The Twitter Files show the unholy alliance of state and corporate power

There’s a name for when private companies and the government work hand in hand

With the recent release of the “Twitter Files,” we’ve learned what so many of us already knew. Or I should say, strongly suspected. The government has been colluding with social media companies — in this case Twitter — to censor people and content that do not support the agenda of the Democratic Party.

The primary focus of the Twitter Files thus far has been on election interference and the banishment of President Trump from the platform. Multiple government agencies — including the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security — were involved in tracking individual citizens and pressuring Twitter to de-platform them.

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Government-Run On-Line Extremism

Evidence suggests certain governments have operated fake far-right social media accounts, raising the prominence of ‘extremism’ in the public consciousness in ways that can justify limiting freedom of speech.

Fake far-right social media accounts have apparently been promoted by several western governments.

According to Breitbart, citing an investigation by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung… 

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Bitter legacy of Stasi spy who put party over family

Fifty Christmasses ago a 15-year-old boy and his father slipped into the nerve centre of the West German government, dispensing presents of wine and cognac to the doorkeeper and the caretaker.

In the darkness they walked together through the half-deserted corridors, stopping to look in on the cabinet room and the few senior officials who were still at their desks on Christmas Eve. It was one of their last happy shared memories.

Sixteen months later the father, Günter Guillaume — the right-hand man to Willy Brandt, the country’s hugely charismatic chancellor — was arrested and convicted of spying for East Germany’s secret police, the Stasi.

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Buffalo is plunged into chaos with brazen looters destroying stores

Buffalo has been plunged into chaos as brazen looters wreak havoc on storefronts amid a historic blizzard that dumped six feet of snow on the northern New York city.

It has become the deadliest storm to hit the western part of the state in 50 years, with at least 27 people reported dead as scores of others remain trapped in their houses and cars.

Roads in the city remain impassable under several feet of heavy snow, as first responders struggle to reach those who remain trapped days after the storm hit.

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Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas to all!

I hope you have a wonderful day with family, friends and pets, even the nuisance kitties like Xavier, eat too much, maybe imbibe a bit too much and love lots.

It took a treat bribe to get Xavier even close to our wee Christmas tree for the pic.

The minute I set the camera down he assumed a near perfect pose. Now he’s fallen asleep there.

Do you see the copy of Seventeen magazine?

It’s the December 1984 issue.

I came across it a short time ago while sorting through documents that belong to Kathy’s late Grandmother Mae.

Among the hard hitting journalism of articles such as “Gorgeous Guys: Are they great to date?” is a piece by one Kathy Shaidle – “Christmas Lists of a Feminist Past.”

I am not sure even Kathy remembered her Grandma had kept it, stashed as it was deep in the credenza where family documents were stored and frankly avoided.

A lovely thing to appear for Christmas. Like a gift in fact.

I will I think publish it in a pdf format later.

Merry Christmas!

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The revenge of history in Ukraine: year of war has shaken up world order

A shared sense of national history is proving to be a crucial weapon, spurring on Ukraine resistance and Russian soldiers

The Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko recalls a quote attributed to Otto von Bismarck: “Wars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests.” It’s a country’s taught collective memory, its shared sense of its own history, that are the decisive instruments for mobilisation, and are as important on the battlefield as weaponry.

Few conflicts have been so shaped by the chief actors’ sense of their own national story as the Ukrainian war that began in February. It is the competing grand narratives of the past, not just in Russia and Ukraine, but in Germany, France, Poland, the Baltics, the UK, the US, and even the global south, that make this war so hard to resolve.

Indeed, sometimes this war feels less like the end of history and more like the revenge of history.

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We are paying a heavy price for our elites’ green fantasies

via GIPHY

Decades of failed energy policies came home to roost this year.

Most Britons probably didn’t realise at the time just how close we came to blackouts this year. Parts of London were just inches away from running out of power back in the summer. The National Grid, out of sheer desperation, was forced to fork out an astonishing £9,700 per megawatt hour to secure emergency supplies from abroad – over 5,000 per cent the usual price. That close shave with a blackout was the energy crisis in a microcosm. An insecure supply of energy has been unable to keep up with demand, pushing up prices to new eye-watering levels.

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Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market

Haraj marketplace remains on App Store and Google Play despite UN slavery warning

She will work day and night and does not need rest, boasts Noura, a housewife in Riyadh. Gesturing to the cowering Ugandan maid next to her, who is 23 according to Noura, she adds: “If she does something wrong, you just send her to her room and do not let her out.”

Noura, who clutches gold Gucci sunglasses as she bargains for a price of £3,500 for the maid, is eager for a quick deal when she talks to an undercover Times reporter. “I can take her to your home tonight,” she says. “If you are still unsure, no problem, you can rent her instead . . . But tell me now, because by tomorrow someone else will buy her.”

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Shave your head, deepen your voice … study rap music: Pharma bro Martin Shkreli’s prison survival advice to FTX founder and “effeminate guy” Sam Bankman-Fried

Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried who is potentially facing 115 years in prison has been offered lockup survival tips from ‘Pharma Bro’ and ex-con Martin Shkreli.

In an interview with crypto journalist Laura Shin on her podcast, Unchained, Shkreli describes Bankman-Fried as ‘effeminate’ and worries for the embattled financier.

Shkreli, who drew widespread scorn for drastically hiking prices on his company’s drugs, was convicted of securities fraud in 2017 and sentenced to seven years in prison.

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With trust collapsing in the RCMP, some call for ‘broken force’ to be rebuilt

Harry Bond is blunt in his assessment of the RCMP’s role on the night his mother and father died in the Nova Scotia mass shooting — and of the force’s potential to reform in the future.

“My trust for the RCMP is gone,” he said during a recent telephone interview from his home near Mahone Bay, N.S., where he’s been going over the hundreds of hours of testimony heard at a public inquiry into the April 18-19, 2020 rampage.

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Woke Las Vegas bail fund backed by Richard Branson, John Legend and Danny Glover closes after being sued for freeing serial criminal who tried to murder Asian waiter six days later

A celebrity-backed woke bail fund has shuttered after being sued for freeing a serial criminal who tried to murder an Asian waiter just six days later.

The Bail Project – whose backers include Richard Branson, Danny Glover and John Legend – announced it was disbanding its Las Vegas chapter earlier this month over the case of Rashawn Gaston-Anderson, 24.

He was arrested in November 2021 for burglary and theft but was released by The Bail Project after they paid his $3,000 bail.

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Churches Still Haven’t Recovered From Pandemic Anti-Christian Discrimination

They’re picking up the pieces from disproportionate restrictions.

Americans are increasingly coming to the conclusion that Democrats irreversibly damaged the nation through their pandemic restrictions.

Nowhere is this more true than in the decline of American churches, which were gutted by onerous rules and outright bans that stretched for months on end. In many instances, such restrictions remained in place much longer than those on shopping malls and movie productions, driving questions about why Democrats were incommensurately tough on churches.

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Emails reveal Sam Bankman-Fried’s courtship of federal regulators

ALAMEDA, Calif. — Before his mid-December arrest, cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried repeatedly claimed that he was a responsible business leader who sought more regulation of cryptocurrency and wanted his industry to be part of the mainstream financial system.

But now that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Justice Department are prosecuting the 30-year-old for fraud, the extensive professional relationships he cultivated with current and former federal regulators risk embarrassment for all involved.

As CEO of FTX, a crypto exchange, Bankman-Fried hired multiple former federal regulators who helped connect him with top officials at the CFTC, the agency he hoped would be charged with regulating his industry, emails show.

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