Hundreds of Twitter employees on H-1B visas fear being deported if Elon Musk fires them

Ryan Hogg, BI
Sun, November 6, 2022 

Hundreds of Twitter employees on special visas could be deported after Elon Musk's job cuts.

He cut thousands of jobs with the mass layoffs equating to as much as half of the company workforce.

A Forbes report suggests nearly 700 Twitter employees were on H-1B employment-tied visas.

Elon Musk's cost-cutting plans may have left hundreds of Twitter employees on high-skill work visas on a countdown to deportation.

At least 250 Twitter workers appear to be employed on H-1B visas, according to official records, and now face an uncertain future.

And according to analysis of US Citizenship and Immigration Services data by the National Foundation for American Policy, that number could be as high as 670, or 8% of the company pre-cuts, Forbes reported.

Musk began culling the social-media giant's workforce on Thursday night, Insider reported, with access to work applications like Slack suddenly cut off for many now-former employees.

About half of Twitter's workforce, or about 3,700 people, are expected to have lost their jobs, per Insider. But for some of these workers, the consequences could be even more severe.

According to data from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, Twitter has given "initial approval" to 168 H-1B visas since 2020. The company has received approval for 673 such visas since 2009.

Companies give H-1B visas to people from other countries with "highly specialized knowledge" and a relevant bachelor's degree, per USCIS. They are intended to last for three years, but can go up to six.

If sponsored employment is lost, a migrant has 60 days to find a new job before facing deportation. The US allows 65,000 successful applications a year. Workers on H-1B visas are able to stay in the US if they can find new employment, according to "portability" rules.

Records suggest Immigration Services granted "continuing approval" for 242 visas earlier this year, suggesting hundreds of employment-conditional migrants were working at Twitter before Musk's layoffs.

Musk asked vice presidents to compile lists of employees deemed least worthy of staying as he endeavors to radically alter the way Twitter works. It is unclear what departments visa-tied Twitter employees work for, or how susceptible their positions are to layoffs.

According to immigration law, Musk must pay the "reasonable costs" of transportation of migrant workers whose employment has been terminated before the end of their authorized stays.

According to multiple reports, Musk himself was able to stay in the United States after finishing his college degree thanks to the H-1B visa. He previously reprimanded Donald Trump in 2017 for Trump's decision to suspend the special work visas.

Musk also faces a lawsuit from former employees for not giving adequate notice over mass layoffs, which may provide some from of respite for vulnerable workers. The billionaire has since tweeted that the company offered everyone who got laid off three months' worth of severance, though some staff have disputed his claim.

Twitter user @maybettl, who said they were laid off from the company this week, tweeted that some staff were offering to be laid off to save their colleagues on work visas. Insider wasn't able to verify this information.

Twitter didn't respond to Insider's request for comment on the number of employees on special work visas, or the number of those employees it had laid off.

Elon Musk is a ‘brutalist decision-maker’: Twitter employees are flooding Blind with bad reviews
Jyoti Mann
Sun, November 6, 2022 

Twitter laid off nearly half of its workforce on Friday.Getty Images

Twitter employees are posting bad reviews about the company and Elon Musk on anonymous forum Blind.


One person called Musk a "brutalist decision-maker." Another said he has "no idea" what he's doing.


Posting on the day the layoffs were announced, one user said management was causing "stress."


Twitter employees are flooding the employee forum Blind with bad — and some good — reviews about the company and its new CEO, Elon Musk.

Insider trawled through the community app, where employees can anonymously write reviews and post about their workplaces, to see what Twitter staff are saying about the company.

Twitter laid off thousands of employees on Friday when Elon Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of the platform. After axing nearly half of the Twitter workforce, Musk tweeted on Friday that there was "no choice" as the company was losing more than $4 million a day.

Blind requires that users give their work email address, the company they work for, and their job title when they sign up. The site does not verify employment, but requests that people use their work email to "gauge the professional status" of users, Blind's website states.

Users have posted a total of 953 Twitter reviews to the site since 2020 and the company has an overall star rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars. Each poster adds a star rating to their review. Some of the reviews were posted the day some staff members learned of the mass layoffs the next morning, but the majority are from earlier.

One poster who described themself as an engineering manager said on Wednesday: "Brutalist decision-maker at the helm. Emergency driven work is exciting for those who like thrills. Pay is no longer tied to the stock market fluctuations."

The anonymous poster, who gave Twitter a two-star rating, added: "The absolute and swift destruction of a compassionate, human-first corporate culture is leaving Tweeps feeling like we've lost our family."

Another user, who posted the day the company sent staff a memo announcing layoffs, said it "was good until Elon take over."

The self-described senior software developer listed getting to "work for Elon" as a "pro" of working at the company, then put being treated as a "labor robot" on an accompanying list of "cons."

"Sense of achievement on delivering mission critical projects with 24/7 working and sleeping at office," the post said.

A Twitter employee tweeted a picture of a manager sleeping at the office this week after Musk took over. Musk announced plans to launch new product features, including a verification subscription for $8.

A software engineer said on November 2 that before the company was made private, it was an "incredible" place to work.

They added: "Elon mother flipping Musk and his ego the size of mars. Twitter is already chaos, but come layoffs Friday, it will a massive dumpster fire. The man has no idea what he's doing and I'd bet $8 Twitter won't be around or relevant in a couple years."

It is not possible to tell which of these posters, if any, had been laid off.

Another Blind user wrote on Thursday that the management changes are creating "stress" as a result of people being fired or quitting.

Twitter did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Not just job cuts: Elon Musk eliminated Twitter's ‘Days of rest’ and work-from-home policies last week — pushing a '24/7' work culture hard. 

Jing Pan
Mon, November 7, 2022 

Not just job cuts: Elon Musk eliminated Twitter's ‘Days of rest’ and work-from-home policies last week — pushing a '24/7' work culture hard. Here are 3 other investments the billionaire likes

If you are a Twitter employee who has a satisfying work-life balance, you may not want to hear what the new boss has to say.

Elon Musk has completed his acquisition of Twitter, despite saying that he overpaid for the company. And now, he’s finding ways to reduce expenditures at the social media giant.

The billionaire entrepreneur cut close to 3,700 jobs at Twitter, or half of the workforce, via email last week.

Musk has also removed Twitter’s “Days of rest” — monthly days off for employees to rest and recharge — in his push to implement a “24/7” work culture.

Additionally, Bloomberg reported that Musk plans to end the company’s remote work policy and ask remaining employees to return to the office full-time.

Who would want to join Twitter now? It's still hiring for more than 90 roles despite cutting thousands of jobs
Jyoti Mann

Sun, November 6, 2022

Elon Musk now owns Twitter.Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Twitter is still hiring to fill more than 90 roles despite laying off half of its workforce.


Twitter's careers page advertised 92 jobs a day after the mass layoffs.


Twitter posted seven roles on LinkedIn's jobs section a few days before Elon Musk took over.

Twitter is still hiring for more than 90 roles despite the company laying off half of its workforce on Friday.

Twitter's careers page listed at least 92 open roles on Saturday. More than a third of the positions are based at its headquarters in San Francisco.

Twitter first advertised seven roles, all of which are based in London, on LinkedIn two weeks ago. Six jobs are for software engineers, despite one London-based senior engineer being fired while he slept.

Elon Musk sent a memo to Twitter employees on Thursday telling staff they would find out if they were being laid off via email on Friday. Some employees learned their fate on Thursday night after being cut off from accessing their work emails and laptops.

The Tesla founder took control of Twitter last week after his $44 billion deal to buy the platform was complete. He immediately fired top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal, and Ned Segal, the chief financial officer.

Musk later floated new ideas for the company, including charging users $8 to gain a "verified" status along with seeing fewer ads.

A growing chorus of companies including Pfizer, General Motors, and Volkswagen have since paused ads on Twitter amid concerns over the platform's approach to content moderation.

Musk told some of the leading advertisers on the platform in a call that Twitter will have varying tiers of how it would moderate content, likening it to age ratings for films, The Financial Times reported.

Musk then tweeted Friday that Twitter's "strong commitment" to moderating content remained "absolutely unchanged." He also said in another tweet that he had "no choice" but to make mass layoffs because the company was losing $4 million a day.

He said: "Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required." Some Twitter staff have disputed that claim.

Twitter didn't respond to Insider's request for comment.

Elon Musk wants to nickel-and-dime Twitter users for features that were once free just 7 months after saying he 'didn't care about the economics'

Samantha Delouya

Sun, November 6, 2022

Elon Musk carrying a sink into Twitter's headquarters in San FranciscoElon Musk/Twitter

• Elon Musk is haphazardly suggesting ways to "pay the bills" at Twitter as debt interest payments soon come due.

• His approach is starkly different than when he said he "didn't care about the economics" of buying it in April.

• Musk has reportedly suggested paid direct messages and "paywalled" videos to advisors as ways to make Twitter more money.

Not long after Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April, he said he "didn't care about the economics at all" of the purchase.

"This is just my strong, intuitive sense that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization," Musk said at the TED2022 conference.

Seven months later, the world's richest man seems to have changed his tune, haphazardly suggesting ideas to his advisors, and even his Twitter followers, in an attempt to make the platform profitable.

Earlier this week, Musk announced that Twitter would begin charging $8 per month for its "blue check" verification program, which was previously free to those who qualified.

"We need to pay the bills somehow!" Musk wrote in a tweet responding to complaints about the fee.

But that's not the only idea Musk has in mind to squeeze cash out of his new company. The New York Times reports that Musk and his advisers have weighed adding a service that would allow users to send direct messages to high-profile users for a fee and "paywalled" videos.

Musk has also considered charging for user analytics and reviving the short-form video platform, Vine, according to his interactions with followers on Twitter.

The rushed attempts to drum up new revenue streams at Twitter are at odds with how Musk spoke about the purchase of the social media platform last spring when he extolled the platform's virtue as a "de facto town square" and compared the Twitter deal to Jeff Bezos' purchase of The Washington Post.

Now, Musk has Twitter employees working 24/7, trying to find a way to make to eke out money from the platform as Twitter will eventually be expected to pay massive interest payments. Musk borrowed $13 billion from banks to partially fund the deal, and the company will have to pay $1 billion in annual interest as a result. Twitter's entire cash flow last year totaled less than $1 billion, according to the Times.

Charging for previously free services isn't the only way Musk has tried to save the company money. On Thursday night and Friday morning, large swaths of Twitter's staff learned they had been laid off, either via email or by simply losing access to their Slack and email accounts.

Vice President Harris is wrapping up her midterm campaign push by meeting with union leaders a day before the elections
Juliana Kaplan
Mon, November 7, 2022 

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) tours an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) training facility on September 7 2020 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with union leaders on Monday in California.


Harris will meet with United Farm Workers and dial in to a Unite Here get out the vote call.


Unions are popular right now among Americans, making them a rarity among many issues.

Vice President Kamala Harris will meet with union leaders on Monday to discuss the Biden administration's continued support for workers, according to a White House official.

Harris, who has her own union and activism roots, has emerged as one of several high-level members of the Biden administration on the frontlines of meeting with workers and supporting the resurgent labor movement.

Harris will meet with leaders from United Farm Workers in Los Angeles, along with joining a Unite Here call focused on turning out the vote in swing states like Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

UFW recently staged a 24-day long march in an effort to get California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign onto legislation that would ease the process for farm workers to unionize. Newsom eventually signed on to an amended version of the bill. Unite Here represents service workers across restaurants, hotels, and other leisure and hospitality businesses.

Harris has hit the road ahead of the midterms, bolstering mostly female candidates and focusing on reproductive rights as Democrats pull out all of their stops to try and fend off a potential red wave. Along the way, according to a White House official, she is prioritizing meeting with local labor leaders.

Harris chairs the Biden administration's task force on strengthening unions and union membership. In May, Harris — along with co-chair Marty Walsh, Biden's Secretary of Labor — welcomed union organizers from the likes of Starbucks and Amazon to the White House. The president made an appearance at that event, which Alex Speidel, a lead organizer with United Paizo Workers/CWA, told Insider was "an unbelievable surprise."

The Biden administration has made clear its intentions to embrace organized labor. One of Biden's first actions in office was to dismiss Peter Robb, the Trump-appointed general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board. Instead, Biden installed Jennifer Abruzzo, an NLRB veteran who had been serving as a union-side lawyer for the Communication Workers of America. Abruzzo has already made her mark on the agency, working towards ending the practice of mandatory anti-union meetings. Petitions for union representation are up 58% in the first 9 months of fiscal year 2022 compared to fiscal year 2021, according to the NLRB.

"President Joe Biden and I are determined to lead the most pro-union administration in America's history," Harris said in April remarks. "Unions negotiate better wages and safer working conditions for millions of workers around our country."

Organized labor has emerged as a rare issue that Americans seem to largely be on board with. Unions are at their highest approval level since 1965, according to Gallup, with 71% of Americans approving of them.

That comes as Americans' confidence in everything from religion to Congress have wavered. Another Gallup poll from June surveyed Americans about their confidence in 16 major institutions, including the presidency and the Supreme Court. Only organized labor did not see a drop in confidence from the year prior.

Now, as Democrats head into the uncertain midterms the administration is again turning towards organized labor.

Harris "has been focused on reaching women, young people, and communities of color," a White House official said. "There's an inherent link to labor unions and the members that compose those unions, and just the critical importance of this moment to recognize what's at stake in this election and the progress that the administration has made, but that we need to continue to build on."

In Pakistan's Sindh province, Hindu culture fights the odds

 

RIAZAT BUTT
Sun, November 6, 2022 

SUKKUR, Pakistan (AP) — On the sandy banks of the Indus River, which flows top to toe through Pakistan and into its southern Sindh province, Hindus waited for brightly colored boats to ferry them to a peaceful island that has housed a temple for almost 200 years.

Cheers rang out across the water as the marble and sandalwood Sadhu Bela temple complex heaved into view. “Long live Sadhu Bela!" the boat's passengers cried.

The temple attracts tens of thousands of Hindus from within Muslim-majority Pakistan every year for festivals and rituals, including the recent celebrations of Diwali, an important Hindu holiday.

The island was gifted to the Hindu community by wealthy Muslim landlords in Sindh two centuries ago. It would have been an unthinkable act in modern-day Pakistan, where Hindus are often marginalized, persecuted, and even killed.


Around 4 million Hindus live in Pakistan, or about 1.9% of the country’s population, and 1.4 million are in Sindh.

There is no ban on Hindu worship in Pakistan, but Hindus say openly practicing the faith is not a matter of routine. Decades of political hostility between majority-Hindu India and predominantly Muslim Pakistan present a challenge for the minority community, as many in Pakistan equate Hindus with India. The reverse exists in India where Muslims complain of discrimination.

But the landscape of Pakistan, and Sindh in particular, retains their imprint. It has temples, although their numbers have plummeted. There are Hindu-run businesses as well as education and healthcare institutions, many established before the country was created in 1947. They are part of Pakistan's heritage, even as Hindus are forced into the shadows.

As Sadhu Bela came alive with the delight of devotees exploring the courtyards and gardens, Dewan Chand Chawla, a local politician and general secretary of the Pakistan Hindu Temple Management Committee, spoke proudly of the temple's origins and features. The shrine, which celebrates its bicentennial in 2023, was built by craftsmen from the Indian city of Jodhpur and reflects the architectural style of the Taj Mahal.

“A large part of the Hindu population migrated to India after Pakistan came into being, but those who stayed here are happy and prosperous,” Chawla said, keen to stress the harmonious relationship between the Muslim majority and Hindu minority. “I am thankful to the Muslim community of Pakistan, which fully supports us on all occasions. We follow the law and we are supported by the government.”

His assertion about a happy and prosperous Hindu community is not the majority view, however. Rights groups have long alleged that Pakistan is not doing enough to protect Hindus' freedom of religion and belief. They cite temple desecrations, attacks on businesses, homes, and individuals and the abduction, forced conversion, and forced marriage of young Hindu women.

Chawla is not the only politician to emphasize an image of religious coexistence in Pakistan. “Most of the Hindu population of the country live in Sindh province satisfactorily, peacefully and without any fear or threat," said Waqar Mahdi, a senior advisor to Sindh’s chief minister.

Mahdi said provincial officials have prioritized protecting the rights of minorities like Hindus and Christians.

But Zahida Rehman Jatt, a University of Sindh lecturer in anthropology and social sciences, said there has been a surge in discrimination and marginalization of Hindus because of rising extremism and fundamentalism in the country. This intolerance risks undermining Pakistan's ties to its Hindu heritage, she said.

“It’s sad because their (Hindus’) contribution is huge to Pakistan," she said. "Most Pakistanis are not aware of the importance of Hindu heritage or the contribution that Hindus — and Sikhs — made for the betterment of Pakistani society.”

Some Hindu-founded institutions had their names changed after Pakistan was created, she said, citing Hyderabad’s Kundan Mal Girls’ School as an example. It was founded in 1914 by Hindu philanthropist Saith Kundan Mal, but is now known as Jamia Arabia Girls School. Such changes are one reason why Pakistanis don't know about the contribution of minority faiths, she said.

Other institutions still bear the names of their Hindu benefactors, including a red brick college and two hospitals in the city Shikarpur, around 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Sukkur.

On the first night of Diwali, one of the most important festivals in Hinduism, clay lamps subtly illuminated doorways and windowsills in Shikarpur. But there were no elaborate light displays or street festivities, and traditional Diwali firecracker fun took place away from the public gaze.

The city of about 200,000 people has a rich Hindu history and traditions, now gradually fading.

One of the keepers of that history can be found in a vast courtyard off a side road. On a recent day in late October, sweet shop owner Dewan Narain Das, 67, enjoyed the cool air. Vats of food bubbled away, children ran and played outdoors, and people gathered to exchange Diwali gifts and good wishes on the holy occasion.

His family has owned a business in Shikarpur since the late 19th century. It started as a soft drink store and, after partition, became a sweet shop. It is famous in the city for falooda, an ice-cream-based dessert with noodles. Das is so well-known in the city that it is easy to find him just by asking for “Dewan Sahib, who owns the falooda shop.”

“People who have lived here for a long time say that the taste they enjoyed 20 years ago is still there in our products,” said Das.

He said Shikarpur once had a sizable Hindu community and scores of temples, a number that has since dwindled. “Rich people used to organize picnics at the Indus River,” he said. “They used to live here, but their businesses spread to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Mumbai.”

Many Hindus left after partition, and their properties were taken over by a government trust. Today, Pakistan has a population of some 225 million people.

Jatt, the scholar, said that the properties were allotted to refugees coming into newly created Pakistan from India. Most of the tenants paid minimal rent and were often unable to take care of the properties. “They (the residents) are very poor and these properties are grand, previously owned by wealthy Hindus," Jatt said.

After partition, politicians trying to forge a Pakistani narrative emphasized the Muslim heritage, downplaying the contributions of other communities, Jatt said.

“I don’t think we will see this kind of legacy or contribution again from Hindus, the opportunities are on the decline,” she said. "There may be individual cases of philanthropy, but the scale of building and philanthropy will decrease.”

A man buys sweet at a famous 67-year-old sweet shop run by a Hindu businessman, in Shikarpur, Pakistan, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2022. The landscape of Pakistan, and Sindh in particular, retains their imprint. It has temples, although their numbers have plummeted, businesses, education and healthcare institutions, many established before the country was created in 1947. These places are part of Pakistan's heritage, even as Hindus are forced into the shadows. 

(AP Photo/Fareed Khan)

Qatar’s promise of ‘carbon-neutral’ World Cup raises doubts




Solar panels sit in front of Khalifa International Stadium, also known as Qatar's National and oldest Stadium, which will host matches during FIFA World Cup 2022, in Doha, Qatar, Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Organizers of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar have said the event will be soccer’s first “carbon neutral” event of its kind. FIFA and Qatari organizers say they will reduce and offset all the event's carbon emissions, which will be calculated once the games are over. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

SUMAN NAISHADHAM
Mon, November 7, 2022 

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the 12-year run-up to hosting the 2022 men's World Cup soccer tournament, Qatar has been on a ferocious construction spree with few recent parallels.

It built seven of its eight World Cup stadiums, a new metro system, highways, high-rises and Lusail, a futuristic city that ten years ago was mostly dust and sand.

For years, Qatar promised something else to distinguish this World Cup from the rest: It would be ‘carbon-neutral,' or have a negligible overall impact on the climate. And for almost as long, there have been skeptics — with outside experts saying Qatar and FIFA's plan rests on convenient accounting and projects that won't counteract the event's carbon footprint as they advertise.

"It's not very helpful for this type of event to market itself as carbon-neutral,” said Gilles Dufrasne, a researcher at the Brussels-based non-governmental organization Carbon Market Watch, which authored a report questioning Qatar's sustainability plan. “It gives the impression that we can build massive state-of-the-art stadiums ... and fly people from all over the world to watch football matches and that’s somehow compatible with reaching climate targets."

COUNTING EMISSIONS

In an official report estimating the event's emissions, Qatari organizers and FIFA projected that the World Cup will produce some 3.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from activities related to the tournament between 2011 and 2023. That's about 3% of Qatar's total emissions in 2019 of roughly 115 million metric tons, according to World Bank data.

Qatar famously moved the tournament to the winter to protect players and spectators from extreme heat. Even so, the gas-rich nation will air condition seven stadiums that are open to the sky. For water, it will mostly rely on energy-guzzling desalination plants that take ocean water and make it drinkable to satisfy the more than 1.2 million fans expected to touch down for the monthlong event. The Gulf Arab sheikdom is normally home to 2.9 million people.

Qatar and FIFA say the largest source of emissions will be travel — mostly the miles flown from overseas. That will make up 52% of the total. Construction of the stadiums and training sites and their operations will account for 25%, the report said. Operating hotels and other accommodations for the five weeks, including the cruise ships Qatar hired as floating hotels, will contribute 20%.

But in its report, Carbon Market Watch said those figures are not the whole story. It said Qatar vastly underestimated the emissions from building the seven stadiums by dividing the emissions from all that concrete and steel by the lifespan of the facilities in years, instead of just totaling them.

“This is problematic,” Carbon Market Watch said, questioning the likelihood that Qatar, which is smaller than the U.S. state of Connecticut, would have erected seven large stadiums without the World Cup.

Qatar defended its math and said it has worked hard to avoid creating “white elephant” venues that often sit idle in host countries after a tournament has ended. It says it has developed plans for each stadium after the games are over.

“No other country has engaged so deeply with its citizens to ensure a sustainable legacy is left behind after a FIFA World Cup,” a spokesperson for the Qatari Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy said.

But last-minute hiccups continue to undercut the country's climate promises. For years, Qatar said the country's small size would reduce the amount of travel needed between stadiums and games. But despite all the construction, the country is still short of hotel rooms and thousands of fans who are unable to find lodging in Qatar will sleep in nearby Dubai — 45 minutes away by plane — and other Gulf cities.

Qatari organizers did not respond to a request for comment about whether they will count the flights in pollution totals, instead saying in a statement that any discrepancies would be explained after the World Cup.

A spokesperson for the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy called the methodology behind Qatar's carbon-neutral pledge “best in practice.”

CARBON OFFSETS QUESTIONED

Central to Qatar's plan to reduce World Cup emissions are carbon offsets. Sometimes called carbon credits, these promise to cancel out or absorb the same amount of greenhouse gases emitted by a company or event, so that it's as if the event emitted nothing.

In theory, that would mean every mile flown into the country and every construction project related to the games would be countered by an equal amount of carbon dioxide reduced by planting trees or improvements made elsewhere.

So far, Qatari organizers have pledged to buy 1.8 million carbon offsets from the Global Carbon Council, a Doha-based carbon credit registry where renewable projects are verified and listed. One carbon credit is equal to one metric ton of carbon dioxide avoided or removed from the atmosphere.

But carbon analysts have said the credits issued by the registry are of dubious quality because it's unclear that they are “additional,” or fund carbon-reducing projects that would not have otherwise existed. As renewable energy infrastructure grows cheaper and more common across the world, it becomes less likely that investing in them through carbon credits is actually benefitting the environment, experts say. Approved projects registered to Qatari World Cup organizers so far include wind and hydropower energy projects in Turkey and Serbia.

“They’re relying on arguably some of the lowest quality credits that exist today,” said Danny Cullenward, an energy economist and lawyer who directs policy at CarbonPlan, a California-based nonprofit that evaluates climate programs. He said there are “severe problems with additionality" with the credits Qatar and FIFA are using, which he evaluated.

Cullenward and other experts say carbon credits often promise more than they deliver. The global carbon credits market remains largely unregulated.

“It’s not clear that the strategy of carbon offsetting is actually meaningful,” Cullenward said.

QATAR'S EFFORTS

Still, Qatari organizers insist the country is on track to host the first carbon-neutral World Cup. They point to the visibly green elements of Qatar's clean purchases: 800 new electric buses, 16,000 trees and nearly 700,000 nursery-grown shrubs, plus a new 800-megawatt solar power plant that was recently connected to the grid.

“It's really enhanced the energy basket for Qatar,” said Saud Ghani, an engineering professor at Qatar University who designed the stadiums' air-conditioning systems. “Before we only burned gas to generate power.”

Organizers have repeatedly said the country's decision to offset the event's carbon emissions “should be recognized rather than criticized.”

Karim Elgendy, a fellow at London's Chatham House think tank who previously worked as a climate consultant for the World Cup, said Qatar's efforts at ‘greening’ the tournament “show a positive trend for a sporting event."

It indicates that Qatar, one of the world's top natural gas exporters, is taking steps to improve its climate credentials, Elgendy said. Even if the country is "doing that in a way that works with them.”

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Follow Suman Naishadham on Twitter: @SumanNaishadham

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Activists fear for Qatar workers as World Cup spotlight dims




A labourer uses headphones to talk on his mobile phone as the others prepare dinner at their accommodations in the old Musheireb district of Doha, Qatar, Sunday, April 28, 2019. With just days to go before Qatar hosts the World Cup, rights groups fear that a window for addressing the widespread exploitation of foreign workers could soon close. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili)More

JOSEPH KRAUSS
Sun, November 6, 2022 

With just days to go before Qatar hosts the World Cup, rights groups fear that a window for addressing the widespread exploitation of foreign workers could soon close.

The long run-up to this month's World Cup has brought unprecedented scrutiny to the treatment of the millions of foreign workers in the Gulf Arab nation who built stadiums and other infrastructure, and who will staff hotels and sweep the streets during the world's biggest sporting event.

In the face of heavy international criticism, Qatar has enacted a raft of reforms in recent years, including the partial dismantling of a system that tied workers to their employers and enacting a minimum wage — changes praised by the U.N. as well as rights groups.

But activists say abuses ranging from unpaid wages to harsh working conditions in one of the hottest countries on Earth, are still widespread, and that workers — who are barred from forming unions or striking — have few realistic avenues to pursue justice.

They also worry about what happens after the monthlong tournament ends in December, when the international spotlight moves on and employers slash their payrolls.

Qatar says it leads the region in labor reforms and that progress will continue after the World Cup. Officials from the ruling emir on down have lashed out at critics, accusing them of ignoring the reforms and unfairly singling out the first Arab or Muslim nation to host the Cup.

Qatar, like other Gulf countries, relies on millions of foreign workers, who make up a majority of the population and nearly 95% of the labor force — everyone from highly paid corporate executives to construction workers.

Qatar has dismantled much of what is known as the “kafala” system, which tied workers to their employers and made it virtually impossible for them to quit or change jobs without permission. But rights groups say much of that system survives in different, more informal ways.

Workers often must pay exorbitant recruitment fees, taking on debt even before they arrive. And employers can still cancel visas or report those who quit for “absconding,” a criminal violation.

“If a migrant worker walks away from a job that hasn’t paid them in several months, there’s just a real risk that they’re not going to get that money back," said Michael Page, of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

Equidem, a London-based labor rights group, recently released a lengthy report documenting abuses in more than a dozen World Cup hotels, where it says workers from Africa and Asia face sexual harassment, discrimination, wage theft and health and safety risks.

Ella Knight, a researcher at London-based Amnesty International, says many migrants working as security guards or domestic helpers go months or even years without a day off, despite laws mandating at least one per week.

“Impunity remains a massive problem, so employers are just not being held to account or not being penalized in a way that prevents abuses from being repeated," she said.

Qatari law bars workers from forming unions or staging protests, and authorities heavily restrict media access to laborers. Police detained at least 60 workers who struck over unpaid wages in August. Last year, two Norwegian reporters were detained while reporting on migrant workers.

Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan security guard who had anonymously blogged about the plight of workers, was detained for three months — including 28 days in solitary confinement — and fined $6,800 before leaving the country last year.

In an article about his ordeal, he said Qatar's reforms “look splendid” on paper, but that the reality on the ground is different, with authorities seemingly more keen to silence dissent than penalize abusive employers.

“I can’t help but wonder what’s in store for migrant workers after the World Cup,” he wrote. “If workers still live in horrible conditions, if workers still go months without pay, if workers still can’t freely change jobs, if domestic workers still can’t get justice, what happens when no one’s looking?”

Qatar has defended its reforms and says it will continue to safeguard workers' welfare after the World Cup.

“Qatar has always acknowledged that work remains to be done, notably to hold unscrupulous employers to account — as is the case with any country around the world,” Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar's media attache in the United States, said in a statement. “We are already seeing the number of offences declining year-on-year as compliance increases among employers.”

Labor rights activists say Qatar still owes compensation to those who worked on World Cup infrastructure projects going back to the awarding of the tournament in 2010 — years before the reforms were enacted. Amnesty says authorities failed to investigate the deaths of workers during that period.

Amnesty and other rights groups now urge soccer's governing body FIFA to establish a $440 million fund — equivalent to the tournament's total prize money — to compensate workers, an appeal that several federations support. The global soccer body has said it is open to the idea.

Qatar established its own fund in 2018 to compensate workers who are injured on the job or who are not paid, which Al-Ansari said had paid out some $270 million this calendar year alone. He did not comment directly on the calls for a larger remedy fund.

Page, of Human Rights Watch, says the sizable payouts by Qatari authorities, which only cover claims in recent years, show the importance of establishing a larger fund to address the “very serious abuses” that took place in the several years before the reforms were enacted.

“If this is their stance now, in the heat of the spotlight, what is their position going to be — the Qatari authorities — after the World Cup, in terms of reforms and migrant worker protections, when the spotlight is off them? I think that’s really concerning,” he said.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Follow Joseph Krauss on Twitter at www.twitter.com/josephkrauss

French building group summoned over Qatar working conditions


WCup Qatar Laborers 

NOT WEARING STEEL TOED BOOTS!!!

A Pakistani migrant laborer works on the corniche, overlooking the skyline of Doha, Qatar, Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022. One of the world’s biggest sporting events has thrown an uncomfortable spotlight on Qatar’s labor system, which links workers’ visas to employers and keeps wages low for workers toiling in difficult conditions. 

(AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)More

SAMUEL PETREQUIN
Mon, November 7, 2022

French construction company Vinci said on Monday that one of its subsidiaries has been summoned by an investigating judge to answer charges that it did not respect the rights of migrant workers who were hired to build infrastructure for the World Cup in Qatar.

The charges relate to a complaint dating back to 2015 that was filed by French advocacy group Sherpa against Vinci Construction Grands Projets and the French executives of its Qatari subsidiary, including accusations of using “forced labor."

The Nanterre prosecutor had closed the case without further action in 2018, but Sherpa, which was joined by several former workers, filed a new complaint that led to the opening of a judicial investigation.

Qatar has faced intense scrutiny ahead of the tournament for its labor laws and treatment of hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mostly from India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and other South Asian countries.

Sherpa said it collected testimonies about the working conditions at some of the construction sites operated by Vinci’s subsidiary, which included working in temperatures over 45 C (113 F) with insufficient water, the withholding of passports, and lack of access to showers in accommodations.

Vinci has denied any wrongdoing and said Monday that none of the projects awarded to its Qatari unit QDVC has any connection to the World Cup in Qatar starting later this month.

“In fact, these projects were entrusted to QDVC before the competition was awarded to Qatar and mainly relate to transport infrastructures," Vinci said, adding that it did not sign any contract with the World Cup organizing committee to build any stadium or hotel in Qatar.

The construction group has, however, worked on some of the infrastructure that will be used during the World Cup, including the Doha metro connecting the airport with the historic city center, and the Lusail light-rail transit system transportation network.

Vinci said it is committed to “improve the living and working conditions of all workers at its construction sites, all around the world."

The group added that “respect for human rights and health and safety at work have been a priority for its staff since QDVC was formed in 2007."

The hearing by the Nanterre investigating judge has been set for Wednesday. Vinci complained about its timing, saying that facing charges just before the start of the World Cup amid huge media attention “might be rather unfavorable in terms of a dispassionate consideration of the facts."

Since FIFA awarded the tournament to Qatar in 2010, the country has taken some steps to overhaul the country’s employment practices. However, Human Rights Watch has urged Qatar to improve compensation for migrant workers who suffered injury, death and wage theft while working on World Cup-related projects.

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Philadelphia Home Depot workers vote to reject unionization


Shopping carts are parked outside a Home Depot in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Sun, November 6, 2022 at 1:45 AM·2 min read

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Home Depot workers in Philadelphia rejected the first store-wide labor union at the world's largest home improvement retailer Saturday night, a loss for a fledgling movement to organize at major U.S. companies.

Workers voted 165 to 51 against forming Home Depot Workers United, which would have represented 274 employees at the store, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw the voting. The company and union organizations have five days to file objections.

The defeat for the organizers could discourage activist workers who have successfully formed the first unions at big chains, including Amazon, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s and Apple, but have since suffered setbacks in getting collective bargaining off the ground or organizing more unions.

The Atlanta-based company employs about 500,000 people at its 2,316 stores in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

Vincent Quiles, the Home Depot employee leading the unionization effort, told WHYY-FM that the attempt to organize workers had been a “tall order.”

“It wouldn’t be an easy fight to have," Quiles said. "But you do these things because you believe them to be right.”

Quiles previously said discontent with compensation, working conditions, understaffing and lack of training are among the grievances that spurred the effort to organize.

After the failed union vote, Home Depot spokesperson Margaret Smith told WHYY, “We’re happy that the associates at this store voted to continue working directly with the company. That connection is important to our culture, and we will continue listening to our associates and making The Home Depot a great place to work and grow.”

Quiles has filed a complaint of unfair labor practices with the NRLB, alleging managers engaged in inappropriate surveillance and interrogation tactics against union supporters. Quiles has said managers followed him around the stores and tried to disrupt any conversations he tried to have with co-workers, even if it wasn't about the union.

Instead, Quiles said he relied on TikTok videos, group text messaging and e-mailing to campaign for the union.

Home Depot has denied the complaint’s allegations.

Fierce legal fights have characterized organization efforts at other companies.

Amazon has filed more than two dozen objections in an attempt to undo the Amazon Labor Union's surprise election victory at a Staten Island warehouse last spring, the group's only successful attempt so far to form a union. The ALU, meanwhile, has filed more than two dozen charges with the NLRB accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices.

Starbucks is negotiating contracts at a handful of the more than 250 stores where workers have voted to unionize, but the company has asked the NLRB to temporarily halt other elections because of alleged misconduct.

The labor relations board has filed a complaint against Chipotle alleging the restaurant chain unlawfully closed a store in Augusta, Maine, and fired its workers for union activity.

Doug Mastriano’s Prophets In Pennsylvania
A shocking weekend with the supporters of the nominee for governor — full of swords, demons, and wild prophecies — shows the theocratic future of the GOP.

By Christopher Mathias
Nov 4, 2022, HUFFPOST

ILLUSTRATION: BENJAMIN CURRIE/HUFFPOST; PHOTO: GETTY

LONG READ

PENNSYLVANIA — LifeGate Church is nestled in a wooded area of Elizabethtown, 6 miles from the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that partially melted down in 1979, almost rendering this pretty patch of central Pennsylvania along the Susquehanna River a radioactive wasteland. The church was formed in 2010, and now a half-acre of trees behind the building lay on their sides, cut down to make room for an expansion that will include a new youth center.

On an overcast Sunday morning last month, about 80 congregants pulled into the parking lot underneath brilliant orange and yellow foliage and filed in through the church’s red front doors, sharing warm greetings and smiles. I also pulled into the parking lot, glancing in the rearview mirror to see a car pulling in behind me with a sticker on its front windshield declaring, “CRT MARXISM SUCKS.”

I was welcomed by Pastor Don Lamb, a tall, gray-mustachioed man who had recently recovered from a heart attack. (He’d collapsed in a nearby diner and technically died, he told me. But people rushed to his aid and performed a “miracle,” resuscitating him.) Lamb had made it clear before I arrived at LifeGate that he was wary of journalists like me, but that the church would stand by its promise to welcome anybody for Sunday service. I took my place in the rows of adjoined chairs as a full band — keyboardist, guitar player, bass player, drummer — started to play worship songs. The congregants rose to their feet, some with palms facing upward and eyes closed, singing.

Lamb then introduced a visitor to the day’s service, Calvin Greiner, a middle-aged white man from over in Lititz who claims to receive prophetic visions from God. Greiner walked to the front of the room carrying a long sword and grabbed hold of the microphone.

“I was instructed years and years ago to make a sword and to put on it specific words,” Greiner said. He recited the sword’s inscription. “Anointed and appointed. Worship. Warfare. Prayer. Intercession by the direction of the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said. “The other side says, The sword of the Lord — my name’s not on here — it’s The sword of the Lord. The sword of the Spirit.”

“This was in the office of Doug Mastriano — some of you might know him — for 225 days,” Greiner continued. Mastriano, of course, is a state senator and Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania.

Greiner explained how God recently told him to retrieve the sword from Mastriano’s office in Harrisburg, take it to Philadelphia, where a pastor at a church blessed it, and then to the nation’s capital. “God said, ‘After Philly, this must go to D.C. This must go to my Capitol in D.C. from Harrisburg,’” Greiner recalled, his voice breaking.

But before D.C., God told him to stop at LifeGate, where he’d meet a man named Jim Emery, a church member who had worked as security for Mastriano during his campaign.

Greiner invited Emery and a couple of other men to join him at the front of the church, where they laid their hands upon the sword and began to pray as the guitarist strummed a soft melody.

“Oh Lord and heavenly father, we thank you and pray to you that you gave us this sword to bind the powers of Satan and cast it out!” one of the men said. “As this sword moves to Washington, I pray by the powers of the Holy Spirit you will send your angels in and around that building, Lord. And you will touch the mighty Angel of God and find the power of Satan in Washington and run him out of town, Lord!”

The guitarist continued playing as Greiner closed the prayers by exclaiming: “So let God arise! Let his enemies scatter! Let those who hate God flee right now!”

Lamb took hold of the microphone again.

“We welcome you all to LifeGate, the church in the country that’s trying to affect the country,” he said. “We truly believe that God has called the church to be more than a house of offerings, a house of sermons, a house of hymnals. This will be a house of activating people to be engaged in the world we will live in.”

Lamb asked the congregation: “How many of you look forward to the return of Christ?” The crowd erupted into cheers and amens.

“That’s coming,” Lamb assured them, “but you got work to do until then.”

Doug Mastriano, GOP nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, holds a sword at an event hosted by QAnon conspiracy theorists in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in April 2022.
RIGHT WING WATCH

In April, Mastriano spoke at an event in Gettysburg hosted by believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory. He told the crowd that he would be the next governor of Pennsylvania because “my God will make it so.”

The event’s organizer, Francine Fosdick, then gave him what she called “the Sword of David.” She explained that she was giving him the sword because of the “warfare” Mastriano would have to wage on the campaign trail. “You’ve been fighting for our country, and you’re fighting for our religious rights in Christ Jesus,” Fosdick told him.

“Oh yeah,” Mastriano replied, holding up the blade. “Where’s Goliath?”

Mastriano’s campaign did not answer any questions for this story, including whether this sword was the same one I saw at LifeGate.

Mastriano has run an insular campaign for governor, often outright refusing to engage questions from a mainstream media eager to press him about his apocalyptic Christian worldview. He has preferred instead to remain in a conservative media bubble, almost solely granting interviews to far-right figures like Steve Bannon.

To better understand Mastriano, I traveled to central Pennsylvania to see the Christian nationalist extremists in his orbit up close. His supporters, some of whom are self-anointed “prophets,” see Mastriano as ordained by God to be governor of the Keystone State at a crucial moment in American history. Along the way, I joined a traveling far-right roadshow and neo-Charismatic Christian revival called the Great ReAwakening, hosted by former Trump national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn and Oklahoma businessman Clay Clark.

It’s a festival of MAGA and QAnon conspiracy theories — about the 2020 election, vaccines, the COVID pandemic, 5G, critical race theory and a globalist cabal of Democratic Satan-worshiping pedophiles — so outlandish that it’d be easy to dismiss as fringe if it weren’t regularly attracting thousands of people. It’s also routinely endorsed by some of the most powerful Republican figures in the country, including Mastriano.

If polls, not prophecies, are to be believed, Mastriano will be clobbered by his Democratic opponent, Josh Shapiro, in Tuesday’s election. But his likely defeat shouldn’t distract from what Mastriano represents: The ongoing radicalization of the Republican Party into a sect that sees its victory as inevitable and predestined from above, and which paints its opponents as the literal incarnations of the Devil in need of vanquishing. In this view, democracy is merely a roadblock in a divine quest for domination.

Waiting For Mastriano

Early on a Friday morning last month in Manheim, a small town in the fertile farmland of Lancaster County, a few thousand people — almost all white, most middle-aged — entered the sprawling Spooky Nook Sports complex, laying their coats down on white folding chairs as a band on stage broke into song.

“Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness. My God that is who you are,” the band sang as the crowd joined in. They wore T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “Jesus is my Savior, Trump is my President,” and “FAUCI LIED.”

Pastor Dave Scarlett took the stage, flanked by half a dozen people holding shofars — rams-horn trumpets traditionally used by Jews in religious ceremonies. In recent years the far-right has appropriated the instrument for its battle cry, a way of commencing “spiritual warfare.” Shofars were seen frequently during the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Let’s go to war,” Scarlett told the crowd, the shofars sounding off seven times.

So began the 17th stop of the Great ReAwakening tour. Attendees were told by speaker after speaker that they — the true, real Americans — are under attack on all fronts, and their salvation lies in seizing political and cultural institutions to pave the way for the Second Coming of Christ.

Many speakers claim they have a direct line to God. Bo Polny describes himself as an “experienced cycles timing analyst” in “Gold, Silver and Cryptocurrency” who uses “prayer and prophetic dreams” to forecast the markets.

“The U.S. Stock Market Crashed 38% in March 2020, as forecast,” his website claims. “NEXT comes the OCTOBER 2022 WORLD ECONOMIC COLLAPSE followed by the return of President Trump… how will Bitcoin, Gold, Silver and Cryptocurrencies react in the turmoil? Become a PRIVATE MEMBER TODAY and get all the DETAILS!” (A 14-day trial is “only” $99.)

Polny spoke at the Great ReAwakening show on Oct. 21. After a hard-to-follow explanation about the Biblical significance of the number “24,” Polny told the crowd that something big was going to happen soon, on Nov. 24 — perhaps the crash of the American dollar. “The system is a fraud, people!” Polny said. “It’s a fraud. Haggai 2:8 states that ‘the silver and the gold are mine, saith the Lord.’ Not the U.S. dollar!”

He then added: “The seven mountains that are built — the financial system, the church, education, the government, arts, entertainment, media — all of it is coming down, and seven new mountains will be built!”

The crowd — which knew this prophecy well — cheered.

The “Seven Mountains Mandate” is at the core of the New Apostolic Reformation. This relatively new evangelical movement believes in miracles, the supernatural, and the existence of modern-day apostles and prophets. It’s a movement characterized by Christian dominionism, the belief that Christians must gain control of the “seven mountains” of societal influence to form a perfect world. Only then, the prophecy goes, can Christ return to Earth.

This theocratic philosophy makes no room for equal governance in a pluralistic society like that of the United States. Yet the GOP candidate for governor of the country’s fifth largest state is a devotee. Though Mastriano has attempted to distance himself from New Apostolic Reformation, he has appeared repeatedly on the campaign trail with its apostles and prophets, allowing them to lay hands on him in prayer.

Mastriano was scheduled to speak at this Great ReAwakening in Manheim — organizer Clay Clark said Mastriano’s campaign asked to include him on the speaker list — but he wouldn’t appear until the end of the second day of the conference, after 16-plus hours of songs, baptisms, healing ceremonies and the casting out of demons.

And wild speeches like Polny’s.

“We’re about to witness the Third Seal of Revelation,” Polny told the Great ReAwakening crowd. “The angel of death is coming to visit these people before the end of the year.”

A graphic appeared on the screen behind him showing photos of Hilary Clinton, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, President Joe Biden, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), billionaire George Soros, former First Lady Michelle Obama, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and others.

CURSE MAGICK

This graphic was projected onto a screen at the far-right Great ReAwakening show in Manheim on Oct. 21, prophesying that the "angel of death" will visit 24 political figures by the end of the year.
COURTESY BRIAN KAYLOR

“These people are going down!” Polny exclaimed as the audience cheered and clapped. “These people who think they are pharaohs! Present-day pharaohs who you shall never see again!”

“This is coming with the greatest wealth transfer in human history,” he continued, making sure to plug his business. “Gold and silver are going to explode in value…”

Polny’s hit list, which included many of the MAGA movement’s stated political opponents, was taken from “Julie Green Prophecies,” according to the graphic on the projector.

Green, a fixture of the Great ReAwakening tour, is a “prophet” whose prophecies are reliably pro-Trump. They are sometimes violent too, like her prophecy that God — any minute now — is going to strike down Democratic politicians “for their planned pandemic, shortages, inflation, mandates and for stealing an election.” She has also falsely alleged that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “loves to drink the little children’s blood” and that the federal government is performing “human sacrifices.”

She nevertheless enjoys a close relationship with Mastriano. The GOP nominee for governor once shared a video of Green prophesying that Pennsylvania is a “hornet’s nest of corruption” but that “I, the Lord, am cleansing your state.”

Mastriano has been photographed with Green and once invited her to give a prayer at a campaign rally. At the Patriots Arise conference in Gettysburg — where Mastriano accepted his sword — Green delivered another prophecy. “Yes, Doug, I am here for you, and I have not forsaken you,” Green said, speaking as God. “The time has come for their great fall; for the great steal to be overturned. So, keep your faith in me.”

Self-declared "prophet" Julie Green, who enjoys a close relationship with Mastriano, speaks at the Great ReAwakening in Manheim.
COURTESY OF BRIAN KAYLOR

I knew all this about Green when she took the stage at the Great ReAwakening in Manheim. I did not expect to witness how much her followers adored her and how excited they were to watch her reveal prophecies on stage.

“Says God, ‘you can’t stop my son, who is the rightful president, and his name is President Donald Trump…” she said, as the crowd broke into hysterical cheers. “He is on his way back, and how he takes his position back on center stage, you will never see that coming because you won’t see me coming. And I am with him.’”

Green said that Trump’s return to the White House might happen before 2024. “God said he can take this country back in unconventional ways. He doesn’t need an election to do it,” she added.

Later, I saw Green wafting around the conference like a celebrity. She, at times, placed her hands on people’s heads, casting out their demons, causing her followers to break down in tears and even collapse. She and other “prophets” performed these rituals frequently.

They claimed to heal the sick. A woman in a wheelchair stood up and walked, saying this Great ReAwakening was the first time she’d done so in 13 years.

Attendees are prayed over during a worship and prayer time at the Great ReAwakening America Tour.
PHOTO BY JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

Valeri Boland, who coordinates volunteers for Mastriano’s campaign in Dauphin County, told me I had a demon.

I had been watching the failed U.S. Senate candidate Kathy Barnette speak on stage when Boland sat next to me. She had seen my tweets about the conference. She whispered in my ear that they were “trash” and “full of lies,” pointing her finger toward my chest. She said she would pray for me to have a “radical encounter with God” so that the “demons inside me” causing me to lie would leave.

She went back to her seat. Twenty minutes later, she found me again and apologized, offering to pray with me, an invitation I declined. She was joined by Francine Fosdick, the QAnon believer from Gettysburg who had gifted Mastriano the sword. The pair both wore “Mastriano” pins on their shirts and launched into a series of conspiratorial rants that they asked me not to record — including about the COVID vaccine and the Georgia Guidestones — while trying to convince me to accept Jesus into my heart.

I walked over to where various MAGA vendors were hawking their wares. There were prophetic paintings, one of Jesus hugging an American flag and another of a lion, surrounded by American flags, and the text: “What storm Mr. President? You’ll find out” — an apparent reference to the QAnon “storm” prophecy that Trump will mass-arrest his political enemies one day.

Other vendors sold $100 metal crosses, handbags shaped like guns, and “Trump is still my president, but Christ is King” sweatshirts. There were various questionable health supplements for sale, vitamins and anointing oils, and a blanket that purportedly protects you from 5G’s radioactive waves.

One woman, who had hurt her wrists working as an Amazon delivery driver, showed me the bottle of “micronic silver” she had just bought, which she claimed instantly stopped her pain.

Mastriano’s campaign had a booth amidst all this snake oil where supporters could sign up to volunteer. A nervous campaign worker moved aside as I took photos of the booth, stacked with literature about Mastriano’s pledge to restore “voting integrity,” “end mask and vaccine mandates,” and “put parents in charge of education.” I asked the campaign worker if Mastriano would still speak at the conference, and she said probably not. He was too busy. Clark, the conference organizer, kept telling me that Mastriano was still on the schedule.

“I identify as a man today — is it OK to be in here?” a man in the men’s bathroom loudly joked as he used a urinal, with three other grown men next to him guffawing. (Nearly every speaker at the conference had gone after transgender people, some calling gender dysphoria the work of the devil.)

Outside, I found Pennsylvania state Rep. Dave Zimmerman, who I’d interviewed a few weeks prior at a small rally for Mastriano in Harrisburg. At that rally, he had admitted to being subpoenaed by the FBI, likely over his involvement with Mastriano’s scheme to install fake electors after the 2020 election to give the presidency to Trump.

I showed Zimmerman a photo of the “angel of death” prophecy that had been projected on stage, making sure it was close enough so he could read the text above the faces of the 24 people prophesied to die in the next couple of months: “Angel of Death coming for them by year-end. ’TREASON will be written on them for ETERNITY.”

Is this OK? I asked Zimmerman. He demurred.

“I don’t know what was said. But there’s no question there’s, you know, there’s good things, and there’s bad things happening in our country, and some individuals promote good things, and some individuals promote bad things.”

I asked him: “Do you believe in modern-day prophets who have a direct line to God?”

”You know, throughout the Old Testament, New Testament scripture, God used prophets, and I’m sure he’s using prophets today as well. There’s clearly prophets that can talk to God, I’m sure,” Zimmerman said.

“QAnon’s actual core is that you need mass murder to save America, and that part hasn’t died.”

- Thomas LeCaque, associate professor of history at Grand View University

Outside the building, I eavesdropped as about a dozen attendees smoked cigarettes while chatting about their favorite far-right media personalities.

“I go to sleep listening to InfoWars.”

“That BS with the Sandy Hook lawsuit fucked him over.”

“We were listening to Ben Shapiro on local radio — he talks too fast, though.”

“Tucker Carlson — he is so funny sometimes. He just cracks me up. And that laugh of his!”

Lisa, from Elizabethtown, lit a second cigarette after agreeing to explain her “Save The Children” T-shirt to me. The Illuminati, she said, are harvesting adrenochrome from the blood of sex-trafficked kids in underground tunnels. She’d seen video evidence of these rituals via DuckDuckGo — a Pennsylvania-based search engine. She turned around so I could see the back of her shirt, replete with a map of “THE TUNNEL SYSTEM OF THE UNITED STATES.”

A woman at the Great ReAwakening event shows off a shirt mapping out underground tunnels across the U.S. where she believes the Illuminati are harvesting children's blood.
CHRISTOPHER MATHIAS / HUFFPOST

This conspiracy theory is at the heart of QAnon, the authoritarian fantasy that one day Trump will destroy this cabal of pedophiles, who incidentally are his political foes. Support for QAnon was evident at the Great ReAwakening — with one speaker leading the crowd in reciting the movement’s slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.” But it was far less pronounced than it might’ve been at a MAGA event two or three years ago.

I called Thomas LeCaque, an associate professor of history at Grand View University who studies apocalyptic religion and political violence, to ask him whether this was because QAnon’s brand, with all of its wild prophecies and numerologies, and its association with the Jan. 6 insurrection, had simply become too toxic. “I think it’s much worse than that,” he said. “I think QAnon became so normalized in the far right that you don’t need the specific banners of Q to announce it’s already there.”

When you peel away all the “genuinely batshit crazy prophetic aspects,” LeCaque explained, QAnon at its core is a “mass murder fantasy” about the coming “storm” when all of the MAGA movement’s enemies will be arrested and lynched.

“The ideology that your enemies are literal monsters and that something needs to be done about them — that part has unfortunately become far too mainstream,” LeCaque said. “I think that’s the part that should worry us a lot more. Like it’s really easy to make fun of QAnon in its purest state, but QAnon’s actual core is that you need mass murder to save America, and that part hasn’t died.”

Hand gun- and rifle-themed American flags, hats and other MAGA gear is sold during the ReAwaken America Tour.
PHOTO BY JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

Inside the conference, there was excitement about the arrival of Trump’s adult son. “Does anybody in this room not think that we won Pennsylvania?” Eric Trump asked the crowd after taking the stage. “It was the biggest fraud.”

He then gave a speech similar to the ones he’s given at other ReAwaken tour stops — the election was stolen, Christianity is under attack, liberals are indoctrinating your kids in schools — before taking out his phone and calling his dad.

Eric Trump held the phone to the microphone so the crowd, growing ecstatic, could hear the former president say, “We love you. We’re going to bring this country back because I think our country has never been in such bad shape as it is now.”

The crowd started to chant: “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

Then Eric Trump thanked Clark, the conference’s organizer, who had joined him on stage. “I love you guys,” he told Clark, “the job you’ve done…” The crowd started to cheer loudly for Clark. I was close enough to the stage to see the tears welling up in Clark’s eyes.

Clark is a far-right podcaster and business consultant from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who believes that a 2013 prophecy from a self-anointed Christian “prophet” named Kim Clement about “a man by the name of Mr. Clark and… another man by the name of Donald” was about him and Trump.

He interpreted this prophecy as a call from God to launch the Great ReAwakening, holding the show’s first iteration in Tulsa last April. He has used the tour to push the unhinged conspiracy theory that the COVID vaccine is a trick by billionaire Bill Gates to alter our DNA, making the number of genes a variant of the devil’s number — 666, also known as the “Mark of the Beast.”

“The shot, the injection, the bioweapon, what is being called the vaccine —everyone needs to look this up — it’s called SM-102,” Clark said. “A core ingredient of the shot, SM-102, also contains a technology called luciferase—Lucifer race.”

Now, here he was being thanked by Eric Trump in front of thousands of people. “He doesn’t need to be doing this crap, and neither do I, frankly,” Eric Trump said of Clark. “But the guy doesn’t stop because he loves this nation, and he loves everything this country stands for. And you are incredible at everything you put together.”

After Eric’s speech, many in the crowd started to filter out of the Spooky Nook complex, walking back to their cars as the sun set. A middle-aged white couple named Carl and Lori were driving a red, white and blue pickup truck covered in decals spelling out, “Doug Mastriano For Governor.”

“He’s gonna do all he’s gonna say he’s gonna do,” Carl said of Mastriano. “No same-sex marriage, no killing babies, that’s the main thing, and taking care of the schools and not having teachers teaching what they’re teaching. All this transgender goings-ons and all that crap.”

Carl loved all the speakers at Great ReAwakening. Lori particularly liked the prophet Julie Green.

“She’s a very good, strong Christian woman,” Lori said. “God speaks to her.”

Carl from Hershey, Pennsylvania, stands with his truck, which is covered in decals supporting Mastriano, in Manheim on Oct. 21.
CHRISTOPHER MATHIAS / HUFFPOST

On day two of the Great ReAwakening, I met Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the woman fatally shot by Capitol police as she tried to crawl through a shattered window into the Speaker’s Lobby during the insurrection.

Witthoeft carried a small, 19-year-old dog named Fuggles in a backpack as she walked around the conference. She wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the letters “J4J6” — Justice For Jan. 6 — next to a photo of her daughter outside the Capitol building.

“That’s my daughter an hour before she was murdered by the United States government,” Witthoeft said.

This was her fourth time at a Great ReAwakening event. She was here with Randy Ireland, who led the New York chapter of the Proud Boys, a violent neo-fascist gang that played a major role in the insurrection. She and Ireland had joined forces to raise awareness about the mistreatment of Jan. 6 prisoners, who they said were being “robbed” of their due rights under the Constitution.

Every month they host a candlelight vigil outside the prison in D.C. where a few dozen alleged insurrectionists are being detained. “We pray,” Witthoeft said. “We sing hymns. We have call-ins from the prisoners that we put out over livestream through a microphone and the telephone, and then at nine o’clock, we all sing the National Anthem.”

I asked her how she felt about the Great ReAwakening.

“I think there’s a lot of different people here with a lot of different messages, but one consistent message is we need God in this country. We need God in our lives. We need God to move us forward in our paths, individually and collectively. And so I believe, you know, it’s a feel-good moment for a lot of people that are here.”

Micki Witthoeft, mother of Ashli Babbit, wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the letters “J4J6” — Justice For Jan. 6 — next to a photo of her daughter outside the Capitol building.
CHRISTOPHER MATHIAS / HUFFPOST

Nearby people lined up to be healed by prophets, to have their demons cast out. Over on the main stage, a murderer’s row of bigots, grifters, COVID-deniers, and QAnon influencers gave speeches. It became clear that Mastriano wasn’t going to show. He was speaking at a rally up in Scranton and likely wouldn’t have time to get here. Not that he was going to sway any voters here, anyway. He had their votes. His campaign workers packed up their booth and walked out of Spooky Nook.

In his scheduled time slot, Donné Clement Petruska, the daughter of the late “prophet” Kim Clement, took to the stage and played videos of her dad “prophesying” Sept. 11, the rise of ISIS, and the election of Trump.

The crowd oohed and aahed.

The Sermon

The next morning at LifeGate church in Elizabethtown, Pastor Pete Ogilvie used part of his sermon to talk about the Great ReAwakening conference. “It was like drinking water from a firehose, the release of all the information and things — I couldn’t take it all in,” he said.

“It was a disturbing conference,” he said. “It was lovely and disturbing all at once.”

I had come to LifeGate because of its close ties to Mastriano and its involvement with the GOP. Lancaster Online, the local newspaper, had reported that four LifeGate members, including one with direct ties to an armed militia, had been working as a security team for Mastriano on the campaign trail. One of them, Jim Emery, along with two other LifeGate members — Stephen and Danielle Lindemuth, who were at the Jan. 6 rally that turned into the insurrection — also won seats on the local school board.

The church was making real inroads into local politics. I noticed Emery sitting in the back of the church during the sermon, holding the sword that had recently been in Mastriano’s Harrisburg office. Emery raised the sword aloft when he felt moved by the pastor’s words.

“These are the things that we come against in the name of Jesus, that we wage war with, and these are the things that we will declare victory over today!” Ogilvie declared. On the wall behind him, a projector displayed a long list of the church’s enemies:

“Mail-in Ballots, Dominion Machines, Election Day lasting longer than a week, Stolen elections, An illegitimate Administration in the WH….Human-Trafficking, Fentynol flooding our country, opioid addiction rampant, sexual immorality being the standard, Greed, Satanic Worship… Doctrines of demons, Critical Race Theory in our schools, Porn in our libraries, Boys competing in girl’s sports, pronoun protocols, Liberal media lies and canceling the conservative voices…”

Ogilive clicked through to the next slide:

“Medical Tyranny, Mask mandates, Vaccination Mandates, Covid Testing… Clause Schwab, George Soros, Fauci, Bill Gates, Hunter Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Wolf, Richard Levine, Gerry Nadler, the Jan. 6 Committee, Liz Cheney, The rest of the swamp in Both Parties, and Both Houses of Congress and the Senate….”

Then he began to pray.

“Lord, we believe that all these enemies of Your Word will fall, all your enemies will cower,” Ogilive said.

Someone in the back of the church blew through a shofar.

“Lord, we thank you, we only have enemies because you have enemies,” he added. “All your enemies are under your feet, and therefore they’re under ours.”



Christopher Mathias
Senior Reporter, HuffPost

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/canadian-university-makes-new-review-of.html

Exclusive - COP27: IMF chief says $75/ton carbon price needed by 2030

 IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva attends an interview, in Berlin


Mon, November 7, 2022 
By Simon Jessop, Seham Eloraby and Valerie Volcovici

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (Reuters) - The price of carbon needs to average at least $75 a ton globally by the end of the decade for global climate goals to succeed, the head of the International Monetary Fund told Reuters.

Speaking on the sidelines of the COP27 climate talks in the Egyptian coastal resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the pace of change in the real economy was still "way too slow".

Recent analysis by the World Bank-affiliated group suggests the sum total of global national commitments on reducing climate-damaging emissions would see them fall just 11% by mid-century.

"Unless we price carbon predictably on a trajectory that gets us at least to [a] $75 average price per ton of carbon in 2030, we simply don't create the incentive for businesses and consumers to shift," she said.

While some regions such as the European Union already price carbon at above that level - the EU's benchmark price is around 76 euros a tonne - other regions such as the U.S. state of California see carbon allowances selling for just under $30 per ton, while some have no price at all.

"The problem is that in many countries, not only in poor countries, across the world, the acceptance of pricing pollution is still low," she said, a situation made worse by the current environment of high living costs.

But Georgieva said there were different routes a country could take. The world's second biggest emitter, the United States, for example is unlikely to establish a national price on carbon given stiff political opposition to carbon taxes and 'cap-and-trade' systems.

"Just focus on equivalency. Whether the U.S. opts to impose a carbon cost through regulation and rebates rather than through tax or trade, that should not matter. What should matter is the price equivalent."

She cited the IMF's proposal for a carbon price floor and the proposal floated by Germany of a 'carbon club' of the world's biggest economies, which would coordinate how members measure and price carbon emissions and enable cooperation in slashing emissions in the largest industrial sectors.

"Whether there would be a breakthrough at this COP or after, it has to be soon because we are virtually running out of time to be successful in this transition."

(Reporting by Simon Jessop, Seham Eloraby, Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Katy Daigle and Toby Chopra)