‘Shut your mouth’: GOP senator clashes with union leader during hearing

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien

Karl Evers-Hillstrom
Wed, March 8, 2023

Teamsters President Sean O’Brien got into a heated argument with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) during a Wednesday Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on union busting tactics.

O’Brien told Mullin he was “out of line” after the GOP senator said that the union leader was “sucking the paycheck” out of workers to earn his salary, which was roughly $193,000 in 2019.

“Don’t tell me I’m out of line,” Mullin responded. “You need to shut your mouth.”

Mullin, who owned non-union plumbing companies before selling his majority stakes in 2021, accused union leaders of engaging in intimidation tactics in an effort to unionize his company so they could pay themselves “exorbitant” salaries.

“We hold greedy CEOs like yourself accountable,” O’Brien responded. “You want to attack my salary, I’ll attack yours. What did you make when you owned your company?”

Mullin — who had a net worth ranging between $31.6 million and $75.6 million in 2020, according to personal financial disclosures analyzed by Oklahoma newspaper Tulsa World — said that he kept his salary to around $50,000 to invest more money into his company.

“You mean you hid money,” O’Brien said, prompting visible outrage from Mullin.

Mullin finished his remarks by stating that he’s “not anti-union” but believes that workers shouldn’t have to pay union dues if they don’t want to. 

DUES ARE THE BEST TAX BREAK WORKERS GET

In 2013, the Office of Congressional Ethics alleged that then-Rep. Mullin received more than $600,000 in outside income from his companies, which is well above the congressional limit. The House Ethics Committee closed its investigation into Mullin in 2018 and ordered him to repay $40,000 to one of his businesses.

Wednesday’s hearing, hosted by committee Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), focused on anti-union tactics by large companies such as Starbucks, whose CEO Howard Schultz recently agreed to testify before the committee later this month after a subpoena threat from Sanders.

 The Hill.

Senator Markwayne Mullin ran a multimillion-dollar plumbing business and claimed he only took a $50,000 salary. His financial statements show otherwise.

Jack Newsham
Thu, March 9, 2023

Rep. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., speaks during a House Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, April 15, 2021.Al Drago/Pool via AP

Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin had a heated argument with the head of a union on Wednesday.

Mullin claimed he only paid himself a $50,000 salary and "invested every penny" into his business.

But he'd reported his private-sector salary at $92,000, with another $200,000 in income.

A Republican senator drastically understated how much money he made in the private sector as he argued with the head of the Teamsters union at a hearing in Washington on Wednesday.

While lambasting Teamsters president Sean O'Brien for his nearly $200,000 salary, Oklahoma's Senator Markwayne Mullin claimed that he paid himself a salary of just $50,000 when he ran a plumbing business. But his financial disclosures show his salary was nearly $92,000 in 2012, the year he was first elected to Congress. His total income was even greater.

"What did you make when you owned your company?" O'Brien asked.

"When I made my company? I kept my salary down at about $50,000 a year because I invested every penny into it," Mullin replied.

Like many business owners, Mullin's biggest source of income wasn't his salary. He reported between $200,000 and $2 million in income in 2012 from two family companies, Mullin Plumbing Inc. and Mullin Plumbing West, and another $15,000 to $50,000 from shares he held in a bank.

In 2011, Mullin also made well over $50,000. His salary was over $77,000 and his other income from the same two businesses was also over $200,000. He also reported over $50,000 in rent that year from Mullin Properties.

Mullin's office didn't respond to a request for comment.

Wednesday's hearing of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which is chaired by the democratic socialist Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, was focused on "Defending the Right of Workers to Organize." Before questioning O'Brien, Mullin described himself as a job creator and said in 2009, a union tried to intimidate his workers into unionizing.

"I started with nothing. Absolutely nothing. In fact, I started below nothing. And I started growing this little plumbing company with six employees, to now, we have over 300 employees," he said.

O'Brien seemed to enjoy sparring with Mullin on Wednesday. He could be seen grinning at one point, and after the hearing tweeted information from more recent financial disclosures about Mullin's being worth tens of millions of dollars.

The Tulsa World reported in October that Mullin's wealth ballooned to at least $31 million after the apparent sale of his plumbing business to HomeTown Services, a residential heating, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical company.

Mullin has served on Capitol Hill since 2012 and was elected to the Senate in a special election last year. He is a member of the Cherokee nation and the only Native American member of the Senate.

He is known for having clashed with State Department officials in 2021 as he sought to get into Afghanistan on a self-appointed rescue mission.

US research station HAARP did not cause Turkey-Syria earthquake: experts


AFP Indonesia, AFP Romania
Wed, 8 March 2023 

Following the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria in February 2023, social media posts in various languages have shared videos they falsely claim show the disaster was "man-made" and triggered by the US-based High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) research facility. The false posts circulated in various languages. Scientists called the claim "ridiculous" and "science fiction", while one of the clips actually predates this year's Turkey-Syria quake.

A black-and-white video which appears to have been filmed from a surveillance camera was shared on Facebook here on February 9, 2023.

The 22-second clip shows flashes of light during what appears to be an earthquake.

The post's Indonesian-language caption starts with the hashtag "Man-made Disaster" and then goes on to say: "The HAARP technology exists and is real … If the Turkey quake was indeed caused by a HAARP attack, then Turkey and other Muslim countries have to unite to nuke the HAARP station centre in Gakona, Alaska, US."


Screenshot of the first false post, taken on March 4, 2023

Similar posts were shared here and here and also circulated in other languages such as English, Romanian, German and Greek.

The posts circulated days after a devastating earthquake struck southeastern Turkey and neighbouring Syria in the early morning hours of February 6, 2023. By the month's end, the death toll in both countries exceeded 50,000 people.

Another video -- 40 seconds long and showing flashing light amid rattling sounds during nighttime -- was posted on Facebook on February 7, 2023.

The post's lengthy Indonesian-language caption partly says: "Moments before the nearly 8 magnitude devastating earthquake in Turkey that left thousands dead, the HAARP weapon appeared with a strange flash of lightning. HAARP has the ability to trigger floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, thunderstorms etc."

Screenshot of the second false post, taken on March 4, 2023

Another Indonesian-based Facebook user also shared the video alongside a similar claim here.

Similar posts featuring the clip circulated in other languages such as English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Romanian, Hungarian and Czech.

AFP spoke to multiple experts in astronomy, geophysics and earth sciences who all dismissed the claims.

They said HAARP -- a research centre run by the US Air Force and US Navy before being handed over in 2015 to the University of Alaska Fairbanks -- does not have the capacity to trigger earthquakes.
'Science fiction'

HAARP is focused on studying the properties and behaviour of the ionosphere, which NASA explains here is the top layer of the earth's atmosphere that meets the beginning of space.

Jeffrey Hughes, professor of astronomy at Boston University, told AFP that HAARP's radio waves heat the ionosphere over a limited region of around 100 km. "There is no way this could be used to create an effect halfway round the earth in the solid earth. I'm sorry but this is just silly," he said.

Toshi Nishimura, a geophysicist and research associate professor at Boston University's College of Engineering, said: "Currently there is no technology to launch radio waves from the ground and hit a city in another continent precisely."

He added: "Artificial radio waves can disturb the upper atmosphere locally, but it is comparable to disturbance caused by the Sun. I'm not aware of scientific evidence that the artificial waves can create much stronger disturbances and impact local seismic conditions."

Susan Hough, a geophysicist with the US Geological Survey (USGS), dismissed the claims as "science fiction". "There is no plausible mechanism whereby an earthquake could be triggered with such a device or weapon," she told AFP.

"This is so crazy it's like asking if the earthquake was caused by Bugs Bunny digging for carrots," David Keith, professor of applied physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, told AFP when asked about these claims. "There is simply no known mechanism for anything remotely like HAARP to have any impact on earthquakes."

Michael Lockwood, professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading in England, who has worked with similar scientific instruments in other locations, was unequivocal that "HAARP is NOT a weapon in any shape or form and never has been and it cannot be used as a weapon".

"The idea that HAARP, situated just north of Gakona, Alaska could generate seismic activity anywhere, let alone in Turkey and Syria is, frankly, truly ridiculous," he added.

On its FAQ page, HAARP says: "The goal of the research at HAARP is to conduct fundamental study of the physical processes at work in the very highest portions of our atmosphere."

When asked by AFP about the latest claims that it was behind the February 2023 earthquake, HAARP's programme manager Jessica Matthews said this was not possible.

"The recent earthquake and tragic loss of life in Turkey highlight the destruction that natural disasters can cause. The research equipment at the HAARP site cannot create or amplify natural disasters," she told AFP.

Misused videos

The videos in the posts had also been shared with false context.

A keyword search found the first video was posted by Turkish broadcaster Haber Global on November 23, 2022 -- more than two months before the Turkey-Syria quake.

According to the Haber Global news report, the footage shows lightning during an earthquake in the Duzce region in northwestern Turkey on the same day.

In the clip, the news presenter says the "beam of light" phenomenon has been also observed in other quakes, when there is movement in the Earth's fault lines.

Other local news media here and here also reported on the flashes of light in the sky during the November 2022 quake in Turkey. The 6.1-magnitude quake injured at least 50 people, AFP reported at that time.

Using video verification tool InVID-WeVerify, AFP ran a Yandex reverse image search of the keyframes from the second video, and found the video was published by Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak on its website and Facebook page on February 6, 2023.

Accroding to Yeni Safak, a local resident took the video during the earthquake in Hatay province, in southern Turkey.

Other Turkish media, such as here and here, also reported the clip was taken during the earthquake in Hatay province, but some others, like here, said it was recorded in Pazarcik, a district in Turkey's southern Kahramanmaras province. None of the reports mentioned HAARP.

Frightening moment powerful earthquake rattles buildings in southern Türkiye | Amateur footage captured by a local in Türkiye's southern Hatay province shows the moment a powerful earthquake rattled buildings after a 7.4 magnitude... | By Yeni Şafak | Facebook

Hatay and Kahramanmaras were the two hardest hit provinces by the February 2023 quake, AFP reported.

Earthquake lights

Experts told AFP that such lights are not a proof that HAARP triggered an earthquake. The phenomenon is common during quakes, though there is some disagreement about their provenance.

Phenomena such as sheet lightning, balls of light, streamers, and steady glow which are reported in association with earthquakes are called earthquake lights, the USGS explains here.

Geophysicists differ on the extent to which they think that individual reports of unusual lighting near the time and epicenter of an earthquake actually represent earthquake lights, the USGS says.

"Most experts agree that earthquake lights do occur: flashes of light seen during strong earthquakes. Sometimes lights are generated by transformer explosions, but there is evidence for lights from the earth itself," Hough of USGS explained to AFP.

"There are some ideas why they occur, but I don't believe there's a widely accepted theory to explain them, in part because they are such an ephemeral observation, they are difficult to even document," she added.

AFP showed the footage that was shared by the Turkish media to experts as well.

John Vidale, professor of earth sciences at the University of Southern California, said that "videos such as this usually come from electric transformers shorting out during the strong shaking."

Hughes from Boston University, concurred. "They look to me, at least some of them, like the sorts of flashes you get when electric power systems short out, which I'm sure happened during the destruction of the earthquake," he said.

Turkey, which sits on the East Anatolian and the North Anatolian fault lines, is in one of the world's most active earthquake zones.

"By all indicates the Turkey earthquake, while large, is in keeping with expectations for large earthquakes on major strike-slip fault systems," Hough said.

AFP has previously debunked misinformation about HAARP, such as those that say it was responsible for the unusual orange cloud that appeared in Turkey weeks before the earthquake, or that it could control the weather or emit 5G radiation containing the coronavirus.

Google and Meta over-hired thousands of employees who do 'fake work,' says PayPal Mafia's Keith Rabois

Hasan Chowdhury
Wed, March 8, 2023 

The venture capitalist Keith Rabois said he blamed recent layoffs on Big Tech's pursuit of vanity metrics like head count.Keith Rabois

Silicon Valley VC Keith Rabois says mass layoffs are due to hiring becoming a vanity metric in tech.

Rabois told an Evercore-hosted event that firms like Meta over-hired by thousands of staff.

"There's nothing for these people to do ... It's all fake work," Rabois said.

Thousands of tech staffers at Meta and Google do "fake work" and were brought on to fulfill the "vanity metric" of hiring, according to the outspoken investor and tech veteran Keith Rabois.

Rabois is chief executive of OpenStore, which finances merchants selling with Shopify, and a general partner at venture capital firm Founders Fund. He is also known as one of the "PayPal Mafia", having worked as an executive at the payments firm in the early 2000s.

Speaking remotely from Miami at an event hosted by banking firm Evercore, Rabois said that major tech firms were responsible for over-hiring and that the sector's current mass shedding of jobs to rein in costs was overdue.

"All these people were extraneous, this has been true for a long time, the vanity metric of hiring employees was this false god in some ways," he said.

Later on the call, he estimated that Alphabet's Google and Facebook owner Meta had thousands of employees who don't do anything.

"There's nothing for these people to do — they're really — it's all fake work," he said. "Now that's being exposed, what do these people actually do, they go to meetings."

Google, he continued, had intentionally over-hired engineers and tech talent to stop them from moving to other companies, a strategy he described as "pretty coherent." But, he added, that meant engineers had been happy to "be entitled, sit at their desks, and do nothing."

Rabois' view is shared by other Silicon Valley figures such as Marc Andreessen, the Andreessen Horowitz general partner who has criticized a managerial "laptop class", and likewise thinks firms are overstaffed.

Rabois said that he expects the industry's focus to shift away from a growth-at-all-costs model to focus on profitability metrics such as the revenue generated per employee. Rabois noted that cutting head count was one of the best ways to preserve and generate free-cash flow.

The comments come as soaring interest rates and inflation in recent months have led tech companies across the industry to take an ax to their workforces in a bid to manage costs and weather the economic storm. In 2022, more than 1,000 companies laid off more than 160,000 staff, according to the layoffs tracking site Layoffs.fyi. — that figure has already surpassed 100,000 for 2023 so far, according to the site.

The job losses mark the first major contraction for the tech sector after a decade of growth that supercharged several of the major firms to market capitalizations above $1 trillion — and kept talent from smaller companies and industries.

Despite already reducing head counts, some firms are set to make more cuts. Meta, which laid off more than 11,000 workers in November, could be preparing to ax thousands more jobs this week, according to Bloomberg.

Rabois was full of praise for Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who is estimated to have cut roughly half of the social-media company's workforce a month after taking charge in October.

"People are watching Elon and Twitter and he's clearly setting an example — maybe it's an extreme example," Rabois said, adding later that he wouldn't bet against the Tesla mogul.

Not everyone agrees with Musk's methods, and his drastic cuts have occasionally come back to bite him. Twitter has experienced safety and security issues since Musk took over, including a major outage earlier this week. He is also under fire for trolling laid-off Twitter employee Haraldur Thorleifsson and accusing him of using his disability as an "excuse" not to do work — the Twitter CEO has since apologized for his comments and said that Thorleifsson "is considering remaining at Twitter."

GROOMER GOVERNOR
Sarah Huckabee Sanders Paves Way for Child Labor Exploitation

Ryan Bort
Wed, March 8, 2023

SHS child protections - Credit: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is off to a furious start as governor of Arkansas. She’d signed over 140 bills into law in less than 50 days on the job, as of the end of February, taking on pressing issues like what constitutes an “adult-oriented performance.” The number keeps increasing, with Sanders this week signing a new law rolling back restrictions on child labor.

The law means the state will no longer have to verify the age of children under 16 before they take a job, which means 14- and 15-year-olds would be able to work without a special permit. The state’s Republican-controlled Senate voted 24-9 last Thursday to send the bill to the governor’s desk. “There is no reason that anyone should have to get the government’s permission to get a job,” said state Sen. Clint Penzo, who sponsored the bill, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

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Sanders spokesperson Alexa Henning said the governor believes is the state’s previous child labor regulations were “arbitrary” as well as “burdensome and obsolete.”

The new law comes as the Biden administration promised to crack down on child labor violations days after a New York Times investigation exposed the extent to which migrant children are employed in dangerous jobs across the United States. Child labor violations have quadrupled since 2015, according to data from the Department of Labor.

Arkansas isn’t the only state that wants to make it easier for employers to hire children. Iowa, Ohio, and Minnesota are also considering bills that would loosen restrictions. The bill in Iowa would allow 14-year-olds to work in meatpacking plants. The Department of Labor announced last month that Packers Sanitation Services had paid $1.5 million in fines for illegally employing over 100 children to clean meatpacking plants on overnight shifts.

Sanders will also have children in mind when she signs a sweeping education overhaul package the state’s legislature passed on Tuesday. The law would create a new school voucher program, and also prohibit teaching about gender identity or sexual orientation before the fifth grade — as well as impose an across-the-board ban on teaching what the state calls “critical race theory” and what others call “a full description of U.S. history.”

“I’m ready to sign it into law tomorrow and end the failed status quo that has governed our education system for far too long,” Sanders said in a statement. “Every kid should have access to a quality education and a path to a good paying job and better life right here in Arkansas.”

She’s certainly not lying about wanting kids to have jobs.

An extremely alarming call for Putin. The ghost of 1917 appeared in Russia

Wed, March 8, 2023 

Kremlin

The incident in Bryansk which happened last week is a consequence of Putin's attack on Ukraine. Before Russia started this war, none of the Russian nationalists had the determination to take up arms and start fighting, to call for the overthrow of Putin's regime and to seize power by military means.

Read also: Incident in Bryansk Oblast ‘part of transformative processes in Russia,’ Ukrainian intel says

We remember that this has happened before in Russian history. And this happened in the 20th century, when in 1914 the Russian Empire was one of those that started World War I. And in 1917, a revolution occurred: all over Russia, bands of armed men who participated in the war began to seize power under the leadership of various leaders - leftists, rightists, anarchists, monarchists, and so on. Perhaps history repeats itself, as the classics said, but on a new level.

About the chronology. Let's recall an interesting moment. On Feb. 28 of this year, Putin spoke to the board of the FSB. This is his alma mater, the environment in which he was formed as a personality - KGB, FSB. So: Putin's texts in this case are prepared very carefully, and every word and every instruction is important. This speech was short, but Putin gave it a special emphasis – he even emphasized that the special task of the FSB and units of the FSB border troops is to provide cover and protect the border precisely on the Ukrainian-Russian section. And, probably, here he had in mind the entire length of the border.

And now, a day after these instructions, on March 2, when Putin warned that there could be terrorist attacks, hostage taking, attacks on civilians, on critical infrastructure facilities, events are taking place. And the assessment that the Kremlin gave them through Putin's mouth, that this was a terrorist act, looks like a preparation that was really prepared in advance.

It is important to understand that this assessment is one phenomenon, and what actually happened is another one.

Read also: Russia's second big offensive: What Putin is betting on - a simple explanation

I have a version that the information was so impressive to the Russian special services that they simply decided to use this blank to impose their version of events and at the same time make everyone forget more quickly what really happened there.

Then Putin said that these are people who set themselves the task of depriving Russia of its historical memory, history, traditions, and language. This list is evidence that the truth is so terrible and unbearable for the Russian authorities that they need to find some excuse, to tell the biggest unimaginable lie. According to Goebbels, when the most incredible lie is told to a society which is policed, under control, where there is a monopoly of power over the sources of information, it will be perceived as the most plausible version. So they took this terror attack as stock.

Perhaps they themselves realized that somewhere there is a ghost of 1917: that there are Russians who are ready to take up arms and provide an example that this government should be overthrown by armed force. They could perceive it as a wake-up call, because I will remind you that until March 2, almost all Russian opposition forces did say that "we will reconcile by peaceful means." There were statements about the environment that "we will federalize" Russia, that there will be a number of states or a number of subjects of the federation or confederation - it doesn't matter. But no one called to take up arms and overthrow Putin's power by military means. That's exactly what they did on March 2. A little known Russian volunteer corps.

But for the FSB, with its institutional memory that still stretches back to the tsarist guard, it reminded them of the year 1917, when a revolution broke out in Russia during World War I and the Bolsheviks seized power by force of arms. And then Lenin and Trotsky were called agents of German intelligence who want to destroy Russia.

This testifies to a huge fright in the FSB.

This testifies to a huge fright in the FSB. They would really like to forget about this incident as soon as possible. Because with their paranoia and persecution mania, they could have thought that if they didn't do it, if they didn't label this incident as terrorism, if they didn't force everyone to forget it faster, then somewhere it might unwittingly cause a counter-reaction in other regions of Russia.

And since the FSB is overextended now by controlling the society, in order not to allow any dissidence, hunting those who are against the war, it may not have the time and thus sleep through any real violent armed actions against state authorities. They are afraid of this most of all now.

The Russian "ultra-patriotic community" immediately started chanting that war should be declared - "call a spade a spade, let's declare war." Let's not forget that these are Soviet people, a Soviet type of thinking, formed back in the days of the Soviet Union. Voenkors, members of the State Duma are preparing a certain media environment in which Putin's words will be heard not sensationally, not radically, but routinely. They are preparing their media environment, society for the fact that Putin can really declare war.

They are preparing people that Putin could say this, announce this, and it would not sound unexpected, radical, not to raise questions in society.

Regarding the war. Let us recall Lenin's article, which he wrote in 1914, where he claimed that the task of the Bolsheviks was to turn this imperialist war into a civil war. And now the FSB, the Kremlin also think, are afraid that this "special military operation" will turn into a special Russian revolution, into a civil war: Russians against foreign Russians, foreign Russians against Russians, poor against the rich, true Russian nationalists against Putinist fascists.

They think (from the point of view of the FSB) that the appearance of this investigation about Putin's palaces, about his wife Kabaeva, his children, his luxurious life on the anniversary of the start of the war and this incident in the Bryansk region, when they called on the Russians to overthrow the Putin regime by armed force, are the links of a chain. To show that Putin is a tsar who is not real, who is incapable, thinks only of himself, cares only about himself, his children are from different women, he is detached from life and is not capable of ruling Russia, that his clique illegally and forcibly keeps Russia under his rule. And that's why they should be overthrown. Because the king lost his legitimacy, broke down and so on.

And they think that this is informational preparation for the beginning of a rebellion or a revolution. And that this incident in the Bryansk region is only the first hint that there really is some attempt, either within the country independently or with the support of foreign special services, to turn the war against Ukraine into a civil war in Russia. This is what they fear.

Read also: Three options for the future of Russia

And that is why they are trying to intercept the information thesis that there will be no civil war, but there will be a real war against Ukraine, against the collective West. That is, efforts will be directed in the informational plane in order to prevent the spread of the thought and idea that in Russia, not a peaceful, but rather an armed revolution and uprising is possible.

Such an idea can provoke a spontaneous involuntary protest in Russia.

There are certain signs of why they are afraid of this, why they are also preparing for it. In February, Rashid Nurgaliev was appointed first deputy secretary of the Security Council of Russia. He is a former interior minister. He was pulled out of some kind of retirement, out of mothballs, for what? It is a signal that there will be a new curator in the domestic power vertical, who ran the Ministry of the Interior at a time when Russia was fighting internal threats, including the Chechen resistance across the country. So, they also see that there are some real signs that stricter control is needed along the lines of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB inside Russia.

The FSB fears that radicalization will affect the most educated, most radical part of Russian society. That it may affect mainly young people or even old people who, being highly educated, will compare Putin's secret railway with another railway.

When was the first railway in Russia built? To Tsarske Selo! Between one tsar's palace in St. Petersburg and another palace in Tsarskoe Selo. Also a special railway. People will draw parallels in Russia between this. We simply do not fully understand this Russian cultural context. But there, about the 20th century, about the tsarist regime, about the revolution, the role of Bolshevism, the role of monarchists, republicans, the 1990s, about the shelling of the parliament - it's all alive. This is all being discussed in certain circles. This is the first point

Secondly: let's not forget that there are still explosions in different areas of Russia. It is not always and only drones, but also human efforts. In the summer of last year, a wave of arson struck military commissariats in various regions across Russia.

Read also: Russia should cease to exist within current borders, says NSDC secretary

In various regions, the FSB reads information about how people violate the draconian measures aimed at suppressing the truth about the war. They see this picture in different regions. They understand that these are signs of a certain protest movement, a certain social environment, which under certain conditions can be radicalized to the extent that people can take up arms. The only question is how they will get these weapons, who will organize them.

And that is why this Russian volunteer corps is an extremely alarming call, in fact a wake-up call for Putin's Russia, which says that dozens of people can appear who can seize power in a separate territory and successfully resist the repressive apparatus in Russia.

If this happens in several regions, it will be a total disaster. As soon as such a mutiny or armed action achieves minimal success, it begins to spread on social networks, and then the FSB will be afraid that the domino principle will happen, that this process will start. And that the first minimal success will encourage other people to take up arms or even without arms to attack the same authorities, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and seize power. And go all the way to the overthrow of the Putin regime.

That is why they are so scared now. Therefore, they try to use the very first way - to break this topic with information. True, they have a small toolkit, that is, to talk about the war, about something else, so that people do not think about palaces, about a king who is not capable of anything, who is destroying the Russian state. Because the main message is that Putin is not strengthening the Russian state, he is destroying it. In order to not destroy it, it is necessary to destroy him. This may be the theme of the Russian revolution in the 21st century.

 The New Voice of Ukraine

Opinion: QAnon has gone local, with strange repercussions in California's Shasta County and beyond

Mia Bloom
Thu, March 9, 2023 

A Shasta County resident expresses his concerns about voter fraud before the Board of Supervisors in Redding last fall. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

The Shasta County Board of Supervisors has “upended the county’s election process,” the Los Angeles Times reported last week, “canceling its contract with Dominion Voting Systems.” The county could opt to hand-count ballots instead, which would likely delay results and promote more suspicion of elections. One supervisor said he had explored seeking the services of Mike Lindell, the pillow purveyor and prominent conspiracy theorist.

Shasta, a deep-red county in California's far north, has proven vulnerable to causes that are on the national fringe but being pushed by the forces that supported Donald Trump's false election fraud allegations. Militia members and other hard-right activists led a recall of a member of the all-Republican county board last year and have since attained a majority, leading to last week's official endorsement of baseless suspicions about Dominion.

The current state of QAnon and related conspiracy theories is no exception to the old axiom that all politics is local. Since President Biden’s inauguration put an end to efforts to keep Trump in office, these theories have trickled down from national to local politics, influencing local officials responsible for crucial policymaking on voting, education and more.

The wide-ranging, baseless set of beliefs known as QAnon portrays Trump as a messianic figure fighting an evil cabal of Democratic elites and Hollywood celebrities who rule the world and molest and murder children. In 2020, adherents coalesced around “stop the steal” allegations that machines manufactured by Dominion had somehow changed the results in key states. The allegations surfaced in a few states in which Dominion machines were never even used.

A focus on Dominion’s nefarious ballot alterations and the company's supposed origins in Venezuela — it's actually Canadian — became a mainstay of Trump’s refusal to accept the election results. More than two years later, such conspiracies continue to pervade right-wing politics below the national level. At last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), for example, featured speaker and Arizona gubernatorial race loser Kari Lake continued to argue that the 2022 election was stolen from her.

Such conspiracy beliefs have been promoted by far-right figures such as Lindell and Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and amplified by right-wing media. Research I conducted found 97 QAnon-supporting candidates in the 2020 primaries, with California, Florida, Texas and Arizona leading the country.

The campaigns and their supporters have been shockingly successful at promoting the belief at the grassroots level. Polls by the Public Religion Research Institute and NPR/Ipsos have found that as many as one in three Americans believes key tenets of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Far-right media echo chambers played a crucial role in achieving this level of acceptance of fringe beliefs. We know more about that thanks to Dominion’s $1.6-billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

After Jan. 6, 2021, QAnon influencers pivoted to propaganda on local wedge issues such as the content of K-12 education (especially “critical race theory”) and trans rights, implying that studying race caused homosexuality and sexual dysmorphia, as I and Sophia Moskalenko describe in our recent book on QAnon. Much of this propaganda appeals to a Republican base comprising groups in which QAnon theories have been enthusiastically embraced, including evangelicals.

Devotees were encouraged to act locally for greatest impact. In particular, they were encouraged to run for local offices, including city and county positions and especially school boards, which entice conspiracy theorists with the promise of extending their influence to future generations. From Michigan to California, dozens of elected local officials have promoted QAnon conspiracy theories like the one surrounding Dominion. Another California county, Kern, kept its Dominion machines last week only after much deliberation.

School boards all over the country are now occupied by people whose social media feeds are packed with calls to “patriots” and “digital soldiers” to join the movement and prophecies that nothing can “stop what is coming.” Time magazine investigated school boards in Michigan and Nevada and found, as one student put it, “far-right conspiracists or radicals to be infiltrating the most basic unit of American government.” Beyond their impact at the local level, these offices often serve as springboards for state and national candidacies.

And beyond hurting children’s education and the rights of trans people and other minorities, these theories undermine our democratic institutions. It should come as no surprise that since its beginnings in 2017, QAnon was amplified by U.S. adversaries such as Russia and China. Conspiracy theories about Dominion, stolen elections and an evil cabal spread at the local level are mirrored by Russian disinformation campaigns at home and abroad. The theories have much the same effect as some of Russia’s tactics during the 2016 presidential campaign, when its agents created fake Facebook accounts to pit neighbor against neighbor, encourage protests and violence on both sides of controversies, and weaken public trust.

QAnon’s infiltration of local politics furthers the global goals of malign foreign actors over the long term. It’s only by recognizing the hidden motivations and roots of these conspiracy theories that we may begin to inoculate ourselves against them.

Mia Bloom is a professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University, a fellow with New America’s International Security Program and a coauthor of “Pastels and Pedophiles: Inside the Mind of QAnon.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Women's Day protesters rally for rights, with focus on Iran and Afghanistan


Tue, March 7, 2023

MEXICO CITY/ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Rallies marking International Women's Day took place around the world on Wednesday with a focus on Afghanistan, where girls are denied the right to education, and Iran, which has seen mass protests on women's rights in recent months.

Activists donned purple and held demonstrations from Jakarta and Singapore to Istanbul, Berlin, Caracas and Montevideo.

In the Americas, reproductive rights were a key theme after the landmark Roe v. Wade U.S. abortion ruling was overturned last year and with abortion tightly restricted in much of Latin America. Women have also demanded action on high rates of unsolved killings of women and girls.

In Mexico City, 67-year-old Silvia Vargas said she had been attending demonstrations since her daughter Maria Fernanda, who was lesbian, was killed in 2014.

"Not everyone gets human rights, governments and institutions determine them," she said, saying authorities had made her feel her daughter's sexuality and murder were shameful. "I'm going home to an absence that has marked me for life."

Across South America, from Montevideo on the Atlantic coast to the Andean city of Quito, thousands took to the streets, including indigenous people, students and workers.

In Brazil's Rio de Janeiro, women demanded the legalization of abortion and action on femicides, while in Chile's Santiago protesters, dancers, artists and even pets crammed the streets.

By nightfall in Mexico's second-largest city, Monterrey, protesters clashed with police and some set a local government palace gate on fire.

In Manila, activists calling for equal rights and better wages scuffled with police blocking their protest. "Girls just want to have fun...damental rights", read one poster. Turkish police fired pepper spray to disperse protesters in Istanbul.

In Paris, demonstrators marched to demand better pensions for women who work part-time and in Tel Aviv women formed human chains to protest against a judicial overhaul that they fear will harm civil liberties.

Protesters flooded the streets of several Spanish cities to demand equal rights and the rooting out of "machismo" but divisions in the feminist movement over issues such as transgender rights and prostitution led to competing rallies.

Many protests included calls for solidarity with women in Iran and Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the most repressive country in the world regarding women's rights, and it has been distressing to witness their methodical, deliberate, and systematic efforts to push Afghan women and girls out of the public sphere," Roza Otunbayeva, head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, said in a statement marking the day.

In London, protesters marched to the Iranian embassy in costumes inspired by the novel and television series "The Handmaid's Tale", while in Valencia, Spain, women cut their hair in support of Iranian women.

The death last September of 23-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of morality police in Tehran unleashed the biggest anti-government protests in Iran in years.

In recent days, Iran's clerical rulers have faced renewed pressure as public anger was compounded by a wave of poisonings affecting girls in dozens of schools. Iran has arrested several people it said were linked to the poisonings and accused some of connections to "foreign-based dissident media".

As Washington marked International Women's Day, the United States imposed sanctions on two senior Iranian prison officials it accused of being responsible for serious rights abuses against women and girls.

Britain also announced a package of sanctions against what it described as "global violators of women's rights", while the EU announced new sanctions on Tuesday.

NEW PLEDGES

Some governments marked Wednesday with domestic legislative changes or pledges.

Canada repealed historic indecency and anti-abortion laws, French President Emmanuel Macron said he backed the inclusion of the right to abortion in the constitution, and Ireland announced a referendum to remove outmoded references to women in its constitution.

Italy's first female prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said state-controlled companies should have at least one leader who is a woman.

In Japan, which ranked 116 out of 146 countries on gender parity in a World Economic Forum global report last year, chief cabinet secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said progress had been made on improving women's working conditions but more had to be done.

"The situation for women, who are trying to balance household and workplace responsibilities, is quite difficult," he said. "Measures to tackle this are still just halfway complete."

In Russia, where International Women's Day is one of the most celebrated public holidays, the head of its upper house of parliament used the occasion to launch a vehement attack on LGBT lifestyles.

"Men and women are the biological, social and cultural backbones of communities," Valentina Matviyenko wrote in a blog on the Federation Council's website.

"Therefore, there are no dangerous gender games in our country and never will be. Let us leave it to the West to conduct this dangerous experiment on itself."

In the Colombian capital of Bogota, 45-year-old psychologist Paulina, who did not give a surname, said "invisible violence" was a problem for women everywhere.

"Even as we are victims of abuse, they say 'You had a skirt on, a shirt showing cleavage, you were looking for it, right?'."

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Rosalba O'Brien and Sarah Morland; Editing by Edmund Blair, Gareth Jones, Alison Williams and Gerry Doyle)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Whose Family Values? 

Georgia to drop foreign agents bill after massive protests
 

SOPHIKO MEGRELIDZE
Wed, March 8, 2023 

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Following days of massive protests, Georgia’s governing party said Thursday it would withdraw draft legislation that opponents warned would stifle dissent and curtail media freedoms, ushering in Russian-style repression.

The bill would have required media and nongovernmental organizations that receive over 20% of their funding from foreign sources to register as “agents of foreign influence.” Its opponents argued that it was inspired by a similar law used by authorities in Russia to silence critics and could hinder Georgia’s aspirations of one day joining NATO and the European Union.

Protests against the bill began last week, but swelled in recent days to bring tens of thousands of people to the streets of the capital, Tbilisi — and were met with tear gas and water cannons. The Interior Ministry said 133 demonstrators have been arrested.

Citing the “controversy in society” the bill triggered, the governing Georgian Dream party and its allies said they would withdraw the proposed law. But that process might be complicated since it has already passed its first of three required readings.


A group of activists spearheading the protests said demonstrations would resume on Thursday evening to ensure the bill is actually abandoned. They are also demanding the release of those arrested.

Georgia’s president, Salome Zourabichvili, had already said she would veto the bill — a move that indicated a growing divide between her and the Georgian Dream. Zourabichvili does not belong to any party, but the ruling one backed her candidacy in the 2018 presidential election. Since assuming office, however, she has increasingly disagreed with their decisions and policies, especially on foreign affairs.

Opposition parties have in recent years accused the Georgian Dream of pursuing pro-Russian policies while claiming to be Western-oriented. The party's opponents charge that its founder, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili who made his fortune in Russia, has continued calling the shots in the Black Sea nation of 3.7 million, even though he currently doesn't hold a government job.

The party has repeatedly denied any links to Russia or leaning towards it.

Though they agreed to withdraw the bill, the Georgian Dream party and its allies alleged that public opinion had been misled about the proposal.

“The bill was labeled falsely as a ‘Russian law’ and its adoption in the first reading was presented in the eyes of a part of the public as a departure from the European course,” lawmakers said.

The proposed law did appear similar to one enacted in Russia in 2012 that has been used to shut down or discredit organizations critical of government.

The Georgian bill's authors said it would make clear when the work of entities is financed by representatives of foreign states — but opponents saw it as a step toward introducing the same heavy-handed tactics that Russian President Vladimir Putin has used to crack down on dissent.

Two European Parliament members who handled the body's relations with Georgia, Maria Kaljurand and Sven Mikser, indicated that concerns the controversial bill could harm Georgia's EU prospects were well-founded. The proposed law “goes directly against the Georgian authorities’ declared ambition to receive candidate status for EU membership," they said.

Ruling politicians began to back off the bill on Wednesday evening, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets. They announced that Thursday's discussions of the proposal would be canceled, and Parliament speaker Shalva Papuashvili asked for the measure to be assessed by the Venice Commission. The commission advises the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights body, on constitutional matters.

The EU delegation in Georgia welcomed the announcement of the withdrawal on Thursday, as did Khatia Dekanoidze, a parliament member from the pro-Western United National Movement party. She said that “our children managed to achieve this.”

Riot police block a street to stop protesters outside the Georgian parliament building in Tbilisi, Georgia, Wednesday, March 8, 2023. Police in Georgia's capital have fired water cannons and tear-gas to disperse demonstrators around the parliament building protesting a draft law aimed at curbing the influence of "foreign agents," among fears it could be used to silence opposition. 

(AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze)

An alligator egg was taken from a zoo 20 years ago. The now 8-foot reptile has returned, authorities say.

Wyatte Grantham-Philips, USA TODAY
Tue, March 7, 2023 

A decades-long journey from a Texas zoo to a rural backyard came full circle when police located an alligator and returned it to the zoo where a gator egg went missing more than 20 years ago.

Investigators believe the alligator egg was taken from the Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo in New Braunfels. They believe the egg hatched into a female alligator that grew to be nearly 8 feet long before authorities discovered it in a Caldwell County woman's backyard while they were in the area for a separate incident, Texas Game Wardens public information officer Jen Shugert told USA TODAY.

The woman, who has not been identified by name, told officials that she had acquired the alligator egg at the Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo.

This 8-foot alligator found in a Texas woman's backyard was relocated to Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo.

The woman told Jarrod Forthman, the zoo's director, that "she stuck (the egg) in her pocket... and walked out the door" while volunteering at the zoo more than 20 years ago, Forthman told USA TODAY. "I guess she essentially confessed to stealing it."

The woman cared for the alligator well, both Shugert and Forthman said, and the animal was in good health when officials found it. But she was unable meet the requirements for permits needed to keep the reptile.

"The owner fed it well (and) it was healthy by everyone's standards. It had just outgrown its habitat, unfortunately," Shugert said.

More: Alligator on a leash surprises park-goers in Philly. It was Wally the emotional support gator.

So, it was time to find the gator a new home – and officials decided to relocate it to the same zoo that the egg originated from.

After several weeks of preparations, officials from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and Animal World & Snake Farm Zoo moved the gator to the zoo on Friday.

"She's doing fantastic. We introduced her to the group immediately on Friday after we found out it was a female," Forthman said, noting that female alligators are usually easier to introduce to groups "because the males are much more territorial."

In New York: 4-foot alligator found in lake at New York City park, transported to zoo for rehabilitation

Forthman added that alligator can now be seen in the zoo's big pond by visitors – including the previous owner.

The woman raised "a nice, happy healthy alligator that just unfortunately, the law wasn't going to allow her to have. So we're going to take care of it and let her come out and see the gator as often as she would like," he said. "Whether she... rightfully owned that alligator or not, that's still her pet that she's had for decades."

Alligators are protected under Texas law.

No one can take, purchase, sell or possess an alligator without a permit – which are difficult to get, Forthman said.

The individual in possession of this alligator was cited with two misdemeanors, Shugert said. Each citation carries up to a $500 fine.

"Alligators don’t make good pets, y’all," the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department wrote in a Friday Instagram post.

Exclusive-U.S. probe of beagle breeder Envigo scrutinizes top animal welfare officials' inaction

Owners of Envigo beagles meet up for a reunion in Charlottesville

Thu, March 9, 2023 
By Sarah N. Lynch and Rachael Levy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top animal welfare officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) were subpoenaed last year by a federal grand jury seeking to establish why they took no action against animal research breeder Envigo, despite repeatedly documenting the mistreatment of thousands of beagles, according to several people familiar with the matter.

A deputy administrator of the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), Dr. Elizabeth Goldentyer, and its animal welfare operations director, Dr. Robert Gibbens, were ordered to appear before a grand jury in the Western District of Virginia as part of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ) into Envigo, the sources said.

Envigo, a major U.S. animal research breeder, shuttered its Cumberland, Virginia facility last year after the Justice Department searched it and seized more than 4,000 beagles in May 2022. The company later settled civil charges alleging it had shown a “disregard” for the dogs’ welfare, and agreed to forfeit the beagles.

The Justice Department’s decision to subpoena government witnesses who would normally testify voluntarily to help build the government’s criminal case was highly unusual, according to a half-dozen legal and animal welfare experts.

The decision to exclude APHIS - the federal regulatory agency responsible for conducting compliance inspections at animal facilities across America - from the May 2022 search of the Envigo facility was also extraordinary, the experts said.

“That is not only unheard of, that is orders of magnitude out of normal,” said V. Wensley Koch, a retired 30-year veteran of APHIS.

Prosecutors asked Goldentyer and Gibbens, who appeared in November and August, respectively, about their management of the Envigo inspections and why they did not take any action against the company, despite the extensive documented evidence of violations, several of the sources said.

Reuters was not able to determine how they responded to the questions.

Spokespeople for the USDA and APHIS declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Goldentyer and Gibbens declined to comment through an APHIS spokesperson, but in a previously unreported October letter to U.S. senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine of Virginia, the agency said it had "worked diligently to improve animal welfare at Envigo."

Spokespeople for the Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney's office for the Western District of Virginia declined to comment, as did the USDA inspector general's office.

To piece together a picture of how APHIS operates, Reuters relied on more than 800 pages of internal documents obtained through a public records request by the animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), public government watchdog reports, inspection records, and interviews with animal welfare experts.

The documents, which have not been previously published, show a sharp divide between top officials and inspectors over how to handle the litany of problems that successive inspections found at the Envigo facility over a period of months.

The inspectors wanted APHIS to take a tougher stance against the company for the mistreatment of the beagles.

It is too early to determine where the subpoenas will lead since the grand jury's primary goal is to determine whether to bring criminal charges against Envigo or its executives for animal welfare violations, obstruction of the USDA, making false statements and defrauding the United States, according to a court filing.

The subpoenas and the nature of the questions show that prosecutors are also investigating possible wrongdoing by APHIS leaders, including Goldentyer and Gibbens, several of the sources said.

The APHIS inspectors who documented dozens of violations at Envigo in 2021 and 2022 were also compelled last year to appear before the grand jury, where they were asked about possible flaws with the inspection process and were ordered to provide all records related to Envigo, according to sources who spoke anonymously because the matter is not public.

The actions by those inspectors are not under scrutiny, one of the sources added.

INTERNAL STRIFE

Between July 2021 and March 2022, inspectors documented more than 60 violations during four visits to Envigo's Cumberland facility, public records show. More than half were deemed "direct” or “critical" violations. Direct violations indicate an animal is facing immediate harm.

Problems included dangerous flooring, failing to provide veterinary care, unsanitary conditions, euthanizing dogs without anesthesia, under-feeding mothers nursing puppies and failing to document the cause of death for hundreds of puppies.

APHIS policy states that inspectors who find a "direct" violation must return for a follow-up inspection within 14 days.

Yet, this did not happen with any of the agency's inspections of Envigo, public records show.

APHIS leaders and inspectors sometimes disagreed about what details should be included in their reports and how resources should be deployed, emails show.

Lead inspector Rachel Perez-Baum asked APHIS leaders in September 2021 to increase staffing and send four or five inspectors for a planned October inspection due to problems such as "uncooperative facility management” and “poorly managed and incomplete records.”

But Gibbens and other APHIS leaders declined, saying in an email that due to “optics" and the risks of COVID-19, the team needed “to be limited to three.”

Her supervisor, Dana Miller, agreed with Perez-Baum, and made a final plea to send inspectors in pairs, after Envigo's staff “attempted to recant” their statements by claiming inspectors misunderstood them.

The three inspectors found more "direct" violations in the October inspection, public records show.

Perez-Baum and Miller declined to comment.

Daphna Nachminovitch, a senior vice president at PETA, warned APHIS that month about problems at Envigo following an undercover investigation by the animal rights group. She now says she believes the agency failed to do its job.

APHIS "must be held accountable for its failure to enforce the law," she said.

A spokesperson for biopharmaceutical company Inotiv, which acquired Envigo in November 2021, said the company is “fully cooperating” with the Justice Department and no longer sells or breeds dogs.

Envigo “places the highest priority on the welfare of the animals in our care and looks forward to an appropriate resolution of DOJ's ongoing investigation,” the spokesperson said, declining to discuss the probe or prior USDA inspections.

TENSIONS RISE

Tensions between Gibbens and Miller escalated shortly after Envigo appealed some of the findings from the October inspection, emails show.

Miller expressed concerns after learning that Gibbens and other appeal review team members planned to side with Envigo by striking two of four contested citations from the final report.

One removed citation faulted Envigo for interfering with the inspection by providing "false information" and ordered the company not to "interfere with, threaten, abuse ... or harass any APHIS official."

Gibbens told Envigo APHIS would strike the citation because the company ultimately provided the requested information.

Less than a year later, however, federal investigators told a judge they had probable cause to believe the company made false statements and obstructed the USDA in their search warrant application.

Reuters could not determine why APHIS never took action against Envigo, nor referred it to the Justice Department. APHIS has authority to confiscate animals, revoke or suspend licenses, and pursue fines through negotiated settlements or administrative proceedings.

Internal records show APHIS initiated a probe into Envigo in 2021. In early 2022, APHIS leaders discussed entering a civil settlement with Envigo, emails show, but no action was ever taken.

TEAM LEADER REMOVED

Tensions peaked between APHIS leaders and inspectors after a 107-page report from a third inspection in November 2021 was rescinded by APHIS managers, who ordered the inspection team to edit it down to 22 pages.

The move caused consternation among some inspectors and led several employees to file complaints to the USDA's inspector general, sources familiar with the matter said.

One of the complaints, seen by Reuters, alleged the report was cut after lawyers for Envigo contacted Deputy Administrator Goldentyer. Reuters was unable to determine why the report was trimmed.

While the final public report contains the same citations as the 107-page draft, it is missing many of the details to back them up, a comparison of the two documents show.

Among the cuts: graphic details about faulty euthanasia practices and detailed accounts of dog-fighting behavior deemed "extremely abnormal for the breed."

As inspectors prepared for another inspection last March, Miller emailed staff to tell them Goldentyer was removing her from supervising Envigo inspections. Miller said she was disappointed but offered no explanation.

“O.M.G,” inspector Kelly Maxwell responded in an email, adding that removing Miller was "pretty extreme."

Maxwell declined to comment.

The March 2022 inspection uncovered five violations, two of which were “direct.”

APHIS did not follow up until May 3, when inspectors cited Envigo for one violation: Failing to fix the dangerous flooring.

Two weeks later, federal agents executed the search warrant where they found 446 dogs in "acute distress" and in need of immediate veterinary treatment.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Rachael Levy in Washington, editing by Ross Colvin)