Total posts: 8,696
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@3RU7AL
-->@oromaginearly a quarter of all known scams involve some form of crypto
So, do you agree or disagree with Dream's claim that with blockchain tech you can have a secret ballot which is auditable by anyone with a computer and where the only method of fraud requires a conspiracy to issue false vote tokens, and that conspiracy could be detected by sufficient surveillance.
Is it secure enough to guarantee anonymity?
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@3RU7AL
-->@oromagitheoretically, that's supposed to be impossibleaccording to who exactly ?
Well, the name for one, crypto
I thought all the early white papers and sales pitches on cryptocurrency promised anonymity. I thought that's why all the pirates and Trump officials used it.
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@3RU7AL
HOLY GODDAMN FUCKTHE ENTIRE POINT OF A BLOCKCHAIN IS THAT YOU CAN VERIFY YOUR VOTEIT'S A PUBLICLY AUDITABLE LEDGERYOU CAN LOOK AT THE BLOCKCHAIN AND SEE YOUR VOTE WAS REGISTERED AS YOU INTENDEDTRANSPARENT AND VERIFIABLE
I think that's why the National Academy of Sciences ended the sentence with "and the voter may never know of the alteration." I don't know what the current numbers are out of people who can do some vote verification do verify their votes but I assume its small.
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@3RU7AL
and do you have some way of verifying if your vote was counted (and not rejected for "unmatched signature" or lost in the mail) ?
- Once my vote is scanned I can verify my signature next to the bar code online
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-->@oromagishould elections be held to a standard of "proven safe and secure" or simply NOt "proven unsafe and insecure"?-->@3RU7AL
- First you have to decide if you want voters to remain anonymous.
-->@oromagi
- STAR-Vote: A Secure, Transparent, Auditable, and Reliable Voting System [**]
-->@3RU7AL
- Doesn't seem to offer any kind of remedy to the unprovability of anonymous elections.
-->@oromagiit's not really that complicated RCV actually REDUCES the number of elections because it ELIMINATES the need for PRIMARIES you can have electronic voting that prints out two scannable receipts-->@3RU7ALWhy do you have to have ranked voting to have two scannable receipts?-->@oromagione does not require the other
I still can't tell if you have a position on anonymous voting. I guess I'm fine exchanging anonymity for a more positively provable standard but we don't have that now.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
There are two types of people who don't immediately agree:1.) People who don't understand the technology and distrust those who do.2.) People who fear democracy, and deep down know their interests and ideals are best served through fraud
3) The National Academy of Sciences
Blockchains are a technology meant to achieve an unalterable, decentralized, public, append-only log of transactions, without any single authority in a position to change the log. In an election context, the “transactions” would be the casting of ballots. A blockchain could therefore act as a virtual electronic ballot box. Blockchains may be managed publicly or by arestricted set of managers. Several companies provide, or are attempting to build, voting systems around blockchains.While the notion of using a blockchain as an immutable ballot box may seem promising, blockchain technology does little to solve the fundamental security issues of elections, and indeed, blockchains introduce additional security vulnerabilities. In particular, if malware on a voter’s device alters a vote before it ever reaches a blockchain, the immutability of the blockchain fails to provide the desired integrity, and the voter may never know of the alteration.Blockchains are decentralized, but elections are inherently centralized. Although blockchains can be effective for decentralized applications, public elections are inherently centralized—requiring election administrators define the contents of ballots, identify the list of eligible voters, and establish the duration of voting. They are responsible for resolving balloting issues, managing vote tabulation, and announcing results. Secure voting requires that these operations be performed verifiably, not that they be performed in a decentralized manner.While it is true that blockchains offer observability and immutability, in a centralized election scenario, observability and immutability may be achieved more simply by other means. Election officials need only, for example, post digitally signed versions of relevant election-related reports for public observation and download.Ballots stored on a blockchain are electronic. While paper ballots are directly verifiable by voters, electronic ballots (i.e., ballots on a blockchain) can be more difficult to verify. Software is required to examine postings on blockchain. If such software is corrupted, then verifiability may be illusory. Software independence is not, therefore, achieved through posting ballots on a blockchain: as ballots are represented electronically, software independence may be more difficult to achieve.The blockchain abstraction, once implemented, provides added points of attack for malicious actors. For example, blockchain “miners” or “stakeholders” (those who add items to the blockchain) have discretionary control over what items are added. Miners/stakeholders might collude to suppress votes from certain populations or regions. Furthermore, blockchain protocols generally yield results that are a consensus of the miners/ stakeholders. This consensus may not represent the consensus of the voting public. Miners/stakeholders with sufficient power might also cause confusion and uncertainty about the state of a blockchain by raising doubts about whether a consensus has been reached.Blockchains do not provide the anonymity often ascribed to them.* In the particular context of elections, voters need to be authorized as eligible to vote and as not having cast more than one ballot in the particular election. Blockchains do not offer means for providing the necessary authorization.Blockchains do not provide ballot secrecy. If a blockchain is used, then cast ballots must be encrypted or otherwise anonymized to prevent coercion andvote-selling. While E2E-V voting methods may provide the necessary cryptographic tools for this, ordinary blockchain methods do not.It may be possible to employ blockchains within an election system by addressing the security issues associated with blockchains through the use of additional mechanisms (such as, for example, those provided by E2Everifiability), but the credit for addressing such problems would lie with the additional mechanisms, not with the use of blockchains
*A July 13, 2018 federal indictment of twelve Russian operatives, for instance, describes
in detail how the operatives were traced and identified through their use of the cryptocurrency
bitcoin and its associated blockchain ledger. Count Ten of the indictment (Conspiracy to
Launder Money) details how “the Conspirators” used bitcoin and its blockchain ledger in
an attempt to “obscure their identities and their links to Russia and the Russian government“ and how their use of bitcoin, despite the “perceived anonymity” of blockchains, was
then exploited by investigators to identify the operatives. See United States of America vs.
Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, Boris Alekseyevich Antonov, Dmitriy Sergeyevich Badin, Ivan
Sergeyevich Yermakov, Aleksey Viktorovich Lukashev, Sergey Aleksandrovich Morgachev,
Nikolay Yuryevich Kozachek, Pavel Vyacheslavovich Yershov, Artem Andreyevich Malyshev,
Aleksandr Vladimirovich Osadchuk, Aleksey Aleksandrovich Potemkin, and Anatoliy
Sergeyevich Kovalev, Case 1:18-cr-00215-ABJ (2018), pp. 21-22, available at: https://www. justice.gov/file/1080281
P.S. I also remember when Russian pirates were blackmailing all those companies including Colonial Pipeline in the Spring of '21 and hearing how the FBI was able to go into Russian networks and retrieve millions of dollars paid to the pirates in bitcoin- theoretically, that's supposed to be impossible but the US did it in like 48 hours, then they were able to trace the pirates and give the names to Putin who had them arrested in January.
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@3RU7AL
you can have electronic voting that prints out two scannable receiptsone paper receipt goes into a secure box to be counted after the election as an automatic double-checkthe other receipt the voter takes homethe individual voter cannot be identified by the receiptbut each receipt has a unique and non-sequential identification code
Why do you have to have ranked voting to have two scannable receipts? In effect, I already have this system. I keep one barcoded receipt and mail a barcoded ballot in.
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@Shila
That is why we have to rely on the generation that witnessed Jesus, such as the Gospel Authors. The Gospels were written in the Jesus generation. It’s accounts are based on eyewitness accounts. The Gospel writers were there documenting these eyewitness accounts.
Definitely false. Jewish fisherman were almost certainly not literate enough to write and definitely not in Koine Greek. The Gospel were written in Koine Greek, the language of Alexandrian Egypt.
Like the rest of the New Testament, the four canonical gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of Mark probably dates from c. AD 66–70, Matthew and Luke around AD 85–90, and John AD 90–110. Minor changes and redactions may have continued as late as the 3rd century. The gospels appear to be anonymous; the modern titles ("Gospel according to Matthew", etc.) do not appear to have been part of the earliest forms of the work. They were eventually ascribed to Matthew the Apostle, Mark the Evangelist, Luke the Evangelist, and John the Apostle.
Every early Christian church had its own unique collection of Gospels that were written in secret and hidden in the church for reading. Every church's collection of gospels were radically different from the next and tended to reflect the place and time as much as the Jesus story. There were hundreds of different gospels- Jesus was Zoroastrian Magi in some of them, resurrected songbirds in some, had a wife and kids in some, etc. Over time, some stories began to be condensed, the more outlandish versions got thrown out, the Trinitarians tossed out the Monophysite literature, etc. until Constantine started standardizing and streamlining the story of Christ at the First Council of Nicaea in 325AD.
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@3RU7AL
STAR-Vote: A Secure, Transparent, Auditable, and Reliable Voting System [**]
- Doesn't seem to offer any kind of remedy to the unprovability of anonymous elections. It calls itself secure, transparent, auditable, and reliable but I don't see how ranked choice improves of any of these.
- Automatically doubles the number of elections and so cost to govts.
- Seems like a way to give 3rd and 4th parties more shots at power but historically that just weakens the mandate for the majority winner
- Certainly would double the opportunity for unscrupulous liars to claim election fraud.
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@3RU7AL
-->@oromagishould elections be held to a standard of "proven safe and secure"or simplyNOt "proven unsafe and insecure"
- First you have to decide if you want voters to remain anonymous.
- The Supreme Court long ago ruled that anonymous voting is protected by the First Amendment
- But to preserve anonymity we have to sacrifice the only ultimate proof for elections.
- If you want elections to be "proven safe and secure' you need to overthrow anonymous voting and either SCOTUS precedent or the First amendment
- If you want to preserve anonymity then you have to satisfied elections that can't be positively proved.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Ultimately, we are entirely dependent on Mike's approval and capacity. I suggested a completion deadline of end of 2022 because I really have no idea how difficult of an ask this is or how much time Mike has to support such a request. I don't plan to make further inquiries until that time and hope that just hope will see positive updates sooner than that.
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@Public-Choice
NOTE: Trump Campaign manager Steve Bannon's Breitbart is not a reliable source
Failed Fact Checks
- Breitbart Duped by Fake News (Again) – False
- Following Joe Kennedy’s speech, Breitbart says Fall River, Mass. not built by immigrants – False
- Breitbart gets the wrong Loretta Lynch in Whitewater claim – Pants on Fire
- Did Planned Parenthood ‘Team Up’ With Satanists to Promote Abortion Rights in Missouri? – False
- Trump’s ISIS Conspiracy Theory – False
- Breitbart article baselessly claims a study of past climate invalidates human-caused climate change – False
- In Viral Video, Doctor Falsely Touts Hydroxychloroquine as COVID-19 ‘Cure’ – False
- “This virus has a cure called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax. I know you people want to talk about a mask. Hello? You don’t need (a) mask. There is a cure.” – False
- Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) contracted the Chinese coronavirus following last week’s Rose Garden event — in which President Trump announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court — despite wearing a mask at the gathering. – False
- “Most extreme weather phenomena have not become more extreme, more deadly, or more destructive” – False
Overall, we rate Breitbart Questionable based on extreme right-wing bias, the publication of conspiracy theories and propaganda, as well as numerous false claims
Likewise, FOX News pundit Tucker Carlson founded Daily Caller is not a reliable source
Failed Fact Checks
- “Former President Bill Clinton and his Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) distributed ‘watered-down’ HIV/AIDS drugs to patients in sub-Saharan Africa.” – FALSE
- “Jeanne Shaheen was principally involved in a plot with Lois Lerner and President Barack Obama’s political appointee at the IRS to lead a program of harassment against conservative nonprofit groups during the 2012 election” – FALSE
- George Soros-controlled Smartmatic manufactures the voting machines used in 16 crucial states, and those states will be rigged in favor of Hillary Clinton. – FALSE
- Indiana Muslims are appalled by a billboard displaying a list of deeds by the Prophet Muhammad even though it is accurate. – MOSTLY FALSE
- Washington state has updated their curriculum standards to include teaching “transgenderism” to Kindergarteners. – MOSTLY FALSE
- Says Nancy Pelosi was “caught trying to include abortion funding in bill to combat coronavirus.” – FALSE
- Biden Administration To Fund Crack Pipes, Heroin – False
Overall, we rate the Daily Caller strongly right biased based on story selection that almost always favors the right and Mixed for factual reporting due to numerous failed fact checks. The Daily Caller is a source that needs to be fact-checked on a per-article basis.
-->@oromagiThe State Department, in 2018 stated there was a lab in Wuhan studying bat coronaviruses that had extremely low safety standards. They stated that, if there was going to be another pandemic, it would likely arise from that lab. [1] [2] [3]
- False. In 2018 the US embassy in China sent a memo to Trump's State Dept saying the Wuhan Lab was competent but understaffed and underfunded.
- The Trump administration did nothing in response but then, the US is not in charge of staffing or funding Chinese labs. Trump did cancel all US funds to Chinese labs in early 2019, which could only have exacerbated the embassy's stated concerns.
- In Spring of 2020, the State Dept leaked these memos to the press
- On Jan 15, 2021 the State Dept made that memo public along with multiple complaints about China's lack of transparency and came to the unfounded conclusion that therefore the Wuhan lab was doing military research.
- So Fauci was not aware of these report until after the outbreak
- Everybody knew that the the Level4 lab in Wuhan was doing risky SARS research. That lab was built for that purpose, with strong urging from the International community, right on the spot where the first SARS outbreak happened in 2004 for the express purpose of detecting any new mutation quickly (which it did although there are legitimate questions about what China knew for sure when and when it notified the world). Trump ignored this warning but its not like we were going to give a bunch of money to Chinese lab anyway.
Documents from the NIH, specifically Fauci's office, show he funded gain-of-function research through different grants. [4] [5]
- Deliberately fuzzy. Gain-of-function research was halted from 2014-2107 until new protocols were in place. There is nothing controversial about the govt funding gain-of-function research with those protocols
- Chinese scientists are not restricted by these US based protocols although the Wuhan lab's standards were higher than any other Chinese lab.
- Some NIAID research money was allocated to Wuhan for behavioral research that didn't involve any live viruses.
- Less than $100,000/yr (less than the salary of one virologist) was given to a Beijing lab that did not do gain-of-function (increased virulence) but did unintentionally have some gain-of-function results and was slow to report these findings to NIAID. This research was with a non-SARS coronavirus in mice in Beijing and had zero connection to the Wuhan outbreak in spite of Paul's repeated claims.
- In 2018, the NIH specifically wrote a news brief on how the Wuhan Institute of Virology is studying bat coronaviruses and how NIAID (which was chaired by Dr. Fauci at that time) funded the research.
- This was true and smart and the US should be continuing to fund bat coronavirus in Wuhan, where all the bat coronavirus experts are gatherered.
I cited sources from the left and right and government in addition to ones that link to the primary sources so that nobody would claim this is some sort of "witch hunt" on Fauci. The facts blatantly prove he helped fund the research into COVID-19 and that it likely started as a lab leak at a lab that was testing bat coronavirus.
- False. You factcheck.org article explains in detail how your breitbart and dailycaller articles are distorting the truth.
Therefore, Dr. Fauci lied about his involvement in COVID-19 research. There is no question about it.
- Fauci's claim was "the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
- This statement is 100% true and backed up by your own factcheck.org sources
- Paul claims that because we gave any money to the Wuhan lab and money is fungible that's the same thing as funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan. Which is like saying that because we give money to the Russian rocket program we are funding Russian bio-weapons research. NIAID stated what research it was funding and that research was not gain-of-function so Paul is guilty of deliberately deceiving the public here to try to unfairly smear Fauci.
- Paul claims that because we gave money to a Beijing lab that did belatedly report an accidental gain-of-function result we must conclude that NIAID funded intentional gain-of-function research, which is a mentally ill unwarranted conspiracy theory conclusion.
- Please stop promoting Trump's fake new propaganda about Fauci.
In fact, let's test your truth-telling capacity here
Which of these statement is true and which is false?
- 81-year old Fauci announced that he will retire at the end of the year, finishing one of the most celebrated civil service careers in US History
- or
- Fauci resigns in disgrace as CDC admits to lying about Covid lockdowns.
Only one of these can be true, are you rational enough to honestly state which one is true?
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@Public-Choice
If I haven't already said so, it seems like a lot of unnecessary rules
but I'm fine proceeding on these terms.
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WHISTLEBLOWER ACCUSES TWITTER of CYBERSECURITY NEGLIGENCE
By MATT O'BRIEN, ALAN SUDERMAN and FRANK BAJAK @AP NEWS
yesterday
Twitter’s former head of security alleged that the company misled regulators about its poor cybersecurity defenses and its negligence in attempting to root out fake accounts that spread disinformation, according to a whistleblower complaint filed with U.S. officials.
The revelation could create serious legal and financial problems for the social media platform, which is currently attempting to force Tesla CEO Elon Musk to consummate his $44 billion offer to buy the company. Several members of Congress on Tuesday called on regulators to investigate the claims.
Peiter Zatko, who served as Twitter’s security chief until he was fired early this year, filed the complaints last month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. The legal nonprofit Whistleblower Aid, which is working with Zatko, confirmed the authenticity of a redacted copy of the complaint posted online by the Washington Post.
“This was a last resort for him,” said John Tye, the group’s co-founder and chief disclosure officer, in an interview Tuesday. He said Zatko exhausted all attempts to get his concerns resolved inside the company before his firing in January.
Among Zatko’s most serious accusations is that Twitter violated the terms of a 2011 FTC settlement by falsely claiming that it had put stronger measures in place to protect the security and privacy of its users. Zatko also accuses the company of deceptions involving its handling of “spam” or fake accounts, an allegation that is at the core of Musk’s attempt to back out of the Twitter takeover.
Shares of Twitter Inc. closed down more than 7% Tuesday.
Better known by his hacker handle “Mudge,” Zatko is a highly respected cybersecurity expert who first gained prominence in the 1990s and later worked in senior positions at the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Agency and Google.
He joined Twitter at the urging of then-CEO Jack Dorsey in late 2020, the same year the company suffered an embarrassing security breach involving hackers who broke into the Twitter accounts of world leaders, celebrities and tech moguls, including Musk, in an attempt to scam their followers out of bitcoin.
Twitter said in a prepared statement Tuesday that Zatko was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance” and said the “allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders.” The company called his complaint “a false narrative” that is “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
Zatko’s attorneys, Debra Katz and Alexis Ronickher, said Twitter’s claim about his poor performance is false and that he repeatedly raised concerns about “grossly inadequate information security systems” with top executives and Twitter’s board of directors. The lawyers said that in late 2021, after the board was given “whitewashed” information about those security problems, Zatko escalated his concerns, “clashed” with CEO Parag Agrawal and board member Omid Kordestani and was fired two weeks later.
The 84-page complaint describes a broken corporate culture at Twitter that lacked effective leadership and where Zatko said top executives practiced “deliberate ignorance” of pressing problems. His description of Dorsey’s leadership style is particularly scathing; he described the Twitter founder as “extremely disengaged” during the last months of his tenure as CEO to the point where he would not even speak during meetings on complex issues facing the company.
Zatko said he heard from colleagues that Dorsey would remain silent for “days or weeks.” Dorsey announced he was stepping down as Twitter CEO in November 2021.
The disclosure says Twitter offered no monetary incentives for improving security and platform integrity, although the company did offer $10 million bonuses last year for top executives who could generate short-term user growth.
Among Zatko’s accusations of cybersecurity malpractice: Software and security updates were disabled on more than a third of employees’ computers -- unduly exposing them to malware -- and it was common for people to install “whatever software they wanted on their work systems.” Such lapses are typically considered cardinal sins in cybersecurity.
Whistleblower Aid said it is legally precluded from sharing Zatko’s statement. The same group worked with former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who testified to Congress last year after leaking internal documents and accusing the social media giant of choosing profit over safety.
“I wouldn’t say he’s happy about having to become a whistleblower, but he’s resolute in his decision,” Tye said. “And committed to getting to the bottom of this.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Senate’s intelligence committee, Rachel Cohen, said the committee has received Zatko’s complaint and is working to set up a meeting “to discuss the allegations in further detail. We take this matter seriously.”
Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said in a prepared statement that if the claims are accurate, “they may show dangerous data privacy and security risks for Twitter users around the world.”
Among the most alarming complaints is Zatko’s allegation that Twitter knowingly allowed the Indian government to place its agents on the company payroll where they had “direct unsupervised access to the company’s systems and user data.”
A 2011 FTC complaint noted that Twitter’s systems were full of highly sensitive data that could allow a hostile government to find precise location data for specific users and target them for violence or arrest. Earlier this month, a former Twitter employee was found guilty after a trial in California of passing along sensitive Twitter user data to royal family members in Saudi Arabia in exchange for bribes.
The complaint said Twitter was also heavily reliant on funding by Chinese entities and that there were concerns within Twitter that the company was providing information to those entities that would enable them to learn the identify and sensitive information of Chinese users who secretly use Twitter, which is officially banned in China.
Zatko also describes willful ignorance by Twitter executives on counting the millions of accounts that are automated “spam bots” or otherwise have no value to advertisers because there is no person behind them. Zatko cited a “damning” 2021 outside report that found Twitter’s tools for tackling bots were neither sufficiently automated or sophisticated and instead relied on humans “not adequately staffed or resourced, to address the misinformation and disinformation problem.”
Alex Spiro, an attorney representing Musk in his effort to back out of his Twitter acquisition deal, said lawyers have issued a subpoena for Zatko. “We found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” Spiro wrote in an email Tuesday. Spiro said Zatko and Musk have not been in contact at any time this year.
Tye said “he’s never met Elon Musk. Doesn’t know Elon Musk. They know people in common.” Asked if mutual friends could have shared information about Twitter’s bot problems with Musk, Tye said Zatko “has not communicated with any other party about his disclosures” since filing the complaints in July.
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AP writers Tom Krisher and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.
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Speech by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Independence Day of Ukraine
24 August 2022 - 09:07
The free people of independent Ukraine!
The free people of independent Ukraine!
And that says it all. Just four words, but how much is behind them today. On the 182nd day of the full-scale war. How many symbols and meanings, feats and losses, joy and pain are in these words. And mainly how much truth is in them. Our truth. Truth about our present, with which it is impossible to argue, as it is impossible not to see and not to admit. We are the free people of independent Ukraine. After six months of the attempts to destroy us, we are the free people of independent Ukraine. And this is the truth about our future. The free people of independent Ukraine.
Six months ago, Russia declared war against us. On February 24, the entire Ukraine heard explosions and gunshots. And on August 24, it wasn’t supposed to hear the words "Happy Independence Day". On February 24, we were told: you have no chance. On August 24, we say: Happy Independence Day, Ukraine!
During these six months, we changed history, changed the world and changed ourselves. Now we know for sure who is really our brother and friend, and who is not even a casual acquaintance. Who did not lose his name and reputation, and who worried for the terrorists to save face. Who doesn't really need us, and where the door is really open for us. We understood who is who. And the whole world learned who Ukrainians are. What Ukraine is. No one will say about it anymore: it is somewhere over there, near Russia.
We started to respect ourselves. We understood that despite any help and support, no one but us will fight for our independence. And we united.
We didn't have HIMARS yet, but we had people willing to stop tanks with their bare hands. They were not ready to close the sky for us, but we had people willing to cover their native land with themselves.
The Ukrainian people and their courage inspired the whole world. They gave humanity a new hope that justice has not completely left our cynical world. And it is still not force that wins in it, but truth. Not money, but values. Not oil, but people.
Yesterday the world was not united. COVID-19 clearly showed: it's every man for himself. Ukraine has changed this in six months. All world history textbooks will have a section "Times when Ukraine united the world". When democracy grew teeth again. When tyranny receives an answer in the language it understands.
Someone said: Europe is no longer a player. Weak, disunited, passive, sleepy. Ukraine invigorated the whole continent. Europe takes to the squares. Europe introduces tough sanctions. Europe unanimously recognizes that Ukraine is a future member of the European Union.
Big business realized that money still smells. With blood, cinder, death. Corporations and brands are leaving the Russian market, and people have become more important than potential losses.
Never before in the world has public opinion had such an influence on politicians. Today, people dictate trends and rules of behavior to the authorities. Being indifferent, inactive and slow is a shame. Being indecisive and too cautious is a shame. Speaking sluggishly, vaguely and too diplomatically is a shame. Not supporting Ukraine is a shame. And saying about fatigue from Ukraine is a shame. This is a very comfortable position: fatigue is a cover to close your eyes. And today we hear from world leaders and ordinary citizens: we will be with you until the end, until your victory.
Dear people!
We always paid tribute to all the fighters for independence, called this day the main holiday, and the blue-yellow flag - a shrine, put our hands to our hearts while singing the national anthem, and proudly said "Glory to Ukraine!" and "Glory to Heroes!". On February 24, we had to prove our words with deeds.
On this day, the second all-Ukrainian referendum actually took place. Again - the main question. Again - a decisive choice. But this time it was necessary to say "yes" to independence not in the ballot, but in the soul and conscience. Go not to the precinct, but to the military commissariat departments, the territorial defense units, the volunteer movement, the information troops or simply work steadily and conscientiously in your place, at full strength, for a common goal.
We all changed. Someone was born again. As a person, individual, citizen, patriot, simply as a Ukrainian. And this, of course, is good news. Someone disappeared. Did not perish, did not die, but dissolved. As a person, individual, citizen, as a Ukrainian. And this is actually not bad news either. We will not hinder each other anymore.
We made a choice. For some, it is Mariupol. For some - Monaco. But we know who the majority is. And we finally became truly one. A new nation that emerged on February 24 at 4 am. Not born, but reborn. A nation that didn't cry, didn't scream, didn't get scared. Didn't run away. Didn't give up. Didn't forget.
This flag will be everywhere it should be by right. Both in Donbas and in Crimea. The enemy thought we would greet him with flowers and champagne. Instead, he received wreaths and Molotov cocktails. He was waiting for an ovation, but hears "claps".
The occupier believed that in a few days he would be on parade in our capital’s downtown. Today, you can see this "parade" on Khreshchatyk. The proof that enemy equipment can appear in the center of Kyiv only in such form. Burnt, wrecked and destroyed.
It doesn't matter to us what kind of army you have, what matters to us is our land. We will fight for it until the end.
We are holding on for six months. It is difficult for us, but we clenched our fists fighting for our fate. Every new day is a new reason not to give up. Because, having gone through so much, we have no right not to reach the end. What is the end of the war for us? We used to say: peace. Now we say: victory.
We will not seek an understanding with the terrorists. Although we understand the Russian language that you came to defend. And killed thousands of people you came to liberate.
And Johnson, who speaks English, is much more understandable and close to us than murderers, rapists and looters who did it in Russian.
And we don't sit down at the negotiating table because of fear, with a gun pointed at our head. For us, the most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft and tanks, but shackles. Not trenches, but fetters.
And we will put our hands up only once - when we will celebrate our victory. The whole of Ukraine. Because we do not trade our lands and our people. For us,
Ukraine is all of Ukraine. All 25 regions, without any concessions or compromises. We do not know these words, they were destroyed by missiles on February 24.
Donbas is Ukraine. And we will return it, whatever the path may be. Crimea is Ukraine. And we will return it. Whatever the path may be. You don't want your soldiers to die? Free our lands. You don't want your mothers to cry? Free our lands. These are our simple and clear terms.
Donbas is Ukraine. And we will return it, whatever the path may be. Crimea is Ukraine. And we will return it. Whatever the path may be. You don't want your soldiers to die? Free our lands. You don't want your mothers to cry? Free our lands. These are our simple and clear terms.
The free people of independent Ukraine!
We are facing this day in different places. Someone is in trenches and dugouts, in tanks and IFVs, at sea and in the air. Fighting for independence on the frontline. Someone is on the road, in cars, trucks and trains. Fighting for independence by delivering what is necessary to those on the frontline. And someone is on a smartphone or on a computer. Also fighting for independence by raising funds so that those on the road have something to bring to those on the frontline.
We are facing this day in different circumstances, conditions and even in different time zones, but with one goal - preservation of independence and victory of Ukraine!
We united.
Happy Independence Day of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
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CON must argue there was not enough illegal election activities to sufficiently challenge the results of the election
well there is no minimally defined standard. As we have seen, Trump challenged the results hundreds of times without ever successfully proving in a single illegal activity.
How about: no proof exists for sufficient illegal activities to overturn the official presidential election result
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TOPIC: The 2020 Election Should Be Decertified Due To Illegal Election Activities That Sufficiently Challenge The Results Of The 2020 Election
- I prefer public policy debate to identify the governmental entity to enact the policy.
How about:
Resolved: THE USFG should decertify the 2020 US Presidential Election due to illegal election activities sufficient to deny Biden's victory
STANCES:PRO must defend the above claim.CON must argue there was not enough election fraud to decertify the election
- fine
DEFINITIONS:The following sections of the U.S. Code will determine the standards for illegal election activities:18 U.S. Code Chapter 29 - ELECTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTIVITIESThat is the section of the U.S. Code that deals with federal election crimes. If you can think of any other pertinent sections of the U.S. Code feel free to list them.For definitions, the U.S. Code, in its entirety, shall supplement the definitions, and where the U.S. Code fails to provide a definition, then The Law's law dictionary will be used:And if neither can provide a definition, then Merriam Webster will be used.
- I have no problem with relying on US law, legal code, constitution, etc.
"Sufficiently challenge" means that illegal election activities more ballots than the margin of victory for Then-candidate Joseph R. Biden.
- This term seems awkward but is also missing a verb, I think
RULES:By participating in this debate, PRO and CON agree to adhere to the following rules:1. Use of logical fallacies are strictly prohibited. Any logical fallacy that exists in this Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies is banned from the debate. All logical fallacies shall be defined according to this Wikipedia webpage. Any deliberate usage of a logical fallacy results in immediate forfeiture and admittance of defeat. Accidental usage can be rectified by not using the fallacy again and moving on with the debate.
- Such a rule is the calling card of fake skeptics. A structurally broken or informally irrelevant argument is less important than the truth value of any conclusion, yet you make no rule against being wrong or deliberately lying.
- To quote the Ethical Skeptic:
- "Most faking skeptics do not grasp principles of soundness, predicate and logical calculus, nor the role of induction inference in the first place. ‘Facts’ are the first rung on the hierarchy which they possess the mental bandwidth to understand and debate."
- Faking skeptics seek to distract from the core modus ponens of a falsification argument by pulling it down into the mud of circumstantial ‘facts’ instead; relying upon the reality that most people cannot discern falsification from inference.
- Informal ‘fallacies’ sound like crushing intellectual blows in an argument, when in fact most of the time they are not. These are tool of those who seek to win at all costs, even if upon an apparent technicality. An arguer who possesses genuine concern about the subject, is not distracted by irrelevant or partially salient technicality.
- Nevertheless, I'll accept this rule since in my experience every debater I've met who has employed this rule breaks it with self-destructive regularity.
2. The rules and definitions of logic shall come from the webpage newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Logic, and not Merriam Webster's online Dictionary or the Wikipedia page. This debate shall be governed by the laws of logic, meaning burden of proof is required by both parties.
- OBJECTION: The New World Encyclopedia is "an Internet encyclopedia that, in part, selects and claims to rewrite certain Wikipedia articles through a focus on Unification values. The Unification Church (the Moonies) is a Korean personality cult with important ties to Right-Wing extremist organizations worldwide. The Unification Church also owns the Washington Times along with other Right-biased media entities in the US.
- Since the New World Encyclopedia just steals all of Wikipedia and then edits the parts their leaders don't like, why can't we just agree to use Wikipedia for commonplace understandings including the use of logic?
3. Any propaganda techniques as defined, outlined, and explained in this wikipedia article are banned from usage:
- Strange rule. By your definition any repetition of Trump's "big lie" fails a common propoganda technique.
4. Any compliance techniques as defined, outlined, and explained in this wikipedia article are banned from usage:
- Another strange rule. By any measure, your draconian bans on fallacies and Propaganda techniques are classic examples of COMPLIANCE GAINING. Your attempt to limit logic rules to those approved by Korean Cult leaders are likewise classic COMPLIANCE GAINING.
5. The rules of grammar and proper english shall come from Farlex's grammar book available here:https://www.thefreedictionary.com/The-Farlex-Grammar-Book.htm. And they will be followed strictly. Deliberate attempts to use gibberish english result in forfeiture of debate by the person who committed the action.
Another weird choice. Why rely on a grammar book that boast of 10,000 copies sold when more tested books of grammar have hundreds of times more sales. Strunk & White is my personal favorite.
6. Using alternative definitions from the ones listed in the above sources is strictly prohibited and results in forfeiture of debate.
and yet the only thing you've defined is "sufficiently challenge" and then missing some essential words, I think. The current definition is not sensible.
7. For the purposes of this debate, evidence is defined by entry 1, definition 1b in Merriam Webster's Online Dictionary (and only including entry 1, definition 1b of testimony) and shall also not break any of the debate rules.
that is ": something that furnishes proof : TESTIMONY
fine
8. Willfully and knowingly disobeying these rules repeatedly results in immediate forfeiture of debate.
- willful or knowing are impossible standards to prove in an online debate. How can I be expected to read your mind?
Does this sound good to you?
we also need to agree on
Time for argument: 3 days or more
Voting system: Open
Voting period: Two weeks or one month
Point system Four points
Rating mode Rated
Number of arguments: 4 or 5
Characters per argument 10,000 or less
I've lately been preferring 5 rounds @ 5000cpa
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Watch as this narrative crumbles to pieces bit by bit over the next two years, but by then it will be old news and oromagi will be on to new conspiracies to allege.
Trump and his lawyers many letters document this narrative thoroughly. But I guess if you don't have any evidence to support your case, magically believing that supporting evidence will appear in the future is a good way to avoid the truth.
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It's not 500 days, NARA sent Trump a letter just 12 weeks after he left office explaining that he had taken a whole bunch of super secret shit that no president is allowed to take home with him and NARA would send a car by tomorrow to pick that shit up.
Everything after that first 12 weeks is Trump breaking the law. NARA began officially requesting documents in May '21 and negotiated back and forth with Trump's lawyers to the end of the year. Finally, Trump agreed to surrender all the stolen records on Jan 15. 2022
NARA took 15 boxes containing 700 pages of classified, top secret, and "need to know only" documents. Trump personally came into the room as they were collecting and advised them they had everything.
In February, they wrote Trump and said that he clearly still had lots of super secret shit and this was a real national security problem and that the FBI needed to see the Jan boxes. Trump's lawyers asked for 2 delays stating that Trump was personally going through his records separating the personal and presidential records from the Federal records, the classified, the top secret records and "need to know records"
At the end of April NARA denied any further delays and asked to FBI to come take a look. Trump said stop! I claim executive privilege. SInce ex-presidents can't claim executive privilege the question was referred to Biden who said I trust the FBI to make the call. A grand jury issued a subpoena on May 12 for all records and also for for security camera footage. Trump's lawyers negotiated the subpoena and on June 3 came to Mar-a-Lago. The lawyers showed them the storage room and allowed the FBI to take everything marked TOP SECRET and above. Trump's lawyers signed testimony that they had surrendered all the top secret stuff, but the security cam footage show Trump's people sneaking a bunch of boxes out of the storage room just before the FBI came so the FBI decided that criminal charges need to be applied and a search assuming a recalcitrant target issued. Merrick Garland really didn't want to do it and asked for alternatives but finding none, approved the search in late July.
Any complaint about 500 days is entirely due to Trump's lying and criminal activity on a very personally engaged basis. At any time before Aug 8th, Trump could have avoided the search and halted a criminal investigation by returning all stolen items.
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@TWS1405
Just made a comment on FascistBook on a video depicting black criminals thieving from a high end store in droves, made the obvious comment “blacks people thieving again,” and I get kicked off (FB jail) for two days!!!
Hmm, your OP claimed that you were permanently banned from Facebook.
To date I have been permanently suspended from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter directly
Which one of these was the lie and why did you feel to compelled to lie about it?
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Fkn edgelord brownshirts should be exposed.
says the dude with JoJo the Hitler Youth for his profile pic. Demanded and exposed in a single sentence. spot on.
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Q: Did you ever get an explanation for why you weren’t supplied with more weaponry before Feb. 24 if Washington knew what was coming?
A: I have no complaints — up to the point when someone starts telling me, “But we were sending you signals.” Up to that point, I have no complaints. But when one is claiming they were sending us some signals, I tell them, “Send us weapons.” I was absolutely right, and I’m sure about it even now.
So as soon as we received serious weapons — I had told them, “Our country is not going to run anywhere, we are ready to fight, give us weapons.” And as soon as we got them, we would fight.
Everyone was afraid of the war. No one wants to wage war with Russia. Look, no one wants to wage war with Russia. Everyone wants Ukraine to win, but no one wants to wage war with Russia. And that’s it. That’s a full stop. And that’s why we had to decide how to stay strong. If no one wants to wage war with them, everyone is scared to fight them — excuse me, then we’ll be deciding how to do that, whether it’s right or wrong. But the war will go farther, deeper into Europe, so please send us weapons, because we are also defending you. And they started sending it.
But is it possible to close the sky now? Just wondering. It’s a rhetorical question.
Q: Regarding Kherson, what can be done to prevent Russia from holding a referendum there? What are you asking from your Western partners right now to help you stop it?
A: They can only take strong and specific steps using sanctions. Because the illegal referendum and the annexation of Kherson, what the Russians are planning to do, is a violation of any — well, I don’t want to talk about international law, they violated it a long time ago. It makes no sense. But countries can do the same thing because it’s a violation of borders. That is, they can definitely impose restricting sanctions. For example, a ban on the entry of all citizens of the Russian Federation to the European Union countries. Good sanctions. I think they are very good and peaceful.
There is nothing in these sanctions that takes away property or human life. I said from the very beginning that I believe that the most important sanctions are to close the borders, because they are taking away someone else’s territory. Well, let them live in their own world until they change their philosophy. So, countries close the borders and put an embargo on energy resources. My personal opinion is that everything else is weaker. There is no complete embargo on the energy supplies, and the borders are not shut.
It’s very simple: Whatever the citizens of the Russian Federation may be — there are those who support and do not support it — their children are there, studying abroad, in schools, universities and so on. Let them go to Russia. There’s nothing scary about that, let them go there. Not forever, please, let them come back.
They’ll just understand then. They say, “Oh, we have nothing to do with this and all people can’t bear the responsibility.” They can. They elected these people and now they are not fighting them, they do not argue with them and don’t shout at them. The Russians who publicly oppose the war are just isolated cases and these people are in prisons. But let Russians go home, let everyone go to Russia. You want this isolation, don’t you? You’re telling the whole world that the whole world will live by your rules. Okay, then go there and live there.
What does this give us? This is the only way to influence Putin. Because this person has no other fear but the fear for his life. And his life depends on whether he is threatened by his internal population or not. Nothing else is threatening to him. That’s the way it is. Therefore, when its population puts pressure on his decisions, then there will be results. And the war will end. These are very understandable sanctions, they are very simple. It’s not about money, it’s not about gas or pipes, or that Germans won’t have heat in the winter. Just close the borders for a year and you’ll see the result.
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You have to know you're on the wrong side of truth when you have to filter a WashPo interview through a Jimmy Dore YouTube channel.
Ask yourself if you have ever once seen Greyparrot criticize Putin, but sure, Zelensky consorts with oligarchs.
Remember 6 months ago when Republicans were all calling out Biden for predicting a Russian invasion, and then they claimed that the EU wouldn't care because they wouldn't dare lose Russian oil. Apparently constantly wrong is no deterrent to the constant expression of new wrongness.
I don't know how one can criticize a guy for not backing Biden's warnings when he clearly says he didn't believe the invasion was likely himself. Zelensky and most of Europe was telling Biden he was wrong. Was Zelensky supposed to prefer Biden's strategic understanding to his own?
Here's that WashPo interview:
Q: When CIA Director William J. Burns met with you here in Kyiv in January, one of the things he told you was that the Russians would attempt a landing at the airport in Hostomel. What was your reaction when that actually happened on Feb. 24? Should there have been more Ukrainian forces already there?
A: Regarding the airport, some six months prior to all of this, and perhaps even earlier, if you remember, there was a gathering of troops on the territory of Belarus and so on. We appealed to all our partners, telling them that we believed this is how they would act. They were training there — and it was well known — to capture or bomb key infrastructure points. They had been training, they had plans to capture Boryspil airport and so on. I don’t know how old these plans are.
They used maps, and the way they were capturing things, some of their paths were the same as those of the Nazis during World War II. So to say they had something unique planned here, it is impossible. Everything we had, it was there.
I’m not ready to talk about everything Burns talked about, but his main signals were about threats to my life. And those were not the first signals — they came from everywhere, from our intelligence services, from foreign colleagues and so on.
Look, as soon as the full-scale invasion began, from that moment on, our economy was losing $5 billion to $7 billion a month. This is wages. And you know the money our partners give us, we cannot spend the money on military salaries. There is some kind of global paradox in all this. I need money so I don’t lose my country. But I can’t spend this money on military salaries. Therefore, simultaneously with the explosions and the shelling, I had a very problematic story. I have to pay salaries to people who go there and die. And you’re hopeless. I don’t have time for reasoning, warnings, commitments — I just have a task to do. I must not allow them to occupy our land, and I have to pay people who die. That’s exactly what it sounds like. There are no sentiments. You have to do this every month.
When it comes to all warnings or signals from certain partners, here is what I explained to them: If we don’t have enough weapons, it will be difficult for us to fight. We will fight them, that’s for sure. And they don’t want to talk. [Russian President Vladimir Putin] hasn’t been willing to communicate for three years. So I don’t want to listen to this nonsense that Russians are ready to talk, this is nonsense. I clearly explained that. Everything we need is weapons, and if you have the opportunity, force him to sit down at the negotiating table with me. I’d been talking about this specifically, because we believed there will be an invasion.
You can’t simply say to me, “Listen, you should start to prepare people now and tell them they need to put away money, they need to store up food.” If we had communicated that — and that is what some people wanted, who I will not name — then I would have been losing $7 billion a month since last October, and at the moment when the Russians did attack, they would have taken us in three days. I’m not saying whose idea it was, but generally, our inner sense was right: If we sow chaos among people before the invasion, the Russians will devour us. Because during chaos, people flee the country.
And that’s what happened when the invasion started — we were as strong as we could be. Some of our people left, but most of them stayed here, they fought for their homes. And as cynical as it may sound, those are the people who stopped everything. If that were to happen, in October — God forbid, during the heating season — there would be nothing left. Our government wouldn’t exist, that’s 100 percent sure. Well, forget about us. There would be a political war inside the country, because we would not have held on to $5 billion to $7 billion per month. We did not have serious financial programs. There was a shortage of energy resources in the market created by the Russians. We did not have enough energy resources. We would not have been able to get out of this situation and there would be chaos in the country.
But it is one thing when chaos is controlled and it is during a military time — you run the state in a different way. You can open the border, close the border, attack, retreat, defend. You can take control of your infrastructure. And it’s another situation when you do not have a military situation or emergency regime in place, and you have a state that is ruled by a huge number of different officials and institutions. And minus $7 billion a month, even without weapons, is already a big war for our country.
Q: So did you personally believe full-scale war was coming?
A: Look, how can you believe this? That they will torture people and that this is their goal? No one believed it would be like this. And no one knew it. And now everyone says we warned you, but you warned through general phrases. When we said give us specifics — where will they come from, how many people and so on — they all had as much information as we did. And when I said, “Okay, if they’re coming from here and it’s going to be heavy fighting here, can we get weapons to stop them?” We didn’t get it. Why do I need all these warnings? Why do I need to make our society go crazy? Since February, even from January as there was a lot going on in the media, Ukrainians transferred out more money than Ukrainians abroad received in assistance. Tens of billions of dollars in deposits have been withdrawn, so Ukrainians spent much more money in Europe compared with the amount Ukrainians had been given there, with all due respect.
Therefore, you must understand that this is a hybrid war against our state. There was an energy blow, there was a political blow — they stirred the pot here, they wanted a change of power from inside the country, thanks to this party. The third blow was during autumn and a financial one. They needed the exchange rate of our currency to be a wartime one so that we did not have gasoline. So they did all this: There was no fuel, we did not have gas, they were cutting us out to ensure that the heating season would lead to destabilization within the country, and for the people to know there are the risks of currency devaluation so they would withdraw money. In general, they did this so we would stop being a country, and by the time of their invasion, we would have been a rag, not a country. That’s what they were betting on. We did not go for it. Let people discuss in the future whether it was right or not right. But I definitely know and intuitively — we discussed this every day at the National Security and Defense Council, et cetera — I had the feeling that [the Russians] wanted to prepare us for a soft surrender of the country. And that’s scary.
Q: I understand concerns about sowing panic and tanking the economy, but what would you say to those Ukrainians who now say, “I would’ve wanted to evacuate my family or just be better prepared”?
A: For all of December, January and February, Ukrainians were withdrawing money out of our economy. We could have been strict about that, but we weren’t letting either the National Bank or anyone else limit the people’s ability to take their money. Although we knew perfectly well that this will affect the country’s economy. The freedom people have in a democratic country is the freedom our people had. They had access to all the information that was available. Sorry, the fact that I wasn’t telling them about the Russians’ plot to do something to me and everything the intelligence services had been reporting to me: “You have to take your family away.” I told them, “How do you imagine that? I’ll be taking my family away, I’ll be doing something, and people will be just staying here? I can’t do that.” Our land is the only thing we have; we’ll stay here together. And then what happened, happened.
Q: If the United States knew for sure that a full-scale invasion was coming, did it give you enough weapons to defend yourself before Feb. 24?
A: Today, I can only be grateful to the U.S. for what we’ve got. But we need to have a clear understanding of the fact that we have always had weapons from the Soviet times. We never had the NATO weapons. The minimum we had from 2014 was, in my view, insufficient. The serious forces we needed, like the HIMARS we can all see now, or, let’s say, the 155-millimeter artillery — I’m not even mentioning tanks and aircraft — we had none of that and we didn’t have a possibility to buy it. The only thing we had agreed on was military drones, Bayraktars, et cetera. But with all due respect, one can’t wage war with drones.
And so, as you probably remember, since the full-scale invasion started and until now, all I’ve been asking is to close the sky, because if the sky was closed, we wouldn’t have all these deaths. And we were offering an alternative to the closed sky: a number of aircraft.
And there was no problem or shortage with that, I think, because we supplied addresses where all those aircraft were. But we never got that opportunity to close the sky. Even now, we are talking about what had been before the war, what had been in 2014, but what’s the point if even today, when this war is on, we haven’t got a chance to close and secure the sky.
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Fauci is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, as well as other numerous professional societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the American Association of Immunologists. He serves on the editorial boards of many scientific journals, as an editor of Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, and as an author, coauthor, or editor of more than 1,000 scientific publications, including several textbooks. On March 23, 2021, Fauci was admitted as an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
Awards and honors
- 1979: Arthur S. Flemming Award
- 1993: Honorary Doctor of Science, Bates College
- 1995: Ernst Jung Prize (shared with Samuel A. Wells, Jr.)
- 1995: Honorary Doctor of Science, Duke University
- 1996: Honorary Doctor of Science, Colgate University
- 1999: Honorary Doctor of Public Service, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
- 2002: Albany Medical Center Prize
- 2003: Golden Plate Award, American Academy of Achievement
- 2005: National Medal of Science, President of the United States
- 2005: American Association of Immunologists Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2007: Mary Woodard Lasker Public Service Award, Lasker Foundation
- 2007: George M. Kober Medal, Association of American Physicians
- 2008: Presidential Medal of Freedom
- 2013: UCSF Medal, University of California, San Francisco
- 2013: Robert Koch Gold Medal, Robert Koch Foundation, Germany
- 2013: Prince Mahidol Award, Prince Mahidol Award Foundation, Thailand
- 2015: Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Johns Hopkins University
- 2015: Honorary Doctor of Public Service, The George Washington University
- 2016: John Dirks Canada Gairdner Global Health Award
- 2018: Honorary Doctor of Science, commencement speaker, American University
- 2018: Honorary Doctor of Science, Boston University
- 2019: Bertrand Russell Society Award
- 2020: Federal Employee of the Year, Partnership for Public Service
- 2020: Presidential Citation for Exemplary Leadership, National Academy of Medicine
- 2020: Ripple of Hope Award, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights
- 2020: Time's Guardian of the Year, along with the frontline health workers, Assa Traoré, Porche Bennett-Bey, and racial justice organizers.
- 2020: Harris Dean's Award, The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy
- 2020: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
- 2020: John Maddox Prize, Sense about Science
- 2021: Public Welfare Medal of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2021: Dan David Prize, Dan David Foundation, Israel
- 2021: President's Medal, The George Washington University
- 2021: Honorary Doctor of Science, McGill University
- 2022: Honorary Doctor of Science, Sapienza University of Rome
- 2022: Honorary Doctor of Science, commencement speaker, University of Michigan
- 2022: Hutch Award winner, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
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Fact Check-Anthony Fauci is not ‘part of Pfizer’ as posts claim
By Reuters Fact Check
5 MIN READ
Posts claiming Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is “part of Pfizer,” the company that has developed one of the COVID-19 vaccines, are false.
The allegation was tweeted on July 22 by Jonathan Feliciano, guard for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) (see archived version: here ) and has since been deleted. Feliciano’s press team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The tweet reads: “It’s been proven that COVID was made in lab. Fauci also a part of Pfizer [thinking emoji] that’s why ppl don’t want to get the vaccine. Sad to come to the realization that you can not trust the government. #dontshootthemessenger”. Facebook posts with screenshots of it can be seen here , here
As explained by Reuters here , the origins of SARS-CoV-2 remain contested among experts. Further information on this can be seen here .
Reuters found no evidence to support the claim that Fauci is involved with Pfizer ( here ).
Any position held in Pfizer or financial relationship with the company would have to be disclosed publicly, as per the Ethics in Government Act ( ethics.od.nih.gov/fd , here ).
Keanna Ghazvini, Senior Associate, Global Media Relations at Pfizer, confirmed to Reuters via email that “Dr. Anthony Fauci never worked at Pfizer.”
Two years after graduating from Cornell University ( here ), Fauci started working at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1968 - as a clinical associate at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) ( www.oar.nih.gov/about/fauci ).
Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984 and has advised seven administrations on health issues such as AIDS and Ebola ( here ).
He is a member of several scientific organizations in the United States such as the National Academy of Sciences ( here ) and the National Academy of Medicine. According to his biography on the NIAID website, he also “serves on the editorial board of many scientific journals” ( here ).
Reuters previously debunked other posts that falsely claimed Fauci was tied to Moderna Inc. ( here )
The NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters. In May 2020, the NIH told USA Today that Fauci “does not own stock in any biomedical or pharmaceutical companies.” ( here )
VERDICT
False. There is no evidence that Anthony Fauci is part of Pfizer, as posts online claim.
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REPUBLICANS SPIN NIH LETTER about CORONAVIRUS GAIN-of-FUNCTION RESEARCH
By Jessica McDonald
Posted on October 26, 2021
Republicans say a letter from a National Institutes of Health official is an admission that the agency funded so-called gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in China, with some falsely linking the work to the pandemic coronavirus. But the research, which the NIH maintains is not gain-of-function, could not have led to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
On Oct. 20, the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Reform Committee released a letter from NIH Principal Deputy Director Lawrence A. Tabak responding to an inquiry about a grant awarded to EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based scientific nonprofit focused on pandemic prevention and conservation.
The grant — which was awarded in 2014 and renewed in 2019 before it was canceled in April 2020 — has been the subject of much controversy. It assessed the potential for bat coronaviruses in China to spillover and infect people and included some experiments mixing and matching elements of different viruses to better understand them. It also involved a collaboration with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
In the letter, Tabak said EcoHealth Alliance had violated the terms of its grant by not immediately reporting an unexpected experimental result in which mice became sicker when infected with a modified coronavirus.
Republicans were quick to interpret the letter as an admission that the agency had funded gain-of-function research.
In commentary accompanying the shared letter, the committee said on Twitter that the NIH “confirmed today EcoHealth and the WIV conducted GOF research on bat coronaviruses” and that NIH was “lied to” by EcoHealth.
Other conservative media outlets echoed these statements, adding that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “lied” about the funding.
As we’ll explain, whether or not the experiments count as “gain-of-function” — research in which a virus or other pathogen is modified to become more virulent or infectious to humans — is up for debate. The NIH has said they do not qualify under its criteria and reiterated that position after the release of Tabak’s letter; other experts have expressed a range of views. There is no evidence that Fauci knowingly gave false information or misled anyone.
Some Republicans, however, went further, using the letter to falsely link the NIH-funded research to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an Oct. 21 interview on Fox’s Ingraham Angle, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the ranking member of the committee, erroneously said that the NIH letter “proves all along that this virus was started in the Wuhan lab.”
The letter does not prove that. In fact, it goes to great lengths to explicitly state the opposite, noting that the viruses used in the experiments are “decades removed from SARS-CoV-2 evolutionarily” and that they “could not have been the source of SARS-CoV-2.”
Previously, other Republicans, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, have at times falsely insinuated that the work could have led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2. Paul got into a heated debate with Fauci in July when both men accused the other of lying.
The falsely suggestive hashtag #FauciLiedPeopleDied also started to appear on Twitter after the letter was posted on the platform.
The EcoHealth Alliance experiments have nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic and did not produce SARS-CoV-2, the NIH says.
“Analysis of published genomic data and other documents from the grantee demonstrate that the naturally occurring bat coronaviruses studied under the NIH grant are genetically far distant from SARS-CoV-2 and could not possibly have caused the COVID-19 pandemic,” NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins said in an Oct. 20 statement, referring to an analysis posted to the NIAID’s website. “Any claims to the contrary are demonstrably false.”
The analysis shows that the viruses used in the EcoHealth Alliance experiments share only around 80% of their genomes with SARS-CoV-2 — a huge difference when making these comparisons.
Much more similar viruses that share 96% to 97% of their genomes with SARS-CoV-2 have been identified. These include BANAL-52, a bat coronavirus found in Laos and reported in September, and RaTG13, a virus sequence collected by the Wuhan Institute of Virology that has also been the subject of much misplaced speculation.
But even these, the analysis explains, are still much too dissimilar to have given rise to SARS-CoV-2.
Setting aside the specific experiments performed with the grant funds, there is no evidence SARS-CoV-2 came from a lab, and many experts say that it’s virtually impossible for it to have been engineered.
In the letter, Tabak describes an alleged grant reporting infraction related to an experiment the agency said was conducted in 2018-2019 and related in a progress report EcoHealth submitted in August 2021.
The experiment, Tabak said, tested whether spike proteins from bat coronaviruses were capable of binding to human ACE2, the receptor that the viruses use to enter cells, in mice.
The experiment is similar to research published in PLOS Pathogens in 2017, which studied two of the same modified viruses. In that paper, researchers used the backbone of WIV1, a bat SARS-like virus reported in 2013, and swapped in the spike proteins of two newly identified bat coronaviruses to see if they, like WIV1, could use the ACE2 receptor to enter human cells grown in a petri dish. They could.
This time, the researchers did a similar experiment, but tested the chimeric viruses in mice. Since mice have their own ACE2 receptor, the animals were engineered to express the human form, but were otherwise unchanged.
“In this limited experiment, laboratory mice infected with the SHC014 WIV1 bat coronavirus became sicker than those infected with the WIV1 bat coronavirus,” Tabak wrote. “As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do.”
As is shown in section 3.1 of the grant progress report, which was provided to and released by the Republicans on the House committee, infection with the viruses killed some of the mice, with the one chimeric virus being especially lethal. That virus killed six of the eight mice, replicated better than WIV1 in various mouse tissues and caused more pathology in the lung.
Tabak said in his letter that the research plan had been reviewed by the agency before funding, and the agency determined that it did not meet the NIH’s definition of gain-of-function — or what the agency terms research involving enhanced pathogens of pandemic potential — “because these bat coronaviruses had not been shown to infect humans.” It therefore was not subject to review under the Department of Health and Human Services’ framework for enhanced pathogens.
But, he added, “out of an abundance of caution and as an additional layer of oversight,” the agency had outlined criteria in the terms and conditions of the grant award for a secondary review, “such as a requirement that the grantee report immediately a one log increase in growth,” meaning a 10-fold increase in viral growth, to “determine whether the research aims should be re-evaluated or new biosafety measures should be enacted.”
“EcoHealth failed to report this finding right away, as was required by the terms of the grant,” the letter reads. “EcoHealth is being notified that they have five days from today to submit to NIH any and all unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under this award.”
Tabak then spent the bulk of the letter’s second page explaining that bat coronaviruses used in the experiments “could not have been the source of SARS-CoV-2 and the COVID-19 pandemic,” as we’ve established.
For its part, EcoHealth disputes NIH’s characterization.
“EcoHealth Alliance is working with the NIH to promptly address what we believe to be a misconception about the grant’s reporting requirements and what the data from our research showed,” said Robert Kessler, the group’s spokesperson, in a statement provided to FactCheck.org. “These data were reported as soon as we were made aware, in our year 4 report in April 2018. NIH reviewed those data and did not indicate that secondary review of our research was required, in fact year 5 funding was allowed to progress without delay.”
The progress report notes that its experiments in mice were “continued” in year 5.
In his statement, Kessler confirmed that the organization’s grant was not ongoing. Collins similarly told CNN that the grant had been suspended “since last year.”
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@3RU7AL
was it a fake ?
- I believe Hunter Biden's story about how his laptop was stolen in 2018. There are seven other claims of lost Hunter Biden laptops. I'm willing to believe one is the hardware stolen from Biden but definitely some claims are bogus and possibly all.
- I believe NY Times and WashPo reporting:
- a small number of emails have been confirmed by some recipients.
- No confirmed e-mails suggest any criminal activity
- Every bit of data on the studied hard drive had been copied and reloaded. Some email dates, unique host identifiers, etc had been re-written. Most of the data was added in late September 2020 (When it was in Giuliani's possession).
was it "russian disinformation" ?
- I side with the 51 Trump administration Intelligence officials who composed an open letter right after the NY Post claims:
- "We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement – just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case"
- All subsequent reporting makes "tampered evidence" definite, "political disinformation on Trump's behalf" almost certain, and "Russian disinformation" likely.
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Hunter Biden's laptop is a total nothingburger.
Ignoring fake news is not a conspiracy.
Ignoring fake news is not fraud.
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No state gets more back than they put in.
and that's why there's never any deficit or debt!
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2019 Federal Tax Revenue
2014 Federal Aid only- not including grants, contracts, salaries, discretionary
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lol look at GP suddenly giving a shit about facts and valid sources. It's like watching a trout operate a backhoe
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Thank you, President Eisgruber, for that kind introduction. Members of the faculty; distinguished guests; family members and friends of the graduates; and you, the 2022 graduating class of Princeton University. It is a pleasure and an honor to be your Class Day speaker, and it is exciting for me to share this fun and celebratory day with you.
I have had the privilege of delivering remarks at a number of graduation exercises over the years. More often than not, I have referred to my own graduation from college many years ago and drawn certain analogies between myself and the students. to illustrate that in the common landmark of college graduation, we likely had shared feelings and common experiences. Clearly, in one respect that does not readily apply to your Class.
The profound ways COVID-19 has disrupted your student years are unprecedented. Viewing the situation from my vantage point at the National Institutes of Health and as a member of the White House COVID Response Team, I have a sincere and heartfelt message to each of you. Years from now, as you recall your experience here at Princeton over the past 2- and one-half years, it will be clear that COVID left an indelible mark on you and your entire generation. Having said that, I am in awe of you all since each of you deserves enormous credit and respect for your extraordinary adaptability, resilience, and dedication to learning, completing your studies, and graduating despite immense difficulties and uncertainties.
Now truth be told, when I think back on my own graduation from college, I cannot remember a word of what the commencement speaker said. And so, years from now I do not expect you to remember what I say. But in the next few minutes, I hope to kindle in you some thoughts.
First:
Expect the unexpected. This is an enduring issue that continues to confront me to this day. Planning one’s path in life is something we all do to a greater or lesser degree. You already have done that to some extent by having chosen Princeton for your undergraduate education. However, in my own experience, some of the most impactful events and directions in my life have been completely unanticipated and unplanned. You are at a period in your lives of virtually unlimited potential and so please keep a completely open mind and do not shy away from dreaming impossible dreams and seizing unanticipated opportunities.
Let me describe an example of such a completely unanticipated challenge and opportunity that profoundly impacted the direction of my career and my entire life.
After graduating from medical school and following years of residency and fellowship training, I began a journey in 1972 as a young clinical investigator at the National Institutes of Health. Over the next nine years, I progressed to what many considered a very successful, safe, and comfortable career in investigative medicine. My future seemed settled. Then, in June 1981 — 41 years ago next month — my life took a turn. I remember quite clearly sitting in my NIH office reading in a CDC report about a handful of cases of an unusual pneumonia among gay men in Los Angeles. A month later, 26 additional cases among gay men from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City, not only with this unusual pneumonia but also other rare infections and cancer, were described in a second CDC report. We did not realize it at the time, but we were witnessing the evolution of one of the worse public health scourges in recent memory – the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I became totally engrossed in and fascinated by this mysterious new disease that did not yet have a name or an etiologic agent. I am still not sure what drove me to do this, but I decided right then and there to make an abrupt turn in the direction of my career, abandon my other research pursuits and investigate the pathogenesis of this mysterious disease. My mentors were horrified and insisted that I was making a career-ending mistake and that this disease would amount to nothing. However, the subsequent emergence of the AIDS pandemic, and my decision to pivot and devote my efforts to this unexpected public health challenge transformed my professional career, if not my entire life, and put me on the path that I am on to this very day.
Now, obviously, not every opportunity or challenge you encounter will influence your careers or your lives or be as dramatic as a mysterious infectious disease outbreak. However, please believe me that you will confront the same types of unpredictable events that I have experienced, regardless of what directions your careers or lives take. And so, expect the unexpected, and stay heads up for an unanticipated opportunity should it present itself. Of course, listen to advice of others who care about you, but at the end of the day, go with your own gut. It can be rewarding, exciting and potentially career- and life-altering.
Next -
The Failings in Our Society.
Our country’s experience with COVID-19 has shone a spotlight on one of the great failings in our society: the lack of health equity. As a physician, I feel that I must highlight this for you today. COVID-19 has exposed longstanding inequities that have undermined the physical, social, economic, and emotional health of racial and ethnic minorities. Many members of minority groups are at increased risk of COVID-19 simply because the jobs they have as essential workers do not allow them to isolate from social activity. More importantly, when people in minority groups are infected with the coronavirus, they have a much greater likelihood of developing a severe consequence due to elevated rates of underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and chronic lung disease, among others, that lead to an increased risk of hospitalization and death.
Very few of these conditions are racially determined. Almost all relate to social determinants of health experienced since birth, including the limited availability of a healthful diet, substandard housing, the lack of access to health care, and tragically, the restrictions and pressures experienced to this day because of the undeniable racism that persists in our society.
Let us promise ourselves that our “corporate memory” of the tragic reality of the inequities experienced with COVID-19 does not fade after we return to our new normal. It will take a decades-long commitment for society to address these disparities. I strongly urge you to be part of that commitment. Together we must find the strength, wisdom, ingenuity, and empathy to address these entrenched elements of injustice, manifested in so many subtle and overt ways, and work with all our might to remedy the cultural disease of racism, just as we fight the viral disease of COVID-19.
Which brings me to my next point of discussion:
Public service and social responsibility. I sincerely believe that regardless of our career paths, we cannot look the other way from pressing societal issues. There are many communities in our own country and globally that are challenged by poverty, drug abuse, violence, inadequate education, discrimination, and despair. Some of you may devote your future careers and lives to directly addressing these societal issues. Understandably, most of you will not. In this regard, public service does not necessarily mean a profession or avocation devoted entirely to public service. One can incorporate elements of public service into your lives regardless of your career choice. This might require your exercising a quality which is my next point of discussion.
Leadership. You are graduating from an extraordinary institution. The very fact that you were chosen to be part of this outstanding Princeton class in my mind puts something of a burden of responsibility upon at least some of you to assume leadership roles in our society. It does not necessarily have to be designated leadership. Leadership can take many forms, including the quiet and subtle leadership of example.
Which brings me to my next issue.
Our Divided Nation. I have spent my entire professional career in Washington, D.C., as a scientist, a physician, and a public health official. Although that career path is fundamentally devoid of politics in the classic sense, being in Washington has allowed me to experience first-hand the intensity of the divisiveness in our nation.
What troubles me is that differences of opinion or ideology have in certain situations been reflected by egregious distortions of reality. Sadly, elements of our society have grown increasingly inured to a cacophony of falsehoods and lies that often stand largely unchallenged, ominously leading to an insidious acceptance of what I call the “normalization of untruths.”
We see this happen daily, with falsehoods propagated through a range of information platforms by a spectrum of people, including, sad to say, certain elected officials in positions of power. Yet, the outrage and dissent against this alarming trend has been muted and mild.
If you take away nothing else from what I say today, I appeal to you, please remember this: It is our collective responsibility not to shrug our shoulders and sink to a tacit acceptance of the normalization of untruths. Because if we do, lies become dominant and reality is distorted. And then truth means nothing, integrity means nothing, facts mean nothing.
This is how a society deteriorates into a way of life where veracity becomes subservient to propaganda rather than being upheld as our guiding principle.
Seek and listen to opinions that differ from your own. But apply your abilities to critically analyze and examine, which you have honed here at Princeton, to discern and challenge weak assertions built on untruths. As future leaders in our society, we are counting on you for that.
In closing, I have been speaking to you over the past few minutes about the serious issues that we are facing in our current world. And so, putting this serious business aside for a moment, I want to close with a reminder about the joyousness of life and what a bright future you all have. Allow yourselves to cultivate this joy as much as you do your professional accomplishments. Find your source of joy and happiness and fully embrace it. And think upon your future as that stated by the American Political Theorist John H. Schaar: “The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. The paths are not to be found, but made, and the activity of making them changes both the maker and the destination”
Congratulations to you, to your families, and to your loved ones. Good luck and God bless you.
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@Polytheist-Witch
Don't even get me started on what Xena Warrior Princess did to Greek Mythology
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@Public-Choice
IWantRooseveltAgain: Trump is guilty!!! He colluded with them dirty Ruskis!!!FBI: No.CIA: No.NSA: No.CID: No.State Department: No.CISA: No.U.S. Army Cyber Command: No.Senate Intelligence Committee: No.Reality: No.
- This is false. Not one of these organizations have denied Trump collusion with Russia. "Collusion" is not a legal term or Federal standard, that is the word Trump uses to avoid legal standards. "No collusion" is Trump's strawman argument
Mueller Report:
- In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted
a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.”
- while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to
the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was
not sufficient to support criminal charges.
- Because
- the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump
Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated
individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian
election interference.
- The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that “the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions” in violation of “the
constitutional separation of powers.”
- we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person’s conduct
“constitutes a federal offense.”
- Consistent with our jurisdiction to investigate federal
obstruction crimes, we gathered evidence that is relevant to the elements of those crimes and
analyzed them within an elements framework—while refraining from reaching ultimate
conclusions about whether crimes were committed, for the reasons explained above.
- Mueller then goes on provide the evidence that Trump committed 11 felony acts of Obstruction of Justice and refers that evidence to BIll Barr who then wrote the 4 page "nothing to see here" memo
- Mueller replied to Barr that he "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions" and that this led to "public confusion"
- Mueller also made 14 criminal referrals redacted for reasons of National Security or ongoing investigation. We still don't know what 12 of these were about.
- On May 29th, Mueller testified before Congress "there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. That allegation deserves the attention of every American".
- Mueller recommended that Senate take up impeachment proceedings
- Mueller advised that he thought Presidents generally could be charged with theses crimes once they are out of office.
FBI: No.
- Mueller advised that he handed the counterintelligence half of the investigation back to the FBI early into his investigations.
- Rod Rosenstein quickly quashed any counterintelligence investigation into Trump
- No counterintelligence (spying) investigation was ever started on Trump or his lackies until after Trump left office.
CIA: No.
- "Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression
of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these
activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort
compared to previous operations.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
have high confidence in these judgments. We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s
election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her
unfavorably to him
- The CIA did not investigate Trump's involvement in Russia's campaign but did increasingly withhold assessments specific to Russia as Trump's conduct increasingly undermined counterintelligence programs.
- The CIA halted Trump's daily intelligence briefings after Jan 6.
NSA: No
- The NSA does not investigate the President
- Here's one of Trump's NSA Director's assessment of Trump on Russia:
- During an interview with Bolton, Newsmax host Rob Schmitt said that “there is something to be said, though, about the simple fact that there was not aggression during the four years” Trump was in office, noting a list of actions that the Washington think tank Brookings Institution said the Trump administration took against Russia. “I mean, he took a very tough stance against Russia. I’m surprised you don’t think that he would have handled it better than Joe Biden,” Schmitt told Bolton.
- “He did not,” Bolton replied. “We didn’t sanction Nord Stream 2. We should have. We should have brought the project to an end. We did impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs and several others because of their sales of S-400 anti-aircraft systems to other countries. But in almost every case, the sanctions were imposed with Trump complaining about it, saying we were being too hard.”
- “The fact is that he barely knew where Ukraine was. He once asked John Kelly, his second chief of staff, if Finland were a part of Russia. It’s just not accurate to say that Trump’s behavior somehow deterred the Russians,” Bolton said.
CID: No.
- Never investigated the Commander in Chief, obviously. The Army CID did find that Flynn illegally accepted $40,000 in bribes from Russia.
State Department: No.
- Did not investigate the President, made no report
CISA: No.
- Founded by Trump Admin in 2018
U.S. Army Cyber Command: No.
- Did not investigate the President made no report
Senate Intelligence Committee: No.
- Agrees with Mueller Report and Intelligence committee reports with some additional findings:
- The (Republican-led) Committee report found that the Russian government had engaged in an "extensive campaign" to sabotage the election in favor of Donald Trump, which included assistance from some members of Trump's own advisers (i.e., collusion)
- Paul Manafort is a "a grave counterintelligence threat" directly connected to the Russian theft of Clinton-campaign email
- In fact, Manafort now confesses to working with Kilimnik in interviews over the past few weeks.
- "Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his Campaign about Stone's access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions"
- Trump denied this in his testimony to Mueller
Reality: No.
- Mueller documents 170 contacts between Trump and 18 of his insiders with Russian operatives. That is, just from what we know happened, Trump's inner circle was averaging almost daily contact with Russian operatives, many with direct links to Putin. Based on the super covert conduct of the meetings we know about, we should assume many, many more meetings were missed. Almost every single contact was denied by Trump's insiders and the purposes of all these many meeting is either never explained or generally lied about.
- Why that is not sufficient evidence of a conspiracy to get you convicted in a court of law, it is nevertheless fairly compelling evidence of a conspiracy generally.
COLLUSION is not a legal standard but it is also not a particularly high bar: A secret agreement for an illegal purpose. Trump's secrecy and frequency of contact with Russia is well established. If we can infer from all that secrecy some concealment of an illegal purpose, then collusion seems as nice as any word to put on all that whispering in the dark with foreign enemies.
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@Public-Choice
In the FBI investigation documents, Mueller literally states that when the Russian lawyer approached them with dirt on Clinton, after Trump Jr. And others heard the dirt and approached Trump, then-candidate Trump declined the deal.
- This is false. Mueller said nothing like this.
- Trump told Reuter's on July 12, 2017 (more than a year after the meeting when the NY Times got hold of emails confirming the meeting) that the first time he had heard of the meeting was a couple days before, so July 10, 2017. Trump has never contradicted this obvious lie so his official story remains that he was that he was totally out of it, start to finish.
- Trump's official testimony to Mueller regarding knowledge of the meeting is:
- "I have no recollection of learning at the time that Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, or Jared Kushner was considering participating in a meeting in June 2016 concerning potentially negative information about Hillary Clinton. Nor do I recall learning during the campaign that the June 9, 2016 meeting had taken place, that the referenced emails existed, or that Donald J. Trump Jr., had other communications with Emin Agalarov or Robert Goldstone between June 3, 2016 and June 9, 2016."
- The Mueller report never states that Trump declined anything.
- The Mueller report states that while the subject of the Jun 9th meeting is unknown,
- Team Trump was extremely excited about the meeting, with Trump himself promising major revelations on Clinton at a Jun 7th rally.
- Team Trump seemed unhappy and ended the meeting in under 20 mins after Kushner left abruptly. Goldman later apologized profusely to Team Trump by email for ever setting up the meeting.
- Everybody lied about the meeting ever happening until the NY Times got Trump Jr's "I love it" email.
- Everybody told different, contradictory stories for the first few days after the NYT story until Trump Jr's lawyer, Alan Futerfas sent out a timeline of the meeting and the subjects discussed to all participants. Then everybody but Veselnitskaya told the same story.
- Veselnitskaya misrepresented herself to several US investigators as a private lawyer in town representing a friend and doing a little lobbying on the side. Investigators later determined that Veselnitskaya was a longtime Federal prosecutor in regular contact with Putin's Chief Prosecutor . Veselnitskaya had hired Fusion GPS, perhaps to investigate Browder's donations to Clinton, and met with Fusion GPS immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
- Fusion GPS also assembled the Steele Dossier
- This is purely speculative but The Agalarovs' primary connection to Trump was the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, the golden showers show in Vegas and the alleged golden showers show at Ritz-Carlton Moscow that the Steele Dossier claims was recorded for the purpose of extorting Trump. Why the Agalorovs would be represented at a meeting about Russian adoptions or the Magnitsky Act or Clinton campaign donations, etc. has never been made any sense but their presence might help explain why everybody is lying about that meeting.
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@Bones
Social media is, in and of itself, supposed to be politically neutral.
You can either have free speech or you can enforce political neutrality. You can't have both.
So, in summary, I asked you to show evidence supporting your claim
"cancel culture" is almost always directed to the right.
and you gave me one cancelled leftist.
and I asked you to show evidence supporting your claim
Twitter highlights that "misgendering" is violent crime
in your defense of Tate's ban for "strong intent to engage in offline violence in the near future," but Twitter calls misgendering denigration, not violence.
I look forward to our debate on "THBT: The Hunter Biden Laptop poses national security threats to the United States of America"
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@sadolite
-->@oromagiYes yes yes a link from the internet. Irrefutable.
wrong again!
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@Bones
I'm arguing that, in the platforms which matters, it is always directed at the right. I'm not "giving the right a pass", I am merely saying that Truth Socials impact is so small that they are not worth discussing.
- We agree that collectively, Right-wing social media does not amount to much.
Twitter, for example highlights that "misgendering" is violent crime.
- I see Twitter call misgendering hate and degradation but I can't find anything that backs your claim that Twitter calls misgendering a violent crime. Can I get a link to where you see that?
They label it as hate speech, which in and of itself admits that Twitter is systemically anti-right in terms of this policy. Further, it's pretty common for people to claim that misgendering is "violence", and that certain other forms of speech also fall under this same category.
- Your claim was Twitter defines misgendering as violence. Since you are now agreeing that Twitter only defines misgendering as hate and degradation but not violence and you've moved on to argue irrelevantly that some people claim that misgendering is "violence" I'll assume you no longer stand by your original claim.
"Violence" is a very subjective term.Is it tho? Physical force or the threat of physical force seems pretty objective to me.It is, but violence refers too much more than merely physical force, as I stated in my last post.
- Well, you predicated that claim on exactly one example "that Twitter defines misgendering as violence." You don't seem to be standing by that claim so I don't see any reason to accept your claim that violence is a very subjective term. Let's define violence as physical force or the threat of same and agree that Facebook is reasonable obligated to react to posts expressing "strong intent to engage in violence." Facebook has claimed this is the reason for Tate's ban but I think we agree Facebook's claim has not been substantiated.
I think the reason Leftists don't get banned as often is because they are less likely than the Right-wing to be expressing "strong intent to engage in violence." Do you agree that this might be true and reasonably account for the difference?Off pure instinct, I think I would agree, though my instinct could be clouded by some extreme and often outrageous Right Wing pundits (you here more about Richard Spencer, Milo and Alex Jones than you do violent left wingers).
- But if you agree that they are more violent in expression then perhaps the main reason we hear more about them (and therefore, the main reason they perform those expressions) is because if it bleeds it leads- violence sells better than non-violence.
But still, there are many examples which show that, as a landscape, Right Wing beliefs are actively discouraged. Destiny (streamer), for example, was meant to be banned indefinitely for "claims that transwomen shouldn't compete with ciswomen in women's athletics".
- Again, not a culture that interests me at all, but I think all that gamer melodrama is just as likely to be phony promotional conflict a la professional wrestling, Real Housewives of, Khardashians, etc.
- Wikipedia gives me:
- In March 2022, Bonnell was indefinitely banned from Twitch for "Promoting, encouraging, or facilitating the discrimination or denigration of a group of people based on their protected characteristics."
- Bonnell describes himselfas an "Omniliberal", a phrase he uses to describe a person who believes in the core principles of liberalism, freedom and equality, whilst believing in elements of other ideologies in a "pragmatic way". Bonnell has variously described himself as "a very big social democrat", a "hardcore capitalist"and "classical liberal", a "rule utilitarian", and an "agnostic atheist". He has argued against both far-right politics and far-left politics, ] He has cited his poverty during his teenage and college-aged years as an influence on his views, and says that he prefers to argue based on empirical data rather than moral suasion.
- In 2020, Bonnell supported the general election campaign of Joe Biden. Following Biden's victory, Bonnell led a canvassing campaign in support of Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the 2020–21 Georgia Senate runoffs. With the help of approximately 140 volunteers mobilized from Bonnell's online audience, the campaign knocked on an estimated 17,500–20,000 doors in Columbus, Georgia, making it one of the larger campaigns of the election.
- So, in defense of your claim, "cancel culture" is almost always directed to the right" your only concrete example of a right-winger actually identifies as a classical liberal.
- I'm not saying you're wrong because I haven't researched expert opinion.
- I do know for a fact from long experience and US History that right-wingers going well past the Whiskey Rebellion and the Lost Cause have this narrative of victimization and oppression while also doing the greater portion of the victimizing and oppressing. Therefore, I am skeptical about claims like "cancel culture" is almost always directed to the right"
- I'm just saying I remain quite skeptical. I think its more a matter of lefties seeing "cancel culture" as somehow different from censorship and righties seeing censorship as somehow different from "cancel culture". Since leftists are the champions of free speech generally, I do suppose they ought to be held to a higher standard.
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@PREZ-HILTON
1. You mention that the ruling class isn't a big enough amount of people to really be considered a genocide.
Nope. GENOCIDE is "The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of their ethnicity, religion, or nationality" The systematic killing of a whole class in called CLASSICDE. The systematic killing of the leaders is called ELITOCIDE.
you explain you think it typically results in more totalitarianism and less freedom.
Which is why the rational people of the Age of Reason invented democracy.
I would say that the ruling class is big enough to genocide.
Its not about size, its about cultural homogeneity. Its not GENOCIDE if you aren't murdering people because of their race, country or creed.
I don't know the number of people who have a net worth of over 100 million in America
34,507 households- say roughly 100,000 people in those households including children but not including servants.
but we you combine them with every politician and retired politician, it's likely at least a 2 million deaths total.
519,682 elected officials, 96% local govt.
You also ignore the question of whether those people deserve punishment.
Well, that's quite false. I said that the American tradition is to vote them out of office.
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@IwantRooseveltagain
-->@SidewalkerPlus, it doesn't matter whether or not he "secretly" declassified the documents.Did you even read the article you linked ? It says he broke the law (Espionage Act) even if he secretly declassified the documents.
Yes. That's why Sidewalker started by saying "Plus, it doesn't matter whether or not he "secretly" declassified the documents."
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@Bones
Truth social is not a cornerstone for online interaction - it is no where near the prominence of Facebook and Instagram. If it were, then I would be extending my critique onto it, but as of now, it is an echo chamber for the right, and not a platform which is for the masses. Facebook's influence is akin to a public square - it is for the people.
- Your original argument was that the practice was always directed at the right. Now you're giving the right a pass because they're less good at social media than the left. Seems like special pleading to me.
"Violence" is a very subjective term.
Is it tho? Physical force or the threat of physical force seems pretty objective to me.
Twitter, for example highlights that "misgendering" is violent crime.
- I see Twitter call misgendering hate and degradation but I can't find anything that backs your claim that Twitter calls misgendering a violent crime. Can I get a link to where you see that?
I agree, but being an asshole is not a criteria for getting banned of Instagram and Facebook.
- I agree but the govt can't force a business to damage its brand name in the name of free speech, either. "strong intent to engage in violence" seems like a rational standard for any business. That can and should get you kicked out of a bar or restaurant, a concert or sports event. I don't see why the same rational standard can't apply on Facebook. I also understand that they might feel obligated not to share the specifics with us but that makes the reasonableness of their decision hard to evaluate.
You haven't answered my question about Leftists. I think the reason Leftists don't get banned as often is because they are less likely than the Right-wing to be expressing "strong intent to engage in violence." Do you agree that this might be true and reasonably account for the difference?
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@Bones
It really irks me that this sort of "cancel culture" is almost always directed to the right.
Is this true? I have not gone on Truth Social but I see a lot of stories that posts and people get banned for Jan 6 content, pro-abortion content, etc.
- Study Says Trump’s Truth Social Is Much More Aggressive, And Much More Arbitrary, In Moderating Content
- Trump's purported free-speech social-media platform, Truth Social, is hiding user posts, threatening to create a curated 'echo chamber,' research group finds
Most media skipped DeSantis' rally in Ohio last night because journalists had to apply for the right to attend, any interview with any attendee had to be pre-approved by DeSantis' team, any footage had to be approved by DeSantis, and recording of the actual event was prohibited .
These practices certainly seem more broadly censorious than shutting down a social media influencer.
How often is it that you see some far left, communist, gender/race abolitionist, anti money SJW getting banned for being too extreme?
- Facebook says the standard they are employing is "strong intent to engage in offline violence in the near future," which seems pretty antithetical to the people I think of as advocating social justice online. I don't think there's really such a thing a sincere communist but the posers I meet online don't seem interested in promoting violence. Same thing with anti-capitalists. I don't know what a gender/race abolitionist is but are they calling for violence?
- I also don't know if Andrew Tate promotes violence. I know many tweeters, feminist groups, etc say he does but that ain't evidence, really. I see he's under investigation for kidnapping two women in April but no charges have been filed. I see he first became famous for a video of him beating a women with a belt that he claims was just funning.
- He seems like a real asshole but if there's some actual statement of intent to engage in offline violence in the near future, I don't see any report detailing it. But then, maybe the policy is to wipe the statement of intent and not re-publish it on principle. I just can't tell.
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@Wylted
-->@oromagiYou are getting lost in the details. The example is something meant as a jumping off point for a deeper conversation.
- I don't think it can be fairly said that you are intellectually honest enough to hold your end in any deeper conversation in any subject.
- Let's recall that your thesis is: VICTIMS of GENOCIDE GENERALLY DESERVE DEATH ...Right?
- So
- Native Americans in 1500,
- the Holocaust,
- Holodomor,
- The Killing Fields,
- Armenia,
- Rwanda,
- the Rape of Nanking,
- they all had it coming: that's your thesis.
- But then your disinformed argument was that the rulers have it coming and ignorantly asserted that the theists and democrats of Cambodia were somehow the ruling class while the actual aristocracy and royals in the Khmer rouge were somehow their unhappy subjects.
- In other words, your information is the exact opposite of the truth, but you don't let that fact interfere with your manifestly stupid, wrong conclusion.
- In other words, you don't know how to tell elites from the middle class or the working class or the poor and you don't care, you just hope to justify GENOCIDE.
- Now you're saying I should disregard your lack of fundamental facts as mere detail and focus on your thesis, which, unsurpisingly, is profoundly changed:
If the ruling class deserves a disproportionate amount of the blame for the failures of society, do they deserve to be genocided because of it?
- By definition, GENOCIDE is the mass murder of whole classifications of people: Ukrainians, Polish Jews, Buddhist Cambodians, etc
- By definition, the ruling class of any society is a very tiny minority- one or two from every million.
- By definition, the ruling class is not ever "a people" and so, by definition, you can't ever GENOCIDE the rulers.
- Again you have your disinformation calibrated to the opposite of the facts.
- The ruling class commits 100% of all GENOCIDEs and is never the victim of GENOCIDE.
- What you are talking about is regicide. Before the Age of Reason, about 21% of monarchs were murdered by their subjects.
- This often meant civil war, purges, dynastic power struggles, getting taken over by foreign powers, etc.
- Incredibly inefficient and economically destructive
- The subject of half of Shakespeare- Hamlet, MacBeth, King Leer, Henry IVs, Henry VIs, Richards II & III, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, etc, etc, etc. so much of history was just super wasteful killing king after king.
- When the Age of Reason arrived, rational people called Leftists invented democracy as a more efficient method of peacefully transferring power.
If not how should they be punished if at all and why?
- Here in America, we limit the maximum damage a bad leader can do to 8 years with a humiliating two-year marathon we call a presidential campaign before the four year mark. If they don't perform this marathon pretty well we vote them out at year four.
- Here in the US, we are taught this lesson in third grade social studies.
It's an important question because a lot of people in every country on the planet is suffering and there are political leaders who potentially can lead them to commit atrocities against the ruling class or at least perceived ruling class.
- Mostly a terrible idea. Only about 12% of violent regime changes improve the economy or the quality of life for the people. Only half of coup attempts succeed but almost all coup attempts result in increased autocracy, increased misery for the people. That's why smart people invented democracy.
The far left in a country can potentially seize power and start slaughtering wealthy business men.
- This almost never happens. This is the purpose for which leftists invented democracy as a solution to right wing coups and purges.
- The one example that I think genuinely fits your description is the rise of Robespierre, his execution and the year called "The Reign of Terror" in 1793 France, which clearly surrendered all pretense to Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite in the course of that year.
- To the extent that some revolutionaries and regicides call themselves left-wingers in ideology but fail to give power to the the people after taking control, -Communist revolutions in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, The glorious revolution, Napoleon, those projects failed to live up to the definition of left wing anymore. If the people aren't in power then it ain't left wing.
The far left and far right both feed off of cynicism which causes some hatred or anger towards existing power structures.
- The smart efficient leftist solution is called democracy. The brutish, wasteful rightist solution is called regicide/coup.
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@Wylted
I don't much about Cambodia but I know enough to say your argument in rooted in deep ignorance and stupidity.
Your argument is
P1: In 1975, The Communist Khmer Rouge overthrew the 3 year old US-backed Khmer Republic and killed everybody who supported Democracy or Theism
P2:The Khmer Republic was in charge and so must have been responsible for the Khmer Rouge's discontent
C1: Therefore, the massacre of all pro-Democracy or Buddhist Cambodians was entirely just.
The khmer Rouge did not just randomly decide to start killing people, things were bad. real bad.
Nobody was more responsible for the state of Cambodia in 1975 then Khmer Rouge who re-installed the same monarchy ruling Cambodia since the King of Siam installed the in 1796. Pol Pot and his companions were children of the Cambodian aristocracy, educated for free at the Sorbonne and the salons of Paris because their parent served overseers and muscle for the French Imperial plantation state of Cambodia. They studied Marx and Mao and preached the ruthless destruction of the Buddhist priesthood and the middle-class as the obstacle to absolute atheist power over the peasantry on behalf of their benefactor Mao and Ho Chi MInh.
The people in Cambodia that had the most influence over the direction of society, and therefore the most blame, were the wealthy, the educated, the politicians. The same exact people that khmer rouge targeted.
This is profoundly ignorant of the facts and basically just blind faith autocratic propaganda. Cambodia was a monarchy held up by the French government until the Communist Revolution in China destabilized all of southeast Asia. As the French withdrew, the aristocracy turned to Mao and Ho Chi Minh to help them uphold the aristocracy against the increasingly discontent peasants but now King Sihanouk was held in power by the right and left extremes against which proved entirely unsustainable. In 1970 a massive peasant's revolt against foreign occupation by the North Vietnamese army (while King Sihanouk was partying in Europe) dethroned the King and installed a new Cambodian Republic with majority support although a substantial minority still wanted a King and just wanted Vietnam and China out. That minority was exploited by the exiled aristocrats. The North Vietnamese immediately invaded Cambodia and a bloody civil war was fought for four years with the Khmer Rouge and the elites siding with the North Vietnamese invasion. With heavy Chinese backing the alliance of elites and foreigners overthrew the people and installed a Maoist atheist state but also hypocritically re-instated the King and Pol Pot's aristocracy.
Wylted stupidly thinks that Khmer Rouge was some kind of grassroots people's movement overthrowing and murdering the aristocracy in Cambodia but the exact opposite was true. When Wylted talks about the intellectuals, he is using Pol Pot's codespeak for Buddhist monks, who were generally the teachers and thinkers and philosophers of Cambodia. Wylted is endorsing forced atheism by mass murder of anybody who says there is a god.
Naturally, the King betrayed his people in favor of foreign powers again in 1079 and sided with the Vietnamese against the Khmer Rouge, beginning another civil war that the Vietnamese slowly won over the next 20 years. The King's grandson is now king and the elite families that always controlled the Cambodian people with the help of foreign powers still reigns supreme over a poor and subject people.
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@Vici
so are you back to being Wylted now?
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@Intelligence_06
You can put this topic in the history section and it won't even feel weird.
I could also put it in Debate.com, Artistic Expressions, Current events, or Miscellaneous and it wouldn't feel weird. It's not like the categories aren't super-overlapped and fuzzy now. But is you want to talk about Hannibal crossing the Alps, what's your best option now, Miscellaneous?
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@3RU7AL
only a true genius disputes a source without disputing the facts
I don't dispute the facts as reported (although as I said, your source forgot to tell you some pretty important information). I question your judgement linking to the worst sort of source of possible (like actually greyparrot level kind of sources) while also demonstrating that you have access to the best sort of source possible.
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@PREZ-HILTON
What I meant was that your metaphor was pretty dumb.
A boat doesn't start sinking unless it is manned by a shitty captain.
- So let's test the wisdom of your little aphorism with a thought experiment. You are on sailboat with the finest of all possible sailboat captains. The sailboat is hit fore and aft by two torpedoes launched from a Virginia-class submarine. Will the boat refuse to sink because of the quality of its captain?
- wisdom falsified
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