The rollercoaster ride that was Donald Trump’s presidency has ground to a halt but, thanks to former Russia advisor Fiona Hill’s new account of his White House, the media can look forward to yet more twists and turns in the story.
Trump-bashers will be delighted with what they find in the yarn, published this week by Foreign Affairs magazine. Formerly the senior director for European and Russian Affairs on the US National Security Council, Hill denounces her former boss for his reluctance to read his briefs, his inability to stay on script during meetings with foreign leaders, his “willingness to abuse his executive power,” his alleged authoritarianism, and his tenuous relationship with the truth. Hill is an ex-employee, but clearly not an admirer.
So much for Trump. But what did Hill think about Russia during her time in office? It was, after all, her job to advise the president on all things Russian. And here we run into a problem. For it appears that Hill’s understanding of the country and its relationship to the United States is rather strange.
A decade ago, Hill co-authored a study of Russian President Vladimir Putin entitled ‘Mr Putin: Operative in the Kremlin’. As Putin books go, it was of a better standard than many. Consequently, many Russia-watchers viewed her appointment to the White House as a positive step and hoped that it would lead to a more reasonable American policy towards Russia.
These hopes remained unfulfilled, and under Trump, relations between Washington and Moscow continued to deteriorate. One can’t blame Fiona Hill for this, since judging by her article, Trump never paid any attention to her advice. Indeed, she says that she only spoke to Trump once and he promptly ignored her. Nevertheless, her article is of interest for what it tells us about how the Washington ‘blob’ understands Russia. And it’s more than a little odd.
First, Hill likes to tell readers with great confidence what Putin is thinking and what he wants, without ever saying how she knows what’s going inside the Russian president’s head. “Putin realized that… the United States was beginning to resemble his own country,” she says, a rather strange statement since, as far as I know, Putin has never even suggested such a thing in public. “Putin recognized Trump as a type and grasped his political predilections immediately,” Hill says. Again, how does she know?
Alas, this degree of confidence about ‘What Putin Wants’ is far from unique to Hill. It’s extremely widespread. But it stands on very shaky soil. It also often contradicts what Putin has actually said. In the eyes of many commentators, Putin isn’t a politician but an empty vessel to be loaded up with malign intentions and grand plots that somehow can’t be attributed to any actual part of the Russian state.
More than that, Hill develops a very strange thesis that indirectly blames Russia for America’s internal political and social crises. This she does by suggesting that America is becoming Russia, importing from the latter all the negative elements that Hill associates with Russian life.
On the one hand, this displays an understanding of Russia founded on negative stereotypes. On the other hand, it grants Russia a degree of influence that is far beyond its actual potential.
According to Hill, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americans hoped that Russians would become more like them. Instead, the opposite has happened. “The United States has begun to move closer to Russia, as populism, cronyism, and corruption have sapped the strength of American democracy,” she writes.
Putin purportedly helped this process of Russianization along – which is strange, if you think about it, because allegedly he did it to undermine the US. But that implies that Putin thinks that being like Russia is a bad thing! “We are rotten – so let’s make them more like us,” seems to be the logic. One has to doubt that that’s how Putin views the world.
Again and again, though, Hill tells her readers that in doing all his terrible things, Trump was in some way aping Putin, in the process turning America into Russia. “The similarities between Trump and Putin were glaringly obvious,” she says, citing for instance “their shared manipulation and exploitation of the media,” (what ruler anywhere doesn’t try to do that?) while ignoring the fact that the then-US president spent his days glued to the TV and furiously typing out posts on Twitter, whereas his Russian counterpart doesn’t own a smartphone and apparently doesn’t even use the internet.
Both, she goes on, compiled “personal lists of enemies.” Did they? If so, they haven’t come to light – or not from the Kremlin at least. “Putin put statues of Soviet-era figures back on their pedestals,” while Trump defended Confederate statues, Hill tells us. Apart from being very different things, Putin hasn’t actually done that. Instead, he’s supported the erection of statues of the likes of pre-revolutionary Tsarist Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin and Soviet-era anti-Communist author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. One has to wonder how well the president’s Russia advisor actually knew her subject.
Most boldly, Hill tells us that the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol building in Washington by pro-Trump demonstrators bore a remarkable similarity to Russian coups, such as that in August 1991. But the two events were, of course, completely different – the one being a mob briefly storming a government building and then leaving again, and the other being an armed coup by government officials involving the deployment of tanks and the effective detention of the head of state.
Still, Hill ploughs on. “The ‘Big Lie’ that Trump had won the election… was yet one more way in which, under Trump, the United States came to resemble Russia, where Putin has long solidified his grip on power by manipulating the Russian media, fueling nationalist grievances, and peddling conspiracy theories,” she says. As a description of Putin’s methods of government, it’s a bit simplistic.
This week, the RAND Corporation published an analysis of what motivates Russian military interventions beyond Russia’s borders. Among other things, the report concludes that there is no evidence to support the claim that such interventions are designed to detract popular attention from internal problems. Nevertheless, Hill tells us that “Putin blurs the line between domestic and foreign policy to distract the Russian population from the distortions and deficiencies of his rule.” Again, it’s a claim that seems to contradict reality.
Overall, Hill’s thesis fails to convince. Her vision of Russia and of Vladimir Putin comes across as rather unsophisticated and one-sided, and often contrary to the evidence. Furthermore, if America is suffering from deep internal divisions, it has nothing to do with Russia. Nor does it mean that it is becoming like Russia. America’s problems are almost entirely of its own making. Fiona Hill complains that Donald Trump didn’t listen to her. Perhaps he was right.
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
The head of the Australian state of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, has abruptly resigned just before a corruption watchdog launched a probe into potential misconduct, stating that she had “no option” but to quit.
“My only regret will be not to be able to finish the job to ensure the people of New South Wales transition to living freely with Covid,” Berejiklian – among the country’s most vocal advocates of draconian lockdown measures – said on Friday, as she announced her resignation, soon after the state’s Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) declared an upcoming probe.
My resignation as premier could not happen at a worse time, but the timing is completely outside of my control as the ICAC has chosen to take this action during the most challenging weeks of the most challenging times in the history of NSW.
Despite her resignation, Berejiklian stated “categorically” that she had “always acted with the highest level of integrity” while in office, lamenting that the move came during the “darkest days” in NSW’s history – presumably referring to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has kept NSW in a near-perpetual state of lockdown for months on end.
The ICAC said it will investigate potential conflicts of interest linked to public grants awarded to certain organizations between 2012 and 2018, some of which occurred prior to Berejiklian’s premiership, when she served in a lower office in the state government. The corruption watchdog will hold public hearings later this month to probe the matter further.
The investigation initially centered on former NSW legislator Daryl Maguire, alleging that, while Berejiklian had been in a “secret” personal relationship with him, she may have “engaged in conduct that constituted ... a breach of public trust” by helping to funnel government grant dollars into organizations in Maguire’s district.
Maguire, who previously served alongside Berejiklian in the state’s Liberal Party, resigned in 2018 over a separate series of corruption allegations linked to property deals with an overseas developer.
San Francisco commuters found themselves stranded on the city’s iconic Golden Gate Bridge for over an hour after protesters created a blockade to halt traffic while they agitated for legislation protecting illegal migrants.
The demonstrators reportedly parked their vehicles on the bridge, blocking northbound lanes, shortly before 7am on Thursday. California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers then shut down southbound lanes, heading into the city from Marin County, and traffic wasn’t moving again in both directions until about 8:30am.
Protesters chanted slogans and marched with signs on the roadway. Some gave speeches from the bed of a truck. Organizers from the Bay Area Coalition for Economic Justice and Citizenship for All said about 40 migrant families and allies participated in blocking the bridge.
One video from the scene, posted on Twitter, shows the protesters chanting, “What do we want? Papers for all. When do we want it? Now.” Some of the chants were done in Spanish, such as “Si se puede,” meaning “Yes we can.”
Protesters have blocked traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge to demand Congress grant a pathway to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented people @sfchroniclepic.twitter.com/gDzGQaKBcU
Immigration activists were angry that their amnesty agenda wasn’t included in a budget-reconciliation bill pending in Congress. The US Senate’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, said earlier this month that Democrat provisions providing a pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens couldn’t be rolled into the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.
Including those provisions in the reconciliation bill would prevent Republicans from blocking it through a filibuster, but MacDonough, the nonpartisan arbiter of Senate rules, reportedly said the tactic wasn’t permissible, as its budget effect was “merely incidental” to its policy impact.
The Golden Gate protesters carried a large banner demanding that Democrats “override the parliamentarian.” Organizers said in a statement that Vice President Kamala Harris and top Democrat lawmakers must force the immigration measure into the reconciliation bill.
“Immigrant communities cannot wait another 20 years of failed promises...,” the statement said. “The time to deliver economic justice, climate justice and citizenship for all is now.”
The Bay Area branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) helped promote the protest. The group said CHP officers prolonged the traffic disruptions by preventing the demonstrators from leaving, as they had planned, after 20 minutes. Police said protesters didn’t leave the bridge when they were ordered, so they were detained.
As planned, immigration activists shut down northbound traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge for a brief 20 minutes this morning -- and then tried to leave. CHP showed up and prevented protestors from dispersing for another 40 minutes and even blocked all lanes of southbound traffic. pic.twitter.com/EiYSvRrPn1
CHP finally cleared the northbound lanes by bringing in tow trucks to remove protesters’ vehicles. Five activists were reportedly arrested.
“This is the only way we’re going to be heard,” said Brenda Zendejas, one of the arrested demonstrators. “We have done everything, we’ve followed the rules, and no one’s listening to us.”
CHP officer Andrew Barclay said people have the right to protest, but not to block roadways. “This is a very dangerous place for people to be, you know, especially once you get people out of their vehicles,” he said.
I totally support the cause but hate when people do this. I used to live in Marin + work in San Francisco; blocking the Golden Gate is dangerous, maddening and persuades no one. All it does is scare drivers and piss them off. I’ve been on the bridge when it’s blocked and in…1/
Online observers, including some who favor amnesty for illegal aliens, lamented that the dangerous tactic of blocking traffic – possibly including those in need of emergency medical treatment – would only diminish public support for the cause.
“Blocking the Golden Gate is dangerous, maddening and persuades no one,” self-described fundraiser Maryellen Waters said on Twitter. “All it does is scare drivers and piss them off.”
Beijing has called on counterparts in Washington to find the “courage” and “self-awareness” to amend a series of aggressive and provocative policies toward China, following a second round of high-level joint military talks.
Beijing welcomes dialogue with the United States, but insists Washington must take steps to end “continuous provocations and suppression of China,” Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian told reporters on Thursday, not long after military officials on both sides held a pair of virtual meetings.
“The military relationship has faced many difficulties and challenges,” Wu said. “But the US has serious issues with its self-awareness, its perception of China and in its understanding of the world today, which is the root cause of the difficulties in the relationship between our militaries.”
We hope that the US can find the courage to correct its mistakes, and to work with China to answer the critical question of how to properly manage China-US relations.
While Wu hit out at the US’ attempts at “provocation and containment of China” and noted a litany of outstanding issues between the two nations, he stressed that the Chinese and American militaries have “always maintained communication.”
The spokesman’s comments came on the heels of two days of virtual talks held Tuesday and Wednesday, led by Huang Xueping, deputy director for the Chinese military’s office for international military cooperation, and Michael Chase on the US side, who serves as a deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Though the Pentagon announced the talks on Wednesday, it offered few details, saying only that “the two sides held a frank, in-depth, and open discussion on a range of issues” at the time. During a Thursday presser, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby also refused to elaborate, though did say the sit-down was “professional” and “productive,” while noting the Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “believes that an open channel of communication is important.”
US-China tensions have soared to new heights in recent years, with Washington repeatedly condemning Beijing over alleged human rights abuses against its Muslim Uyghur population, as well as improper international trade practices and other charges. China, meanwhile, has blasted the ongoing US military presence in the Indo-Pacific as provocative and inherently threatening, as the Pentagon routinely sails warships through the South China Sea – as well as the Taiwan Strait – for so-called “freedom of navigation” missions.
Underscoring the current enmity, a high-level meeting in Alaska last March got off to a dramatic start, as officials from both countries immediately launched into accusations against one another. It appears little was achieved during the summit – the first senior meeting between the two powers under the Joe Biden administration – as hostilities have only escalated in the months since.
Relations have soured even further in recent weeks, as Beijing has vocally denounced a new trilateral security pact between the US, the UK and Australia, dubbed “AUKUS,” which will see the United States furnish the Aussies with nuclear-powered submarines, among other things.
“The cooperation between the United States, Britain and Australia poses a serious risk of nuclear proliferation and violates the spirit of the ‘NPT,’” Wu said at the Thursday press conference, referring to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which now counts some 191 nations as signatories.
[The AUKUS deal] will seriously intensify the regional arms race, undermine regional peace and stability, undermine international nuclear non-proliferation efforts, and endanger world peace and security.
The Pentagon has acknowledged a September 20 drone strike in Syria’s Idlib province, which they say targeted Al-Qaeda leader Salim Abu-Ahmad and caused no civilian casualties. The area is controlled by Turkish-backed militants.
The US Central Command announced on Thursday that it conducted a “kinetic counterterrorism strike” targeting Abu-Ahmad, on a stretch of road in the Syrian desert.
“Initial indications are that we struck the individual we were aiming for, and there are no indications of civilian casualties as a result of the strike,” said Navy Lieutenant Josie Lynne Lenny, a CENTCOM spokesperson.
American UAV with Hellfire killed two AlQaide terrorists in Idlib. One from Yemen other from Tunis pic.twitter.com/Eg9t8Urwxe
Citing an unnamed Pentagon official, Fox News claimed that Abu-Ahmad was “responsible for planning, funding, and approving trans-regional Al-Qaeda attacks.”
The most recent publicly-known US drone strike against an alleged terrorist target was in Kabul on August 28, amid the ongoing airlift from Afghanistan. CENTCOM initially claimed there were no civilian casualties, then said “secondary explosions” may have caused some incidental deaths.
For two weeks, the Pentagon insisted the strike had been “righteous” and followed proper procedures, until it acknowledged on September 17 that it was a “mistake” that took the lives of 10 innocent civilians, including seven children. No known militants or terrorist operatives were killed in the strike, per the military's own admission.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki has again leaned on a familiar blame-shifting tactic – pointing the finger at former President Donald Trump – this time over America still being “in the middle” of the Covid-19 pandemic.
While defending the Biden administration’s decision to continue a Trump-era policy of expelling asylum seekers, Psaki argued that Title 42 was a public health issue the White House would have made much better progress on, if not for Trump.
...we are in the middle of a pandemic, which by the way, we would have made progress on had the former president actually addressed the pandemic and not suggested people inject bleach.
Psaki: …because we’re in the middle of a pandemic which by the way, we would’ve made progress on had the former President addressed the pandemic and not suggest people inject bleach pic.twitter.com/xMWIGg7KDD
Psaki was referring to an April 2020 briefing in which Trump questioned whether disinfectant injections could be used to kill the coronavirus. Trump later claimed that he asked the question to reporters sarcastically, “just to see what would happen.”
More than eight months on from President Joe Biden’s inauguration, Psaki and other administration officials continue to blame Trump for such problems as the US-Mexico border crisis, the chaotic and deadly military withdrawal from Afghanistan and an epidemic of mass-shootings in the US. The press secretary also said Trump’s rhetoric about the pandemic helped spark a wave of hate crimes against Asian-Americans.
But by saying “we would have made progress” on the pandemic, Psaki seemingly – and likely inadvertently – contradicted an administration talking point. Biden has claimed“considerable progress” in battling Covid-19, including increases in vaccinations.
In March, Psaki refused to give any Trump credit for his administration’s push to help bring Covid-19 vaccines to market in record time, dubbed Operation Warp Speed.
“I don’t think anyone deserves credit when half a million people in the country have died of this pandemic,” she said at the time. The US death toll has since risen to nearly 700,000.
Psaki appeared perturbed over any suggestion that Biden was following through on Trump’s policies during Thursday's presser – despite the president's continuation of some migrant expulsions and the fact Biden stood by his predecessor’s decision to end the war in Afghanistan.
“So I think we are in a bit of a different place,” Psaki said. “I am happy to discuss more examples. I think people would be hard-pressed to argue that the president has taken any aspect of the former president’s playbook and use it as a model of his own.”
North Korea test-fired a newly developed ‘anti-aircraft’ missile, the country’s state media reported, offering few details. It comes amid a flurry of similar tests in recent days, reportedly including a new “hypersonic” weapon.
“The Academy of Defence Science of the DPRK test-fired an anti-aircraft missile newly developed by it on September 30,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported, as cited by Yonhap News. KCNA added that the test aimed to review the operation of the missile itself, as well as its launcher, battle command vehicle and radar system.
While the North Korean media did not elaborate on the reported test, it follows another launch announced the day prior which purportedly tested a new “hypersonic” munition, or a missile capable of traveling at five times the speed of sound, known as Mach 5, or faster. Another newly developed rail-borne missile system was also tested prior to that.
Asked about the earlier missile tests during a Thursday press conference, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters the Joe Biden administration is monitoring the situation and is “concerned” about the launches, also noting that Washington’s envoy to Pyongyang is now in discussions with his counterparts from Seoul and Tokyo about next steps.
“On North Korea, we’re evaluating and assessing the launches... to understand exactly what they did, what technology they used. But regardless, we’ve seen repeated violations now of UN Security Council resolutions that the international community needs to take very seriously,” Blinken said, referring to Security Council measures barring North Korea from such weapons tests.
We are concerned about these repeated violations of Security Council resolutions that create, I think, greater prospects for instability and insecurity.
Breaking with his country’s typically aggressive rhetoric, on Thursday North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed interest in re-engagement with the south, hoping to eventually see “durable peace settling in the Korean peninsula.” The overture came after the two Koreas agreed to reopen a cross-border communications channel shuttered the year prior, what Pyongyang hailed as a “big step” toward restoring trust between the two sides.
However, the north has argued time and again that Washington stands in the way of Korean rapprochement, with the country’s ambassador to the United Nations Kim Song delivering a fiery address before the General Assembly in New York this week. In the speech, Kim outlined Pyongyang’s grievances with the United States and its “hostile” policies – chief among them the stationing of tens of thousands of American troops south of the DMZ, as well as regular joint military drills with Seoul “of intimidating nature.”
“The US’ hostile policy against the DPRK finds its clearest expression in its military threats against us,” he said, using the acronym for the formal name of his country, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Not a single foreign troop, not a single foreign military base exists in the territory of the DPRK. But, in South Korea, almost 30,000 US troops are stationed at numerous military bases, maintaining a war posture to take military action against the DPRK at any moment.
An elite team of scientists advising the State Department concluded in 2018 that the ‘Havana Syndrome’ afflicting spies and diplomats could not have been due to a microwave weapon, but their report has just now been declassified.
The report compiled by the JASON advisory group in November 2018 said that the sounds reported in eight of the original 21 incidents of the 'Havana Syndrome' were “most likely” caused by crickets, and that it was “highly unlikely” the reported symptoms were caused by microwaves or ultrasound beams.
While “the suffering reported by the affected individuals is real,” the group concluded “psychogenic effects may serve to explain important components of the reported injuries.”
A secret document shows that the US government basically knows that "Havana Syndrome" is a mass psychogenic illness. Some of the reported symptoms are likely crickets chirping https://t.co/M2jlfTEoKm
The redacted and declassified version of the JASON report was published on Thursday by BuzzFeed. It was originally classified as “Secret,” and was not shared with the National Academies of Sciences panel whose report on the ‘Havana Syndrome’ was commissioned by Foggy Bottom last year.
The NAS panel concluded microwaves were the “most plausible” cause of the symptoms, which purportedly include headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, hearing and vision impairment, nosebleeds, vertigo and memory loss, among others.
According to JASON, however, “No plausible single source of energy (neither radio/microwaves nor sonic) can produce both the recorded audio/video signals and the reported medical effects.” The recorded noise was either mechanical or biological in origin, rather than electronic, and the “most likely” source was Anurogryllis celerinictus, the “Indies short-tailed cricket.”
This exact species was identified by University of California Berkeley researchers in January 2019 as the source of the mysterious noise, based on a recording released by AP.
JASON experts ruled out pulsed microwaves and ultrasound, in part because electronics and Wi-Fi networks in the house where the noises were first recorded suffered no disruptions during the incident. They concluded the noises did not correspond to microwave or ultrasound frequencies by calculating the power that would be required.
The Trump administration used the ‘Havana syndrome’ as a pretext to scale back the recently re-established diplomatic presence in Cuba. It gained a life of its own in the CIA and the US media later on, with over 200 spies now reportedly claiming they had been affected – and rampant speculation that China or Russia may be using some kind of science-fiction superweapon to do this.
Just last week, the US House of Representatives voted 427-0 to pass the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, giving the CIA millions of dollars to compensate the personnel affected.
In mid-September, a team of Cuban scientists announced that claims of secret sonic weapons were not “scientifically acceptable,” and there was “no scientific evidence of attacks.” Unaware of the JASON report, they attributed the symptoms to some kind of mass psychosis on part of the US spies.
Named after a hero from Greek mythology, JASON is an independent group of scientists that has advised the US government since the heyday of the Cold War.
“This is a high powered group of expert scientists,” former Los Alamos National Laboratory chemist Cheryl Rofer told BuzzFeed, adding that the declassified report “appears to be a very thorough scientific analysis, the kind which wasn’t done in the National Academies of Sciences report.”
“What is available in the report is pretty dubious about directed energy weapons, and pretty positive about crickets,” Rofer added.
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US Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) has excoriated Facebook for hiding its knowledge of the harmfulness of its products -- just as cigarette makers did decades ago -- and choosing “growth over children’s mental health.”
“Facebook has taken Big Tobacco’s playbook,” Blumenthal said at a Senate hearing on Thursday regarding the mental health impact of Facebook and Instagram. “It has hidden its own research on addiction and the toxic effects of its products. It has attempted to deceive the public and us in Congress about what it knows, and it has weaponized childhood vulnerabilities against children themselves.”
SEN. BLUMENTHAL: "We created an Instagram account identifying as a 13-year-old girl and followed a few easily findable accounts associated with extreme dieting and eating disorders. Within a day its recommendations were exclusively filled with accounts that promote self-injury.." pic.twitter.com/HkjUHskCRs
The hearing came after the Wall Street Journal earlier this month reported that Facebook’s internal research had found that Instagram is “toxic for young girls.” Blumenthal said that in addition to the newspaper’s reporting, his office was approached by a whistleblower with internal documents showing some of the Big Tech giant’s findings on the harmfulness of its social media platforms.
Even as the company has publicly denied that Instagram is harmful to teens, the senator said, “Facebook researchers and experts have been ringing the alarm for years. We now know that Facebook routinely puts profits ahead of kids’ online safety.”
We know it chooses the growth of its products over the well-being of our children, and we now know that it is indefensibly delinquent in acting to protect them.
Findings revealed in the whistleblower-provided documents included research showing that more than one-third of teens had little or no control over how Instagram made them feel. Facebook researchers also found that teens “have an addict’s narrative about their use” of the company’s products. And among teen users with suicidal thoughts, 13% in the UK and 6% in the US said they could trace those feelings to Instagram.
Blumenthal said his office created a fictitious Instagram account with the user identified as a 13-year-old girl. Within one day of the fictitious teen following a few accounts associated with extreme dieting, she was inundated with recommendations of accounts promoting eating disorders and other types of self-injury, the senator said.
“That is the perfect storm that Instagram has created,” Blumenthal said. “Facebook has asked us to trust it, but after these evasions and these revelations, why should we? It’s clear that Facebook has done nothing to earn that trust – not from us, not from parents, not from the public.”
Blumenthal and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) sent a letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in August, asking whether the company’s research had ever found that its products can harm children’s mental health. Zuckerberg’s reply: “We are not aware of a consensus among studies or experts about how much screen time is too much.”
That statement was clearly false, Blumenthal said, as “Facebook knows the disruptive consequences that Instagram’s design and algorithms are having on our young people and our society, but it has routinely prioritized its own rapid growth over basic safety for our children.”
Along with Senator Ed Markey (D-Massachusetts), Blumenthal plans to reintroduce a 2020 bill designed to create new protections for internet users under age 16. Markey noted Facebook research showing that 32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.
Big Tech continues to blatantly prioritize raking in revenue over protecting children and teens, and that must stop. We know that these companies won’t change their ways unless Congress forces them to. That’s why I am re-introducing the KIDS Act. pic.twitter.com/8rgZCevj15
“Instagram is that first childhood cigarette, meant to get teens hooked early, exploiting the peer pressure of popularity and ultimately endangering their health,” Markey said. “Facebook is just like Big Tobacco, pushing a product that they know is harmful to the health of young people, pushing it to them early, all so Facebook can make money.”
The Big Tobacco analogy will likely resonate with many Americans, as major US cigarette makers infamously denied for years that their products were harmful, even as their internal research showed otherwise. In one memorable US House hearing in 1994, CEOs of the top seven US tobacco companies – later derisively nicknamed the “seven dwarfs” – said one after another that they believe “nicotine is not addictive.”
Four years later, Big Tobacco agreed to alter marketing practices and pay $246 billion to state governments to settle claims relating to the damages caused by smoking. The deal marked the largest civil litigation settlement in US history.
It’s unclear whether Facebook will be punished or made to change its ways, but Blumenthal said the hearing was called because the company has shown that it’s “incapable of holding itself accountable.”
However, amid his withering attack on Facebook, Blumenthal made a tech-unsavvy blunder when he railed against “Finsta.” He asked Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global safety chief, “Will you commit to ending Finsta?” Testifying remotely, Davis explained that Finsta is slang for a fake Instagram account, not a product or service.
Twitter users mocked the senator for the gaffe. Author Elon Green quipped that “Finsta is the town where Blumenthal served in Vietnam.” Blumenthal was repeatedly ridiculed by former President Donald Trump and nicknamed “Da Nang Dick” for lying about serving in the Vietnam War.
Facebook’s inside knowledge of the potential harmfulness of its platforms isn’t an altogether new issue. Former Facebook president Sean Parker said in November 2017 that the company’s flagship platform and Instagram were designed to exploit“a vulnerability in human psychology.” Platform creators understood the addictive nature of their products, he said, “and we did it anyway.”
“It probably interferes with productivity in weird ways,” Parker said. “God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains.”
A large bus depot in the German city of Stuttgart has gone up in flames, gutting vehicles and leaving a dense column of smoke looming over the city. Local residents have been advised to keep their doors and windows closed.
The fire broke out at a depot operated by transit firm SSB in the east of the city on Thursday evening. Explosions rang out as tires burst, and local media reports suggest that as many as 10 buses were burned out. Unconfirmed reports state that an electric bus was the source of the blaze.
Video footage and photos showed firefighters working to contain the flames, as smoke billowed out from under the depot’s roof and the charred remains of several vehicles glowed in the inferno.
From a distance, a thick column of smoke could be seen towering over Stuttgart. Residents were warned via phone messages to keep their windows and doors shut.
No injuries have been reported in connection with the fire, and there is no indication yet of foul play. Police have, however, opened an investigation into the blaze.
Former US Congressman Ron Paul has revealed that YouTube has deleted, without explanation, the main channel of his Texas-based institute. The move comes amid a mass censorship spree by the Google-owned video platform.
“Very shocked that YouTube has completely removed the channel of my Ron Paul Institute: no warning, no strikes, no evidence,” the retired Texas congressman tweeted on Thursday. “Only explanation was ‘severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines.’ Channel is rarely used. The appeal was automatically rejected. Help?”
Very shocked that @YouTube has completely removed the Channel of my Ron Paul Institute: no warning, no strikes, no evidence. Only explanation was "severe or repeated violations of our community guidelines." Channel is rarely used. The appeal was automatically rejected. Help? pic.twitter.com/CuvGAe1bVf
In a follow-up message, Paul said the Ron Paul Liberty Report channel remains available. The institute’s main channel is “a seldom-used account and its termination is perplexing,” he added.
Paul established the institute when he retired from Congress in 2013, after decades of representing Texas in the House. He ran for president on the Libertarian Party ticket in 1988 and in the Republican primaries in 2008 and 2012.
Jeffrey Tucker, a libertarian scholar who runs the recently established Brownstone Institute, called the move by YouTube “an attempt to purify all platforms of dissent” that’s “getting worse by the hour.”
It's an attempt to purify all platforms of dissent. Getting worse by the hour.
The Google-run video platform announced new rules on Wednesday, banning all “harmful vaccine content” – not just of the recently developed Covid-19 jabs but vaccines in general.
The announcement was followed by bans on several people named by a UK-based nonprofit in July as purveyors of ‘disinformation’. The list compiled by the Center for Countering Digital Hate was then used by the Biden administration to call for social media censorship.
The day before, YouTube deleted two German-language channels of RT DE, accusing them of “medical misinformation” in four videos and attempting to circumvent a ‘community guidelines’ strike by publishing new videos on another channel.
Paul’s son Rand, a Republican senator from Kentucky, was also targeted by YouTube censorship recently. In early August, he revealed that the “leftwing cretins” at Google gave him a week-long ban for quoting peer-reviewed articles about the efficacy of face masks in stopping the spread of Covid-19.
Senator Paul called the censorship “a badge of honor” and said it amounted to “anti-free speech, anti-progress of science” behavior. However, as a libertarian, he chose to publicly express disagreement and promote companies that valued free speech, instead of calling for their regulation.
While YouTube has not commented on why the Ron Paul Institute’s main channel was deleted, the former congressman has an upcoming book critical of the current administration’s fiscal policies.
"Runaway spending, unlimited debt, and counterfeiting fiat money, are deliberately used for the redistribution of wealth from the middle class to a coalition of fake humanitarians – all used for financing the Cultural Marxist revolution. "
-From Ron Paul's forthcoming mini-book pic.twitter.com/8otqKQJgAC
Manchester’s police force is failing to properly respond to victims of violent crime, England’s police watchdog has found. Domestic abuse victims sometimes wait days for a police visit, and cases can be closed with no response.
When Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) assessed the performance of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) in 2017, it found a force struggling to adequately respond to victims of crime, which missed opportunities to protect vulnerable people and secure evidence to convict their assailants.
Four years later, the situation hasn’t improved, according to HMICFRS’ latest report, published on Wednesday.
While the police promised the public in 2017 that “if you have an emergency, we will get to you more quickly,” officers are currently wading through a backlog of 2,700 calls.
The report states that GMP fails to properly prioritize these calls, meaning that less than a third of calls requiring a rapid response get followed up within an hour. “Some victims wait for several days, in some cases over a week, and in most cases, the force doesn’t contact the victim to explain that there is a delay,” the report continued, adding that “some of these incidents had been closed without any police response being deployed.”
The force now has three months to overhaul its command and control system, and to develop a plan to upgrade its response time.
“We told Greater Manchester Police to make these improvements in 2017, yet it has still not made sufficient progress. It has now reached the point where we are concerned about public safety in Greater Manchester,” Inspector of Constabulary Andy Cooke stated.
Wednesday’s report wasn’t the first time that HMICFRS followed up on GMP’s performance since 2017. Inspections in 2019 and 2020 also found that the force hadn’t done enough to implement the required changes, and then-Chief Constable Ian Hopkins resigned last year over these failures after HMICFRS found that 80,000 crimes went unrecorded in a single year in Manchester.
Inspectors found that GMP had failed to safeguard victims of harassment, stalking and domestic abuse, as well as vulnerable adults and children.
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Dan Hooker is set to step in to face UFC lightweight contender Islam Makhachev at UFC 267 in a month's time, according to reports, after the Russian's previous opponent Rafael Dos Anjos pulled out to undergo knee surgery.
ESPN reporter Brett Okamoto broke the news on Instagram, and says it came straight from UFC president Dana White.
Hooker was last seen in action just this past weekend at UFC 266.
After overcoming visa problems to arrive in Las Vegas a day before the weigh-in, the New Zealander managed to make weight and then beat Nasrat Haqparast on the cards to improve to 28-10.
As game as ever, he will now try his luck against submissions expert Makhachev, who is unbeaten in six years on 20-1 overall, with just four weeks to spare until fight day on October 30 in Abu Dhabi.
Last seen in action in July, where he finished Thiago Moises via a rear-naked choke in the fourth round of a headline bout on ESPN, Makhachev will be pleased to have secured another opponent after a nasty back-and-forth with former lightweight champion Dos Anjos.
"I don’t believe that you’re injured...again," he wrote on Twitter, while tagging the Brazilian and leaving the hashtag #chickenfever.
Do you really think I would fake a surgery? Coming out of another terrible injury. Unlike you I have a family that depends on me and I don’t have another man paying my bills. https://t.co/PDvQ2rhZsq
"Do you really think I would fake a surgery coming out of another terrible injury?" Dos Anjos asked.
"Unlike you I have a family that depends on me and I don’t have another man paying my bills," he scathed, in reference to Makhachev's pal in retired 29-0 great Khabib Nurmagomedov supposedly propping him up.
Makhachev replied with another hashtag that read "Big Drama Show" in the mold of boxer Gennady Golovkin, and then called out a string of other fighters.
"Justin [Gaethje], Dustin [Poirier], Tony [Ferguson], Beniel [Dariush], Hooker, [Michael] Chandler or Floyd Mayweather, doesn’t matter.
"Oct 30 I’ll be in Abu Dhabi," he raged.
At least now the UFC appears to have delivered one of those names to him.
And Hooker will also be pleased after demanding the fight since the summer when he said that the "boring" rising Russian should "give Khabib his homework back".
Online, fans hailed the 31-year-old Kiwi for stepping in.
“No freakin’ way. What a savage. This man will get all the street cred…again,” said UFC commentator John Gooden.
“Big respect for dan he is a true fighter,” wrote one fan, while another called Hooker “the real BMF.”
The Nice supporter who aimed a kick at Marseille star Dimitri Payet during the infamous pitch invasion that occurred in the Meditteranean Derby has been administered a one-year suspended prison sentence for his act.
Tony Calzoni, aged 28, has been a Nice supporter since infancy and also received a five-year ban from attending their matches.
During every game played between the two mentioned rival clubs moving forward, he must also present himself at a local police station so as to prove he is not in or around the ground the fixture is being contested in.
The prosecution were pushing for Calzoni to be banged up for 12 months with six months suspended.
Serious incident at Nice v Marseille. Payet hit by a bottle, throws it back into the crowd, supporters charge onto the field to confront players. OM players clearly furious. pic.twitter.com/sQd8E3VaTF
As was widely reported at the time, the Ligue 1 match on the opening weekend of the new season was brought to a halt after 75 minutes when Payet threw a bottle that was aimed at him back into the crowd.
This sparked an invasion from dozens of fans who got on to the pitch to try and confront Payet, with video recordings showing that Calzoni was the first supporter there before aiming a kick at Payet.
For playing host to the debacle, Nice have already been a docked a point and forced to play several games behind closed doors, but Marseille physio Pablo Fernandez was also banned for the rest of the season for punching a fan.
A US Marine who saved a baby at Kabul airport is under investigation for appearing on stage with Donald Trump, while a DC reporter found time to tattletale on a dead marine’s family for going unmasked. A hero’s return indeed.
Lance Cpl. Hunter Clark was one of nearly 6,000 troops sent to Kabul in August to oversee the US’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Clark stood out among his fellow jarheads, however, when he was seen on camera lifting a baby to safety over the razor-wire fence surrounding the city’s airport, where the baby later received medical treatment.
Marine Corps spokesman Maj. James Stenger called Clark’s snap decision to rescue the infant “a true example of the professionalism of the Marines,” and Clark was lauded by former President Donald Trump, who invited the lance corporal on stage at one of his campaign-style ‘Save America’ rallies in Georgia last week.
Lance Cpl. Hunter Clark is reportedly under investigation by the US military for "partisan political activity."pic.twitter.com/wsCJzGjNtu
Clark appeared in plain clothes and spoke briefly on how rescuing the child was “one of the greatest things I’ve ever done in my entire life,” before shaking hands with Trump and departing. However, he’s now under investigation by his superiors for his few seconds in the spotlight.
“The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) has initiated a command investigation regarding LCpl Hunter Clark’s attendance at the event last weekend to determine if any [Pentagon] policies were violated,” Capt. Kelton J Cochran, a spokesman for Clark’s unit, stated on Thursday.
Pentagon policy forbids active-duty troops from “speak[ing] before a partisan political gathering, including any gathering that promotes a partisan political party, candidate, or cause,” but whether Clark violated this policy is difficult to predict. While Trump’s rallies are partisan affairs and feature scathing critiques of the Biden administration and liberal culture, the former president is not currently seeking office, and Clark did not promote any candidates or causes while on stage.
Conservatives and Trump supporters immediately accused Clark’s superiors of running a politically-motivated “witch hunt” against him.
Not being able to stand against the ruling party is how Communism begins.
The Marine didn’t even say anything. He just appeared.
As we descend further into the stages of Tyranny, a Marine who appeared out of uniform, never mentioned his rank, and appeared as a regular citizen at a hometown rally is under investigation.
— Deus Flex Machina - flexyoursuccess.com (@ReturnOfTheFleX) September 30, 2021
Clark’s investigation may well be procedural and swiftly resolved. However, he is not the only member of the US military facing what increasingly looks like ideological punishment. After the pro-Trump riot on Capitol Hill in January, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a stand-down order so commanding officers could investigate supposed ‘extremism” within the military’s ranks. With ‘extremism’ broadly defined by the Biden administration at the time as fueling the Capitol riot, the order was seen by conservatives as an initial effort to purge the ranks of Trump supporters.
As the investigation against Clark was announced, the family of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, who was killed by a suicide bomber outside Kabul airport last month (and was also pictured cradling an Afghan infant), toured the House of Representatives. Some of the group went without face masks despite their wearing being mandatory in federal buildings, and were called out on this by Politico reporter Heather Caygle.
I think many would agree, the family of fallen Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee gets a pass. pic.twitter.com/GdA0qsUQPM
When furious commenters suggested that Gee’s family should get a pass, Caygle doubled down, arguing that the family’s sacrifice shouldn’t “exempt them from wearing a mask.”
While the military investigates one of its own, whom many would consider a hero, and partisan reporters hector the families of the fallen, two men who have escaped punishment are Austin and General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Despite failing to predict the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, overseeing a tactically flawed withdrawal, admitting to being “unable” to assess an enemy’s will to fight, and in Milley’s case consorting with Chinese military leadership behind his own commander-in-chief’s back, both men still have their jobs and the “complete confidence” of President Joe Biden.
Marine Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller, who publicly called for “accountability” from Austin and Milley and their ilk after the Afghan withdrawal, however, remains behind bars.
Tight supply on the world’s dirtiest commodity in China has triggered a plunge in the production of Chinese goods. The situation has led to shortages in the global supply chain from high tech and electronics to toys and clothing.
A number of Apple and Tesla suppliers have suspended production at some Chinese factories this week to “comply with the local governments’ electricity limiting policy.” According to the South China Morning Post, at least 20 out of 31 provincial jurisdictions were forced to adopt electricity rationing measures last week, which has already resulted in operating restrictions in the industrial and manufacturing sectors.
China is the world’s top coal consumer, using it to generate electricity. This makes the country’s industry greatly reliant on coal.
Since January, the price of thermal coal in the country has jumped due to increasing demand and limited supply by nearly two-thirds, from about 670 yuan ($104) per ton to around 1,100 yuan ($170) in September. Thermal coal futures in China hit an all-time high of 1,376.8 yuan ($212.92) per ton on Wednesday.
With China’s power-generation companies unable to afford coal at that price, they have cut electricity output.
In response to the energy crisis, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Wednesday that it would “take multiple measures to strengthen the adjustment of supply and demand.”
“The price of electricity and gas for people’s livelihoods will remain basically stable, in strict accordance with the price policy,” the commission noted, but added it would “release advanced coal production capacity… ensure that coal-electric power units are fully distributed,” and “increase coal imports.” However, according to some experts, with Chinese coal mines likely unable to boost output to meet demand in the short term, Beijing could move to double electricity prices to address the worsening crisis.
China mines over 90% of the coal it uses (and roughly half of the world’s coal), but has imported 197.69 million tons of it in the first eight months of 2021. Coal imports have risen more than 20% since the start of June, but the country needs much more, with inventories at China’s six largest power groups at the lowest seasonal level since 2017, down 31.5% from last year.
China used to buy nearly all of its coal supplies from producers within Asia, but the situation changed last year as it stopped buying from Australia amid a political dispute. Looking for other sources, China began boosting coal imports from South Asia and European suppliers, with imports from Russia doubling so far this year, while deliveries from the US are up seven-fold.
Meanwhile, analysts say the only solution for China to deal with the energy crisis is to lift the cap on electricity prices, which are fixed by the government as a part of China’s planned economy. The state-controlled limit on electricity makes it impossible for power-generating companies to keep up with the price of coal as it is highly marketized.
Show HN: Encrypted emails based on Signal protocol with post-quantum algorithms Hi HN, we have recently completed a research project on how to encrypt emails with post-quantum secure algorithms as well as Forward Secrecy. We'd love to hear your feedback and discuss technical issues. The paper can be found here: https://ift.tt/3dq0tbe September 30, 2021 at 12:22PM
New Zealand has voted to strengthen a counter-terrorism bill, now criminalizing the planning of attacks after a knifeman inspired by Islamic State recently left several injured, despite being trailed by police for weeks.
Parliament passed the bill on its third reading on Thursday, voting to amend two previous pieces of legislation that took effect in 2002 and 2012 in order to empower authorities to go after suspected terrorists.
Should the law receive final royal approval, anyone determined to be “planning” or making “other preparations” for an attack will be subject to a number of warrantless police powers, including those pertaining to entry, search, seizure, and surveillance.
The legislative push is long in the making, with calls to strengthen the country’s counter-terrorism laws growing louder following the infamous Christchurch shooting in 2019, in which a gunman massacred 51 people and injured another 40 in a shooting rampage at two different mosques.
However, a knife attack in Auckland earlier this month – said to have been inspired by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) – provided more direct impetus for the terrorism bill. Though the attacker, identified as Ahamed Aathil Mohamed Samsudeen, had been under law enforcement surveillance for 53 consecutive days and police strongly suspected he was planning violence, they had no legal pretext to detain him before the attack. The new bill aims to remedy such issues going forward, empowering police to take more aggressive action ahead of a planned incident.
Last year, prosecutors attempted to charge Samsudeen with a terrorism offense, saying he had recently bought a large hunting knife and was found with IS propaganda material in his possession. However, the case was later thrown out, as a judge determined the knife and videos alone were not enough to proceed with criminal charges. The judge also noted that New Zealand law at the time made few provisions for terrorist plots, focusing instead on attacks themselves, saying this “could be an Achilles’ heel” in the justice system.
The US military said it had an “in-depth” dialogue with Beijing, reiterating that it remains committed to regional allies amid ongoing enmity over a new security pact between the US, the UK and Australia designed to counter China.
“The two sides held a frank, in-depth, and open discussion on a range of issues affecting the US-PRC defense relationship,” Pentagon Spokesperson Lt. Col. Martin Meiners said in a statement on Wednesday, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
He called the meeting “an important component” in Washington’s efforts to “responsibly manage the competition between the US and the PRC.”
Both sides reaffirmed consensus to keep communication channels open. The US side also made clear our commitment to uphold shared principles with our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
The statement broke with the more aggressive anti-Beijing rhetoric common from US officials as of late, and comes during a major diplomatic row over a newly inked trilateral security deal between Washington, London and Canberra, dubbed “AUKUS.” The pact will see Australia acquire nuclear-powered submarines from the United States – enraging France, which had already struck a multi-billion dollar contract with the Aussies for French diesel-powered subs. And while no nation was named as a target for the new Indo-Pacific alliance, anonymous White House officials deemed the pact “another move by Western allies to push back on China’s rise in the military and technology arenas” in comments to Politico earlier this month.
China, for its part, has condemned the AUKUS arrangement as “extremely irresponsible,” saying plans to arm Australia with nuclear-powered subs “seriously undermines regional peace and stability,” and could even fuel an “arms race” in the Indo-Pacific
In addition to the new security alliance – which is separate from the four-member ‘Quad’ bloc, another body created to counter China – Beijing and Canberra have sparred over a number of other issues in recent months, namely related to trade.
During a recent interview, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison claimed that his country would favor more dialogue with Beijing, but China is simply not interested in doing the same. Responding to those remarks the next day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the current diplomatic troubles were “entirely of Australia’s own making.”
“Whether Australia is sincere about improving and developing relations with China, or it does the opposite to what it says – or even goes so far as to blatantly stab China in the back – China has its own judgement,” Hua said, urging Australia to make up its mind as to whether it views Beijing as a friend or an enemy.
It is imperative that Australia face up to the crux of the setbacks in bilateral relations, and earnestly think about whether China is seen as a partner or a threat.
