Shock Mississippi poll has Elvis Presley cousin, a Democrat, within four points of upsetting GOP governor

Chris Pandolfo

Sat, January 21, 2023 

A surprising new poll shows Mississippi Democrats within striking distance of capturing the governor's mansion in the 2023 gubernatorial election.

Democratic candidate Brandon Presley trails incumbent Republican Gov. Tate Reeves by only four points, 39%-43%, in a Mississippi Today/Siena College poll released Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.6 percentage points, making the two declared candidates statistically tied 10 months out from the November election.

"Mississippians want someone new in the Governor’s office," said Presley, a four-term Public Service Commissioner, former mayor of Nettleton, and distant cousin of rock icon Elvis Presley. "It’s clear, the people of Mississippi are ready to fire Tate Reeves."

The poll also showed that 57% of voters would prefer "someone else" over Reeves in the November election, compared to 33% who support the governor. Reeves announced his candidacy for reelection last week, telling Fox News in an interview that he intend to eliminate the state income tax if he wins a second term later this year.

Tate Reeves, governor of Mississippi, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, Aug. 5, 2022.

A significant number of Republican respondents, 33%, said they would prefer someone other than Reeves, as did a majority of Independents (67%). Mississippi has an open primary system, meaning voters to not have to register as Republicans to vote in the Party's primary election, and independents will often vote in Republican primaries. Reeves has support from just 24% of independent respondents in the poll. Also, 29% of Democrats who responded said they planned to vote in the Republican primary on Aug. 8, and 77% of Democratic voters surveyed say they want someone else other than Reeves.

A Reeves campaign spokesman downplayed the poll's findings.

"Every four years, Mississippi’s most liberal reporter, Bobby Harrison, tells his readers Tate Reeves is going to lose based on some over-cooked media poll and every four years, Bobby Harrison is wrong. It’s just click-bait for his left-wing readers," the spokesman said.

"Governor Reeves will win re-election because Mississippians approve of his record of cutting the income tax, attracting record investment in new jobs, increasing teacher pay, and driving historic academic achievement gains in Mississippi schools," the spokesman added.

There is good news for the governor in the poll. In addition to his narrow lead over Presley, Reeves holds a strong advantage over potential Republican primary challenger Bill Waller Jr., a former Mississippi Supreme Court chief justice. Waller had challenged Reeves in the 2019 gubernatorial primary, forcing Reeves into a runoff, but a 61% majority of registered voters said they did not know enough about him to give an opinion for the 2023 election.

Head-to-head in a hypothetical primary, Reeves beats Waller 52% to 29% among poll respondents.

Reeves previously told Fox News that he's confident he'll win the primary as the most conservative candidate in the race.

"Well, I would tell you that Republican primary voters are going to vote for a conservative," Reeves said. "I have a record of returning money back to the taxpayers, of creating jobs, of having the strongest economy in our state's history, of having the lowest unemployment rate in our state's history, of having more people working in our state than any time in our state's history.

Tate Reeves, governor of Mississippi, speaks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas, Aug. 5, 2022.

"Our educational attainment levels are improving, our fourth grade reading and fourth grade math results are up, our high school graduation rates are up," he added. "We are fighting for our conservative values. We led the charge to overturn Roe. We are fighting to protect the young girls in our state by saying that we're going to let boys play boy sports and … we're going to let girls play girl sports. We're fighting the radical transgender agenda, particularly amongst those under the age of 18. And we will continue to do so."

In the general election, Reeves has significantly higher name ID than his Democratic challenger Presley, who is relatively unknown despite his distant relation to the "King of Rock and Roll." Only 21% of Mississippi voters said they had a favorable view of Brandon Presley, 15% had an unfavorable opinion of him, and the majority of voters, 61%, said they did not know enough about him to have an opinion.

The last Democrat elected governor of Mississippi was Ronnie Musgrove, who won election in 1999 and served for one term.

The Mississippi Today/Siena College Research Institute poll surveyed 821 registered voters from Jan. 8-12.

TALES OF THE SECURITY STATE

Biden tanked Jimmy Carter's nominee for CIA over mishandled classified docs


Brooke Singman

FOX NEWS
Fri, January 20, 2023 a

As a senator in the 1970s, Joe Biden tanked then-President Jimmy Carter’s pick to lead the Central Intelligence Agency over the nominee's illegal possession of classified documents.

Carter chose Ted Sorenson to serve as his CIA director in 1977.

Sorenson had admitted to taking boxes of classified records home with him after leaving the White House in 1964, and using the materials for his work in writing a biography of former President John F. Kennedy. Sorenson's admission to this came in affidavits used in cases involving the Pentagon Papers.

At the time, Biden considered the affidavit and joined with Republicans to block Sorenson from being confirmed by the Senate. Biden also suggested Sorenson may have violated the Espionage Act.

Then-Sen. Joe Biden found a nominee's use of classified documents as something that should disqualify him from being nominated to lead the CIA.

During Sorenson’s confirmation hearing, Biden said the "real issue" was "whether Mr. Sorensen intentionally took advantage of ambiguities in the law, or carelessly ignored the law.

"If he did so, can he now bring the activities of the intelligence community within the strict limits of the law?" Biden asked. "We will expect that in the future of intelligence agencies. If that is to be the case, then we must hold the Director — DCI — accountable as well."

Carter eventually withdrew Sorenson’s nomination, though Sorenson defended himself by saying his "handling of classified information was at all times in accordance with the then-existing laws, regulations and practices," according to a 1977 Washington Post report on the withdrawal of his nomination.

Biden voted against a nominee of then-President Jimmy Carter because of questions about the use of classified documents.

Decades later, Biden finds himself under special counsel investigation for his improper retention of classified records from his time as vice president during the Obama administration.

Attorney General Merrick Garland last week appointed former U.S. attorney Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate the president’s possible unauthorized removal and improper retention of classified documents and records discovered at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., and in his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

President Biden is under investigation for three batches of classified documents found in his former office and his home.

Classified records were found inside the Washington, D.C., offices of the Penn Biden Center think tank on Nov. 2, but the discovery was only disclosed to the public last week. A second stash of classified documents were also found inside the president’s garage at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and over the weekend, additional classified records were found inside the president’s home.

The White House has said it was cooperating with that DOJ review, and maintains it will continue its full cooperation with Hur’s investigation.

UFO'S ARE A PHENOMENA OF THE COLD WAR*

‘Something is in our airspace’: Rep. Tim Burchett explains why he's so obsessed with UFOs


Devarrick Turner, Knoxville News Sentinel
Fri, January 20, 2023

Have you ever looked up at the sky and thought you saw something that looked strange – a flying saucer, maybe? Or perhaps you’ve pondered the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

Whether you believe in "unidentified flying objects" visiting Earth, the number of UFO reports is increasing, 171 of which the U.S. government says remain "uncharacterized and unattributed" and may “have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities (that) require further analysis."

U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett doesn't harbor doubts. He calls them a national security concern and believes the federal government has been hiding the truth about UFOs since the 1940s.

“What is really concerning to me is that something is in our airspace that we have no control over, that we have no idea why it's there or what it's doing or where it came from and, to me, that is very concerning from a security standpoint,” the Republican congressman from Knoxville told Knox News.

Congressman Tim Burchett speaks during a monument unveiling ceremony at Powell High School in Powell, Tenn., on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2022. The monument honors 13 veterans killed in action spanning from WWII, the Vietnam War and the Korean War who graduated from the high school.

How military pilots persuaded Rep. Tim Burchett that UFOs exist

Burchett has been speaking out about UFOs after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released its 2022 report confirming it has investigated 510 total cases of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” – or UAP as they are called now, rather than UFOs. Since June 2021, a total of 247 incidents have been reported, many of those filed by U.S. Navy and Air Force pilots.

Many were determined to have been caused by drones, balloons, weather events, airborne plastic bags or even birds. But 171 others are simply unexplained.

This isn't the first time Burchett has been open on this topic. He has long believed the government was covering up knowledge about UFO sightings and otherworldly aircraft, technology and materials.

“I get it. People will talk down to me and they'll make fun of me and make comments about little green men,” he told Knox News. “But I've had people that are actual pilots that have shared photos with me. Military people that, at one time, had some pretty good credentials.

“I've met with scientists, some of the top people in the world, that tell me that we have extraterrestrial craft in our airspace on a regular basis,” Burchett added.

He encourages people to watch the "tic-tac" video, and other videos recorded by military pilots and released by the Pentagon that depict flying objects inexplicably moving at incredible speeds, quickly spinning and changing directions, and mysteriously disappearing.

A Congress-sanctioned report on UFOs was released in June 2021.

Why Burchett believes the government is covering up the existence of UFOs

The Tennessee congressman contends arrogance in the federal government is preventing transparency and truth on this topic that carries a stigma against those who believe.

“I just think open records are the best thing for any kind of government. I think the more secrets you have, the more it creates corruption and other things,” Burchett told Knox News.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence report does not specifically reveal any decades-long cover-up of UAP material or knowledge. In fact, it states “limited data on UAP continues to be a challenge.” However, it does acknowledge that UAP present a hazard to flight safety and pose a threat from adversaries – presumably earthly or beyond.

Multiple government agencies, including the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, are working together to collect and analyze UAP data.

“We are confident that continued multiagency cooperative UAP prosecution activities will likely result in greater awareness of objects in and across the air, space, and maritime domains … in the future,” the report says.

Burchett doesn’t put much stock in these claims, though. He shared with Knox News that he’s been told by trusted people with knowledge that the government has evidence of extraterrestrial material but has continued to publicly deny its existence.

“According to (the federal government), our little minds just can't handle (the truth), and that's that arrogance,” he said. “I just don't buy that.”

With added whistleblower protection for those who report UAP sightings and information, Burchett is hopeful more people will publicly come forward with information.

Burchett – who has made appearances on History Channel’s “Ancient Aliens” – does caution against fake reports.

“Knowledge is good,” he said, but programs like “Ancient Aliens” can sensationalize the issue. For him, what really matters is scientific analysis and reports from experienced military pilots and personnel who have had security clearances and access to government information.

“I think it's gonna shock people about the vastness of our universe. You really, honestly, think we're the best that God can do?” Burchett asked.

Who do you call if you see a UFO?

If you happen to spot “unidentified anomalous phenomena,” what do you do? According to the Federal Aviation Administration, you should report it to an organization such as the National UFO Reporting Center or even alert local law enforcement.

FAA Unidentified Flying Object reporting guidelines listed online say:

"Persons wanting to report UFO/unexplained phenomena activity should contact a UFO/ unexplained phenomena reporting data collection center, such as the National UFO Reporting Center, etc.

"If concern is expressed that life or property might be endangered, report the activity to the local law enforcement department."

Burchett mistrusts how the federal government would handle such reports. “I would suggest if you reported anything to the federal government that it will either be covered up or they will not act on it,” he said.

He suggests contacting organizations like the Mutual UFO Network, a nonprofit that has studied UFO reports worldwide since 1969.

You can even reach out to Burchett's office if you have an encounter by calling 865-523-3722 or sending an email through his website, Burchett.house.gov.

You never know when you might have to make that contact.

Devarrick Turner is a trending news reporter for Knox News. He can be reached by email at devarrick.turner@knoxnews.com. 

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Rep. Tim Burchett explains why he's so obsessed with UFOs

*WHICH IS WHY RT, SIBERIAN TIMES AND OTHER RUSSIAN MEDIA LOVE UFO STORIES TOO

A bored hacktivist browsing an unsecured airline server stumbled upon national security secrets including the FBI's 'no fly' list. 

She says what she found reveals a 'perverse outgrowth of the surveillance state.'


Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
Sat, January 21, 2023 

A TSA agent at LAX.Brady MacDonald/Insider

A Swiss hacker says she found a copy of the FBI's "no-fly" list on an unsecured server.

The 2019 list, with over 1.5 million entries, includes an overwhelming number of Muslim passengers.

The server, maintained by CommuteAir, also held private employee data, such as passport numbers.

The FBI Terrorism Screening Center's secret "no-fly" list just got a lot less mysterious thanks to a bored Swiss hacker who was exploring unsecured servers in her free time.

Maia arson crimew, described by the Department of Justice as a "prolific" hacker in an unrelated indictment, said she was clicking around on an online search engine full of unprotected servers on January 12 when she accessed one maintained by a little-known airline and found the highly sensitive documents, along with what she called a "jackpot" of other information.

The Daily Dot first reported on Thursday that the server, hosted by CommuteAir, a regional airline that partners with United Airlines to form United Express routes, contained among its files a redacted 2019 version of the anti-terrorism "no-fly" list. The files "NoFly.csv," and "selectee.csv" found by crimew contain over 1.8 million entries including names and dates of birth of people the FBI identifies as "known or suspected terrorists" who are prevented from boarding aircraft "when flying within, to, from and over the United States."

A spokesperson for the airline confirmed the authenticity of the files to Insider and said personally identifiable information belonging to employees was also found in the hack.

"Based on our initial investigation, no customer data was exposed," Erik Kane, a spokesperson for CommuteAir, said in a statement to Insider. "CommuteAir immediately took the affected server offline and started an investigation to determine the extent of data access. CommuteAir has reported the data exposure to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and also notified its employees."

The Transportation Security Administration confirmed to Insider that it had been made aware of the incident.

"We are investigating in coordination with our federal partners," Lorie Dankers, a spokesperson for the TSA, said in a statement to Insider.

The FBI did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Easily accessible secrets

Crimew told Insider it took just minutes for her to access the server and find credentials that allowed her to see the database. She said she was exploring the servers as a way to combat boredom while sitting alone and didn't intend to discover something with US national security implications.

While browsing files in the company's server, "it dawned on me just how heavily I had already owned them within just half an hour or so," crimew wrote in a blog post detailing the hack. The credentials she found, which gave her access to the files, would also allow her access to internal interfaces that controlled refueling, canceling and updating flights, and swapping out crew members — if she were so inclined, she wrote.

The massive files, reviewed by Insider, contain over a dozen aliases for Viktor Bout, the Russian "Merchant of Death" who was traded in a prisoner swap for basketball player Brittney Griner, as well as a large number of names of people suspected of organized crime in Ireland. However, crimew said there was a notable trend among the names.

"Looking at the files, it just confirmed a lot of the things me, and probably everyone else, kind of suspected in terms of what biases are in that list," crimew told Insider. "Just scrolling through it, you will see almost every name is Middle Eastern."

Edward Hasbrouck, an author and human rights advocate, wrote in his analysis of the documents that the lists "confirm the TSA's (1) Islamophobia, (2) overconfidence in the certainty of its pre-crime predictions, and (3) mission creep."

"The most obvious pattern in the data is the overwhelming preponderance of Arabic or Muslim-seeming names," Hasbrouck wrote in an essay published Friday by Papers, Please, an advocacy group dedicated to addressing creeping identity-based national travel rules.

"No Fly" mission creep

The "no fly" list was created under the George W. Bush administration, originally beginning as a small list of people prevented from flying on commercial flights due to specific threats. The list was formalized and vastly expanded in scope after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York, a national tragedy that spawned a spike in anti-Muslim discrimination and hate crimes across the country, according to the DOJ.

Inclusion on the list prevents people the FBI identifies who "may present a threat to civil aviation or national security" from boarding planes flying within, to, from, or over the United States. They do not need to have been charged or convicted of a crime to be included, just "reasonably suspected" of aiding or planning acts of terrorism.

In the years since the original "no fly" list was formed, it has gained official federal recognition and grown from just 16 names, according to the ACLU, to the 1,807,230 entries in the documents found by crimew.

When looking at the list, Crimew told Insider, "you start to notice just how young some of the people are." Among the hundreds of thousands of names on the list are the children of suspected terrorists including a child whose birthdate indicates they would have been four years old or five years at the time they were included.

"What problem is this even trying to solve in the first place?" crimew told Insider. "I feel like this is just a very perverse outgrowth of the surveillance state. And not just in the US, this is a global trend."

In the early 2000s, there were many reports of people being wrongly placed on the "no fly" list, including then-Senator Ted Kennedy and peace activists Rebecca Gordon and Jan Adams. In 2006, the ACLU settled a federal suit over the list, prompting a release of its then 30,000 names and the TSA's creation of an ombudsman to oversee complaints.

Not the first hack

Crimew, a staunch self-described leftist and anti-capitalist, was indicted for conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft related to a previous hack in 2021. The DOJ alleges she and several co-conspirators "hacked dozens of companies and government entities and posted the private victim data of more than 100 entities on the web."

The outcome of the 2021 case is still pending, crimew told Insider. Though she hasn't been contacted by law enforcement in relation to the latest hack, she said she wouldn't be surprised that she had once again caught the attention of federal agencies.

"It's just a whole lot of personally identifiable information that could be used against people, especially in the hands of non-US intelligence agencies," crimew wrote in a statement to Insider. For that reason, she said she chose to release the list through journalists and academic sources instead of freely publishing it on her blog. "I just feel iffy about publicly releasing a list full of people some government entity considers 'bad.' (Not that the US doesn't use it against people, it just doesn't need to get in the hands of even more people doing harm)."

CommuteAir faced a similar data breach in November, CNN reported, after an "unauthorized party" accessed information that included names, birthdates, and partial social security numbers held by the airline.

Crimew told Insider the company's lack of investment in its cybersecurity was an oversight caused by corporate greed, saying it is cheaper for the company cut corners in its security procedures and pay to take care of the aftermath than to invest properly into a safer system.

"Even the fact that they had already been hacked before apparently wasn't enough for them to really invest in it. And that really just shows like where the priorities lie," Crimew told Insider: "I just hope they maybe learned their lesson the second time."

TRUMP ANTI-VAXXER DIES 

GOES TO KOO KOO CLOUDLAND

‘Are Americans Being Poisoned?’: Diamond’s Memorial Goes Off the Rails

Zachary Petrizzo
Sat, January 21, 2023 

via Twitter

Trumpworld figures converged at Lynnette “Diamond” Hardaway’s remembrance ceremony on Saturday afternoon to celebrate the life of the pro-Trump pundit who died suddenly at 51—but the memorial took a dark turn as her sister suggested a nefarious plot behind her death.

Diamond’s sister—half of the “Diamond and Silk” duo—Rochelle “Silk” Richardson addressed the crowd at the Crown Theatre in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and appeared to fall back into her old anti-vaxxer ways.

“Instead of asking if Americans are vaxxed or unvaxxed, the real question to ask is: Are Americans being poisoned?” she asked the pro-Trump crowd filled with friends and family.


“In the wild, when they want to depopulate and sterilize a large group of animals, they usually inject one animal, and that one animal infect the rest of the animals,” Silk said, suggesting, without evidence, that the COVID-19 vaccine creates harm. “People are dropping dead around here, and nobody is talking about it! They are dropping dead suddenly and unexpectedly.”

According to fact-checkers and researchers, there is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause people to die. And despite far-right pundits amplifying the phrase “died suddenly” on social media with videos of people having seizures to support their theory, the claim isn’t supported by science.

Silk also recalled her sister’s final moments: “She said to me, ‘I can’t breathe.’ It was something out of nowhere, and no warning… Each breath was less, and less, and less.”

“What I want to say to everybody is don’t you dare call me a conspiracy theorist. Because I saw it happen. I saw how it happened. I was there when it happened, and it happened suddenly,” she said, urging the crowd to “get some answers as to why people are falling dead suddenly.”



Silk’s comments immediately sparked a wave of outrage from figures on the right, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene taking to Twitter to declare, “I demand an IMMEDIATE investigation into Covid vaccines and the dramatic increase of people dying suddenly!”

In the early days of the COVID pandemic, Diamond and Silk floated many fringe conspiracy theories, including the idea that quarantining would result in people getting “sick” and that increased COVID-19 case numbers being shared with the public was an attempt to harm Trump politically.

Silk has repeatedly denied on Twitter that Diamond passed away due to COVID-19. Instead, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has stated publicly that the pro-Trump pundit suddenly collapsed in her kitchen. (Diamond’s cause of death remains unclear, and an autopsy report has not been made public. Reached for comment via phone by The Daily Beast on Saturday evening, Diamond and Silk's executive director Tressie Ham hung up and did not address questions via text message.)

“Where’s your proof that my sister died from contracting COVID-19? No Proof plus No Truth equates to a Lawsuit,” Silk wrote after Diamond’s death was announced.

Biden’s ‘Ultra MAGA’ Remark Leaves Diamond and Silk Battling TrumpWorld: ‘Stop Adapting!’

Other Trumpworld royalty joined the solemn service to pay their respects to Diamond on Saturday—including the former president himself.

“It’s so hard to understand what could have happened,” he said. “When you got to know her, there was nobody that was kinder, there was absolutely nobody that was a more devoted person to the common sense of our country and to making our country great again.”

“Through the tears and the grief, let us celebrate this incredible life,” Trump added.

The local North Carolina paper, The Fayetteville Observer, reported that around 150 people attended the celebration of life event and were given a programming pamphlet with a list of Diamond’s favorite sayings.

“In a blink of an eye… she is now in the—presence of the Lord Jesus Christ,” Trump-loving Pastor Mark Burns declared. “I believe without a shadow of a doubt, Diamond is talking to Jesus, and she is saying, Jesus, ‘Please make sure that Donald J. Trump is the next President of The United States of America.’”

‘Totally Unexpected’: Diamond of MAGA Duo ‘Diamond & Silk’ Dies

Like many pro-Trump events, the event at times slid off the rails and took the form of a MAGA rally rather than a funeral service.

“She lives on in the hearts and the minds of those who loved her,” Republican North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson said. “The news media right now has paid little to no attention to her passing. We all know what the news media is. It is the most evil devil in America.”

“She was wise, she was strong, and she was beautiful,” Robinson continued.

Each speaker, including Trump, paid tribute to her unwavering support of the former president.

“And another secret about Diamond: She had a boyfriend. Yes, that’s right. And she had a boyfriend, and oh, my God, we would talk about him all of the time,” Ham said. “His name: President Donald J. Trump. Yes, yes, yes. President Donald J. Trump, that was her boyfriend.” Ham added that Diamond’s “side piece” was Mike Lindell.


REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Silk also used the service to threaten to file a complaint against local police over their handling of her sister’s death, though she gave few details.

“To the Hoke County Sheriff’s department, you have a rotten apple in the bunch,” Silk said. “While the body is still warm on the kitchen floor, you don’t overstep the next of kin… then try and barge into my home, that I pay the bills for, illegally, with no warrant, to retrieve my sister’s dead body.”

“You don’t push yourself onto someone then say ‘don’t touch me,’” she continued. Silk—who has long called for “handcuffs” to be removed from police—then pledged to file a “complaint” against the local North Carolina police department “ASAP”—adding, “just because you are dressed in blue doesn’t mean you get to abuse the power you think you have.”

The Hoke County Sheriff’s office did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment on Saturday evening.

The Daily Beast.

Donald Trump Spoils Eulogy For Supporter Diamond With Odd Remark About Her Sister

Ben Blanchet
Sun, January 22, 2023 

Former President Donald Trump awkwardly claimed he “didn’t know” Silk, one half of the popular conservative duo Diamond & Silk, during a speech at her late sister Diamond’s memorial service on Saturday.

Lynette “Diamond” Hardaway, who popularly backed Trump along with her sister, died earlier this month at the age of 51 in what the former president described as a “totally” unexpected occurrence.

Trump made an appearance at the North Carolina service where — in addition to reflections on Diamond — he railed about inflation and gas prices as he listed a string of political grievances.

The former president, who visited with the duo in the White House and looped theminto rallies in the past, referred to Diamond as one of the world’s “brightest stars” before making an odd remark about her sister.

“I’m serious, I thought I knew them both. I didn’t. I knew Diamond but I didn’t know Silk at all. I just learned about Silk. You’re fantastic,” Trump said.

Trump later spoke about the crowd at the memorial service before he used his time on stage to dive into how planning went for the event.

“The chapel wouldn’t have held the kind of people, the number of people that we have,” Trump said.

“And we’re doing it right and that’s the way it should be and I did notice a big line of very, very nice vehicles outside. That’s got to be handled properly, right? So we’re going to handle it properly. Go out in style. She knew that. Go out in style.”

Trump also went on about the length of the three-hour-plus service, which he said was a “little longer than 15 minutes.”

You can watch more clips from the service below.

Former Trump Official to High School Students: 'Do Your Part, Get Married and Have Kids—Lots of Them'

Laura Bassett
Sat, January 21, 2023 

Photo: Getty (Getty Images)

Roger Severino, the former director of the Office of Civil Rights at Health and Human Services under Donald Trump, told a group of more than 2,000 high school and college kids at the Students for Life annual conference Saturday that they can win the abortion fight by having tons of babies.

“You have to do your part,” he said. “Get married and have kids—lots of them.”

Students who support abortion rights, Severino added, are at a natural disadvantage because they “don’t reproduce.” (Nevermind that the average abortion patient, according to the New York Times, is already a mother.)

Politico reporter Alice Ollstein posted updates from the Washington, D.C., conference on Twitter Saturday, noting that students took a vote on what kinds of abortion bans they’d like to see now that Roe v. Wade was overturned, and one speaker made a very unfunny joke about the national diaper shortage.

Sunday will mark the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Roe decision, and the anti-abortion movement apparently has no plans of taking their feet off the gas now that they got the opinion overturned. At the annual March for Life Friday, attendees chanted, “One, two, three, four, Roe v. Wade is out the door...five, six, seven, eight, now it’s time to legislate,” as leaders called on politicians to get down to the business of banning abortion through laws.

“We have to work very hard to make sure we keep our eye on the prize, that we don’t say, ‘Hey, Roe v. Wade is overturned. We’ve done our work. Now it’s time to go home.’ I would say, to be transparent, that was a concern of ours,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, according to Ollstein. “I think some people were a little bit frozen in time and not sure what to do.”

Of the state ballot initiatives post-Roe, in which voters in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont made clear that they want to keep abortion rights, Dannenfelser said conservatives need to simply “up [their] funding game” rather than abide by the will of voters.

“I think those ballot initiatives were a wake-up call that 50 years of work can be wiped out in a second unless you’re ready to go with a real battle plan,” she said.

Needless to say, the overturning of Roe was never about sending the issue back to the states, as conservatives have claimed for decades—it was about getting the green light to impose their will on the whole country.

More from Jezebel

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM WAR PROFITEERING
Ukrainian Defense Ministry overpays for food, reports Ukrainian media

Sat, January 21, 2023 

According to the media, the Ministry of Defense purchases products for the military at inflated prices

The newspaper obtained a copy of a Defense Ministry's agreement worth UAH 13.16 billion (about $360 million) for catering services for military units located far away from the front line, in particular in Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv and Cherkasy oblasts.

Read also: Cabinet appoints new acting head of state producer of alcohol products

The agreement was signed on Dec. 23.

Zerkalo Tuzhnia compared the prices stated in the contract with the prices in Ukraine's Silpo supermarket chain. They discovered that the most common items were overpriced by two to three times.

For example, the MoD purchases eggs at the price of UAH 17 ($0.46) per egg, while retail prices in Kyiv's supermarkets is about UAH 7 ($0.2) per egg.

Potatoes are bought for UAH 22 ($0.6) per kilogram, while it can be bought at a price of UAH 8-9 ($0.25) per kilogram at a regular shop.

Read also: Serbian Defense Minister confirms presence of “defense industry products” in crashed plane

Meanwhile, chicken thighs were purchased at UAH 120 ($3.27) per kilogram, while average retail prices cost about UAH 80 ($2.18).

The newspaper noted that these price comparisons were only for retail – wholesale prices would be even lower.

The Ministry of Defense is yet to respond to the newspaper's request on the matter. The agreement on catering is much wider than just food purchase, but those costs are described separately.

Read also: Russia continues to export oil products to Europe, evading EU ban – Skhemy

"If one wades through the document, they will see that catering service is specified separately with the cost of UAH 30 million ($820,000) that is about 0.2% of the total contract value, not even 2%," the newspaper emphasized.

The MoD signed the contract worth UAH 13 billion with Active Company LLC, a company with registered assets worth UAH 1,000 ($27).

Read also: Russians stealing metal products from Mariupol to send to Russia

In 2021, the tax service revoked this company's VAT payer certificate due to lack of deliveries and failure to report taxes.

In 2019, Active Company LLC was involved in a criminal investigation where the National Police suspected the firm of submitting a fake certificate for a tender for the supply of beef for prisons and pre-trial detention centers in Ukraine.

The government’s response to the scandalous news

The Ukrainian parliament has already responded to the investigation. Mariana Bezuhla, a Ukrainian MP and deputy chairwoman of the Committee on National Security, Defense, and Intelligence, wrote on Facebook that the "problem isn't limited with the food purchase alone".

"An inspection of the Ministry of Defense is currently being conducted by the State Audit Service of Ukraine, as well as by the police,” she said.

“We are expecting their conclusions. Our MoD has done a lot during the war time of 2022. But there are also some omissions, and even more so the risk of corruption has to be addressed.”

Later, she reported that the leadership of the Ministry of Defense is expected to provide an explanation to the committee for this contract.

ZN.ua

Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine

Can Bolsonaro's insurrectionists be deterred?

David Faris, Contributing Writer
Sun, January 22, 2023 

The aftermath of the Brazil riots. Illustrated | Getty Images

In early January, supporters of defeated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country's seat of government in Brasília, in a challenge to the peaceful transfer of power modeled explicitly on the U.S. Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. While the rioters were eventually cleared, the incident raised troubling questions about the loyalty of the country's security and military services, as well as the future and health of Brazil's democracy. Will efforts to arrest and prosecute the insurrectionists deter future attempts to overthrow the government? Here's everything you need to know about Brazil's troubled democracy:

What brought us to this point?

For a time after former President Jair Bolsanaro was defeated in Brazil's October 2022 runoff election, it appeared that the country had narrowly averted disaster. Despite ominous signals from Bolsanaro in the year leading up to the election that he would attempt to enlist his allies in the military to thwart the popular will, this didn't happen, at least not immediately. Challenger Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, commonly known as Lula, was inaugurated on New Year's Day — a ceremony that Bolsonaro petulantly skipped, just like former U.S. President Donald Trump did in 2021.

Lula's speech promised a return to democratic values. "The great edifice of rights, sovereignty, and development that this nation built has been systematically demolished in recent years," he told the gathered throngs. "And to re-erect this edifice, we are going to direct all our efforts." Those efforts, unfortunately, had to commence almost immediately, when mobs of Bolsonaro's supporters swarmed into the Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential palace buildings in the capital city of Brasília a week later on Jan 8. Security forces appeared to act in concert with the rioters, increasing fears that Lula's term would be cut short by a military coup dressed up as a street uprising.

How did Bolsonaro handle the situation?

While he didn't try to seize power immediately, Bolsonaro refused to concede his defeat to Lula. It was in keeping with his style of rule, which included escalating attacks on journalists, attempts to shield himself and his family from public scrutiny, and staffing his administration with former military officials. Throughout the campaign, he had hurled baseless accusations against the country's voting machines, attacked the Supreme Court, and argued that the military should conduct its own audit of the results. Bolsonaro consistently trailed Lula in public opinion polling, but the actual results were far closer than expected. That may have emboldened Bolsonaro, since a narrow loss is easier to undermine with charges of fraud than an overwhelming thumping.

As Lula's inauguration approached, Bolsonaro supporters set up camp outside of Brasília's main military compound, urging the armed forces to restore Bolsonaro to power. Bolsonaro left the country for Florida on Dec. 31, leaving Vice President Hamilton Mourão in charge of the country for a day before Lula's swearing-in. Bolsonaro denied involvement in escalating tensions in the capital and denounced a bomb plot that was foiled by authorities. "I did not encourage anyone to enter confrontation," Bolsonaro said on social media.

What did his supporters achieve?

A week after Lula's inauguration, everything boiled over in the capital. More Bolsonaro supporters arrived in Brasília by bus and began marching toward the governing complex. Unlike the Jan. 6 attack in the U.S., the riot was not intended to disrupt the transfer of power, which had already happened, but seemingly to invite the military to seize power and depose Lula.

Critics charged that security forces deliberately allowed rioters to gain access to the buildings, a sentiment later echoed by Lula himself. "There was an explicit connivance of the police with the demonstrators," he said. The lack of preparation was particularly suspicious given the open planning of the riot by far-right supporters of Bolsonaro on social media. Bolsonaro, though, refused to openly support the violence from Florida, stating "Peaceful protests, in the form of the law, are part of democracy. However, depredations and invasions of public buildings are not the norm."

Military leaders, whatever their private sympathies might be, declined to join the insurrection or to move against Lula, so far preserving the continuity of democracy that has held since the end of a 21-year military dictatorship in 1985. The army, instead, cleared the insurrectionists out of their redoubts in a sign that, as The New York Times' German Lopez argues, Bolsonaro lacked the necessary support inside the military to pull off a coup. The Supreme Court suspended the capital region's governor for 90 days for negligence. That same justice, Alexandre de Moraes, approved arrest warrants for security officials responsible for the Federal District. Roughly 1,500 people were detained for participating in the riot, and many were subsequently arrested, a much swifter crackdown than was seen in the U.S. after Jan. 6.

Is democracy safe?

Whether the crackdown will suffice to deter future plots against democracy remains to be seen. For Time, Ian Bremmer argues that "there is no evidence that the events of Jan. 8, dramatic and ugly though they were, have changed many minds." While the insurrection itself was unpopular with a majority of Brazilians, a staggering 37 percent support the military stepping in to remove Lula, a figure that will surely go up if his administration stumbles.

In Foreign Affairs, Benjamin H. Bradlow and Mohammad Ali Kadivar write that Brazil's institutions won't avert a slide into autocracy — instead, Lula "will have to rely on this wide, organized social base of support to again strengthen the institutional basis of Brazilian democracy." That is especially true because Lula's allies lack effective majorities in Congress to implement any reforms that might alleviate the threat of far-right authoritarianism. According to Maria Laura Canineu, Brazil director at Human Rights Watch, "authorities should strengthen the democratic system and defend the rule of law by holding to account all those responsible for carrying out or enabling the violence."

It is not yet known when Bolsonaro plans to return to Brazil from Florida, if he would be prosecuted for his role in the events of Jan. 8, or if he would run again for president. Authorities have not yet made a request to the U.S. for Bolsonaro's extradition. But Brazil has surely not seen the last of him, and ongoing vigilance will be required to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of the country's democratic institutions.

Brazil's new president works to reverse Amazon deforestation
 

FABIANO MAISONNAVE and DIANE JEANTET
Sun, January 22, 2023 

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Shaking a traditional rattle, Brazil’s incoming head of Indigenous affairs recently walked through every corner of the agency’s headquarters — even its coffee room — as she invoked help from ancestors during a ritual cleansing.

The ritual carried extra meaning for Joenia Wapichana, Brazil’s first Indigenous woman to command the agency charged with protecting the Amazon rainforest and its people. Once she is sworn in next month under newly inaugurated President Luiz Inácio da Silva, Wapichana promises to clean house at an agency that critics say has allowed the Amazon's resources to be exploited at the expense of the environment.

As Wapichana performed the ritual, Indigenous people and government officials enthusiastically chanted “Yoohoo! Funai is ours!’’ — a reference to the agency she will lead.

Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula's narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation.

To carry out these goals, Lula is appointing well-known environmentalists and Indigenous people to key positions at Funai and other agencies that Bolsonaro had filled with allies of agribusiness and military officers.

In Lula's previous two terms as president, he had a mixed record on environmental and Indigenous issues. And he is certain to face obstacles from pro-Bolsonaro state governors who still control swaths of the Amazon. But experts say Lula is taking the right first steps.

The federal officials Lula has already named to key posts “have the national and international prestige to reverse all the environmental destruction that we have suffered over these four years of the Bolsonaro government,” said George Porto Ferreira, an analyst at Ibama, Brazil’s environmental law-enforcement agency.

Bolsonaro's supporters, meanwhile, fear that Lula's promise of stronger environmental protections will hurt the economy by reducing the amount of land open for development, and punish people for activities that had previously been allowed. Some supporters with ties to agribusiness have been accused of providing financial and logistical assistance to rioters who earlier this month stormed Brazil's presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court.

When Bolsonaro was president, he defanged Funai and other agencies responsible for environmental oversight. This enabled deforestation to soar to its highest level since 2006, as developers and miners who took land from Indigenous people faced few consequences.

Between 2019 and 2022, the number of fines handed out for illegal activities in the Amazon declined by 38% compared with the previous four years, according an analysis of Brazilian government data by the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental nonprofit groups.

One of the strongest signs yet of Lula's intentions to reverse these trends was his decision to return Marina Silva to lead the country's environmental ministry. Silva formerly held the job between 2003 and 2008, a period when deforestation declined by 53%. A former rubber-tapper from Acre state, Silva resigned after clashing with government and agribusiness leaders over environmental policies she deemed to be too lenient.

Silva strikes a strong contrast with Bolsonaro’s first environment minister, Ricardo Salles, who had never set foot in the Amazon when he took office in 2019 and resigned two years later following allegations that he had facilitated the export of illegally felled timber.

Other measures Lula has taken in support of the Amazon and its people include:

— Signing a decree that would rejuvenate the most significant international effort to preserve the rainforest — the Amazon Fund. The fund, which Bolsonaro had gutted, has received more than $1.2 billion, mostly from Norway, to help pay for sustainable development of the Amazon.

— Revoking a Bolsonaro decree that allowed mining in Indigenous and environmental protection areas.

— Creating a Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, which will oversee everything from land boundaries to education. This ministry will be led by Sônia Guajajara, the country's first Indigenous woman in such a high government post.

“It won't be easy to overcome 504 years in only four years. But we are willing to use this moment to promote a take-back of Brazil's spiritual force," Guajajara said during her induction ceremony, which was delayed by the damage pro-Bolsonaro rioters caused to the presidential palace.

The Amazon rainforest, which covers an area twice the size of India, acts as a buffer against climate change by absorbing large amounts of carbon dioxide. But Bolsonaro viewed management of the Amazon as an internal affair, causing Brazil's global reputation to take a hit. Lula is trying to undo that damage.

During the UN’s climate summit in Egypt in November, Lula pledged to end all deforestation by 2030 and announced his country’s intention to host the COP30 climate conference in 2025. Brazil had been scheduled to host the event in 2019, but Bolsonaro canceled it in 2018 right after he was elected.

While Lula has ambitious environmental goals, the fight to protect the Amazon faces complex hurdles. For example, getting cooperation from local officials won't be easy.

Six out of nine Amazonian states are run by Bolsonaro allies. Those include Rondonia, where settlers of European descent control local power and have dismantled environmental legislation through the state assembly; and Acre, where a lack of economic opportunities is driving rubber-tappers who had long fought to preserve the rainforest to take up cattle grazing instead.

The Amazon has also been plagued for decades by illegal gold mining, which employs tens of thousands of people in Brazil and other countries, such as Peru and Venezuela. The illegal mining causes mercury contamination of rivers that Indigenous peoples rely upon for fishing and drinking.

“Its main cause is the state's absence,” says Gustavo Geiser, a forensics expert with the Federal Police who has worked in the Amazon for over 15 years.

One area where Lula has more control is in designating Indigenous territories, which are the best preserved regions in the Amazon.

Lula is under pressure to create 13 new Indigenous territories — a process that had stalled under Bolsonaro, who kept his promise not to grant “one more inch” of land to Indigenous peoples.

A major step will be to expand the size of Uneiuxi, part of one of the most remote and culturally diverse regions of the world that is home to 23 peoples. The process of expanding the boundaries of Uneiuxi started four decades ago, and the only remaining step is a presidential signature, which will increase its size by 37% to 551,000 hectares (2,100 square miles).

“Lula already indicated that he would not have any problem doing that,” said Kleber Karipuna, a close aide of Guajajara.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, right, and congressional candidate Marina Silva, campaign in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. Environmentalists, Indigenous people and voters sympathetic to their causes were important to Lula's narrow victory over former President Jair Bolsonaro. Now Lula is seeking to fulfill campaign pledges he made to them on a wide range of issues, from expanding Indigenous territories to halting a surge in illegal deforestation. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, file)