There's an old saying, "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" Watching 101 "Republicans" betray conservative values, siding with Democrats and deficit spending $61 billion on Ukraine, in addition to the $113 billion already spent, reveals that the Republicans don't hold a majority in the Hous
This week I read an article about how an anti-work TikTok video has gone viral, resonating with millions of younger Americans who can't seem to get ahead. The lyrics: I don't want to contribute nothing to society I don't struggle I don't hustle.
This took place hours after published leaked audio of alleged government plant James Ray Epps' phone call to the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Ryan Samsel suspected he would face government retaliation for exposing the truth. He was right.
“Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks.
America’s food supply is inundated with processed junk food, sugar, seed oils, corn, and other fillers and preservatives, and many people are starting to feel as if they’re being slowly poisoned.
A newly published Japanese study confirms UK Professor Angus Dalgleish’s concerns about mRNA injections causing cancer. After the findings of the study were published, Australian Professor Ian Brighthope has classified the injections as class one carcinogens.
A newly published Japanese study confirms UK Professor Angus Dalgleish’s concerns about mRNA injections causing cancer. After the findings of the study were published, Australian Professor Ian Brighthope has classified the injections as class one carcinogens.
1910 was well before my own time, of course, but I knew at least ten people who lived through it as adults, and discussed the era at some length with one of them, my great uncle Dave. And so this is an era I feel I can still reach out and touch.
Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) has released the seventh annual issue of its comprehensive AI Index report, written by an interdisciplinary team of academic and industrial experts.
By now most readers will have heard that Donald Trump was disqualified from the ballot in the state of Colorado, by the Colorado State Supreme Court, for what amounts to a criminal offense neither proven nor charged. Fifth Amendment, Schmifth Amendment, apparently.
Many have discovered an argument hack. They don’t need to argue that something is false. They just need to show that it’s associated with low status. The converse is also true: You don’t need to argue that something is true. You just need to show that it’s associated with high status.
Washington Post reports that the Republican Speaker of the House got a bipartisan $95 billion dollar “foreign aid bill” passed. The huge sum goes to Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine.
We’ve all come across warnings against doom scrolling. This is the practice of waking up in the morning, scouring headlines, seizing on the bad news, and dwelling on the darkness. You do this during downtimes in the day and in the evening. Your mood worsens, permanently.
This is the strongest report that I have seen from a medical professional who witnessed the manner in which Hospitals killed their patients. As a “coder,” she saw how the medical practices and subsequent death rates changed on a large scale. She tells her story below.
Here’s my favorite short list of evidence that can’t be explained if vaccines don’t cause autism. Does anyone think I’m wrong and can explain the list? Note that I only claim that vaccines are THE major cause, not the sole cause. There are other things that contribute.
Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH We can all accept that a better diet, fitness, body weight, and good sleep all would contribute to improvements in human health. But what about medical interventions that are applied to us as children and some continuing into adulthood.
The evidence for the coup is now overwhelming. Maxwell Azzarello, the immolation martyr, was correct about the coup, even if he may have harnessed some loose associations in making his case before he initiated his tragic end yesterday by setting himself on fire outside a Manhattan courthouse.
After weeks of anticipation, the day has finally arrived: In a dramatic push into uncharted waters for the social media behemoth that saw Mark Zuckerberg make overtures to his former arch-nemises (the Winklevii), Facebook has finally published the white paper for its long-awaited stablecoin, "Libra".
After weeks of anticipation, the day has finally arrived: In a dramatic push into uncharted waters for the social media behemoth that saw Mark Zuckerberg make overtures to his former arch-nemises (the Winklevii), Facebook has finally published the white paper for its long-awaited stablecoin, "Libra".
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Facebook's white paper was the most hotly anticipated crypto whitepaper ever - made more so by Facebook's extreme secrecy surrounding the project, which Zuck reportedly hopes will steer the company out of a morass of scandal and into a new era. But Facebook will also be expanding into a major new business (payments) just as the FTC and DoJ initiate anti-trust investigations against FB and a handful of other tech giants, and regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have already expressed some concern.
Per the white paper, Facebook’s global stablecoin will be dubbed "Libra." It will operate on its own "Libra" blockchain, and will be backed by a reserve of assets, which technically makes it a "stable coin" (not unlike Tether). The coin will be governed by a non-profit consortium, the "Libra Association," which will oversee development of the "Libra" ecosystem from Switzerland.
Per the FT, Facebook will spin off a unit called Calibra, which will be "totally separate" from FB, to manage the Libra digital wallet offering, which will be integrated into Facebook's family of apps. Facebook said that financial data gathered by Calibra wouldn't be shared without users' consent.
Some 28 partners, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and a smattering of others, have pledged to help build out the ecosystem and will kick in $10 million to kick start the "Libra Association" that will govern the coin, and its reserve assets.
According to the Guardian, the coin will facilitate payments across Facebook’s various platforms (including WhatsApp and Instagram), as well as a new "Libra" payments app. The coin's software will be open source according to FB, allowing developers to build out an ecosystem around it (possibly incentivized with gifts of sensitive user data.
Across the developed and developing worlds, Facebook hopes its app will help plug the "payments gap" created by 1.7 billion adults without bank accounts.
Facebook’s new cryptocurrency platform could provide the embattled social media giant with a new revenue stream of historic proportions as it contends with a possible federal antitrust probe and continued scrutiny over its data privacy practices.
[...]
Facebook’s cryptocurrency could thrive in emerging markets, providing a more stable alternative for transferring money in areas with volatile currencies and unstable governments, according to RBC Capital Markets. The firm expects "Libra" to facilitate person-to-person payments, traditional e-commerce and spending on apps or gaming services on Facebook-owned properties.
"We believe this may prove to be one of the most important initiatives in the history of the company to unlock new engagement and revenue streams," RBC Capital Markets analysts said in a note to investors.
Facebook plans to make transactions no- or low-fee, but reportedly hopes to make money by offering loans and other financial products. The cryptocurrency is set to launch early next year.
President Trump says he knows who was behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, telling ABC News's George Stephanopoulos "Iraq did not knock down the World Trade Center," adding "It were other people. And I think I know who the other people were. And you might also."
Nearly 3,000 people died when 19 mostly-Saudi terrorists hijacked four passenger planes, flying them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, while the fourth went down in a Pennsylvania field after passengers allegedly fought back. Astonishingly, the passports of three hijackers were recovered; two at the Pennsylvania crash site, and one from the World Trade Center grounds. While nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks for several months, the NSA and German intelligence reported intercepting communications pointing to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, after which investigators linked the 19 hijackers to the terrorist organization.
Trump segued from his 9/11 comments into a criticism of America's military intervention in the Middle East, calling it "the worst decision made in the history of our country," and describing the region as "like quicksand."
"It was a terrible decision to go into the Middle East. Terrible," said Trump, adding "We’re now up to almost $8 trillion. And when we want to build a roadway, a highway, a school, or something, everyone’s always fighting over money. It’s ridiculous. So that was a bad decision."
The US, backed by allies including Britain, invaded Afghanistan, where the terror group was being sheltered. But 9/11 was also used as part of the justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, more than 4,000 Americans and 179 British troops, and contributed to the rise of the Isis terror group. -Independent
Trump came under fire during the 2016 election when he claimed "There were people that were cheering on the other side of New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations," adding "They were cheering as the World Trade Center came down." Defending his comments, Trump pointed to a September 18, 2001 Washington Post article which reads "In Jersey City, within hours of two jetliners' plowing into the World Trade Center, law enforcement authorities detained and questioned a number of people who were allegedly seen celebrating the attacks and holding tailgate-style parties on rooftops while they watched the devastation on the other side of the river."
in April after he tweeted a montage of the 9/11 attacks interspersed between Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) downplaying the incident as "some people did something," at a March 23 event for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Also arrested in the aftermath of the attacks were the so-called five "Dancing Israelis" which locals reported were celebrating around New Jersey.
five of the Israelis came to the FBI's attention after they were seen by New Jersey residents on Sept. 11 making fun of the World Trade Center ruins and going to extreme lengths to photograph themselves in front of the wreckage. The FBI seized and developed their photos, one of which shows Sivan Kurzberg flicking a cigarette lighter in front of the smouldering ruins in an apparently celebratory gesture. -Associated Press via Globe and Mail (2001)
In 2002, a "high-ranking American intelligence official" told Forward magazine that the men were "conducting a Mossad surveillance mission" - using their employer, Urban Moving Systems of Weehawken, NJ as a front. According to a 2002 report by ABC News, the FBI suspected the same.
The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The other passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari.
When the men were transferred to jail, the case was transferred out of the FBI's Criminal Division, and into the bureau's Foreign Counterintelligence Section, which is responsible for espionage cases, ABCNEWS has learned.
One reason for the shift, sources told ABCNEWS, was that the FBI believed Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation. -ABC News (2002)
The Israelis claimed to have been on a "working holiday" in the United States, and were cleared by the FBI to return to Israel. During a media appearance on Israeli TV, one of the men said that they had been in New York at the time to "document the event" according to the 2002 ABC News report.
In May, the Trump administration complied with a FOIA request to provide redacted black-and-white photos of the men, however they do not appear to shed much additional light.
The policies created to pull the world out of recession are still in place, but now they are strangling the global economy...
The United States’ recovery from the Great Recession recently turned 10 years old, matching the longest American expansion since records were first kept in the 1850s. The global recovery will also turn 10, in January, if it lasts that long — and that, too, would be a record.
But there have been few celebrations, in part because trade tensions have further slowed the pace of recovery. Since the end of the recession, the economy has grown at about 2 percent a year in the United States and 3 percent worldwide - both nearly a point below the average for postwar recoveries.
What explains the longest, weakest recovery on record? I blame the unintended consequences of huge government rescue programs, which have continued since the recession ended.
Before 2008, more open tradeborders and better internet communications promoted strong growth by leveling the playing field, inspiring the Times columnist Thomas Friedman to declare that “the world is flat.”
Once the crisis hit, however, governments erected barriers to protect domestic companies. Central banks aggressively printed money to restore high growth. Instead, growth came back in a sluggish new form, as easy money propped up inefficient companies and gave big companies favorable access to cheap credit, encouraging them to grow even bigger.
If the world was flat and fast before 2008, today it’s fat and slow.
Central bankers had hoped that low interest rates would spur investment, increasing productivity and boosting growth. But a recent paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that low rates gave big companies an incentive and means to grow bigger. As their power grows, workers’ share of national income has been shrinking, fueling inequality — and anger.
Four airlines and three rental car companies account for more than 80 percent of the American travel markets. Go into any American mall and you can buy jewelry at Zales, Jared, Kay and several other chains, all now owned by the same parent company. These days tech insurgents aspire to be purchased by Google and Facebook, not to replace them.
As big companies grow more dominant, life gets tougher for entrepreneurs. Start-ups represent a declining share of all companies in Britain, Italy, Spain, Sweden, the United States and many other industrialized economies. The United States is generating start-ups — and shutting down established companies — at the slowest rates since at least the 1970s.
The Bank for International Settlements, the global bank that serves central banks, says low rates are fueling the rise of “zombie firms,” which don’t earn enough profit to cover their interest payments and survive by repeatedly refinancing their loans.
Zombies now account for 12 percent of the companies listed on stock exchanges in advanced economies and 16 percent in the United States, up from 2 percent in the 1980s. Companies are surviving in the “zombie state” for longer, depleting the productivity of healthy companies by competing with them for capital, materials and labor.
These, then, are the trademarks of the fat and slow world: larger corporations, declining competition and fewer start-ups, which together undermine and slow economies already hindered by falling growth in the working-age population.
The bright side of endless stimulus, if there is one, is that recessions have become increasingly rare. Only 7 percent of the nearly 200 countries tracked by the International Monetary Fund suffered negative growth last year; that is about half the average share since records began. The I.M.F. projects that share will fall to 3 percent in 2020, close to a record low.
A global economy ruled by big, indebted companies looks sluggish but, in the view of many commentators, also very stable. Even as trade wars undermine economic growth, most investors assume central banks will ride to the rescue before it deteriorates into outright recession.
The problem, however, is that government stimulus programs were conceived as a way to revive economies in recession, not to keep growth alive indefinitely. A world without recessions may sound like progress, but recessions can be like forest fires, purging the economy of dead brush so that new shoots can grow. Lately, the cycle of regeneration has been suspended, as governments douse the first flicker of a coming recession with buckets of easy money and new spending. Now experiments in permanent stimulus are sapping the process of creative destruction at the heart of any capitalist system and breeding oversize zombies faster than start-ups.
To assume that central banks can hold the next recession at bay indefinitely represents a dangerous complacency. Corporate debt levels continue to rise; government debts and deficits continue to rise. If there is a sudden break in confidence, the damage will be that much greater and governments may find themselves too broke to stem it.
Until then, we are in a fat and slow world.
* * *
Ruchir Sharma, author of “The Rise and Fall of Nations: Forces of Change in the Post-Crisis World,” is the chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and a contributing opinion writer.
A UK pedestrian was arrested and fined £90 ($115 US) after attempting to cover his face while passing a controversial facial recognition camera van on a East London street. The notorious London police vans scan the faces of passers-by and compare them to a database of wanted criminals.
One man wasn't having any of it, and was seen covering his face with his hat and jacket before London police stopped him and took his picture anyway according to the Daily Mail.
"If I want to cover me face, I'll cover me face. Don't push me over when I'm walking down the street," said the man after his stop.
"How would you like it if you walked down the street and someone grabbed your shoulder? You wouldn't like it, would you?" the man asked an officer, who replied "Calm yourself down or you're going in handcuffs. It's up to you. Wind your neck in."
"You wind your neck in," the man replied.
After being fined, the man told a reporter: 'The chap told me down the road - he said they've got facial recognition. So I walked past like that (covering my face).
'It's a cold day as well. As soon as I've done that, the police officer's asked me to come to him. So I've got me back up. I said to him 'f*** off', basically.
'I said 'I don't want me face shown on anything. If I want to cover me face, I'll cover me face, it's not for them to tell me not to cover me face.
'I've got a now £90 fine, here you go, look at that. Thanks lads, £90. Well done.' -Daily Mail
The ticketing comes in the wake of another similar incident in February, in which another man refused to be scanned by one of the facial recognition vans and was also fined £90.
"He simply pulled up the top of his jumper over the bottom of his face, put his head down and walked past," said Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, who added that at least one man had seen placards warning the public of the facial recognition cameras being used from a parked police van.
"There was nothing suspicious about him at all … you have the right to avoid [the cameras], you have the right to cover your face. I think he was exercising his rights," said Carlo.
Meanwhile, the technology is terribly inaccurate - wrongly matching over 2,000 people to criminals when it was deployed ahead of the Champions League Final in Cardiff in 2017.
Last December, a suspect was arrested by the Metropolitan Police during a trial of the facial recognition technology among Christmas shoppers at Leicester Square in London's West End.
Another man was stopped due to the technology, but found not to be the man the computer thought he was - although he was arrested over another offence.
Big Brother Watch has previously said the technology is a 'breach of fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of assembly'. -Daily Mail
"It is important to note that police are now days away from making a decision about the future of facial recognition in the UK," Carlo told MailOnline. "We believe it has no place in a democracy and we will continue with our legal challenge against the Met if they do go ahead with it."
The US has avoided a long-called-for recession for three reasons, but it doesn't mean a near-term downturn has been taken off the table, according to economist David Rosenberg.
Consumer Reports published the report — its "most comprehensive review" of pesticides in food to date — after analyzing 59 common fruits and vegetables, which included fresh, canned, dried and frozen products. "Our new results continue to raise red flags.
An agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Health Resources and Services Administration, requested a study to review the evidence regarding specific potential harms related to covid-19 injections used in the United States.
Last week, NPR senior editor Uri Berliner rattled the media world with a tell-all piece in The Free Press, “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
Uri Berliner, the NPR editor who accused the broadcaster of liberal bias in an online essay last week, prompting criticism from conservatives and recrimination from many of his co-workers, has resigned from the nonprofit. Mr.
NEW YORK (AP) — National Public Radio has suspended a veteran editor who wrote an outside essay criticizing his employer for, in his view, journalism that reflects a liberal viewpoint with little tolerance for contrary opinions.
I was somewhat surprised to hear most of you didn’t care about Covid’s origins. You thought the question wasn’t worth our time, because anyone paying attention has known since 2020 that Sars-Cov-2 almost surely escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology following botched Chinese lab work.
The Economist’s editor-in-chief, Zanny Minton Beddoes, wrote that global warming would damage a tenth of the world’s residential property by value. They reported that this includes “many houses that are nowhere near the coast.
UPDATED: The United States on Tuesday met the deadline with assurances on the death penalty and the 1st Amendment, the latter of which Stella Assange called a “non-assurance.
What causes delusion? The prevailing view is that people adopt false beliefs because they’re too stupid or ignorant to grasp the truth. But just as often, the opposite is true: many delusions prey not on dim minds but on bright ones.
We can argue about causes, indirect and direct, and discuss co-morbid conditions, and discuss PCR testing false positive rates. Nevertheless, submitted for your consideration are the data on OWID’s cumulative deaths and vaccines administered by income group.
Seven Members of Parliament including Andrew Bridgen MP sent a letter to the head of the UK ONS requesting that they publish a comprehensive time-series cohort analysis of the UK data (weekly buckets for 152 weeks starting in Jan 2021).
Just a day and a half ago, it seemed like things were calming in Brazil. The Folha de Sao Paulo, the New York Times of Brazil, editorialized against censorship. The head of the Brazilian Bar Association gave a strong statement in support of freedom of expression.
You probably know that the U.S. has broken the record for number of measles cases in recent years. You also likely know that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says “high coverage” with measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine is the most effective way to limit the spread of measles.
Students Against Mandates (S.A.M.) is a community of proud critical thinkers who support decision making backed by data. We oppose divisive mandates, discriminatory vaccine passports, and the tyranny that makes these unjust things possible.
Private research organization EcoHealth Alliance voluntarily released private emails on Friday confirming that the top aide to then-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci used his personal Gmail account to conduct business regarding the origins of COVID-19.
Earlier this week on The Free Press, Uri Berliner dropped a bomb on the public media world with “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.
In a recent study, researchers have shed light on how early consumption of a Western diet — characterized by high levels of processed foods, saturated fats, and simple sugars — can lead to lasting deficits in hippocampal-dependent episodic memory, despite not causing obesity or metabolic dysfunc
Amazon.com Inc. is rapidly advancing its use of robotics, deploying over 750,000 robots to work alongside its employees. The world's second-largest private employer employs 1.5 million people. While that's a lot, it's a decrease of over 100,000 employees from the 1.6 million workers it had in 2021.
There was no pandemic by any reasonable definition – which must surely include that large numbers of previously healthy people in all age groups perished, whereas there was no discernible rise in global mortality in 2020.
You know the stereotype of the NPR listener: an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag–carrying coastal elite. It doesn’t precisely describe me, but it’s not far off.
6 minute read A UK pharmaceutical body has accused Pfizer of “bringing discredit” on their entire industry after Pfizer’s senior executives promoted the COVID vaccine on social media before it had even been licensed, breaching the regulatory code five times by making misleading claims, igno
