. Both Twitter and these reporters became invested in the trick. It is like calling audience members to the stage to assist in the performance. Reporters have to insist that there was nothing to see or they have to admit to being part of the original deception. The Bidens were able to make this elephant of a scandal disappear because Twitter and the media wanted it to disappear.

Musk has now pulled away the cover and revealed the elephant. Rather than acknowledge the beast, the media is turning on those who made it visible. The Bidens forced many liberal reporters and pundits to excuse the raw corruption of influence peddling. They are now getting the same figures to dismiss censorship. The alternative is simply too bear, let alone explain. After all, if it is still on the stage, it was there all along . . . and that can only be a ''nakedly and cynically right-wing narrative.''

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Sun, 04 Dec 2022 18:56

George : BREAKING: Email leaks reveal Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs was in regular communication with Twitter telli'... https://t.co/V2sXZyHATh

Sun Dec 04 04:52:31 +0000 2022

oil gas and chemicals : @BehizyTweets Telling..? NOAsking them? YesTwitter made the decisions..You have a nothing burger..Now do how'... https://t.co/VGyAbSE0gf

Sun Dec 04 18:53:39 +0000 2022

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Sun, 04 Dec 2022 15:31

by Chris Black

The main thing for which KanYe is currently being crucified in both mainstream and so-called alt-right media is that he said a few times during his appearance on Alex Jones show that he likes things that National Socialists and Hitler in particular did in the past, plus he mentioned that what people know about the holocaust (and WW2 history at large) is factually wrong, including the 6 million meme.

It really looks like the left and the right are both singing a refrain of ''he is mentally unwell'', but they are saying that in response to him talking about Hitler/National Socialism, which is kind of interesting.

What is it about Hitler that triggers 99% of people in every walk of life?

Maybe it is because America's official religion since WW2 is Ashkenazi worship?

Keep in mind that KanYe said like 1000 times during the interview that he's a born again Christian and loves everyone, including zionists, jews, Nazis, serial killers etc.

Jesus said to love everyone. Hitler is someone.

Thus Kanye loves Hitler, that's pretty easy to understand.

I think his strategy is to push the Overton window to the max and destroy the taboos imposed by the powers that be on certain topics, or to break the programming so to speak.

By doing so, he is pinning the Bolshevik/Marxist left/right into an impossible position.

They can't really harm him since he is a celebrity.

They can't attack him since they will be called ''racist'', with him being black and all that POC stuff.

They can't agree with him because it would be ''anti-Semitic''.

The thing is, people are conditioned to be ultra-sensitive on certain topics that are designed to fit a certain narrative about a certain population that controls the media and academia in the US/the West at large.

WW2 history is trauma-based conditioning, pure and simple, as most people have been conditioned since birth to see Hitler as a manifestation of everything evil in existence.

You're programmed as a child into being told who the most evil man in history is.

You're programmed by the ideas of millions gassed and tortured and whatever else traumatizing shit you don't think about as a child, which is the same technique as showing a smoker's lung next to a non-smokers lung.

This planet's education system has a group of people who decide what the curriculum is, and they make sure you always think about little Anne Frank or ''what famous things happened in Germany in WW2 ''.

The current Western world is built on the post-WW2 status quo.

WW2 was the founding myth, Hitler is the Satan of it and holocaustianity replaced Christianity in the Western world.

Hitler has literally replaced Satan in modern mythology, and Kanye is breaking the conditioning.

Fun fact: your grandparents who fought in WW2 didn't really have a problem with Germany other than the fact they were fucking with the USA's economy.

90% of Americans were against the US entry in WW2, which was actually WW1 part deux .

Many were also against WW1, but the propaganda industry was determined to use Americans to fight and slaughter their brothers in Europe on behalf of central banking.

Progressive Republican Bob LaFollette filibustered the Senate till he collapsed to try to keep the (((Armed Ship Bill))) from passing and making US entry inevitable.

The famous Patton quote really does describe how a lot of WW2 vets felt about their Euro tour but it was ok because they believed in the USA.

Funny how in the late 80s and 90s the anti-Nazi propaganda ramped up significantly after decades of silence, almost as if they were trying to indoctrinate a new, young, and impressionable generation who had no prior context.

KanYe is making the case for free speech absolutism, with him saying the most unspeakable things, thus forcing ''free speech'' advocates to put up or shut up.

You can tell people that Genghis Khan, Mao or Stalin was your favorite leader from history and they won't bat an eye.

Do the same with Hitler and they will think that you are a psychopath.

This is the text book definition of trauma based indoctrination, and kudos to KanYe for what he's trying to do.

Hating Hitler is the core of brainwashing. If that breaks, it all breaks.

You will not be free until you accept that the big lie is real, accept that yes, history is written not by the good and just, but by the victors, and, most importantly, that both the ''right'' and the ''left'' in this country is owned by the same people, which have no ideology really, except from them being the chosen race of god and you the goy that must obey and serve them.

Ye is blowing the lid on it, and politicians and media are afraid they wouldn't be able to play ball in the new paradigm.

I just hope that he doesn't ''die suddenly''. Pray for him, because he really needs it.

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Sun, 04 Dec 2022 15:30

Please send links and comments to hmakow@gmail.com

This article is two months old but nothing has changed.

Currently the West is controlled by satanists (WEF) and is

Western media is censoring the truth about Ukraine war. You will never see the following in the (((MSM.))) Yet our lives hang in the balance.Putin: Western society 'satanic' with 'various genders'https://www.miragenews.com/putin-western-society-satanic-with-various-866068/Putin said the West had turned away from "traditional" and "religious" values, asking the audience if they wanted their "children to be offered sex-change operations," which he said is common in the West.

He added they have "the concepts of various genders in addition to men and women in the United States and European countries".

"Complete madness. Do we really want to see these perversions that lead to degradation and extinction be imposed on children in our schools from the primary grades, so that they are told that there are other genders besides women and men, and offered to undergo a sex change operation? Do we want all this for our country, for our children? All this is unacceptable for us," the Russian leader said.

"Such an absolute denial of a person, overthrow of faith and traditional values, and replacement with the opposite of [what] the religion features - outright Satanism. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ denouncing false prophets says: by their fruits you shall know them. And these poisonous fruits are obviously people. Not only in our country. Also many people in the West itself," Putin said.

He asked if Russian needed "concepts as parent one and parent two which are accepted in some Western countries instead of the 'mom' and 'dad'".

He was speaking at a ceremony to annex four regions of Ukraine following a series of votes Kyiv and the West have denounced as illegal, sham referendums. Putin said Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia would be merged into Russia.

Putin has aligned himself closely with the Orthodox Church - which strongly rejects same-sex relationships - and has embedded social conservatism into a narrative of Russian political and cultural revival that is now also being used to help justify the invasion of Ukraine.

He routinely slams Western liberalism, blasting so-called cancel culture and promotion of gay and transgender rights.

Last year he said "children being taught a boy can become a girl and vice versa" is monstrous and "a crime against humanity".

------------------------------

KanYe Proved on Alex Jones Show That WW2 History is Trauma Based Indoctrination by Chris BlackHating Hitler is the core of brainwashing. If that breaks, it all breaks.

https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/kanye-proved-on-alex-jones-show-that-ww2-history-is-trauma-based-indoctrination/--

Suckers!! Makow - Hitler was an Illuminati Agent

-----

Sydney mum 'felt fine' before dying in sleep after positive Covid testA Sydney father's world has been turned upside down after his wife suddenly died in her sleep just hours after catching Covid.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/mum-felt-fine-before-dying-in-sleep-after-positive-covid-test/news-story/c0498f4b9b2f19737cfadd019f8ea247--

Why is Henry Makow the only person still not allowed on Twitter?All our problems stem from the central banking cartel controlled by satanist (Cabalist) Jews who are destroying Christian Western civilization.

Notice, hardly anyone else says this. I also exposed how history is a charade designed to degrade and destroy Christian civilization.

--

Christmas will make a comeback this year. My supermarket was playing Christmas Carols. Felt very festive.

--Awaken The World by Max Igan The 5g towers that are being erected everywhere are NOT for your call phones, says Max Igan. They are intended to give the authorities greater powers of surveillance and control over the world's "useless eaters"

https://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=261934--

SECRET CDC REPORT: Since the launch of Operation Warp Speed, at least 1.1 million Americans have "died suddenly"Thus far, every single week in 2022 has seen a significant and noticeable number of excess deaths. At one point, upwards of 350,000 excess deaths were being reported per week, though the average has since decreased somewhat

https://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=261982

--

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Archived Version

Sun, 04 Dec 2022 15:08

News By Carson Choate December 4, 2022 at 6:12am More than 40,000 homes and businesses lost electrical power Saturday night in a central North Carolina county in what authorities suspect to be a coordinated attack.

The outage occurred the same night as a controversial drag show was scheduled in one of the county's towns.

According to the Moore County Sheriff's Office, the outages began a little after 7 p.m. Eastern Time. It wasn't clear when power would be restored.

Officials said that there was evidence that the outage was caused by vandalism found at multiple substations and Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said that the incident is being investigated as a ''criminal occurrence.''

Several substations across Moore County were reportedly shot up. https://t.co/x0DSi6LbTk

'-- The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) December 4, 2022

''As utility companies began responding to the different substations, evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,'' Fields said, according to WRAL-TV in Raleigh.

There is a major power outage in Moore County the power company is aware and is working on the issue. DO NOT call 911 to report an outage. ONLY call 911 to report a EMERGENCY

'-- Moore Public Safety (@moorecountyps) December 4, 2022

Do you think the outage was intentional?

Yes: 0% (0 Votes)

No: 0% (0 Votes)

Duke Energy had almost 38,000 customers without power throughout the county, according to WRAL. Randolph Electric Membership Corp. had 3,000 customers without power in the southern part of the county, WRAL reported.

Jeff Brooks, a spokesman for Duke Energy, told WRAL that crews had discovered ''multiple equipment failures'' at several substations in the county.

''We are also investigating signs of potential vandalism related to the outages,'' Brooks said, according to the station.

Brooks said the company was working to restore power and is cooperating with officials investigating the outage.

According to The Charlotte Observer, some on social media had reported hearing gunshots in the area at the time of the outage. Brooks was asked if there was a connection, but said he couldn't confirm anything at this stage.

The outage came amid planned protests over a drag show in downtown Southern Pines, a town in Moore County with a population of about 15,000.

The ''Downtown Divas'' event at the Sunrise Theater started at 7 p.m., according to The Charlotte Observer. After the power went out, it continued until about 9 p.m. the Observer reported.

''I asked that everyone turn on their phone flashlights to illuminate the room,'' headline act Naomi Dix said, according to the Observer. ''I then led the crowd in singing Beyonc(C)'s 'Halo.'''

One of the organizers of protests against the drag show, Emily Grace Rainey, published a post to her Facebook page after the outage began stating, ''The power is out in Moore County and I know why.''

She then posted a second statement with a picture of the exterior of the darkened theater stating, ''God will not be mocked.''

Late Saturday, she published another post stating that sheriff's investigators had paid her a visit.

''The Moore County Sheriff's Office just checked in. I welcomed them to my home,'' she wrote.

''Sorry they wasted their time. I told them that God works in mysterious ways and is responsible for the outage. I used the opportunity to tell them about the immoral drag show and the blasphemies screamed by its supporters.

''God is chastising Moore County. I thanked them for coming and wished them a good night. Thankful for the LEOs service, as always.''

According to The Fayetteville Observer, the event was originally opened to all ages. However, the minimum age for the event was changed to 18 after protests that the show was exposing children to ''adult entertainment.''

Sunrise Theater Executive Director Kevin Dietzel told the Observer in an article published Saturday that he disagreed with the age restrictions.

''It adds to the stigma that people in the drag community already feel,'' Dietzel told the newspaper. ''It adds fuel to the myth that the LGBTQ+ community is something that people need to keep their kids away from.''

Organizers of the drag show said that they have received multiple threats ahead of the Saturday event.

According to the Fayetteville Observer, a Southern Pines Christian school sent out a letter Nov. 21 calling for residents of the town to protest at the train station across from the theater.

''The LGBTQ forces are coming to Southern Pines and they are after our children,'' the letter from Calvary Christian School administrators stated, the Observer reported. ''This is their target audience to peddle their abomination.''

According to the Observer, on Nov. 18, the group requested a permit to protest the show, listing an expected turnout of about 100 on the application.

Tags:

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US newsSummaryRecent Posts ContactCarson Choate is a freelance writer who got into politics in late 2019 when the House voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump. Before joining The Western Journal, he worked as an editor for a small news site.

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Archived Version

Sat, 03 Dec 2022 22:24

/ France Energy crisis

Issued on: 01/12/2022 - 16:33 Modified: 01/12/2022 - 16:45

An Electricite de France (EDF) nuclear power station in Cattenom near Thionville, eastern France. Reuters The French government is putting a plan in place to deal with the looming energy crisis as fears rise of electricity power cuts. A directive will be sent to regional police chiefs to anticipate scheduled power cuts, which could affect 60 percent of the population in the worst-case scenario.

At the moment, half of the country's reactors are offline because of ongoing or delayed maintenance, or corrosion problems. The new generation of power stations has yet to be built.

As a result, France will be "a major importer of electricity this winter" to compensate, explains Xavier Piechaczyk, chairman of the management board of RTE, which manages the country's electricity transmission network.

France's electricity grid warns it will strain to deliver this winter"Historically, France is an exporter because of its very large nuclear fleet, however, now it turns out that it has temporary difficulties ... (which) will be resolved but it will take a few years," he told France Info on Thursday.

He said France would turn to European neighbours to import up to 15 GW, which represents "a useful amount" to cope with a peak in electricity consumption of around 90 GW, and "contributes to being able to avoid cuts".

There is "a risky situation but these cuts should not be considered inevitable", he said.

Energy saving 'paying off'In the last few weeks, the government has launched a major publicity campaign encouraging French citizens and companies to reduce energy consumption and cut down on wasteful practices.

This means reducing heating to 19°C maximum, turning off unused appliances, and for businesses, switching off unnecessary lighting or advertising at night.

On Tuesday, government spokesperson Olivier V(C)ran told the Council of Ministers that the energy saving plan "is already bearing fruit", noting a five percent reduction in energy use overall.

Milder temperatures have contributed, he said, indicating that as winter progressed, the demands on electricity for heating would obviously increase.

French climate activists target store lights in Paris night raids 'City of Light' Paris flicks dimmer switch to save on energy costsFrench Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, who has been holding weekly crisis meetings on the energy issue, said she would be sending a directive to prefects around the country this week to prepare for eventual planned electricity cuts to avoid a major blackout.

One of the key concerns is the question of how to maintain telephone access to emergency numbers, an issue the government admits it has not yet resolved.

In addition, police chiefs will be asked to reinforce patrols in the absence of street lights in public spaces and deal with a contingency plan for public transport, notably electric trains.

"Nothing is excluded, nothing is confirmed. But it's our responsibility, and we are preparing," V(C)ran said, insisting that the government's intention was not to frighten the population.

He added that the implementation of an emergency plan would depend largely on how cold temperatures would be over the winter.

Return to coalIn a worst-case scenario, the risk of cuts would impact 60 percent of the population, but would never affect an entire region or department.

The plan would exclude critical infrastructure such as hospitals, police stations or fire stations.

An online system called Ecowatt has already been set up to inform citizens of future cuts and help them reduce their consumption.

Some 10,000 households have subscribed to the app, which sends out alerts in case of a problem.

In the meantime, the government is also temporarily returning to coal for electricity needs. A coal station in Saint-Avold in the east of France, which had shut down earlier this year, started up again on Monday.

France reboots coal-fired power plant to boost winter electricity suppliesElectricity consumption in France fell by 6.7 percent last week compared to the average for previous years (2014-2019), a drop "largely concentrated in the industrial sector", according to RTE's latest report on Tuesday.

But it warns that consumption had not shifted in the tertiary sector, which could put pressure on electricity demands in the future.

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Sat, 03 Dec 2022 09:37

Next time you're at airport security, get ready to look straight into a camera. The TSA wants to analyze your face.

The Transportation Security Administration has been quietly testing controversial facial recognition technology for passenger screening at 16 major domestic airports '-- from Washington to Los Angeles '-- and hopes to expand it across the United States as soon as next year. Kiosks with cameras are doing a job that used to be completed by humans: checking the photos on travelers' IDs to make sure they're not impostors.

The TSA says facial recognition, which has been banned by cities such as San Francisco, helps improve security and possibly also efficiency. But it's also bringing an unproven tech, with civil rights ramifications we still just don't understand, to one of the most stressful parts of travel.

After hearing concerns from Washington Post readers who encountered face scans while traveling, I wanted to know how the TSA is using the tech and what our rights are. Everybody wants better safety, but is this really safer '-- and what are its real costs?

So I quizzed the TSA's Jason Lim, who helps run the program formally known as Credential Authentication Technology with Camera (CAT-2). And I also called Albert Fox Cahn, the founder of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, or STOP, and one of the biggest critics of facial recognition.

I learned the TSA has put some important constraints on its use of facial recognition '-- but its current programs are just the beginning.

No, you don't have to participate in facial recognition at the airport. Whether you'll feel like you have a real choice is a separate question.

TSA quietly rolled out facial recognition technology at over a dozen airports across the country. Tech columnist Geoffrey Fowler shares what to expect. (Video: Monica Rodman/The Washington Post)

How TSA facial recognition works

American airports have been experimenting with so-called biometric technology for years, following the 9/11 attacks. You might have seen Customs collecting biometric information from passengers entering the United States. In 2019, I tested some of the ways airlines were using face scans to replace boarding passes for international flights. The TSA's facial recognition pilot began at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) amid concerns about covid transmission through contact in August 2020.

This system is for general passenger security screening. You step up to the travel document checker kiosk and stick your ID into a machine. Then you look into a camera for up to five seconds and the machine compares your live photo to the one it sees on your ID. They call this a ''one to one'' verification system, comparing one face to one ID. Even though the software is judging if you're an impostor, there's still a human agent there to make the final call (at least for now).

So how accurate is it? The TSA says it's been better at verifying IDs than the manual process. ''This technology is definitely a security enhancement,'' Lim said. ''We are so far very satisfied with the performance of the machine's ability to conduct facial recognition accurately.''

What about people who don't exactly look like their driver's license photo? Minor variations in appearance over time '-- such as changing your hairstyle '-- have negligible negative impact on identity verification, the TSA says.

But the TSA hasn't actually released hard data about how often its system falsely identifies people, through incorrect positive or negative matches. Some of that might come to light next year when the TSA has to make its case to the Department of Homeland Security to convert airports all over the United States into facial recognition systems.

''I am worried that the TSA will give a green light to technology that is more likely to falsely accuse black and brown and nonbinary travelers and other groups that have historically faced more facial recognition errors,'' said Cahn of STOP.

Research has shown facial recognition algorithms can be less accurate at identifying people of color. A study published by the federal National Institute of Science and Technology in 2019 found that Asian and African American people were up to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than White men, depending on the particular algorithm and type of search.

Federal study confirms racial bias of many facial-recognition systems, casts doubt on their expanding use

Should travelers be concerned? ''No one should worry about being misidentified. That is not happening, and we work diligently to ensure the technology is performing according to the highest scientific standards,'' Lim told me. ''Demographic equitability is a serious issue for us, and it represents a significant element in our testing.''

That doesn't satisfy critics such as Cahn. ''I don't trust the TSA to evaluate the efficacy of its own facial recognition systems,'' he said.

When some people hear about governments using facial recognition, they rightly picture the situation in China, where broad use of the technology makes it extremely difficult for citizens to evade surveillance. Does going through airport security now mean Homeland Security has a face ID that can identify you at a protest?

The TSA says it doesn't use facial recognition for law-enforcement purposes. It also says it minimizes holding on to our face data, so it isn't using the scans to build out a new national database of face IDs.

''The scanning and match is made and immediately overwritten at the Travel Document Checker podium. We keep neither the live photo nor the photo of the ID,'' said Lim. But the TSA did acknowledge there are cases in which it holds on to the data for up to 24 months so its science and technology office can evaluate the system's effectiveness.

Tiny toiletries forever? The future of TSA, from liquids to shoes.

What's more, the TSA already has a plan to expand the scope of how it's using the tech. It's running a pilot of a second system at a few airports where you don't even have to present your physical ID for inspection. Your face is your ID.

In tests with Delta, machines compare passengers' live faces to a database of photos the government already has, typically from passports. For now, this system only works for passengers with PreCheck or Global Entry and passengers also have to request it from Delta. A colleague recently tried it in Atlanta and reported it was like an extra-fast version of PreCheck that probably saved him five minutes on his trip.

Just remember: Any time data gets collected somewhere, it could also be stolen '-- and you only get one face. The TSA says all its databases are encrypted to reduce hacking risk. But in 2019, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed that photos of travelers were taken in a data breach, accessed through the network of one of its subcontractors.

So do you have to participate?

''None of this facial recognition technology is mandated,'' said Lim. ''Those who do not feel comfortable will still have to present their ID '-- but they can tell the officer that they do not want their photo taken, and the officer will turn off the live camera.'' There are also supposed to be signs around informing you of your rights.

But does it mean you'll get moved to a slow line, get an extra pat down, or a mark on your record? ''You should have no derogatory experience based on you exercising your right,'' said Lim. If you suspect that has happened, the TSA says you should ask to speak to a manager.

How to prevent customs agents from copying your phone's content

''What we often see with these biometric programs is they are only optional in the introductory phases '-- and over time we see them becoming standardized and nationalized and eventually compulsory,'' said Cahn. ''There is no place more coercive to ask people for their consent than an airport.''

Even people who care a lot about privacy often find their limits when it comes to airline travel. People gravitate to options that help them get through the airport faster '-- and it's not hard to imagine ending up with a bifurcated airport experience, said Cahn.

Those who have the privilege of not having to worry their face will be misread can zip right through '-- whereas people who don't consent to it pay a tax with their time. At that point, how voluntary is it, really?

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Fri, 02 Dec 2022 22:54

An Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is pictured at 50 ImClone Drive in Branchburg, New Jersey, March 5, 2021.

Mike Segar | Reuters

A key monoclonal antibody used to treat people with weak immune systems who catch Covid is no longer authorized for use in the U.S. because it is not effective against emerging omicron subvariants.

The FDA, in a notice Wednesday, said bebtelovimab is not approved for use because it is not expected to neutralize the omicron BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants. They are causing 57% of new infections nationally and make up a majority of cases in every U.S. region except one.

The Health and Human Services Department is putting on hold pending requests for bebtelovimab, and the manufacturer Eli Lilliy has also halted commercial distribution of the antibody treatment until further notice, according to the FDA notice.

But bebtelovimab stocks should be kept on hand in the event that Covid variants which the antibody can neutralize become dominant again in the future, according to FDA.

Bebtelovimab is a single-dose injection administered to people who catch Covid and are at high risk of developing severe disease, but cannot take any other FDA-approved treatments such as the oral antiviral Paxlovid. Many people with weak immune systems, such as organ transplant patients, cannot take Paxlovid with other medications they need.

U.S. health officials have warned that people with weak immune systems face a heightened risk from Covid this winter, because more immune evasive omicron subvariants threaten to knock out antibody treatments they rely on to stay safe from Covid.

Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Covid coordinator, said in October that the failure of Congress to pass additional Covid funding means treatments will dwindle as new variants render them ineffective.

"We had hoped that over time as the pandemic went along, as our fight against this virus went along, we would be expanding our medicine cabinet," Jha told reporters. "Because of lack of congressional funding that medicine cabinet has actually shrunk and that does put vulnerable people at risk."

President Joe Biden has called on people with weak immune systems to consult with their physicians about what extra precautions they should take this winter to stay safe.

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Fri, 02 Dec 2022 21:18

November 2, 2022 at 1:48 pm

Hyundai's Nexo and Toyota's Mirai have 400-mile drive ranges and take only 5 minutes to ''recharge''/refuel

Two hydrogen-powered vehicles are now available for purchase (by special order) in Australia '' Hyundai's Nexo SUV and Toyota's Mirai sedan.

The only thing that comes out of the tailpipe of these zero-emissions cars is water, and they actually filter pollutants out of the air as drive down the road.

They have a drive-range longer than any conventional electric vehicle on the market except Tesla, with the Mirai maxing out at 403 miles, Tesla Model S at 405 miles, and Nexo at 413 miles.

Additionally, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles can be fully ''recharged'' '' or refueled '' in 5 minutes, compared to several hours of charging for electric vehicles.

So far there are only 4 hydrogen refuelling stations in Australia, so unless you live near one, you're out of luck'... but Hyundai is partnering with a popular gas station in the country to add hydrogen pumps alongside petroleum.

The company hopes to have hydrogen semi trucks in Australia by 2025.

Unlike a traditional electric vehicle, hydrogen vehicles have no heavy battery to store electricity. Instead, they produce a steady supply of electricity as the car drives by pulling in oxygen from the atmosphere and mixing it with the hydrogen stored in their tanks. The process is called electrolysis.

Elon Musk has called hydrogen fuel cells ''mind-bogglingly stupid'' and ''the most dumb thing I could possibly imagine for energy storage.''

He shared a chart on Twitter showing battery-powered electric vehicles to be 3 times as efficient as hydrogen vehicles at converting renewable electricity into ''horsepower.''

Volkswagen CEO made a similar claim, calling hydrogen cars ''nonsensical.''

''A hydrogen car requires energy from three or four times as many windmills than an electric vehicle needs for the same distance, making it three to four times as expensive to travel the same distance,'' he said.

In Clean Technica's words: ''Hydrogen fuel cells may be the technology of choice for some industrial processes, and/or for hard-to-electrify transport segments such as ocean shipping and aviation, but they aren't suitable for passenger vehicles.''

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Archived Version

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 20:58

Vladimir Putin has fallen down stairs at his official residence and soiled himself while continuing to suffer from cancer, a Telegram channel which claims links to his bodyguards has suggested.

The 70-year-old Russian leader, whose health has visibly deteriorated since he launched his war in Ukraine, suffered the fall on Wednesday evening when he slipped coming down stairs at his Moscow home, channel General SVR claims.

Putin landed on his coccyx, fell down five steps, then rolled on to his side and slid down two more. The sharp impact caused him to 'involuntarily defecate' due to 'cancer of the gastrointestinal tract', according to the channel.

General SVR has posted updates about Putin's health since the start of the war, though has provided no evidence to support its claims or proof that it does indeed have connections within his guards.

Vladimir Putin fell down stairs at his official residence on Wednesday night, bruised his coccyx, and 'involuntarily defecated' due to the effects of cancer, it is claimed

In the latest post, the channel wrote that Putin 'stumbled and fell to his back, after which he fell on his side and slid down a couple of steps.

'The incident took place in front of the president's bodyguards, who reacted quickly and rushed to Putin's aid.

'Three security officers helped the president to get to the nearest sofa and called the doctors who are on duty at the residence.'

The channel said that medics 'arrived within a few minutes, but could not immediately examine the president'.

This was due to him suffering 'oncology of the gastrointestinal tract, as a result of which he already experiences serious problems with digestion' - and the fall caused an 'involuntary defecation'.

'Before the examination, the doctors escorted the president to the bathroom and helped to clean up.'

The report said: 'After a complete examination, a bruise of the coccyx and soft tissues was diagnosed.

'Nothing critical was diagnosed and the bruising was treated with painkillers.

'An investigation is to be carried out into what provoked the 'fall'.

'He wears special shoes, even at home, with anti-slip coating, and the stairs in the residence are considered 'safe'.

'As it turns out, all precautions are meaningless when nerves are at stake.'

The 70-year-old world leader was pictured speaking to doctors at a new laboratory the following day, with no apparent signs of injury

The tyrant was recently spotted with apparent track marks from IV treatment on the back of his hand

JULY 19: Russian president Vladimir Putin is seen hobbling from his presidential plane during the welcoming ceremony in Tehran

Despite the reports, Putin was filmed and pictured touring a laboratory in Moscow the following day with no apparent signs of injury.

Speculation about Putin's health has swirled ever since he ordered troops across Ukraine's border on February 24.

He has appeared unsteady during public appearances, including unusual fidgeting with his hands and feet in meetings with other world leaders.

Ahead of one meeting with Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenko early on during the war, his hand was seen shaking in an apparent sign of Parkinson's.

Other images have shown him tightly gripping a table edge as if trying to steady his hand and stop a tremor.

His walk has also drawn suspicions because of an apparent limp.

Meanwhile Oliver Stone, a director who was given broad access to Putin for a 2017 documentary, also went on record to say he thought Putin had cancer but beat it.

Around the same time New Lines magazine claimed to have obtained a recording of a Russian oligarch - who they did not name - saying Putin was 'ill with blood cancer'.

Just a month earlier, a Russian investigative website called Proekt said it had obtained documents that proved Putin travels with a large team of doctors.

Among them were a specialist in resuscitation, a specialist in treating violent trauma, and a cancer specialist.

APRIL 21: Putin is seen gripping his desk with his right hand while meeting defence minister Sergei Shoigu in the early stages of the war. Footage from the meeting raised questions about Putin's health

The Russian president has also frequently vanished from public view for days at a time with no explanation ever offered.

In 2015, he went missing for 10 days, prompting some to go as far as suggesting he had died.

Putin then went missing in 2017 for eight days, before another two-day absence in 2018 during presidential election campaigning.

On that occasion, the Kremlin was forced to admit that the president had 'a cold'.

The Kremlin has consistently denied reports the Putin is suffering poor health, particularly since the war in Ukraine began.

And no firm evidence has ever emerged to suggest his is seriously ill.

Bill Burns, director of the CIA, was asked at a security forum back in July about Putin's health and denied there is anything wrong with him.

'As far as we can tell, he's entirely too healthy,' Burns told reporters, though noted that was 'not a formal intelligence judgment'.

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Archived Version

Fri, 02 Dec 2022 13:13

CNN executed a round of layoffs Wednesday and Thursday, eliminating hundreds of positions including a number of on-air correspondents.

Among those let go were politics reporter Chris Cillizza; correspondents Alexandra Field, Martin Savidge and Alison Kosik; and vice president of northeast news Mary Anne Fox, according to Variety.

It is unclear exactly how many employees were let go. CEO Chris Licht told staff Wednesday that a limited number of people, mostly paid contributors, would be given pink slips that day. Thursday's layoffs would then target full-time employees. Axios reported that ''a couple hundred'' staff would be affected. CNN has roughly 4,000 employees.

Spokesperson Lauren Cone did not respond to a request for comment.

Cable news channel HLN was hit particularly hard, Variety first reported. HLN was first launched in 1982 as CNN2 and later became known as CNN Headline News. However, in recent years HLN has reduced its live programming and instead focused on true crime shows. Now, CNN will stop live programming altogether for HLN on Dec. 6 and will replace ''Morning Express'' with a simulcast of ''CNN This Morning.''

In a memo to employees Thursday, Licht outlined several other changes including restructurings affecting CNN International, U.S. newsgathering operations and programming teams. CNN will also reduce open positions.

Licht warned about impending layoffs in October when he wrote to staff that the company is bracing itself for an economic downturn. He said CNN would try to minimize impacts on its newsgathering operations.

''There is widespread concern over the global economic outlook, and we must factor that risk into our long-term planning,'' Licht wrote at the time. ''All this together will mean noticeable change to this organization.''

CNN has had a tumultuous year. The network started off 2022 under Jeff Zucker, who unexpectedly resigned as president in February. CNN's owner, WarnerMedia, then merged with Discovery in April to form Warner Bros. Discovery.

Lack of support from Warner Bros. Discovery then helped hasten the demise of CNN's streaming service, CNN+, which shuttered three weeks after it launched. Hundreds of people were laid off.

Licht took over in May, promising to avoid the ''extremes'' of cable news. He also said he would work to incorporate more conservative viewpoints. In the months since, there have been a number of high-profile departures including Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter, legal affairs analyst Jeffrey Toobin and White House correspondent John Harwood.

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Archived Version

Thu, 01 Dec 2022 15:31

by Peter Saint-Andre (2004)Ayn Rand's working title for Atlas Shrugged (Rand 1957) was The Strike. A core premise of the novel is that all segments of society have at one point or another gone on strike and refused to return to work until their demands have been met. All segments but one: the "men of the mind", who are the Atlases holding up the world.

Yet who are these "men of the mind" in Atlas Shrugged? With a few token exceptions, they are not intellectuals, novelists, philosophers, artists, or even scientists -- the professions usually associated with "the mind" in Western civilization. Instead, they are almost exclusively engineers.

Consider the main characters: John Galt is an electrical and mechanical engineer who invents a revolutionary motor powered by static electricity; Francisco D'Anconia is a mining engineer who owns and runs the world's most important copper mining company; Hank Rearden is a metallurgical engineer who owns and runs America's most important steel mill and who invents a revolutionary metal that is stronger and lighter than steel; Dagny Taggart is a civil engineer who runs America's most important railroad.

Yet it doesn't stop there. Most of the other strikers are engineers, too (or, to be precise, engineer-entrepreneurs): Calvin Atwood runs a power company, Dan Conway runs a railroad, Ken Danagger runs a coal mine, Quentin Daniels is a physicist and electrical engineer, Lawrence Hammond and Ted Nielsen run automobile factories, Owen Kellogg and Pat Logan are railroad engineers, Roger Marsh runs an electrical appliance company, Dick McNamara is a civil engineering contractor, Dwight Sanders runs an airplane factory, Andrew Stockton runs a foundry, and Ellis Wyatt runs an oil company. Sure, there's a doctor (who seems to have invented a portable X-ray machine), a movie actress, a judge, a banker, a philosopher, and a composer (whose music is described as having "the radiance of engineering"; Rand 1957, 729). But the vast majority of the "good guys" are engineers.

Is this coincidence? I think not. Somehow, Rand imbibed the "ideology of the engineer" and gave it extended expression in her magnum opus.

What is the ideology of the engineer? In a book entitled The Revolt of the Engineers (Layton 1971), Edwin T. Layton described it as a kind of "philosophy of engineering" grafted atop the ethics of Herbert Spencer, resulting in a creed that values professional excellence, practical rationality, rugged individualism, and laissez-faire capitalism. That combination probably sounds suspiciously familiar to readers of Ayn Rand, because at a high level it pretty well describes her ideas, too.

The engineer as hero is not limited to Atlas Shrugged. Kira Argounova, the heroine of Rand's first novel, We the Living, is an engineering student whose potential career as a builder of bridges is snuffed out by the Communist regime in the early years of Soviet Russia. Equality 7-2521, the hero of Rand's second novel, Anthem, is a fearless tinkerer who craves the knowledge of things, rediscovers electricity, and pieces together an electric light in a benighted totalitarian society of the far future. Howard Roark, the hero of Rand's third novel, The Fountainhead, is expelled from engineering school for his independent ways but ultimately succeeds as a modern architect who pays scrupulous attention to the engineering aspects of his discipline. However, Rand's fourth and final novel, Atlas Shrugged, is the culmination of the engineering thread in her fiction.

Why was Rand drawn to portraying and celebrating engineers more than any other profession? It is clear that the act of creating machines, buildings, mines, metals, engines, bridges, railroads, airplanes, and other industrial artifacts appealed to Rand not only philosophically but also aesthetically: the products of the engineering mind prove the practical importance of independent thinking, but according to her quasi-modernistic perspective they are also radiantly beautiful in and of themselves.

Aside from Rand's viscerally aesthetic appreciation of machines, one source for her regard for engineers may lie in attitudes toward engineering in the Russia of her youth. As Kendall Bailes observed (Bailes 1974, 464):

A high respect for engineers had been fostered among the youth since the Revolution. Fertile ground for technocratic attitudes had been prepared in both literature and education. To take one example, engineers had been the heroes of a number of novels popular among the young. These included the science fiction works of A.A. Bogdanov, Red Star and Engineer Menni, and of Alexis Tolstoy, Aelita and The Hyperboloid of Engineer Garin, which projected future societies where engineers would play crucial social and political roles.

Yet there was a great tension in Russian society between respect for engineering and bitter resentment of engineers' higher social status and expertise. This tension comes through even before the Russian Revolution in novels such as Bogdanov's Engineer Menni, but broke into open conflict between "Reds" and "Experts" after the Revolution, when the newly triumphant proletariat made life difficult for members of the engineering profession. The Soviets relentlessly downgraded engineers (so-called "bourgeois specialists") within society, placed them under the control of ignorant managers with politically correct working class backgrounds, and vilified them as "wreckers" of progress toward the Communist ideal. Eventually, Stalin actively hounded the old specialists in the rigged Shakhty Trial of April 1928 and especially the Industrial Party Trial of December 1930 (in which the leaders of the old specialists were alleged to have plotted the overthrow of the government); in the aftermath of these show trials, the Communist government sent somewhere between 20% and 70% of Russia's most valuable engineering experts to the Gulag. Perhaps sensing their eventual fate even early on, the professional engineers "met the Bolshevik takeover with a strike" (Bailes 1974, 452), although these strikes mostly ended during 1918 (Bailes 1978, 45).

Rand would have experienced the tension between Expert and Red first-hand during her formative years in Russia. And it is no surprise that she would have sided with the engineers, for to her they must have been symbols of capitalism, industry, intelligence, and modernity.

Yet Rand's heroic engineers -- especially those in Atlas Shrugged -- were not the "old specialists" of Russia, nor indeed the professional engineers that might have become familiar to her after she arrived in America in 1926. In both Russia and America, engineers attempted to maintain a professional identity separate from the businesses or government organizations for which they worked (thus the importance of the many engineering societies in America and, to a lesser extent, in Russia). By contrast, almost all of Rand's strikers seamlessly combined both innovative engineering and successful entrepreneurship. Consider a statement by M.G. Evreinov, a prominent Russian engineer, describing a congress of the All-Russian Union of Engineers in 1918 (Bailes 1978, 22):

The majority recognized the impossibility of turning to the owners for a subsidy, even the smallest. If at a given moment, in the struggle to save industry, transport, etc., we find ourselves in agreement with the entrepreneurs, we should not forget that this has not always been so, nor will it be so in the future. The overwhelming majority of members in our union are people who sell their labor and are not entrepreneurs. The union of engineers has been created for the long haul, it has its own road to follow, and it is not necessary to become dependent on either organizations of entrepreneurs, nor on those of workers.

Sadly, it soon became clear that the engineers could not truly travel down their own road, since they were to be co-opted and corrupted by the Soviet regime, eventually with horrific consequences both for the engineers themselves (thousands of them were sent to prison camps, never to return) and for the workers who slaved on the gargantuan and misguided projects on which the engineers advised the government (especially the White Sea Canal, constructed through the forced labor of well over 100,000 "citizens", more than 10,000 of whom died during the project).

Or consider the fate of engineer Peter Palchinsky, alleged leader of the supposed engineers' plot to turn back the Revolution, who was summarily executed even before the Industrial Party show trial (Graham 1993, 40-41):

Palchinsky promoted a very ambitious role for engineers. He wanted engineers to apply a new form of social analysis to problems of industrialization, and he believed that in order for this to happen the engineer's place in society must change. Earlier, the engineer had been assigned a passive role by society: higher authorities asked him to find solutions to technical problems. Now, Palchinsky maintained, the engineer must emerge as an active economic and industrial planner, suggesting where economic development should occur and what form it should take....

Palchinsky's vision of the new Soviet engineer was based on a justifiably strong conviction that a broad approach to engineering would result in more efficient industrial enterprises and more satisfied workers. The new model engineer also appealed to Palchinsky's professional pride. Edwin Layton observed that engineers in the United States in the same period displayed an "obsessive concern for social status." Palchinsky and his colleagues were eager to promote the engineer to a new prominence in society, and they believed that the Soviet state, with its emphasis on centrally planned industrialization, provided unusual opportunities for this promotion.

For all his sophistication about engineering, Palchinsky badly misunderstood the political course of the Soviet Union. His ambitions for engineers could be realized only in a society that granted the various professions a high degree of autonomy and whose government was willing to listen to advice from outside official circles. As he was to discover, Stalin had a very different vision of society and of industrialization.

Palchinsky once asserted that "the future belongs to managing-engineers and engineering-managers" (Graham 1993, 44). Although he argued for such a combination in the context of a socialist economy, he opposed centralized planning and thought it best for manager-engineers to function autonomously and take into account what Friedrich Hayek called "the particular circumstances of time and place" (e.g., the availability of local materials). There may be similarities here to Rand's engineer-entrepreneurs, who apply their rational judgement to their own companies and steer clear of broader industry groupings or (mostly) working for others. Yet Rand's technical specialists are not only engineer-managers: they are engineer-entrepreneurs and engineer-owners, since most of them started and run their own companies. This status gives them true independence and makes them the ultimate in autonomous professionals. Stalin once said that "the engineer, the organizer of production, does not work as he would like to, but as he is ordered, in such a way as to serve the interests of his employers" (quoted in Bailes 1974, 466). Rand's entrepreneurs turn Stalin on his head by becoming employers themselves.

So Rand's engineers are not mere technocrats. As Kendall Bailes explains, technocracy urges engineers to "develop a wider sense of social responsibility for the use of their technical knowledge, and particularly urges them to take an important role in policy formation. In other words, engineers should not simply be content to be the technical executors of other men's policies, but should become politicians themselves." However, Rand's principled advocacy of laissez-faire led her to reject the desirability of influencing society by becoming a politician. Instead, her engineers rule (at least over their own fates) by becoming independent industrialists; and according to Rand it is only by doing so that engineers are no longer merely "technical executors of other men's policies", whether those policies be corporate or governmental.

Is is clear that Rand glorified the engineer-entrepreneur, whom she called "the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being" (Rand 1957, 391). Yet it is less clear that the theory and practice of engineering directly influenced her own philosophy. For instance, in 1927, a Russian group led by engineer P.K. Engelmeier proposed to "work out a whole new world view, fully adapted to contemporary technical culture" by exploring "the relations of technology to science, art, economics, law, and ethics", aiming eventually to develop "an overall philosophy based on technology" (Bailes 1974, 454). Rand seems to have taken her engineers more as symbols of industrial capitalism than as templates for a particular way of life or approach to reality. From the perspective of the technologist, Rand's philosophy offers a defense of professional autonomy (similar to if more fundamental than the once-standard ideology of engineering elucidated by Edwin Layton), but it does not incorporate insights from the practice of engineering. In fact, her characters often directly contravene the ethics of engineering; as an example, consider that Dagny Taggart insists on completing the initial run of a new railroad line at full speed without first completing any test runs, simply because she knows (somehow) that it will work as designed. No self-respecting engineer would function in that way today or even in the days of Rand's youth, since testing is an integral part of validating that a design functions properly.

Despite these flaws, Rand's novels (and especially Atlas Shrugged) provide probably the most sustained celebration of engineers and engineering in serious literature, which may in part explain why they are perennial favorites among geeky adolescents and would-be entrepreneurs. If only more of those who admire her novels were the kind of radical innovators she portrays, the world would be a much richer place.

ReferencesBailes, Kendall E. 1974. "The Politics of Technology: Stalin and Technocratic Thinking among Soviet Engineers", American Historical Review 79:2, 445-469.

__. 1978. Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin: Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia, 1917-1941. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Graham, Loren R. 1993. The Ghost of the Executed Engineer: Technology and the Fall of the Soviet Union. Cambridge, MA: Harvard.

Layton, Edwin T. 1971. The Revolt of the Engineers. Cleveland: The Case Western Reserve University Press.

Rand, Ayn. 1957. Atlas Shrugged. New York: Random House.

Peter Saint-Andre > Writings > Randian Reflections

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Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:59

TikTok is facing multiple lawsuits from parents who say their children died of strangulation attempting the ''blackout challenge,'' after the app showed them videos of other people trying it. One suit filed against the company in June alleges that at least seven specific children died last year while attempting the challenge, which the complaint says ''encourages users to choke themselves with belts, purse strings, or anything similar until passing out.'' All the children who reportedly died were under 15 years old.

We're not going to get into the distressing details of the cases, but you can read the full complaint below for more background on some of the children, and how they ended up doing the challenge.

The most recent lawsuit was filed by the parents of eight-year-old Lalani Walton, and nine-year-old Arriani Arroyo. However, it cites several other children that also died after attempting the challenge as evidence that TikTok was aware of the problem. In addition to Walton and Arroyo, the cases it lists are:

A 10-year-old in Italy who reportedly died in January 2021A 12-year-old in Colorado who reportedly died in March 2021A 14-year-old in Australia who reportedly died in June 2021A 12-year-old in Oklahoma who reportedly died in July 2021A 10-year-old in Pennsylvania who reportedly died in December 2021The mother of the Pennsylvania 10-year-old, Nylah Anderson, is also suing the company, alleging that the app ''pushed exceedingly and unacceptably dangerous challenges.'' In response to that suit, TikTok told The Washington Post that it had blocked users from searching for the blackout challenge '-- instead, users see one of its warning screens, saying that ''some online challenges can be dangerous, disturbing, or even fabricated,'' and get linked to a page in the app about assessing challenges and warnings.

The screen TikTok shows when a user searches for the blackout challenge.

However, Smith and Arroyo's newer suit alleges that their children weren't searching for challenges when they saw the videos. Instead, it says, TikTok put it right in front of them on the app's main screen, the For You page. The suit accuses the company of having ''specifically curated and determined that these Blackout Challenge videos '' videos featuring users who purposefully strangulate themselves until losing consciousness '' are appropriate and fitting for small children''.

On the record, TikTok spokesperson Mahsau Cullinane would only provide the company's previous statement:

This disturbing 'challenge,' which people seem to learn about from sources other than TikTok, long predates our platform and has never been a TikTok trend. We remain vigilant in our commitment to user safety and would immediately remove related content if found. Our deepest sympathies go out to the family for their tragic loss.

Challenges are a core part of the TikTok experience '-- to the point where competitors have started trying to integrate them into their platforms in an attempt at appealing to TikTok users. Some challenges simply involve doing a dance move, while others are less benign. One infamous challenge that spread among the platform's users encouraged students to steal or destroy school property. The platform is so well-known for its challenges that the company is sometimes linked to ones that spread on other sites or apps, or even ones that are seemingly made up.

Smith and Arroyo's suit argues that because TikTok advertises and pushes some challenges, it has a ''duty to monitor the videos and challenges shared, posted, and / or circulated on its app and platform to ensure that dangerous and deadly videos and challenges were not posted, shared, circulated, recommended, and / or encouraged.''

The company has faced lawsuits and fines over the access children have to its platform before. In 2019, it agreed to pay $5.7 million to settle charges from the Federal Trade Commission that it allowed users under 13 to sign up without a parent's permission. About a year later, it introduced Family Pairing mode, which lets parents link their accounts to their children's and control the amount of content they see and how much time they can spend on the app.

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Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:47

English musician and singer (1943''2022)

Christine Anne McVie (;[1] n(C)e Perfect; 12 July 1943 '' 30 November 2022[2][3]) was an English musician and singer. She was principally known as a member of the band Fleetwood Mac, which she joined in 1970, as a singer and the band's keyboardist.[5][6] She also released three solo albums. Her lyrics focused on love and relationships. Steve Leggett of AllMusic described her as an "unabashedly easy-on-the-ears singer/songwriter, and the prime mover behind some of Fleetwood Mac's biggest hits".[7] Eight songs written or co-written by her, including "Don't Stop", "Everywhere" and "Little Lies", appeared on Fleetwood Mac's 1988 Greatest Hits album.[8]

In 1998, as a member of Fleetwood Mac, McVie was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music.[9][10] The same year, after almost 30 years with the band, she opted to leave and lived in semi-retirement for nearly 15 years. She released a solo album in 2004. In September 2013 she appeared on stage with Fleetwood Mac at the O2 Arena in London, before rejoining the band in 2014 prior to their On with the Show tour.[11]

In 2006, McVie received a Gold Badge of Merit Award from BASCA, now The Ivors Academy.[12] In 2014, she received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and was honoured with the Trailblazer Award at the UK Americana Awards in 2021.[13][14] She was also the recipient of two Grammy Awards.[15]

Early life McVie was born in the Lake District village of Bouth, and grew up in the Bearwood area of Smethwick near Birmingham. Her father, Cyril Percy Absell Perfect, was a concert violinist and music lecturer at St Peter's College of Education, Saltley, Birmingham, and taught violin at St Philip's Grammar School, Birmingham. McVie's mother, Beatrice Edith Maud (Reece) Perfect, was a medium, psychic, and faith healer. McVie's grandfather was an organist at Westminster Abbey.[16]

Although McVie was introduced to the piano when she was four, she did not study music seriously until the age of 11, when she was reintroduced to it by Philip Fisher, a local musician and school friend of McVie's elder brother, John.[17] Continuing her classical training until age 15, McVie shifted her musical focus to rock and roll when her brother, John, came home with a Fats Domino songbook.[18] Other early influences included The Everly Brothers.[19]

Early music McVie studied sculpture at Moseley School of Art in Birmingham[20] for five years, with the goal of becoming an art teacher. During that time, she met a number of budding musicians in Britain's blues scene.[17] Her first foray into the music field came when she met two friends, Stan Webb and Andy Silvester, who were in a band called Sounds of Blue. Knowing that McVie had musical talent, they asked her to join.[21] She often sang with Spencer Davis. By the time McVie graduated from art college, Sounds of Blue had split up, and because she did not have enough money to launch herself into the art world, she moved to London and worked briefly as a department-store window dresser.[21]

Chicken Shack In 1967, McVie'--then known under the name Christine Perfect'--learned that her ex-bandmates, Andy Silvester and Stan Webb, were forming a blues band, Chicken Shack, and were looking for a pianist. She wrote to them asking to join. They accepted and invited her to play keyboards/piano and to sing background vocals. Chicken Shack's debut release was "It's Okay With Me Baby", written by and featuring McVie.[21] She stayed with Chicken Shack for two albums, during which her genuine feel for the blues became evident, not only in her Sonny Thompson-style piano playing, but also through her authentic "bluesy" voice.[22] Chicken Shack had a hit with "I'd Rather Go Blind", which featured McVie on lead vocals.[23] McVie received a Melody Maker award for female vocalist in both 1969 and 1970. She left Chicken Shack in 1969 after marrying Fleetwood Mac bassist John McVie a year earlier, feeling she would otherwise not see her husband as they were busy playing in different bands.[24]

Fleetwood Mac McVie was a fan of Fleetwood Mac, and while touring with Chicken Shack, the two bands would often meet. They also were both signed to Blue Horizon, and Fleetwood Mac had asked her to play piano as a session musician for Peter Green's songs on the band's second album, Mr. Wonderful.[25][26]

Encouraged to continue her career, McVie recorded a solo album, Christine Perfect; following her success as a member of Fleetwood Mac, the album was reissued under the name The Legendary Christine Perfect Album. After marrying John McVie, she joined Fleetwood Mac in 1970. She had already contributed backup vocals and painted the cover for Kiln House. The band had just lost founding member Peter Green, and its members were nervous about touring without him. McVie had been a huge fan of the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac, and since she knew all the lyrics to their songs, she went along.[28]

McVie went on to become an integral member, another lead vocalist, and keyboardist of the group The first album with her as a full band member was Future Games, which was also the first with American-born member Bob Welch in place of founding member Jeremy Spencer.[26]

The early 1970s was a rocky time for the band, with a revolving door of musicians, and only the albums Bare Trees and Mystery to Me were successful.[29] Furthermore, a group impersonating Fleetwood Mac (which later became Stretch) was touring the United States with encouragement from the band's manager, Clifford Davis. The tour collapsed, but it led to a protracted lawsuit between Davis and Fleetwood Mac.[30]

In 1974, McVie agreed to move with the rest of Fleetwood Mac to the United States. Within a year, Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Buckingham Nicks joined the band, giving it an added dimension. Their first album together, 1975's Fleetwood Mac, had several hit songs, with McVie's "Over My Head" and "Say You Love Me", both reaching Billboard's top-20 singles chart. "Over My Head" put Fleetwood Mac on American radio and into the national top 20.[31]

In 1976, McVie began an on-the-road affair with the band's lighting director,[32] which inspired her to write "You Make Loving Fun", a top-10 hit on the landmark smash Rumours, one of the best-selling albums of all time.[33] Her biggest hit was "Don't Stop", which reached the top five. Rumours also included McVie's "Songbird", a ballad played with just her on piano with Buckingham accompanying on guitar.

By the end of the Rumours tour, the McVies were divorced. The 1979 double album Tusk produced three more US top-20 hits ("Tusk", "Sara", and Christine's "Think About Me"), but it came nowhere near to matching the success of the Rumours album.[36] The Tusk tour continued into 1980, after which the band took time apart. They reunited in 1981 to record the album Mirage at the Chteau d'H(C)rouville's studio in France. The album, released in 1982, returned the band to the top of the US charts and contained the top-five hit "Hold Me", co-written by McVie. McVie's inspiration for the song was her tortured relationship with Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson.[37] Her song, "Love in Store", became the third single from the album peaking at number 22 in early 1983.[38]

Recorded in 1984, her second solo album, Christine McVie, included the hits "Got a Hold on Me" (number 10 US pop, number one adult contemporary and number one Mainstream Rock Tracks) and "Love Will Show Us How" (number 30 US pop). A third single, "I'm The One", was released, but did not chart. McVie was quoted in The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits as saying of her solo album, "Maybe it isn't the most adventurous album in the world, but I wanted to be honest and please my own ears with it."[39]

McVie also met keyboardist Eddy Quintela, whom she married on 18 October 1986. Quintela went on to co-write many songs with her that were featured on subsequent Fleetwood Mac albums. She rejoined Fleetwood Mac to record the Tango in the Night album, which went on to become the band's biggest success since Rumours 10 years earlier. The biggest hit from the album, which was top five in both the UK and U.S., was McVie's "Little Lies", co-written with Quintela. Another McVie single from the album, "Everywhere", reached number four in the UK, which would be the band's third-highest ever chart peak there, and their final top-40 UK hit to date (the single peaked at number 14 in the U.S.).[40] In 1990, the band (now without Lindsey Buckingham) recorded Behind the Mask, but the album only reached Gold status in the U.S.,[41] and only McVie's song "Save Me" made the U.S. top 40. The album did enter the UK album chart at number one and reached Platinum status there. The second US single release from the album, McVie's "Skies the Limit", did not make the top 100, but did reach number 10 on the adult contemporary chart.[citation needed ]

Upon the death of her father, Cyril Perfect, while she was touring for Behind the Mask, McVie decided to retire from touring.[43] Despite the departure of Stevie Nicks, McVie remained with the band, writing and recording a new track ("Love Shines") for the 1992 boxed set 25 Years '' The Chain, and five songs for the band's 1995 album Time. After Fleetwood, John McVie, and Buckingham got together for one of Buckingham's solo projects in the mid-1990s, she was asked to sing and play on some of the tracks. Then, the four decided a full reunion was possible and Nicks joined them. The 1997 live album, The Dance, reached number one on the US album charts.[44]

Despite her reservations, McVie complied with the band's touring schedule, and then performed for the group's 1998 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as well as the Grammy Awards show, and the Brit Awards in the UK. McVie later revealed in a 2014 Rolling Stone interview that she had developed a phobia about flying, which was later treated with psychotherapy. This phobia was the reason she decided not to continue with Fleetwood Mac after 1998.[43]

1999''2014: Hiatus from Fleetwood Mac and semi retirement After The Dance, McVie returned to England to be near her family and stayed out of public view until 2000, when she appeared to accept an honorary doctorate in music from the University of Greenwich.[45] Five years after leaving Fleetwood Mac, McVie and Quintela divorced.[46]

In a 2004 interview, McVie admitted to not listening much to pop music anymore and stated, instead, a preference for Classic FM.[47][48] In December 2003, McVie went to see Fleetwood Mac's last UK performance on the Say You Will tour in London, but did not join her former bandmates on stage.[49] She released her third solo album, In the Meantime that year. Recording in her converted barn in Kent, she worked on the project with her nephew, Dan Perfect, who contributed guitar-playing, backing vocals, and songwriting. No tour was organised to promote this album; instead, McVie conducted several press interviews in both Britain and the United States.[citation needed ]

In 2006, McVie was awarded the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors' Gold Badge of Merit at a ceremony held at London's Savoy Hotel.[51] That same year, Paste named McVie, together with bandmates Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, as the 83rd-greatest living songwriter or songwriting team.[52] In November 2009, McVie did not join her former bandmates on the band's last performance in the UK of the tour Unleashed.[53] During the announcement of Fleetwood Mac's 2012 world tour, Stevie Nicks downplayed the likelihood of McVie ever rejoining the group: "She went to England and she has never been back since 1998 [...] as much as we would all like to think that she'll just change her mind one day, I don't think it'll happen [...] We love her, so we had to let her go."[54]

In October 2013, McVie was announced as recording a solo album for the first time in nine years. The album was never released.[55]

2014''2022: Return to Fleetwood Mac and album with Lindsey Buckingham In 2013, McVie appeared on stage in Maui, Hawaii, performing with the Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, which included Mick Fleetwood and ex-Fleetwood Mac guitarist Rick Vito. This was her first appearance on stage in 15 years.[56] Later in September, Christine McVie joined Fleetwood Mac on stage for the first time in 15 years to play "Don't Stop" at The O2 Arena, London. She played on two dates and her appearance on stage was received with rapturous applause.[57][58]On 11 January 2014, Mick Fleetwood announced during a concert in Maui that McVie would be rejoining the band,[59] and it was officially announced two days later that she had rejoined.[60] The band's most popular lineup (Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie, John McVie, and Stevie Nicks) performed together for the first time since 1998 in its On with the Show tour beginning in Minneapolis at the Target Center on 30 September 2014.[citation needed ]

In August 2016, Mick Fleetwood said that while the band has "a huge amount of recorded music", virtually none of it features Stevie Nicks. Lindsey Buckingham and McVie, however, have contributed multiple songs to the new project. Fleetwood told Ultimate Classic Rock, "She [McVie] ... wrote up a storm ... She and Lindsey could probably have a mighty strong duet album if they want. In truth, I hope it will come to more than that. There really are dozens of songs. And they're really good. So we'll see."[61]

Buckingham and McVie performing live in 2017

The album Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie was released on 9 June 2017, and was preceded by the single, "In My World". A 38-date tour began on 21 June 2017 and ended on 16 November.[62][63] The album was originally planned as a Fleetwood Mac album. Stevie Nicks did not participate due to her preference for a solo tour with The Pretenders.[citation needed ]

From 21 June to 27 July 2017, the duo engaged in a 14-date North American tour.[62] Eight of the album's ten tracks were played live, with the rest of the set list consisting of Fleetwood Mac songs and Buckingham solo cuts.[64][65] The Wallflowers opened for the band on select nights.[66] In June, the band appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to perform the album's first single, "In My World".[67] Some extra North American shows were later added in August, including one in Los Angeles and another in New York City.[68] Another North American leg began in October, which saw the addition of 22 more shows.[69]

Fleetwood Mac headlined the second night of the Classic West concert (on 16 July 2017 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles) and the second night of the Classic East concert (at New York City's Citi Field on 30 July 2017). On 9 April 2018, Fleetwood Mac announced that Mike Campbell would be joining the band along with Neil Finn to replace lead guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, who was fired.[70]

In 2019, McVie was featured in the 90-minute BBC documentary Fleetwood Mac's Songbird '' Christine McVie, directed by Matt O'Casey.[71]

Other collaborations McVie sang with Dennis Wilson on his song "Love Surrounds Me" for the Beach Boys' 1979 album L.A. (Light Album). She also sang with Christopher Cross on the song "Never Stop Believing" on his 1988 album Back of My Mind, as well as with Bob Welch on his solo version of "Sentimental Lady".

Personal life and death When McVie married John McVie in 1968, Peter Green was best man. Instead of a honeymoon they celebrated at a hotel in Birmingham with Joe Cocker, who happened to be staying there,[72] before going off with their own separate bands. The couple divorced in 1976, but remained friends and maintained a professional partnership.[73] During the production of Rumours she had an affair with Fleetwood Mac's lighting engineer, Curry Grant, which inspired the song "You Make Loving Fun".[33][74] From 1979 to 1982, she dated Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys.[75] McVie married Portuguese keyboardist and songwriter Eddy Quintela on 18 October 1986. Quintela and McVie collaborated on a number of songs together, including "Little Lies".[76][77] They divorced in 2003, and Quintela died in 2020.[78]

During the height of Fleetwood Mac's success in the 1970s, McVie resided in Los Angeles in a house that had previously been owned by Joan Collins and Elton John.[79] In 1990, she moved to a Grade II-listed Tudor manor house in Wickhambreaux, near Canterbury in Kent, whither she retired after leaving Fleetwood Mac in 1998, and worked on her solo material. For years, McVie found inspiration in the home's country setting, not only writing songs there, but restoring the house. However, after rejoining Fleetwood Mac in 2014, McVie began spending more time in London, and put the house on the market in 2015.[80][81]

After a brief illness, McVie died in hospital on 30 November 2022, at the age of 79.[2]

Discography With Chicken Shack Solo albums With Fleetwood Mac Compilation albums Singles References ^ "Say How: M". National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ a b "Christine McVie, Fleetwood Mac singer-songwriter, dies aged 79". BBC News. 30 November 2022 . Retrieved 30 November 2022 . ^ Betts, Graham (2014). Motown Encyclopedia. AC Publishing. p. 380. ISBN 9781311441546. ^ "Who was the 'True' lead singer for Fleetwood Mac?". WLAV-FM. 17 March 2020. ^ "Christine McVie". Billboard. Archived from the original on 4 July 2014 . Retrieved 7 June 2014 . ^ Leggett, Steve. "Christine McVie: Biography". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 10 January 2016 . Retrieved 23 February 2014 . ^ "Fleetwood Mac: Greatest Hits " Archived 1 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine. AllMusic. Retrieved 31 December 2017 ^ "Fleetwood Mac | Rock & Roll Hall of Fame". www.rockhall.com . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ "History: 1998 Brit Awards". BRIT Awards . 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Retrieved 5 April 2015 . ^ "Christine McVie: Life After Fleetwood Mac". Sunday Express. 27 June 2004. Archived from the original on 29 September 2011. ^ "BBC Radio 4 '' Desert Island Discs, Christine McVie". BBC. ^ "What happened to previous 'at risk of ruin' sites?". BBC News. 18 September 2019 . Retrieved 6 February 2022 . ^ a b c "Disc Magazine (11/08''15/1969), Who's Perfect?". Bla.fleetwoodmac.net. Archived from the original on 12 February 2007 . Retrieved 27 September 2014 . ^ Fleetwood Mac, by Steve Clarke, Proteus Books, 1984, p. 47 ^ Clarke, Steve, Fleetwood Mac, Proteus Books, 1984, p. 48 ^ "Christine McVie: The songbird behind some of Fleetwood Mac's greatest hits". BBC News. 30 November 2022 . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ Mike Vernon's CD Booklet, Fleetwood Mac: The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions 1967''1969, Chapter 2 ^ a b Swanson, Dave. "45 Years Ago: Fleetwood Mac Play 'Future Games' ". Ultimate Classic Rock . 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Avon Books, 1991. ^ " "Love In Store"/"Can't Go Back" single page at FleetwoodMac.net Discography". Discog.fleetwoodmac.net. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013 . Retrieved 27 September 2014 . ^ Connelly, Christopher. "From British Blues with Chicken Shack to Soft Rock with Fleetwood Mac: Christine McVie Keeps a Level Head after Two Decades in the Fast Lane." Archived 20 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine Rolling Stone, 7 June 1984 ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums. London: Guinness World Records Limited ^ Recording Industry Association of America sales figures. Certified 'Gold' on 19 July 1990. ^ a b Mick Fleetwood autobiography, "Play On", 2014 ^ a b "Fleetwood Mac Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ "Fleetwood Mac Star, Christine McVie, Awarded Honorary Degree At Rochester Cathedral, 20 July 2000". 3.gre.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 26 April 2012 . 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Archived from the original on 23 November 2013 . Retrieved 23 November 2013 . ^ Brown, August (13 January 2014). "Christine McVie rejoins Fleetwood Mac". chicagotribune.com. Archived from the original on 26 February 2014 . Retrieved 15 April 2014 . ^ "Christine McVie Rejoins Fleetwood Mac: Official". Billboard. 13 January 2014. Archived from the original on 28 March 2014. ^ DeRiso, Nick. "Fleetwood Mac's New Album Is Apparently Being Held Up by Stevie Nicks". Ultimate Classic Rock . Retrieved 5 September 2016 . ^ a b Blistein, Jon (11 April 2017). "Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham, Christine McVie Detail New Album". Rolling Stone . Retrieved 11 April 2017 . ^ "Mick Fleetwood: Stevie Nicks Wants To Go Deep On Next Fleetwood Mac Tour". 94.7 WLS. Archived from the original on 31 August 2017 . Retrieved 31 August 2017 . ^ Giles, Jeff. "Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie Begin 2017 Tour: Set List and Videos". Ultimate Classic Rock . Retrieved 20 July 2017 . ^ Lifton, Dave. "Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie Announce First Concert Together". Ultimate Classic Rock . Retrieved 1 April 2017 . ^ Eisinger, Dale (11 April 2017). "Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie Announce Album Release Date, Tour". Spin . Retrieved 22 April 2017 . ^ "VIDEO: Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie Perform 'In My World' on TONIGHT". BroadwayWorld . Retrieved 12 June 2017 . ^ "LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM AND CHRISTINE McVIE ANNOUNCE LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK CITY SHOWS". Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie . Retrieved 1 August 2017 . ^ Varga, George (10 August 2017). "Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie add 22 shows to tour". The San Diego Union-Tribune . Retrieved 10 August 2017 . ^ Aswad, Jem (9 April 2018). "Fleetwood Mac to Tour With Neil Finn, Mike Campbell as Lindsey Buckingham's Replacements". Variety . Retrieved 10 April 2018 . ^ "BBC Four '' Fleetwood Mac's Songbird '' Christine McVie". BBC. ^ "Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie: 'Cocaine and champagne made me perform better' ". The Guardian. 9 June 2022 . Retrieved 9 June 2022 . ^ Martin E. Adelson. "Christine McVie". Fleetwoodmac.net. Archived from the original on 1 September 2016 . Retrieved 5 September 2016 . ^ Caillat, Ken; Stiefel, Steve (5 March 2012). Making Rumours: The Inside Story of the Classic Fleetwood Mac Album . John Wiley & Sons. p. xiv, 74. ISBN 9781118282366 . Retrieved 19 March 2013 . ^ Goldberg, Michael (7 June 1984). "Dennis Wilson: The Beach Boy Who Went Overboard". Rolling Stone . Retrieved 5 August 2022 . ^ "99.1 PLR | Connecticut's #1 Rock Station". Wplr.com. 18 October 2013. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016 . Retrieved 5 September 2016 . ^ "Eddy Quintela, second husband to Christine McVie has passed away". ^ "Eddy Quintela, second husband to Christine McVie has passed away". Fleetwood Mac News . Retrieved 16 November 2021 . ^ "THE HOME OF FORMER FLEETWOOD MAC SINGER CHRISTINE MCVIE IS FOR SALE". Fleetwoodmacnews.com . Retrieved 28 September 2020 . ^ "Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie puts her country pile near Canterbury up for sale for £3.5 million". Archived from the original on 8 June 2020 . Retrieved 21 September 2020 . ^ "Christine McVie: inside the world of Fleetwood Mac, then and now". Harpersbazaar.com. 21 March 2019 . Retrieved 28 September 2020 . ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7. ^ "Christine McVie Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ "Christine McVie Chart History: Independent Albums". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 341. ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7. ^ a b Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970''1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 187. ISBN 0-646-11917-6. ^ "Billboard 200 Artists '' Duo/Group". Billboard. ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 205. ISBN 978-1-904994-10-7. ^ "Christine McVie Details First-Ever Compilation Songbird (A Collection) | Rhino". www.rhino.com . Retrieved 2 June 2022 . ^ "Christine McVie Chart History: Hot 100". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ "Christine McVie Chart History: Mainstream Rock". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . ^ "Christine McVie Chart History: Adult Contemporary". Billboard . Retrieved 1 December 2022 . Bibliography External links Christine McVie at AllMusicChristine McVie at IMDbExtensive bio, links to charts, discographyChristine McVie discography at DiscogsPerformersEaglesDon Felder, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Timothy B. Schmit, Joe WalshFleetwood MacLindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Danny Kirwan, Christine McVie, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Jeremy SpencerThe Mamas & the PapasDenny Doherty, Cass Elliot, John Phillips, Michelle PhillipsLloyd PriceSantanaJos(C) Areas, David Brown, Michael Carabello, Gregg Rolie, Carlos Santana, Michael ShrieveGene VincentEarly influencesNon-performers(Ahmet Ertegun Award)

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Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:40

November 30, 2022 | 1:14pm

Al Roker was rushed back to the hospital via ambulance the day after Thanksgiving amid his ongoing health scare due to blood clots.

The beloved ''Today'' anchor fell ill on Friday '-- just a day after he missed hosting the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade for the first time in 27 years due to having just been released from the hospital.

The popular weatherman, 68, was taken away by ambulance as his frantic wife, Deborah Roberts, attempted to break into their malfunctioned Tesla to retrieve her mobile phone to follow her husband to the uptown Manhattan hospital, sources say.

ABC News journalist Roberts, 62, tried to smash her way through a reinforced glass window on the front side of the car with the help of a neighbor outside their Upper East Side home, say witnesses.

One witness told Page Six, ''Al was taken from his home in a stretcher back to the hospital on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. His condition was worrying, but once back in the hospital, he improved.

Al Roker left the hospital on Thanksgiving after battling blood clots, but was rushed back a day later. AlRoker/Instagram''His wife, Deborah, was understandably very upset. She had left her phone and other possessions inside their Tesla, which had malfunctioned and wouldn't unlock, so she was trying to smash in a window.''

The onlooker said Roberts' attempt to retrieve her belongings from inside the electric vehicle was ''unsuccessful.''

''Deborah then went to the hospital by taxi with her daughter, where Al has since been surrounded by his family.''

Roker's wife, Deborah Roberts, tried to smash her way into the family Tesla to retreive her phone and follow the weatherman to the hospital.

GC Images

Roker's wife, Deborah Roberts, tried to smash her way into the family Tesla to retreive her phone and follow the weatherman to the hospital.

Bruce Glikas/WireImage

Up Next''I understand '... you never forget how you were treated,''...

Roker will also miss Wednesday's Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting, it was announced today.

Roker and Roberts '-- who have been married since 1995 '-- share daughter Leila, 24, and son Nicholas, 20. The meteorologist also has daughter Courtney, 35, with ex-wife Alice Bell.

Page Six reported earlier this month that Roker was hospitalized due to blood clots in his leg and lungs. The condition may be fatal if not discovered and treated early enough.

''Last week I was admitted to the hospital with a blood clot in my leg which sent some clots into my lungs,'' Roker wrote on Instagram on Nov. 18.

The meteorologist has three children. AlRoker/Instagram''After some medical whack-a-mole, I am so fortunate to be getting terrific medical care and on the way to recovery. Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers and hope to see you soon.''

On Thanksgiving, he posted a video of himself walking the hospital corridors and wrote how grateful he was to be going home.

''So much to be #thankful for on the #thanksgiving day. Leaving the hospital and home for #thanksgivingdinner,'' he captioned the clip.

Roker watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from home. AlRoker/InstagramThe ever-cheery anchor joked that his hospital departure was his ''version of the Thanksgiving Day Parade.''

Later that day, the weathercaster uploaded a picture of himself watching the parade hosted by his ''Today'' colleagues Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb, plus fellow meteorologist and anchor Dylan Dreyer.

He wrote, ''Back home in time to catch a little bit of the #macysthanksgivingparade. Missing being next to @savannahguthrie and @hodakotb.''

It was his first time not hosting in 27 years. Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty IHe also posted a photo of himself and his family, including wife Deborah and kids Courtney, Leila and Nicholas, writing, ''So very #thankful to be able to be home for #thanksgivingdinner #dinner with #family.''

A second source told us that Roker was staying ''positive,'' despite his health concerns.

''Al is the most positive, upbeat, energetic person. Everyone is rooting for him.''

Roker's colleagues, fans, friends and more have been sending him their well wishes. AlRoker/InstagramA spokesperson for ''Today'' told Page Six, ''Al is forging ahead on the road to recovery. He has the unwavering love and support of Deborah, his children, and his entire TODAY family.

''He is beyond grateful for the outpouring of well-wishes, and we cannot wait for him to be back with us in studio and with our viewers at home.''

A spokesperson for Tesla didn't immediately get back to us about Roberts' lockout, an issue that reportedly happens after the car's battery dies.

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Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:26

A Democrat-led House panel received former President Donald Trump's taxes on Wednesday following a multi-year court battle that culminated in a loss at the Supreme Court.

The House Ways and Means Committee has been pursuing Trump's taxes since 2019, purportedly to see whether there should be any changes to the law on auditing presidential returns. Although the committee can legally obtain any person's taxes, the Treasury Department under Trump refused, arguing that there was no valid reason to turn them over.

''Treasury has complied with last week's court decision,'' a Treasury spokesperson told the Associated Press on Wednesday. It's not clear whether any members of Congress have accessed them yet.

Democrats now have until early January, when Republicans will take control of the House and likely end the inquiry. Despite the looming time constraint, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, celebrated the decision last week as a victory for oversight, suggesting that Democrats will waste no time digging into the returns.

''We knew the strength of our case, we stayed the course, followed the advice of counsel, and finally, our case has been affirmed by the highest court in the land,'' Neal said. ''Since the Magna Carta, the principle of oversight has been upheld, and today is no different. This rises above politics, and the Committee will now conduct the oversight that we've sought for the last three and a half years.''

Trump, who earlier this month announced he will run for president again, has not publicly commented on the Treasury Department's decision to release his taxes to Congress. Last week, in a post on the social media platform Truth Social, Trump accused the Supreme Court of ''always'' ruling against him.

''The Supreme Court has lost its honor, prestige, and standing, & has become nothing more than a political body, with our Country paying the price,'' Trump said. ''Shame on them!''

Chief Justice John Roberts had earlier blocked the committee from obtaining Trump's taxes while the high court considered Trump's request. The court later decided to ''vacate'' the request, paving the way for Congress to officially obtain the taxes.

This is a developing story; refresh the page for updates.

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Wed, 30 Nov 2022 14:07

G overnor Ron DeSantis has a growing store of admirers. This includes many who have watched the cantankerous Floridian only from afar. They have heard glowing things. He was the biggest winner of an otherwise dark election cycle for Republicans. He has impeccable bona fides as a Donald Trump disciple'--without being Trump himself, whom many see as the biggest loser of said dark election cycle.

This has made DeSantis the GOP's hottest molecule. He is full MAGA without the high drama. He is terrorizing all the right targets while Trump keeps blowing himself up in new and creative ways. ''He is Trump with a brain,'' goes the whispered refrain among DeSantis aides (this clearly drives Trump nuts'--always a noble goal).

While essentially working from home, DeSantis has managed to build an impressive cachet as a favored Fox News funambulist, a flypaper for big donors, and an owner of libs. He has fashioned a kind of GOP utopia in the Sunshine State'--where the boss himself chooses to reside, but is safely cordoned off in Palm Beach. DeSantis, meanwhile, clearly runs the empire. ''Florida is where woke goes to die,'' he said in his chest-thumping victory speech on Election Night.

David Frum: Trump lost the midterms. DeSantis won.

The question is whether DeSantis's presidential hopes will perish as he starts getting out more on the Iowa''New Hampshire dating apps. People who know him better and have watched him longer are skeptical of his ability to take on the former president. DeSantis, they say, is no thoroughbred political athlete. He can be awkward and plodding. And Trump tends to eviscerate guys like that.

''He was standoffish in general,'' the Virginia Republican Barbara Comstock, a former House colleague of DeSantis's, told me.

''A strange no-eye-contact oddball,'' Rick Wilson, a Republican media consultant, wrote on Resolute Square.

''I'd rather have teeth pulled without anesthetic than be on a boat with Ron DeSantis,'' says Mac Stipanovich, a Tallahassee lobbyist who set sail from the GOP over his revulsion for Trump and his knockoffs. To sum up: DeSantis is not a fun and convivial dude. He prefers to keep his earbuds in. His ''Step away from the vehicle'' vibes are strong.

To stipulate: None of this is necessarily disqualifying.

On the contrary, it could lend DeSantis credibility as an outsider irritant. He is not just another smoothie politician, not part of the ''establishment.'' Since Trump descended his escalator and dragged the GOP down with him, the party has shown a persistent tolerance, even inclination, for churlish bastards'--just as long as they are churlish toward the right rascals, reprobates, and agents of wokeness. DeSantis has a Trumpian proficiency for identifying these. If that leads to cruel treatment of vulnerable populations (refugees, gay and transgender teens), even better.

But no shortage of alleged heavyweights have entered previous primary races only to reveal themselves as decidedly not ready for prime time, or even late-night C-SPAN. Political handicappers and fundraisers overhype them. Expectations create a cryptolike bubble. Then they finally show up and fail to dazzle. The gloss fades fast. You can ask President Beto O'Rourke about this.

''I think he is going to run into some challenges,'' Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from Florida who served with DeSantis in the House, told me. ''It's that question that often comes up in politics'--the question of 'Would you want to have a beer with him?''' This is a big-time clich(C), of course, but it does feel pertinent. Will he grow on voters like a catchy song, or like mold? DeSantis ''has this robotic quality that he has to shed,'' Curbelo said. ''Everything else checks the box. He is smart and competent and committed to his ideology. He just has to humanize himself.''

Conor Friedersdorf: Ron DeSantis's speech policing could hurt the right too

All while Trump will be running DeSantis through his patented dehumanizer machine, which made such mashed mush of his rivals in 2016. Trump's efficient cartooning of ''Low-Energy Jeb,'' ''Liddle Marco,'' and ''Lyin' Ted'' left them flailing pathetically.

''On a debate stage, all of Trump's strengths go straight to DeSantis's weaknesses,'' Stipanovich told me. Trump has energy and presence; DeSantis ''is dour and doesn't improvise particularly well.'' People who are appropriately sycophantic to Trump swear he possesses a certain charm and charisma. Even those who are eager to vouch for DeSantis don't say this about him. He would launch any charm offensive unarmed.

''My sense is that Trump would gut DeSantis with a dull deer antler,'' said Stipanovich, who has a taste for violent animal metaphors. He also predicted that ''Trump would club DeSantis like a baby seal.''

I n fairness , DeSantis is not completely defenseless. So far, Trump has whined that DeSantis has not been sufficiently loyal or ''classy'' toward him. He called DeSantis an ''average REPUBLICAN governor.'' He's given him a mean nickname, ''Ron DeSanctimonious,'' which to be honest is kind of meh'--not midseason Trump by any means. DeSantis brushed it off as ''just noise.''

Like Trump, DeSantis has a feral, shameless quality. As an underdog candidate for governor in 2018, DeSantis showed a remarkable willingness to prostrate himself before the then-president, even by the cringey standards of Trump-era toadyism. The apex'--or nadir'--of this effort involved an ad in which the candidate is shown reading a bedtime story to his baby son, the latter clad in a red Make America great again onesie.

''Then Mr. Trump said, 'You're fired,''' the doting dad reads. This gambit proved wildly effective for DeSantis, propelling the backbencher congressman to an upset victory in the Republican primary. There might be no better example of a candidate allowing his political identity'--and self-respect'--to be totally devoured by his allegiance to Trump, at least for as long as it suited him. For the sake of the child, hopefully this scene will never be spoken of again.

The pure nerve that allowed DeSantis to so debase himself before Trump and then promptly turn against his former kingmaker could serve him well. DeSantis understands intuitively that loyalty in politics can be a loser's proposition. ''Ron's strength as a politician is that he doesn't give a fuck,'' a Republican consultant told The New Yorker. ''Ron's weakness as a politician is that he doesn't give a fuck.''

''I don't think Ron hangs out with anybody, from what I can tell,'' former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said during an appearance on the Ruthless podcast. Christie, who encountered DeSantis at Republican Governors Association meetings, said his Florida counterpart tended to remain cocooned inside his entourage. ''I don't see him hanging with the other governors,'' Christie said.

David Frum: Ron DeSantis can't troll his way into the White House

DeSantis works harder than Trump does, and is more disciplined and capable of adapting. He attended Yale and Harvard Law School and clearly took some classes in populism. He could conceivably grow more adept at carrying on conversations in diners and pretending to care about the pet issues of self-important state reps in the North Country.

But certain political skills are more innate, and require an ability to ad-lib that DeSantis lacks. He can appear needlessly snappish and reactive (earlier this year, he scolded a group of high-school students for wearing masks onstage behind him). One particular interlude during DeSantis's 2022 campaign bears revisiting. It occurred during a debate with his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, who attempted to pin down the governor on whether he would commit to serving out his four-year term if reelected. In other words, was DeSantis running for president in 2024 or not? ''Yes or no, Ron?'' Crist pressed him. DeSantis froze. ''It's a fair question and he won't tell you,'' Crist said, filling the silence.

Finally, a moderator jumped in and reminded the candidates that they were not permitted to ask each other direct questions, allowing DeSantis to regroup. ''Well, I know that Charlie is interested in talking about 2024 and Joe Biden,'' DeSantis said, delivering what was clearly a rehearsed line. ''But I just want to make this very, very clear. The only worn-out old donkey I'm looking to put out to pasture is Charlie Crist.'' Cute recovery. But still awkward.

DeSantis probably figured'--rightly'--that he was in no danger of losing to Crist and might as well suffer through the silence rather than complicate things when he decides to bolt from Florida to run for president. But a fluid politician could have better finessed that exchange. And Trump likely took note and filed this away. ''He knew and assessed the weaknesses of DeSantis on the debate stage and in the media space,'' Wilson wrote in his Resolute Square essay, concluding that Trump will tear him to pieces. ''He smelled blood.''

Republicans who want to save the party from Trump are investing great hope in a blank slate. The New York Post has dubbed him ''DeFuture.'' I would dub that DeBatable.

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Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:45

Jesus could have been transgender, according to a University of Cambridge dean.

Dr Michael Banner, the dean of Trinity College, said such a view was ''legitimate'' after a row over a sermon by a Cambridge research student that claimed Christ had a ''trans body'', The Telegraph can disclose.

The ''truly shocking'' address at last Sunday's evensong at Trinity College chapel, saw Joshua Heath, a junior research fellow, display Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion that depicted a side wound that the guest preacher likened to a vagina.

Worshippers told The Telegraph they were left ''in tears'' and felt excluded from the church, with one shouting ''heresy'' at the Dean upon leaving.

The sermon displayed three paintings, including Jean Malouel's 1400 work Piet , with Mr Heath pointing out Jesus's side wound and blood flowing to the groin. The order of service also showed French artist Henri Maccheroni's 1990 work ''Christs''.

Heath, whose PhD was supervised by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, also told worshippers that in the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg, from the 14th century, this side wound was isolated and ''takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance''.

Heath also drew on non-erotic depictions of Christ's penis in historical art, which ''urge a welcoming rather than hostile response towards the raised voices of trans people''.

''In Christ's simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,'' the sermon concluded.

A congregation member, who wished to remain anonymous, told Dr Banner in a complaint letter: ''I left the service in tears. You offered to speak with me afterwards, but I was too distressed. I am contemptuous of the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman.

''I am especially contemptuous of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong. I am contemptuous of the notion that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a 'trans Christ', a new heresy for our age.''

The worshipper said the audience and choir in the traditional Anglican service, with children present, was ''visibly uncomfortable'' at the ''truly shocking'' sermon, which ''made me feel unwelcome in the Church'' and his partner felt ''violated''.

Dr Banner's response to the complaint, seen by The Telegraph, defended how the sermon ''suggested that we might think about these images of Christ's male/female body as providing us with ways of thinking about issues around transgender questions today''.

''For myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around transsexualism,'' Dr Banner added.

Dr Banner, who frequents BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day, said that while the views were the speaker's own, he ''would not issue an invitation to someone who I thought would deliberately seek to shock or offend a congregation or who could be expected to speak against the Christian faith''.

A Trinity College spokesman said: ''The sermon explored the nature of religious art, in the spirit of thought-provoking academic inquiry, and in keeping with open debate and dialogue at the University of Cambridge.''

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Wed, 30 Nov 2022 13:03

On 19 August, 2014, ISIS released a video of the beheading of American journalist James Foley who was kidnapped by the terrorist organization in 2012 while reporting on the conflict in Syria.

Foley's shocking execution became one of the most widely followed news stories of the Syrian war. Foley's killer, Mohammed Emwazi , popularly known as ''Jihadi John'' by the western media, was a Kuwaiti-born Brit from W est London. In the F oley execution video, Emwazi 's unmistakable London accent c an be heard .

James Foley execution video

However, what is less known about the notorious ISIS member, was that he travelled to Syria as part of a ''terror-funnel'' established by British intelligence, and abducted Foley while fighting for an armed group known as Katibat al- Muhajireen '' or the Emigrants Brigade '' which enjoyed direct support from British intelligence. Many members of al- Muhajireen , including Emwazi , then helped lay the foundation for the rise of ISIS by joining the terror group with its establishment in April 2013.

Further, for a period of Foley's captivity he was being held in a prison jointly controlled by another armed group, Liwa al-Tawhid, or the Monotheism Brigade, which operated under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) umbrella and received aid directly from US intelligence. Some of this included arms being sold onto ISIS, including to the group leader holding James Foley.

In other words, although James Foley's murder occurred in the deserts of Raqqa, it arguably began in more familiar places, namely London and Washington.

The terror-funnel

In 2009, former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas was told by top UK officials that ''Britain was organizing an invasion of rebels into Syria.''

Roland Dumas, former French Foreign Minister

This involved sending British jihadis to Syria through a pipeline established by UK intelligence decades before, to fight in Bosnia and Kosovo against Serbia. According to former US federal prosecutor John Loftus, British intelligence had used the London-based A l-Muhajiree n Movement to recruit Islamist militants with British passports for the war against the Serbs.

The A l-Muhajireen, later known as al-Ghurabaa and Islam4UK was a Salafist religious movement established in Britain in 1996 by exiled Syrian cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who, as journalist Nafeez Ahmed details , was a long-time informant for UK intelligence, meeting regularly with MI5 agents throughout the 1990s.

Bakri himself acknowledged his role in training jihadists to be dispatched abroad, in an interview with The Guardian in May 2000.

A month after the 7 July, 2005 attacks in London, in which suicide bombers targeted the city's transport system, killing 52, Bakri left the UK for Lebanon . Although former Muhajireen members participated in the attack, the British Home Office did not prevent Bakri from leaving the country but did ban him from ever returning .

By 2009, Lebanese security forces were accusing Bakri of training A l-Qaeda members, while Bakri himself boasted: ''Today, angry Lebanese Sunnis ask me to organize their jihad against the Shi'ites '... Al-Qaeda in Lebanon '... are the only ones who can defeat Hezbollah.''

Jihadi John

But who was Mohammed Emwazi ? As the Guardian reported , Emwazi came to Britain with his family from his native Kuwait as a young boy. After attending the University of Westminster to study I nformation T echnology, Emwazi became politically active as part of a group of West Londoners who followed an Islamic preacher named Hani al-Sibai. Some members of the group took part in jihadi training camps in Northern England and Scotland and were being monitored by M15.

In 2009, Emwazi traveled to Tanzania with two friends from the group, Bilal el-Berjawi and Mohamed Sakr. Assumed to be traveling to Somalia to join Al-Qaeda affiliate A l-Shabab, MI5 had the men detained in Dar es Salaam and subjected them to lengthy interrogations before forcing them to return to the UK. Both Berjawi and Sakr later succeeded in traveling to Somalia and were killed in US drone strikes.

Emwazi continued to be monitored by M I 5 and was prevented from traveling to his native Kuwait in 2010, where he allegedly wished to marry. Emwazi claimed he was interrogated and harassed at Heathrow Airport by MI5, and complained of his treatment to CAGE, a London-based advocacy group led by former Guantanamo detainee Moazem Begg which focuses on Muslim detainees . CAGE then began an advocacy campaign on Emwazi 's behalf.

Yet Emwazi was then somehow later able to travel to Syria. The Daily Beast reported that this seemed odd, given that Emwazi had been ''described as a core member of an extremist network linked to the al Shabab group in Somalia during a court hearing as far back as 2010'' and had been tracked by MI5 for at least five years. ''His links to terror networks were well known'--and yet, he was released by the authorities'' to travel to Syria.

Journalist Nafeez Ahmed reports that according to former British counterterrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge, British authorities ''turned a blind eye to the travelling of its own jihadists to Syria, notwithstanding ample video and other evidence of their crimes there,'' because it ''suited the US and UK's anti-Assad foreign policy.''

Ahmed notes this ''terror-funnel is what enabled people like Emwazi to travel to Syria and join up with [the Islamic State] '' despite being on an MI5 terror watch-list. He had been blocked by the security services from traveling to Kuwait in 2010: why not Syria?''

Upon arriving in Syria in August 2012, Emwazi joined an armed group known as Katibat al- Muhajireen . Journalist James Harkin reports that according to Jejoen Bontinck, a Belgian jihadi that fell out with his brigade and was imprisoned for a time with Foley, most British jihadis traveling to Syria joined Katibat al- Muhajireen .

A ''deep embarrassment''

Crucially, Katibat al- Muhajireen enjoyed support from UK intelligence services. This is evidenced by the terror trial of Swedish citizen Bherlin Gildo, who according to the Daily Mail fought for Katibat al- Muhajireen as well.

The Guardian reports that Gildo was detained while transiting through Heathrow Airport having been accused by British authorities of attending a terrorist training camp and receiving weapons training between 31 August, 2012, and 1 March, 2013 '' as well as possessing information likely to be useful to a terrorist.

However, the terror trial collapsed ''after fears of deep embarrassment'' to the British security services. This was because, as Gildo's lawyer explained: ''British intelligence agencies were supporting the same Syrian opposition groups as he [Gildo] was.''

British intelligence support for Katibat al- Muhajireen was further confirmed when former Guantanamo detainee Begg of CAGE was also tried on terror charges. Begg had also traveled to Syria several times in 2012 and provided physical training to foreign fighters from Katibat al- Muhajireen in Aleppo, as reported by Foreign Policy . Begg made his latest trip to Syria in December 2012.

As a result, Begg was later detained by British authorities and accused of attending a terrorist training camp. The Guardian reported , however, that Begg was freed after MI5 ''belatedly gave police and prosecutors a series of documents that detailed the agency's extensive contacts with him before and after his trips to Syria,'' and which showed that MI5 told Begg he could continue his work for the so-called opposition in Syria ''unhindered.''

In short, Emwazi traveled to Syria through a pipeline established by UK intelligence, and then joined an armed group, Katibat al- Muhajireen, that was supported by British intelligence, but which was viewed as a terrorist organization by the British police.

''Kidnapped by the one who killed him''

James Foley was an American freelance journalist who reported from Iraq and Afghanistan before traveling to Libya in 2011 to cover the NATO-led war on Muammar G addafi's Libyan government. While in Libya, a close colleague of Foley's was shot and killed by Libyan security forces, who also detained and imprisoned Foley for 44 days.

In 2012, Foley began making trips to Syria to report on the conflict for the Global Post and AFP , including in July when armed opposition groups, the A l Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and the FSA's Liwa al-Tawhid, invaded the city.

In October 2012, Foley published an article from his time in Aleppo suggesting that the opposition armed groups enjoyed little popularity among the city's residents. Foley noted that ''many civilians here are losing patience with the increasingly violent and unrecognizable opposition,'' which was ''deeply infiltrated by both foreign fighters and terrorist groups.''

This ran contrary to mainstream narratives about the Syria conflict, which suggested the armed opposition groups were comprised of army defectors fighting for democracy and enjoying strong popular support.

In November 2012, Foley was returning to Turkey after a reporting trip with British journalist John Cantlie. After stopping at an internet caf(C) in the town of Binnish, the pair's taxi began heading for the border when it was overtaken on the road and forced to stop by a van full of armed men. Among them was Muhammad Emwazi .

James Harkin explains that according to two European hostages who had been held with Foley but later freed, the kidnapping gang that took Foley and Cantlie was led by Emwazi . ''[Foley] was kidnapped by the one who killed him,'' one of the freed Europeans told Harkin: ''I am sure of that.''

Emwazi participated in Foley's abduction just two months after arriving in Syria. Note that this was during the period Katibat al- Muhajireen was receiving support from British intelligence, as shown by the periods when Gildo and Begg attended Katibat al- Muhajireen training camps.

According to a US Department of Justice indictment, Emwazi was joined by two of his fellow Brits, Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, in the operation to abduct Foley. Emwazi , Kotey, Elsheikh, and one other Brit, Aine Davis, were later collectively known as the ''Beatles,'' initially by their captives due to their British accents, and later by western media.

Foley's critical coverage of the US and UK-backed armed groups occupying Aleppo, coupled with the British Foreign Office effort to control the narrative of the war in the media '' including by ''waging information warfare in Syria by funding media operations for some rebel fighting groups'' '' raises the question of whether UK intelligence officials ordered the Muhajireen militants to kidnap Foley. On this point we can of course only speculate.

Collaborations with ISIS

According to the Belgian jihadi Bontinck, Emwazi and his fellow Beatles continued serving as Foley's guards at various times, and passed him to Aleppo's ISIS leader, Abu Athir, sometime in the late spring or early summer of 2013. By this time, they had pledged allegiance to ISIS.

This raises the question of whether Emwazi , and the other British Muhajireen fighters continued to enjoy support from UK intelligence after joining ISIS as well.

By August 2013, Foley was being held by ISIS in a prison in the basement of the Aleppo Children's Hospital, along with several other foreign hostages.

Another American journalist, Theo Padnos, had previously been held in the same prison, but as a captive of the Nusra Front. As the Washington Post reported , Nusra had established a headquarters at the Aleppo Children's Hospital in 2012, which it shared with Liwa al-Tawhid, the US-backed FSA faction.

According to the New York Times , after ISIS ''caliph'' Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi announced the creation of ISIS, the Nusra brigade sharing the children's hospital headquarters with Liwa al-Tawhid pledged loyalty to ISIS.

Liwa al-Tawhid then continued to share the headquarters with ISIS, and its leader, Abd al-Qader al-Salah was criticized for his cooperation with ISIS. Killed by a Syrian government airstrike in November 2013, the New York Times noted that Salah ''ultimately made accommodations with ISIS that, to some of his allies, were at best disappointing and at worst ugly. Though he had welcomed journalists and aid workers, when Islamist groups began kidnapping them, even holding hostages at a compound he shared with ISIS in Aleppo, he made no public moves to stop it.''

Liwa al-Tawhid's collaboration with ISIS had come into the spot-light in August 2013, while Foley was languishing in prison in the two groups' Aleppo headquarters.

On 4 August, Tawhid commander Abd al-Jabbar al-Okaidi, who also served as the head of the FSA's Aleppo Military Council, was filmed celebrating the capture of the Menagh Air Base in the Aleppo countryside with ISIS commander Abu Jandal. Okaidi praised the ISIS fighters and referred to them as '' brothers '' for their help in capturing the airbase.

The video of Okaidi celebrating with the ISIS commander proved embarrassing to the Obama administration, because US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford had crossed the border to Syria to meet with Okaidi a few months before, in May 2013 '' and because Okaidi was considered the main conduit for US '' provided non-lethal aid to armed opposition groups in northern Syria.

McClatchy reports that in response to the Menagh video, Ford called Okaidi directly to complain, saying that it had created ''a public relations nightmare for the Obama administration, which was trying to show Congress and the American public that it was boosting moderates and isolating extremists on the battlefield.'' However, as McClatchy notes, ''When the importance of the jihadis became undeniable, Obama administration officials were irate.''

Okaidi had also previously spoken openly of his collaboration with ISIS, again referring to ISIS commanders as ''brothers'' and indicating that he communicated with them daily in an interview with pro-opposition Orient TV .

Buying weapons from the FSA

Abu Athir, the ISIS leader in Aleppo holding Foley, had similarly kind words for Okaidi's FSA. Al-Jazeera quoted Abu Athir as stating in July 2013 that, ''We are buying weapons from the FSA. W e bought 200 anti-aircraft missiles and Koncourse anti-tank weapons. We have good relations with our brothers in the FSA.''

The Koncourse missiles had in turn been provided to Okaidi's Liwa al-Tawhid courtesy of the CIA. According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times , Koncourse missiles were provided to FSA groups such as Tawhid via the CIA's regional allies, while CIA officers trained FSA fighters in the use of these weapons in Jordan and Turkey starting in November 2012.

In August 2013, a month after ISIS leader Abu Athir boasted of buying Koncourse missiles from the FSA, a video emerged of Okaidi's Liwa al-Tawhid fighters also using Koncourse anti-tank missiles in the fight at Menagh airbase.

This suggests that Okaidi was receiving Koncourse missiles from his CIA handlers, and was then selling some of them to his ISIS counterpart, Abu Athir.

Ambassador Ford had himself been involved in the CIA effort to provide these weapons to Okaidi and the FSA. According to journalist Michael Gordon of the New York Times , Ford traveled to Langley, Virginia in 2012 to meet with then-CIA director David Petraeus to plan providing weapons covertly to the Syrian opposition.

Recall that US-favorite Okaidi was the FSA leader in Aleppo and claimed to communicate daily with his ISIS counterparts during this time. If pressed by Ambassador Ford, Okaidi could have therefore inquired with Abu Athir about Foley and the other foreign hostages held by ISIS in August 2013.

Dragging their feet

In January 2014, a civil war broke out between ISIS on the one hand, and Nusra, Liwa al-Tawhid, and other opposition factions on the other, in which ISIS was expelled from Aleppo city but took full control of Raqqa, which would go on to serve as its de-facto Syrian capital . Foley and other foreign hostages were then moved to Raqqa, while ISIS massacred most of the Syrian prisoners it had held in Aleppo before evacuating.

In the following months, ISIS freed 15 European hostages after receiving ransoms averaging some two million euros, whether from the captives' governments, families, or insurers. However, the US government refused to pay a ransom for Foley.

Further, Ambassador Ford's State Department threatened to prosecute Foley's parents if they paid a ransom, which deterred them from raising funds for that purpose.

ISIS pointed to this in their English-language magazine, Dabiq, explaining that ''As the American government was dragging its feet, reluctant to save James's life,'' other hostages had been spared after ransoms were paid.

British-backed militants

On 19 August, 2014, Foley was beheaded by Emwazi , who shortly thereafter also executed journalist Steven Sotloff, and aid workers David Haines, Alan Henning, and Peter Kassig, as well as 22 Syrian soldiers. John Cantlie's fate is still unknown .

Emwazi was killed in a US airstrike in Raqqa on in November 2015. However, two of his fellow Beatles, Alexanda Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, were later captured alive, and stood trial in the US. Both were convicted of participating in Foley's abduction and killing and sentenced to life in prison.

It is no coincidence that Kotey and Elsheikh were tried in US courts. Any effort to prosecute them in the UK would have quickly collapsed, because British intelligence were supporting the very same armed group '' Katibat al- Muhajireen '' in which they and Emwazi were members when they abducted Foley. A UK trial would have proved a ''deep embarrassment'' for British intelligence, just as the attempted prosecutions of Bherlin Gildo and Moazem Begg had been.

In short, James Foley was abducted, held captive, and later murdered by militants from an armed group that received direct support from British intelligence. These militants fought in a dirty war to topple the Syrian government orchestrated by US planners, including Ambassador Ford.

Weapons sent by Ford and his CIA counterparts were given to another armed group, Liwa al-Tawhid, which shared a prison with ISIS during the time Foley was held there, and which sold some of these weapons to the ISIS commander then holding Foley.

Not only Foley but hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed as a result of the US and UK-led dirty war on Syria. The murder of James Foley is just one atrocity among countless others for which both Washington and London are responsible as a result of their effort to effect regime change in Syria.

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Mon, 28 Nov 2022 12:44

Disctopia, a podcast hosting and streaming service for independent creators, today announces its partnership with Alby, the Lightning Network wallet for web browsers, to integrate Bitcoin payments for the platform's customers.

This collaboration brings instant and direct micropayments to content creators as a part of the Podcast 2.0 movement'--composed of initiatives to promote podcasting's open technology. As a platform striving to bring equitable profits for creatives, this new feature drives Disctopia closer to its industry goals.

Disctopia will allow users to link the Alby in-browser extension with their new or existing wallet account to pay and receive Bitcoins swiftly. The payment service implements the Value 4 Value (V4V) model, which resembles a pay-what-you-want system where listeners stream value to creators in Bitcoin.

V4V aims to give every person a chance to participate in the global online economy as a consumer and seller of digital content.

''We are very excited about partnering with Alby and integrating V4V. With this integration, we will remain committed to paying creators for their content. Through V4V, Disctopia enables creators worldwide to gain profits for their work regardless of where they live or how their content is consumed,'' said Patrick Hill, founder and CEO of Disctopia, ''Our platform will be one of the first to pay musicians and podcasters fairly per stream, download, and play.''

''Alby is a project devoted to building Bitcoin and lightning network infrastructure, and podcasting is one of the first industries to benefit. Disctopia and Alby's collaboration to bring instant and direct micropayment monetization to new content formats, such as video, music, and audiobooks, is another promising sign for the lightning and V4V movement,'' said co- founders of Alby.

In the long term, Disctopia plans to embed the Alby wallet payment API to show account balances and other in-app features directly on creators' dashboards. Furthermore, the streaming platform will integrate API into its mobile app, allowing users to send payments directly to their favorite artists from their mobile devices.

About DisctopiaDisctopia'¯operates from Charlotte, North Carolina, as a streaming platform dedicated to delivering indie content from creatives to fans globally through the'¯Disctopia'¯App. The platform is on a mission to revolutionize the industry by offering artists equitable profits from every stream. The company is reimagining content streaming by providing access to indie creatives' content. Ultimately, Disctopia aims to build a future where every creator is given a fair chance to succeed.

About AlbyAlby is a wallet to transact Bitcoin payments through web browsers on the Bitcoin Lightning Network. The Lightning Network, a payment protocol layered on top of Bitcoin, enables affordable and instant microtransactions over an open payment grid. The in-browser extension service offers simplified payments across the globe using passwordless logins with the V4V model. Additionally, Alby conveniently allows for direct and instant payments and the option to set spending budgets for each website.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:02

Maze : 2010. 60 Minutes on the capture of Viktor Bout, the Merchant of Death, the Lord of War. https://t.co/0Kic2ueZL8

Thu Dec 08 14:19:58 +0000 2022

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:53

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:52

Daily Caller : Fmr. President Barack Obama: "We all know some folks in our lives...they say crazy stuff...Uncle Joe, you know what'... https://t.co/G5Ni30z6ct

Fri Dec 02 00:22:23 +0000 2022

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:50

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:48

ABOUT KNIGHT FOUNDATIONWe are social investors who support a more effective democracy by funding free expression and journalism, arts and culture in community, research in areas of media and democracy, and in the success of American cities and towns where the Knight brothers once published newspapers.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:47

Ian Miles Cheong : Yoel Roth, who no longer works at Twitter, claims that satire is dangerous and that Libs of TikTok and The Babylon'... https://t.co/CBLzjZ5OWI

Sun Dec 04 05:31:06 +0000 2022

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:41

Bernie's Tweets : WEF & GOVERNMENTS - 4 Food Hubs.Listen carefully, the ban of fertilisers will increase shortages and make food mo'... https://t.co/n5ABbn0cIm

Sun Dec 04 11:57:44 +0000 2022

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:21

In another big week for content moderation, internal Twitter emails detailing the decision to block the Hunter Biden laptop story were released, and Ye was suspended from Twitter. Then, welcome to Prof G University: Scott helps us understand how to make good business decisions for stakeholders. Plus, The DOJ wants an independent review into FTX's bankruptcy, Tim Cook is on damage control on Capitol Hill, and Trump wants to flush the constitution down the toilet.Then, we're joined by our Friend of Pivot, Nobel Prize winner Maria Ressa, to talk about democracy and dictatorship. Maria's new book, ''How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight For Our Future,'' is out now.You can find Maria on Twitter at @mariaressa.Send us your questions! Call 855-51-PIVOT or go to nymag.com/pivot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:14

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:58

German arrests in plot to overthrow state

Germany arrests dozens as group accused of plotting to overthrow government 01:20 Berlin '-- Police have arrested at least 25 people tied to an alleged right-wing extremist plot to overthrow Germany's government. The group targeted in about 130 raids across Germany was described by prosecutors as being influenced by QAnon conspiracy theories and espousing a doctrine similar to that of far-right groups in the U.S. and across Europe.

Germany's Federal Prosecutor General is now investigating the suspected right-wing terror group, which calls itself Reichsb¼rger, for allegedly planning an attack on the Bundestag, Germany's parliament, as part of a violent coup to overthrow the government.

The investigators' trail leads to a member of a former Germany royal family as the purported figurehead, a former parliamentarian from the far-right AfD political party , and of particularly concern to the investigators, to former members of the German military's special forces.

Masked police officers escort Heinrich Reuss, also known as Prince Heinrich XIII, after his arrest and a raid of his home in Frankfurt, Germany, December 7, 2022. The Federal Prosecutor's Office has conducted raids targeting a terror group known as Reichsburger, which Reuss is accused of heading, for an alleged plot to overthrow the Germany government. Boris Roessler/picture alliance/Getty Current members of Germany's special security services struck in the early hours of Wednesday morning, in what was a potentially dangerous series of raids.

Forces stormed apartments across the country, executing 25 arrest warrants and launching extensive searches.

While only 25 people were detained, the Federal Prosecutor's Office has accused around 50 men and women of forming a terrorist organization with the intent of eliminating the constitutional order of the Federal Republic of Germany and establishing a new state modeled on the German Reich of 1871.

The group stands accused of planning to storm the Reichstag, or parliament building, as part of a wave of attacks aimed at precipitating civil war-like conditions in Germany. It also allegedly planned to attack the national power grid and to depose the federal government and take power by force.

The prosecutor's office said the group had already selected members to fill important ministerial posts in the new regime, from the moment of the "takeover."

A police officer works during a raid in Berlin, Germany, December 7, 2022. Twenty-five suspects were arrested after coordinated raids in 11 federal states, including Thuringia, Hesse and Lower Saxony, the Federal Prosecutor's Office said in a statement. Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Investigators have described the operation against the group as unprecedented in Germany: "Beyond all dimensions in terms of scope."

Because a significant number of the group's alleged members are former soldiers of the Germany armed forces, including special forces, it has been treated as a particularly dangerous organization. Investigators had indications before the raids that the suspects were armed with a variety of weapons, some of which were legally owned.

Given the security concerns, in addition to task forces from the Federal Police's antiterrorism unit GSG 9, officers from several special forces (SEK) of the German states were also deployed to carry out the arrests and ensure security during searches. A total of about 3,000 security forces carried out the raids.

The central figure of the group is Heinrich Reuss, who calls himself Prince Heinrich XIII. He's the scion of a long-established but minor German royal household from what is now Thuringia, in eastern Germany. The 71-year-old has publicly advocated his "Reichsb¼rger" theses for several years, which suggests the modern German state is illegitimate and that the old royal lineage from the 19th century must be restored to power.

During a raid against the so-called "Reichsburger" group, a police officer sits in a police vehicle with key suspect Heinrich Reuss, or Prince Heinrich XIII, after searching his home and detaining him. Boris Roessler/picture alliance/Getty In 2019, for example, he declared at a forum in Switzerland that the Federal Republic was not a sovereign state, but still controlled by the Western allies from World War II. In another video still circulating online, he refers to the German state and the country's judiciary branch as "companies."

Reuss was earmarked by the Reichsb¼rger terror group targeted in Wednesday's raids to become the new state regent after its takeover of the country, investigators said. Reuss works as an independent financial adviser in Frankfurt and owns a hunting lodge in Thuringia. Members of the group are reported to have met at the lodge several times over the course of this year.

A kind of "shadow cabinet" is said to have been formed, with Reuss at the helm.

Particularly explosive was the allegation that the group intended to install as the head of a new national justice department the former AfD member of the Bundestag, Birgit Malsack-Winkemann. She has worked as a judge in Berlin since leaving the Bundestag last year. Previous attempts by the Berlin regional senate to have her removed as a judge, due to anti-democratic and other political statements she has made from the bench, have failed.

CBS Reports presents "Reverb | The QAnon Effect" 25:31 One of the leading suspects swept up in the raids was R¼diger von P., who commanded a German paratrooper battalion in the early 1990s until it was absorbed into the then-newly-founded national commando special forces (KSK). He was dismissed from the Bundeswehr at the time after being found to have stolen weapons from the military's stocks.

Some suspected members of the group had already made public appearances as agitators at recent protests against Germany's anti-coronavirus measures. For example, a former military colonel and member of the special forces named by prosecutors as Maximilian E. publicly advocated at one protest to send Germany's special forces to "clean up the mess" in the national government.

Due to the large number of suspects and the large number of arrest warrants executed on Wednesday, the raids will pose a considerable logistical challenge for the judiciary and law enforcement authorities involved. All those arrested must now be brought before an investigating judge by the end of the following day, Thursday, under German law. It will be up to those judges to decide whether the individuals can be held in pre-trial detention.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:49

Ronnie D goin after Pfizer

Dec 7th 2022 ' 28:53 to 29:59

Episode Summary We are watching the great reset unfolding in more ways than one. New videos reveal China's covid quarantine camps where people are held for weeks against their will. The new Twitter Files drop shows troubling collusion between the government and social media giant. Governor Ron Desantis plans to take on Pfizer and Moderna over false claims.

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Ronnie D goin after Pfizer

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:43

Project Veritas : BREAKING: @fwparker Dean of Students Brags About Bringing in LGBTQ+ Health Center to Teach "Queer Sex" to Minors '... https://t.co/mRhHg2kK7A

Thu Dec 08 01:00:06 +0000 2022

MetalChefen : @Project_Veritas @fwparker WTF who let psycho Mario out of loony bin

Thu Dec 08 16:43:32 +0000 2022

nick gentile : @Project_Veritas @DineshDSouza @fwparker This is a pedophile. Terrible. Send him to jail . He will not be welcome'... https://t.co/vSdlMA3HyI

Thu Dec 08 16:42:58 +0000 2022

Nate K : @Project_Veritas @DineshDSouza @fwparker Jesus Christ

Thu Dec 08 16:42:08 +0000 2022

Darlene Merritt : @Project_Veritas @DineshDSouza @fwparker If this is minors, he should be charged!

Thu Dec 08 16:41:46 +0000 2022

norma : @Project_Veritas @DineshDSouza @fwparker Because none Fuchs him up is why

Thu Dec 08 16:41:20 +0000 2022

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:40

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre embarrassed herself again this week when she accidentally read the wrong scripted response to a question during Monday's White House press briefing.

A reporter pointed out that Sen. Jean Shaheen (D-N.H.) is upset with Joe Biden for supporting a proposal that would put South Carolina ahead of New Hampshire in the primary schedule, and that Shaheen believes that New Hampshire ''is now vulnerable for her party'' because of that.

''Does the president have a response to that?'' the reporter asked.

''So, look, we honor '-- we honor the Hatch Act, as I mentioned many times before, here, as we are talking about a potential election '-- a 2024 presidential election,'' Jean-Pierre began. ''But, looking backward, it is the ultimate irony, you know, that the 2020 election was '-- was proven by the Trump administration's Homeland'--''

Read: Karine Jean-Pierre's Midterm Spin Will Make You Laugh

It was at this point that Jean-Pierre realized she was reading the response for a completely different question. ''Oh, sorry, I think I got ahead of myself there,'' she said, then laughed, before finding the correct script to parrot.

Jean-Pierre has long faced criticism for her reliance on scripted answers, and this incident proves really just how bad she still is at her job.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:37

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 16:29

Overnight in Germany three thousand police have made two dozen arrests after uncovering a far right plot to overthrow the German state.

The group were preparing for Day X- and an attempt to storm the Bundestag, the German parliament, taking MPs hostage. It's the stuff of horror, nightmare and fantasy - conspiracy rooted in Germany's pre-war history and America's modern QAnon movement.

Today we speak to a senior MP from Germany's governing SPD party, Nils Schmid, and from the author of Going Dark, Julia Ebner - who's gone undercover with conspiracy networks and made extremism her life's study.

Social Media: Georgia Foxwell

Video: Will Gibson-Smith

Production: Gabriel Radus

Deputy Editor: Tom Hughes

Executive Producer: Dino Sofos

For exclusive daily videos from The News Agents visit Global Player: https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/brands/news-agents/the-news-agents/

You can watch our interviews in full at https://www.globalplayer.com/videos/brands/news-agents/the-news-agents/

The News Agents is a Global Player Original and a Persephonica Production.

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Thu, 08 Dec 2022 15:52

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 13:25

2:11:01Do We Need Religion? - Low Value Mail Dec 6th, 2022Danny Polishchuk

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Wed, 07 Dec 2022 12:50

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Tue, 06 Dec 2022 18:57

We've seen a lot of 'professors' over the years saying some horrifically and monumentally stupid crap about almost every topic, but this from Rutger's Professor Crunk (yes, that's her name) about white people being the villain, whiteness having an end date, and her quite proudly claiming 'we've gotta take these muthaf**kers out,' takes the racist cake.

Can you imagine if a white professor said this about ANY race?

Watch:

Rutgers professor says that "white people are committed to being villains" and falsely claims that Africans arrived in North America before white Europeans.

"Whiteness is going to have an end date," she warns. "We gotta take these muthafuckers out."pic.twitter.com/263DDPRTwl

'-- Christopher F. Rufo 'š--¸ (@realchrisrufo) December 6, 2022

And she thinks whiteness is the problem '... alrighty then.

We know, we're not supposed to believe that anyone can be racist against white people but damn, this is freakin' racist.

The problem with critical race theory isn't only that it seeks to stereotype, scapegoat, and dehumanize. It's also that many of the discipline's practitioners, such as "Professor Crunk," are monumentally ignorant. Their identity is treated as a substitute for scholarship.

'-- Christopher F. Rufo 'š--¸ (@realchrisrufo) December 6, 2022

Monumentally ignorant '... identity treated as a substitute for a scholarship.

Ouch.

Almost all the cultural rot in our society traces its origin to academia. You want to clean up our society? You've got to start there.

Everything else is bailing water on the Titanic.

'-- Tea Party Barbie''— (@laurahollis61) December 6, 2022

True story.

Imagine a white professor saying anything remotely like this about black people. National news for weeks and their life would be over.

'-- Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) December 6, 2022

Oh, absolutely. And there would be riots, Targets looted, statues destroyed, and a bunch of white liberals saying WHITE PEOPLE DESERVE THIS or whatever. See the summer of 2020 '...

She left out the part where the Aztecs would torture and sacrifice infants and young children to make sure their crops would grow.

'-- Jeremy Redfern (@JeremyRedfernFL) December 6, 2022

Sorry, WHITENESS is the real problem here.

Can you imagine being a white kid stuck being taught by a professor who advocates murdering you because of the color of your skin?

'-- John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) December 6, 2022

Gawd no.

I reported on this last September. @POTUS gave the opening address for the conference where she said this. https://t.co/QThWela51D

'-- Amber Athey (@amber_athey) December 6, 2022

Because of COURSE.

Rutgers is a Public University so Government is supporting and funding racism.

'-- Laughing Libertarian (@William16723077) December 6, 2022

On what basis is @ProfessorCrunk allowed on Twitter given the ''incitement of violence'' standard applied to @kanyewest?

'-- Jeff Giesea (@jeffgiesea) December 6, 2022

Note, Crunk has locked her account down so we are unable to see her tweets.

How very brave of her.

"Professor" is now a meaningless title.

'-- Stella Maris'''¸ðŸ‡ºðŸ‡¸ (@StellaM36528375) December 6, 2022

Sadly, more and more, that's the truth.

***

Related:

When people show you who they really are BELIEVE them ''> Lefty ghouls DANCE on Kirstie Alley's grave

Things only getting WORSE for Hunter Biden (and Joe!) with brutal Tucker Carlson documentary (watch)

Yashar Ali using Kirstie Alley's death to get on his Scientology soapbox does NOT go well

***

Editor's Note:

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 17:01

Ever since ''The Twitter Files'' dropped on Friday, media firefighters have been working overtime to explain why there's nothing to see there.

Ben Collins' pissiness over Matt Taibbi and Elon Musk's 'Twitter Files' speaks volumes about modern MSMBloomberg News reports #TwitterFiles Musk & Taibbi shared 'broke little ground'Rolling Stone: Former Twitter employee calls Elon Musk's #TwitterFiles a 'snoozefest'CNN definitely doesn't get what all the fuss is about. Or at least they don't want viewers to get what all the fuss is about:

CNN: Twitter employees were saying "this feels like Russian disinformation" when deciding to censor tweets about the Hunter Biden laptop story.

"Some want you to think'...that this was censorship by big tech." pic.twitter.com/8X76Cswa39

'-- Townhall.com (@townhallcom) December 5, 2022

CNN doesn't want you to care about Twitter colluding with Team Biden to censor reporting on the Hunter BIden laptop scandal, so you shouldn't care about it.

Narrator: It was censorship. And it wasn't just by Big Tech'... https://t.co/cVi4qAtVgh pic.twitter.com/ppMgj0VXmC

'-- Joseph A. Wulfsohn (@JosephWulfsohn) December 5, 2022

CNN just took out a gun and shot the narrator.

CNN's @ChristineRomans: ''Some want you to think'' Twitter censoring Election Day-eve news of Biden corruption ''was Big Tech censorship.''

''What @Poynter said, which is a media watchdog group, they said, 'File the Twitter files under m for meh'.'' pic.twitter.com/6ou3HrgpmJ

'-- Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 5, 2022

CNN's Brian Fung wrote an article about ''The Twitter Files'' being a dud yesterday:

For days, Twitter owner Elon Musk had teased a massive bombshell disclosure based on internal company documents that he claimed would reveal ''what really happened'' inside Twitter when it decided to temporarily suppress a 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden and his laptop.

But on Friday, instead of releasing a trove of documents to the public, Musk's big reveal pointed to a series of tweets by the journalist Matt Taibbi, who had been provided with emails that largely corroborated what was already known about the incident.

Attracting thousands of retweets, Taibbi's winding tweet thread reaffirmed how, in the initial hours after the Post story went live, Twitter employees grappled with fears that it could have been the result of a Russian hacking operation.

''It was just a bunch of tweets from Matt Taibbi.'' ''The story was just that Twitter employees were worried that the Hunter Biden laptop story could be Russian disinformation.''

Fung and CNN might as well have just written one line: ''Who cares?''

Glenn Greenwald, who's had quite a lot of thoughts on ''The Twitter Files,'' also has some thoughts on CNN's mad rush to dismiss the mountains of evidence that Twitter actively worked to censor a story that could have been highly damaging to the Biden campaign:

CNN's "news story" on the Taibbi reporting has to be read to be believed. It reads like the rantings of any #Resistance maniac. Any conservative who thinks CNN changed because they fired a couple blatant Dems (while keeping @Acosta) is fooling themselves:https://t.co/lVRr23QoIg

'-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 5, 2022

One of the worst parts of CNN's article is it cites the "belief" of Twitter execs and "former intelligence officials" that the Biden docs were "a Russian hack-and-leak operation" without mentioning that this '... was a lie, a lie repeated by CNN. Twitter knew it had no evidence. pic.twitter.com/DWU0DV2i4K

'-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 5, 2022

The NYT article on @mtaibbi's story is not great. Still, if you put it next to the CNN rant, you'll see immediately how CNN (like NBC) has a horde of "reporters" who are identical to DNC operatives and #Resistance fanatics and "report" like them:https://t.co/Y5vEbA7fxg

'-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 5, 2022

Even if CNN's "news story" were just an op-ed written by one of the media's most loyal DNC partisans '' say, @ThePlumLineGS or @joshtpm '' it would still be outrageous given its recitation of the lie that the Biden docs could've been Russian. That it's a "news story" says it all.

'-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 5, 2022

Remember: CNN '-- over and over right before the 2020 election '-- repeated the lie that the Biden docs were "Russian disinformation." As usual, they put on ex-Security State agents: like career liar James Clapper. How can they not mention it was a lie????https://t.co/X8P8FM47sC

'-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 5, 2022

Just consider this to understand what CNN is:

In 2013, James Clapper, as Obama's top intelligence official, blatantly lied to the Senate about NSA programs which, months later, we exposed.

CNN saw that and said: "let's hire him for the news." #EvenSlatehttps://t.co/Vmv14lXPw7

'-- Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 5, 2022

It's almost as if CNN cries ''disinformation!'' while doing their damnedest to peddle '... disinformation.

***

Glenn Greenwald's take on Matt Taibbi and Elon Musk's 'Twitter Files' revelations does not disappoint

***

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 13:15

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Mon, 05 Dec 2022 03:55

After Elon Musk's buyout and the ongoing release of the the "Twitter files", the cat is out of the bag, as it were, when it comes to Twitter's extreme leftist political agenda and their collusion with the federal government and the DNC. And, it appears that some of the people deeply involved in the platform's censorship model are willing to discuss their tactics and motives. One might expect them to take a more apologetic position in light of their exposed lies and trespasses against their customers and site users, but this is definitely not the case.

Former Twitter employees, most especially former moderators and Trust and Safety employees, are unrepentant for their censorship efforts tainted with political bias and seem to loath Elon Musk for opening the door to fair debate on the social media site.

One Twitter executive, Yoel Roth, was recently in the headlines for admitting that Twitter's aggressive censorship of the Hunter Biden Laptop story was a "mistake." Roth is the former Global Head of Trust And Safety and played a direct role (along with other executives) in the suppression of the news, leading to the banning of the New York Post account merely for relaying accurate reporting.

Presenting the event as a "mistake" rooted in the company's concerns about "misinformation", however, seems disingenuous. As we now know, Twitter and the DNC were in regular contact with each other and requests were made by DNC officials to block any mention of such damaging stories. There was round-table debate at Twitter, but it was not about whether it was morally right to censor the information. Rather, Twitter execs debated whether or not they could get away with it.

The trust and safety elites within Big Tech companies have no doubts about the validity and righteousness of their cause, and that's the biggest problem. The monstrous nature of the ideology of scientifically precise censorship is on full display in the following interview with Roth at the Knight Foundation. Roth has no qualms about the notion of crushing free speech.

Roth equates banned information to "malicious campaigns," painting a picture of some nebulous organization of "trolls" with ill intent working from the shadows to spread mean words and falsehoods. This is projection. The only organized and shadowy efforts were performed by Twitter's leadership and were designed to silence dissent, in some cases in an effort to influence the outcome of the 2020 election for their friends in the Democratic Party.

This is even hinted at by Roth, who explains the widespread decision within Big Tech companies after the 2016 election to focus heavily on campaign and election influence. Roth cites the long debunked theory that Russia manipulated the 2016 election as the reason for this agenda to control election information.

A clear case of collusion can be presented between the Democrats and Twitter to do the exact thing Roth warns about, which is the subversion of election outcomes. But the psychology of people like Yoel Roth is disturbing beyond the issue of potential political manipulation. For example, Roth goes on to claim that the satire inherent in organizations like Libs of Tikok and the Babylon Bee is "dangerous" and specifically suggests they threaten the lives of people within the trans community.

Keep in mind that satire and humor are usually the first targets of any authoritarian regime clamoring for power because the greatest comedy strikes at the heart of lies and speaks truths that many people are otherwise afraid to discuss. If a joke is based on falsehoods it's usually not very funny. As far as Libs of TikTok is concerned, all they do is re-post videos of leftists' own arguments and confessions, and for that they are labeled "dangerous."

The former trust and safety exec goes on to admonish the removal of covid censorship, calling it "bad and damaging" without explaining how. One can only suggest that the leftists at Twitter were also in collusion with government officials to silence any and all facts and evidence that ran contrary to the mainstream pandemic narrative. Much of this information, like the Biden Laptop, was labeled "conspiracy theory" and banned, only to later be revealed as absolutely true.

The deeper poison of Trust and Safety cultism is two-fold: First, it is being done scientifically and with increasing precision. It is not only based simply on community flagging; these people are exploiting algorithms and computer modeling in the hopes that they can develop predictive suppression. They think they can "measure hate events" as if they are hurricanes and batten down the hatches before the waves hit. The thing is, much of the "hate" they fear is all in their minds. The hate and "malicious campaigns" they see are often merely people disagreeing with them on the basis of facts and principles.

You cannot accurately measure "hate", for one, and when that hate is perceived through a lens of delusion built on bias and zealotry, we run into a threat much bigger than hate - The threat of despotism wrapped in technocracy. They aren't blocking hate, they are blocking free debate.

The real discussion should be on whether or not Trust and Safety metrics should even exist. Why do we need them? Roth never questions the validity of his former job and the motivations behind it. The bottom line is this: Big Tech censorship is founded on the argument that people cannot be trusted to make up their own minds on the information they see. Social media leaders think that THEY should be the arbiters of information in order to protect people from themselves.

What qualifies them to hold this kind of power? Nothing. No one is qualified enough, intelligent enough or objective enough to mediate the speech of millions of people, and since Big Tech holds a veritable monopoly on modern communications, their policies become a kind of law that affects the whole of society. Twitter by itself is only a small part of the overall picture, but the cold and calculating censorship promoted by Roth is something that is being executed by the majority of Big Tech companies right now. We have to ask ourselves as Americans (and western culture in general needs to ask) if this kind of ideological monopoly can be allowed to persist, because it means the eventual destruction of free speech as we know it.

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Sun, 04 Dec 2022 15:36

Hillary Clinton joined PBS's Amanpour and Company on Thursday to preview the Clinton Presidential Center's upcoming summit on the status of women's rights around the world. For the former Secretary of State, the state of women's rights in Iran, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and in Ukraine where Russian soldiers use rape as a weapon is analogous to Arkansas, where pro-lifers run the state government. For host Christiane Amanpour, this was a completely normal thing to say.

Amanpour began the interview by asking Clinton her thoughts on the ''unfinished business'' of women's rights.

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This led Clinton to proclaim that much progress has been made, ''But we are also in a period of time where there is a lot of pushback and much of the progress that has been, I think, taken for granted by too many people is under attack. Literally under attack in places like Iran or Afghanistan or Ukraine where rape is a tactic of war, or under attacks by political and cultural forces in a country like our own when it comes to women's health care and bodily autonomy.''

Instead of halting the conversation because one of those things is not like the others, Amanpour wanted to focus on pro-lifers, ''We're going to go around the world with you in a second. But first, about '-- precisely what you're talking about and where you are. Arkansas itself, I believe, rapidly moved to make a woman's right to choose illegal in your state or your former home state and you are hosting this conference. Talk to me about the confluence of both these events. This pushback on American women's rights at the same time as you're trying to figure a way forward.''

After using the opportunity to promote the summit, Clinton expressed some hope over ''what we've seen particularly since the Dobbs decision across our country is that when voters, both men and women, but led by women have a chance to vote on these draconian abortion restrictions. They do not accept them. They overturned them. They certainly want to limit the reach of the government into the most intimate, private parts of our life.''

Following some more self-promotion, Amanpour lamented that the two were even having this conversation in 2022, ''But, I mean, how much persuasion can we expect when it comes to our '-- and I'm speaking as a woman, basic rights. Whether it's in the United States or around the world. As you said, they are human rights. At what point should these be enshrined even in the American law and Constitution even. I mean, I'm probably exaggerating. But it's extraordinary in 2022 that this basic right of women, half the world's population is still at risk.''

Clinton responded by hyping the recently passed gay marriage bill, before turning to abortion-related fearmongering, ''So, we'll see what happens in states like Arkansas and so many others when we face real world problems. As we have seen already where women with miscarriages go in for medical care and are turned away. When maybe, God forbid, a woman dies because that health care is denied her.''

If those women are being denied medical care, it isn't because of the laws. It's because people like Clinton and Amanpour misrepresent them leading to unnecessary panic.

This segment was sponsored by viewers like you.

LifeNews Note: Alex Christy writes for Newsbusters, where this originally appeared.

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Mon, 28 Nov 2022 19:19

News November 26, 2022 (2d ago)

This 14-minute clip is gold.

SBF, FTX, Soros, the old globalist BCCI banking scandal, the ''stablecoin'' Tether, and a Clinton Overworld Money Laundering Operation.

Watch:

Be sure to read our full, explosive, extremely dark expos(C) on crypto stablecoin Tether:

If, as it turns out, Tether turns out to be the next FTX on steroids, the implications for the entire cryptocurrency project are existential. Tether is not just the third largest cryptocurrency in existence, its function as the dominant stable coin facilitating transactions means it is one of the major crutches upon which the entire crypto ecosystem stands.

For this reason, crypto experts tell Revolver that ''true-believers'' in crypto often turn a blind eye to the dark and damning questions surrounding Tether due to the implications this would have on the entire crypto project.

One crypto veteran we spoke to described the Tether situation in rather vivid terms.

''I have a soft spot for thinking kindly of crypto-libertarians, but they all go Ponzi Mindset when it comes to Tether,'' he said. ''In order to be congruent and confident in the future they need to believe Tether isn't a burning bag of shit overlayed on top of a flaming diarrhetic volcano. Everything that in retrospect looks super shady and how-did-they-get-away-with-it-for-so-long for FTX is WNBA-tier compared to the 1994-Olympics Dream Team of Schemes that is Tether.''

That's the defense of Tether from somebody who uses crypto: that Tether is an obvious scam, but with so much crypto speculation going on and so much short-term profit to be had, it's better to just not think about it.

So, if Tether is so obviously shady, what mightexplain its stability even as the surrounding crypto ecosystem burns down? Some key fact is missing.

Read the rest here'... it's a must.