CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Guo Wengui: How a Chinese tycoon built a pro-Trump money machine

Mike Wendling & Grace Tsoi - BBC News
Fri, March 24, 2023 

Mr Guo and Mr Bannon pictured together in 2018

When Chinese tycoon and notable dissident Guo Wengui was charged with masterminding a $1bn fraud, it was only the latest chapter in the saga of a man with connections to powerful people in China, the US and the UK.

In early June 2020, at the tail end of the city's first Covid lockdown, a fleet of small planes baffled New Yorkers.

They circled overhead towing banners that read: "Congratulations to the New Federal State of China" and flew an unfamiliar-looking blue flag.

Was it a prank? A stunt? Weird propaganda?

The mystery was solved a few days later when Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon appeared live online.


Together on a boat near the Statue of Liberty, with the same blue flag in the background, they awkwardly took turns speaking to the camera.

"We must eliminate Marxism-Leninism, the pariah and totalitarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party," Mr Guo declared.

It was the latest collaboration between the two men, who built large networks of online followers based on their shared obsessions: opposition to China's rulers, fealty to the Trump wing of the Republican Party, and conspiracy theories about Covid and vaccines.

A screenshot from the video featuring Mr Bannon and Mr Guo

The money trail

According to prosecutors, however, Mr Guo used his connections and online influence to defraud his supporters.

Thousands of Chinese dissidents - most living abroad - sent money, thinking they were buying shares in his businesses and cryptocurrency.

But instead of being invested, authorities say, the money was used by Mr Guo and a London-based business partner, Kin Ming Je, to fund extravagant purchases - including expensive properties, a yacht, sports cars, risky hedge fund investments, $1 million worth of rugs and a $140,000 piano.

The BBC spoke to several followers who say they gave thousands of dollars to Mr Guo's organisations.

"I watched his livestreams every day," said Coco, a Chinese immigrant who has been living in the US for a decade. We are not using her full name because she fears retribution from Mr Guo's followers.

"The videos are very sensational… and we trust[ed] him completely," she said.

Like many of his followers, Coco was drawn in by Mr Guo's opposition to the Chinese Communist Party, and his claims to have access to dirt on senior Chinese officials.

She became suspicious after investing in GTV, a media company founded by Mr Guo and Mr Bannon. She got invited to a WhatsApp group promising exclusive access to the tycoon, and joined protests outside the home of one of Mr Guo's opponents. She says the protesters were meant to get paid, but never did.

"We slowly discovered that he never fulfilled his promises," she said.

Prosecutors say that among other things, funds were used to buy this custom-built Bugatti sports car, worth approximately $4.4 million

Coco says she invested $6,000. One of her friends apparently gave more than $100,000 in order to become a "chair" - a member of Mr Guo's inner circle.

Prosecutors said victims were promised huge returns on their investments.

Despite the vast sums of money pumped into Mr Guo's companies and foundations, he declared bankruptcy last year, claiming less than $100,000 to his name.
Rags to riches

By all accounts, Mr Guo knows what it's like to be broke. Born in 1970, he grew up in poverty as one of eight children in China's north-eastern Shandong Province, according to a profile published in The New Yorker last year.

He spent time in prison, then embarked on a career in property development which made him one of China's richest people. By his own admission, he cultivated contacts in the country's intelligence services.

Mr Guo would later say that his wealth and connections gave him inside knowledge. But those same connections have led detractors to accuse him - including in a US court - of being a double agent working for the Chinese government.

Pangu Plaza, a torch-shaped building in Beijing developed by Guo Wengui, pictured in 2017

In 2014, after a business dispute and the arrest of one of his intelligence contacts, Mr Guo fled China for London, then New York.

In both cities he fell in with important people. In 2015, he donated £2.1m ($2.5m) to a foundation run by Tony Blair. The former prime minister later wrote him a letter of recommendation as part of Mr Guo's application to buy the penthouse of an exclusive Manhattan apartment building - the same apartment that FBI agents raided this month.

Unlike other dissidents living abroad, Mr Guo was not content to keep a low profile. He became an outspoken critic of China's rulers, accusing several top officials of corruption.

The ill feeling was mutual. Chinese officials accused him of bribery, kidnapping, fraud, money laundering and rape, and sent a "red notice" seeking his arrest though Interpol.

In 2017, Mr Guo started a Twitter account and steadily built up a following on a number of social media platforms. He claimed political asylum in the United States, alleging persecution by Chinese authorities.

Later that year he met Mr Bannon, who had just been shunted out of his White House post. The pair found common ground, and started frequently appearing on each other's podcasts and online videos.

According to leaked documents, one Mr Guo's businesses paid Mr Bannon $1m in consulting fees. They later co-founded GTV.

Mr Guo owns the penthouse of this luxury apartment building in Manhattan

Kyle Weiss, a senior analyst at Graphika, a social media analytics company, authored a 2021 report on how Mr Guo's online presence blossomed into a movement, supported by a blitz of content on social media.

"When he began speaking out in 2017 and granted interviews to media outlets, he was quickly able to build a following by spilling the tea on the Chinese Communist Party," Weiss says. "That's certainly compelling and something you don't see a lot of."

That analysis was backed up by BBC interviews with Mr Guo's former supporters.

"He has won the hearts of many because he was calling on the end of the Chinese Communist Party," said Sarah, a Chinese immigrant, who did not want to use her full name. She lives in the US and says she gave around $50,000.
'Punishing the traitors'

The Bannon-inspired content production formula worked, and thousands of Mr Guo's fans took action, online and off.

At the extreme end, some of his followers rallied outside the homes of Mr Guo's enemies. Most of those enemies were themselves dissidents, who had somehow crossed the tycoon, prompting him to accuse them of being Chinese spies.

Although he has denied encouraging violence, Mr Guo launched what he called a "punishing the traitors" campaign.

Several of those targeted allegedly received death threats. At least one was beaten by Mr Guo's followers.

Teng Biao, a dissident who fled China and is a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, was one of the people targeted in the "traitors" campaign. He said that he began writing about Mr Guo in 2017, believing that the businessman was discrediting the work of Chinese dissidents.

Mr Guo sued Mr Teng for defamation, but the case was dismissed.

That did not stop the attacks.

For two months starting in late 2021, up to 30 activists rallied every day outside of his house in New Jersey, Mr Teng told the BBC.

"They were standing in front of my house and holding banners and signs calling me a [Chinese Communist Party] spy and they kept filming my house, livestreaming, and cursing me and my children and my family," Mr Teng said. "His followers sent me death threats."

Coco, the investor who has since turned against Mr Guo, said she participated in a rally outside the house of another Chinese dissident, Bob Fu.

Fu is a pastor and religious freedom activist who left China in the 1990s. Mr Guo accused him of being a Chinese spy.

"I regret joining these actions very much," Coco said. "Those people are not Chinese Communist Party spies as Guo said."

Another former follower who worked for Mr Guo as a volunteer translator, but did not want to be named for fear of retribution, told the BBC that his companies collected personal information on followers who gave money, claiming they were "know your customer" checks like those regularly used by banks.

"He has all their personal information, passport, identity cards, address, email, phone numbers, you name it," she said.

The result, she alleged, is that many followers - especially those still living in China - are afraid of speaking out because they worry this information will be leaked.
Fraud allegations

But Mr Guo's network came crashing down last week when US authorities charged him with orchestrating a billion-dollar fraud.

According to the indictment, 5,500 investors sunk a total of $452m into GTV, which Mr Guo claimed was worth $2bn. In reality, it is alleged, it was a new business and had no revenue.

Authorities say that money was spent on luxury goods and services, including $2.3 million on maintenance of this luxury yacht

Possible signs that things were unravelling date back all the way to August 2020, when Mr Bannon was arrested aboard a yacht owned by Mr Guo, accused of defrauding donors to a not-for-profit company which aimed to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. He pleaded not guilty.

As Mr Guo and Mr Bannon were cementing their partnership in the New Federal State project, US authorities had begun investigating their business activities.

It led to Mr Guo's companies facing allegations of misleading investors, forcing him to pay $539m to settle a lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the US financial regulator.

The SEC alleged that Mr Guo illegally sold cryptocurrency and stock in GTV to investors.

It was not the end of his legal and financial troubles, however, and culminated in the arrest last week for wire fraud, securities fraud, bank fraud and money laundering.

In a statement issued through Mr Guo's foundations, his representatives called the allegations against him "fabricated and unwarranted" and accused the US justice system of being controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, without providing evidence. They did not respond to further questions and declined an interview request.

A lawyer for Mr Je - Mr Guo's business partner - says he vehemently denies the allegations.

Mr Bannon was not named in the indictment, and did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In the days after the FBI raid, he covered a range of topics on his podcasts - including Covid, the 2020 election, and China.

But Mr Guo's arrest was not one of them.

Going to war? Good news! The United States is 13 years behind in ammunition production, NYT reports

Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert
Sat, March 25, 2023

Ukrainian troops fire a Javelin anti-tank missile during drills in Ukraine, February 2022.

Ukrainian military/Handout via REUTERS

The Biden administration this month proposed a record-breaking $842 billion budget for the DOD.


Missile and munition stockpiles are dwindling as the US continues to send aid packages to Ukraine.


Since production capacity changed after the Cold War, the US can no longer keep up with wartime demands.

The United States' commitment to support Ukraine against the Russian invasion appears to have rattled the stability of the domestic stockpile of missiles and munitions.

The Biden administration has promised — as part of $33 billion sent in military aid for the besieged country so far — a US Patriot air-defense system will be sent to Ukraine, along with over 200,000 rounds of artillery, rockets, and tank rounds.

In fulfilling those promises, The New York Times reported the US has sent Ukraine so many stockpiled Stinger missiles that it would take 13 years of production at recent capacity levels to replace them. The Times added that Raytheon, the company that helps make Javeline missile systems, said it would take five years at last year's production rates to replace the number of missiles sent to Ukraine in the last ten months.

Currently, the US produces just over 14,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition every month — and Ukrainian forces have previously fired that many rounds in the span of 48 hours, The Washington Post reported last month. US officials in January proposed a production increase up to 90,000 rounds of 155mm ammunition each month to keep up with demand.

"Ammunition availability might be the single most important factor that determines the course of the war in 2023," US defense experts Michael Kofman and Rob Lee wrote in December for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, adding that Ukraine will depend on international stockpiles and production for access to the ammunition it needs.

The United States has rarely seen production shortages in ammunition and missiles to the degree the country currently faces. While there was a brief precision missile shortage in 2016 following fights in Libya and Iraq, The Times reported, the US has largely been engaged in short-term, high-intensity fights such as the Persian Gulf War, or prolonged, lower-intensity missions like the war in Afghanistan, which allowed for the stockpile to be rebuilt as needed.

Now, as tensions rise among global superpowers, production and munition limitations in the US — caused by supply chain shortages, as well as Cold War-era reductions in capacity, The Times reported — have become of grave concern among defense professionals.

"This could become a crisis. With the front line now mostly stationary, artillery has become the most important combat arm," according to a report by The Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Ukraine will never run out of 155 mm ammunition―there will always be some flowing in―but artillery units might have to ration shells and fire at only the highest priority targets. This would have an adverse battlefield effect. The more constrained the ammunition supply, the more severe the effect."

Earlier this month, the Biden administration proposed a record-breaking $842 billion budget for the Department of Defense. In an effort to address the munitions shortage, the proposed budget includes $19.2 billion for modernizing facilities "that support readiness improvements," as well as increasing production of naval and anti-strike missiles, in an aim to support the country and its allies through this "decisive decade."

While improvements to production facilities have been budgeted for going forward, the US is currently pushing suppliers to capacity to meet current wartime demands in Ukraine and keep pace with China's production.

"When it comes to munitions, make no mistake," Kathleen Hicks, the deputy defense secretary, said during a briefing earlier this month on the 2024 budget proposal: "We are buying to the limits of the industrial base even as we are expanding those limits, and we're continuing to cut through red tape and accelerate timelines."

Representatives for the Department of Defense did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSE

 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Photos show the Northern Lights made a rare appearance as far south as Phoenix, Arizona on Friday morning

Marianne Guenot,Morgan McFall-Johnsen,Jessica Orwig
Fri, March 24, 2023

Auroras in Gaylor, Missouri, on March 24, 2023.NWS Gaylor

• A giant "hole" in the sun and solar eruptions blew strong electromagnetic winds toward Earth this week.

• That caused the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, to make a rare appearance in skies across the US.

• The colorful lights were seen as far south as Arizona, much further than what was forecast.

Dazzling Northern Lights surprised people across the US overnight when they made a rare appearance in temperate skies.

The colorful, dancing lights are also known as the aurora borealis. They normally occur in the Arctic, but powerful eruptions on the sun caused them to stretch as far south as Phoenix, Arizona before sunrise on Friday, according to images shared by photographers and skywatchers on social media.

The aurora occurs when electrically charged particles stream from the sun and wash over Earth. Our planet's magnetic field channels that "solar wind" to the poles, where the particles interact with molecules in our atmosphere to produce beautiful ribbons of green, pink, purple, and red light.

The National Weather Service had anticipated heightened aurora activity on Friday, possibly as far south as Washington and New York, due to a high-powered solar wind streaming toward our planet from a giant "hole" on the sun, called a coronal hole.

A video from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the massive hole in the sun's atmosphere.NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory

But new, more powerful, eruptions on the sun, called coronal mass ejections (CME), supercharged the solar wind to cause "a severe disturbance in Earth's magnetic field," NWS reported.

It was "a perfect storm," Alex Young, the associate director for science at NASA Goddard's Heliophysics Science Division, told Insider.

As a result, the aurora blew past the forecasts, lighting up the skies in brilliant colors as far south as Missouri, California, Wisconsin, and even Arizona.

Near Phoenix, Arizona

The aurora on the horizon near Butcher Jones Recreation Area, just east of Phoenix, Arizona.John Sirlin

"It was a pretty surreal experience watching the aurora in the Sonoran Desert," John Sirlin, who captured the above photo, told Insider. "It was only visible as a faint pink glow at first but when the pillars started dancing, it was definitely visible to the naked eye. It was brief but stunningly beautiful."

This may be the furthest-south sighting from Friday's aurora events.

"Most people when they're seeing that far south... they're seeing it on the horizon," Young said.

Gaylor, Missouri

Northern lights could be seen above the National Weather service office in Gaylor, Missouri.NWS Gaylor

Auroras in La Crosse, Wisconsin on March 24, 2023.NWS La Crosse

Between New York City's John F Kennedy airport and Minneapolis−Saint Paul airport

Annie Scott Riley

Topeka, Kansas

La Crosse, Wisconsin

Auroras in La Crosse, Wisconsin on March 24, 2023.NWS La Crosse

Anchorage, Alaska

Auroras in Anchorage, Alaska, on March 24, 2023.NWS Anchorage

Fairfax, Alaska

Auroras in Fairbanks, Alaska, on March 24, 2023.NWS Fairbanks

Skywatchers enjoy surprise auroras as strongest solar storm in years hits Earth (photos)

Tereza Pultarova

SPACE.COM
Fri, March 24, 2023 

The Northern Lights appear in the sky on March 23, 2023

in Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada.

A surprise solar storm supercharged auroras across the U.S. and Europe last night (March 23), with sightings of the colorful displays reported from as far south as New Mexico and Arizona.

The storm, classified as a severe G4 on the 5-grade scale used by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), even forced  Rocket Lab to delay a launch of its Electron rocket for 90 minutes. Oddly, space weather forecasters didn't see the storm coming, as it was caused by a stealthy solar eruption.

While the most stunning polar light images came from the usual aurora haunts in Canada, northern Europe and Alaska, ingenious photographers equipped with sensitive cameras were also able to capture the mesmerizing light shows at rather unusual locations at much lower latitudes.

Related: Where to see the northern lights: 2023 aurora borealis guide

Photographer Lauren Thompson took to Twitter to share a series of surprise snaps taken during a night of aurora chasing in New Mexico.

"I can’t believe we are seeing this in New Mexico! Currently somewhere between Pecos and Las Vegas!" she said in one tweet.

See more

Thompson wasn't alone in this southern state to report aurora sightings. Award-winning storm chaser and weather photographer Tim Baca shared his own shot of a fiery wall of red glow emerging above the horizon.

"Central New Mexico Northern lights right now!," he said in the tweet.

See more

Photographers in Arizona, North Carolina and Oklahoma also captured aurora displays, and so did many across the northern states.

"Best night of my life. Near Watertown, South Dakota," tweeted Alex Resel.

Auroras are triggered by interactions between charged particles streaming from the sun in the form of solar wind and molecules in Earth's atmosphere. Because the planet's magnetic field lines funnel the solar particles toward the poles, most aurora displays are only visible at very high latitudes. However, when powerful bursts of solar wind hit the planet at once, such as those released during expulsions of plasma known as coronal mass ejections, auroras can spill over significantly in the direction of the equator. During the most intense solar storms in recorded history, for example, aurora sightings were reported as far south as the Bahamas.

Image 1 of 3

Red auroras visible in North Carolina on March 24, 2023.

Image 2 of 3

This stunning shot from the Holleford Crater site in South Frontenac Township near Hartington and south of Verona in Ontario, Canada was captured by Adam Correia.

Image 3 of 3

Auroras in Ontario, Canada, on March 24, 2023.

Related stories:

— Where and how to photograph the aurora

— Earth's aurora origin mystery solved by 'surfing' electrons

— Best equipment for aurora photography

Space weather forecasters originally predicted a moderate G2 geomagnetic storm to occur on March 23 and March 24. Such a storm would have invigorated auroras mostly at rather high latitudes. That prediction was based on flows of fast solar wind that forecasters knew were emanating from an opening in the sun's magnetic field known as a coronal hole. The G4 storm that arrived instead was the most powerful geomagnetic storm of the current solar cycle, the 11-year ebb and flow in the generation of sunspots, flares and eruptions.

This solar cycle, the 25th since records began, will reach its maximum in two years, which means we are likely heading into a period of more intense solar storms and therefore more breathtaking aurora displays.

Geomagnetic storms, however, are not always a treat to humans. The more intense ones can cause power blackouts and severely affect operations of orbiting satellites.

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook. 

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey's net worth dropped by more than $500 million after US short seller Hindenburg targeted his payments company Block


Huileng Tan
Thu, March 23, 2023 

Jack Dorsey's Block payments firm is the latest company to be targeted by Hindenburg Research

.Marco Bello/Getty Images

Jack Dorsey's wealth tumbled after Hindenburg Research targeted his payments company Block, per Bloomberg.


The short seller alleged Block misled investors "with inflated metrics"


Block's share price tumbled as much as 22% on Thursday on Hindenburg's report.

Short seller Hindenburg Research has hit another billionaire's fortune with a report.

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of payments company Block and Twitter, saw his net worth tumble by $526 million, or 11%, to $4.4 billion after the US-based research firm led by Nathan Anderson accused Block of misleading investors in a March 23 report, according to Bloomberg.

Dorsey isn't on the list of the world's 500 richest persons on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently. He was previously featured at number 456 with a net worth of $5.41 billion on March 22, per Insider's scan of the Index on Wednesday.

San Francisco-based Block is the parent company of Square, a payments platform. It also has other businesses including Cash App, a funds transfer app, and buy-now-pay-later service Afterpay.

The decline in Block's share price hit Dorsey's net worth because most of his wealth is derived from his $3 billion stake in the payments company where he is now "block head" and chairman, per Bloomberg. Dorsey also still holds a $388 million stake in Twitter, which Elon Musk took private in October 2022.

The US short seller alleges Block — formerly known as Square — misled investors "with inflated metrics" and facilitated fraud.

"$SQ has embraced one very underbanked segment: criminals. When users were caught engaging in fraud, $SQ would blacklist the account but not ban the user," Hindenburg Research tweeted on Thursday, referring to Block by its listing symbol on the New York Stock Exchange.

The stock debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in November 2015.





Block's share price tumbled as much as 22% on Hindenburg's report before closing 15% lower at $61.88 apiece on Thursday. They edged down 0.5% in after hours-trade.

Block did not specifically address Insider's request for comment about its share price decline that hit Dorsey's fortune but referred to its public statement about Hindenburg's report.

Block said in the March 23 statement it intends to work with the Securities and Exchange Commission and explore legal action against Hindenburg for the "factually inaccurate and misleading report." It said Hindenburg's attacks are designed "solely to allow short sellers to profit from a declined stock price."

"We have reviewed the full report in the context of our own data and believe it's designed to deceive and confuse investors," Block added. "We are a highly regulated public company with regular disclosures, and are confident in our products, reporting, compliance programs, and controls."

Hindenburg did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment sent outside regular business hours. It first teased its report on Block in a tweet on Wednesday, saying "New report soon — another big one." No further details were shared at the time.

It's not the first time Hindenburg Research has moved markets. The research firm shocked the markets when it alleged in a scathing January 24 report that the Adani Group "engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades."

The report hit investor sentiment and sent Adani-related stocks into a tailspin, losing over $150 billion in about five weeks, according to Bloomberg. This also sent founder Gautam Adani's wealth plunging with his net worth halved to about $60 billion so far this year, per Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In 2020, Hindenberg accused electric truck maker Nikola of fraud, which also sent its share price slumping.

How drag was pushed back into the shadows in Tennessee

THE WAR ON LGBTQ RIGHTS 

IS A WAR ON HUMAN RIGHTS

 Slay Hate: Fight Back Tennessee Rally

Sat, March 25, 2023
By Jonathan Allen

COOKEVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - Last April, when drag could still be performed in Tennessee without noticeable complaint, the curtains parted at Tennessee Tech University's Backdoor Playhouse to reveal Joshua Lancaster wearing a black cowl, white face paint, black lipstick and white contact lenses.

He was excited for the debut of his new drag persona, Witchcrafted. But the four-minute video of Lancaster lip-syncing and sashaying across the stage, recorded by his boyfriend, would sit on his Facebook page largely unseen for months until it was found by Landon Starbuck, a conservative activist.

The video appalled Starbuck.
- ADVERTISEMENT -


On Sept. 7, she posted an edited version of the video on Twitter, focusing on a few moments when children approach to tip Witchcrafted with dollar bills as he lip-syncs to Hozier's 2013 hit "Take Me to Church." Mid-performance, the audience cheers as Witchcrafted throws off his cowl to reveal a floor-length lacy skirt and a corset over a long-sleeved lacy top.

Starbuck, who lives outside Nashville, had been complaining about drag acts performing with children present for years, and now she had a vivid example from Tennessee. She said the performance was inappropriate for children and mocked her Christian faith, and urged people to complain to the university.

Now, a Tennessee law restricting drag in front of minors is due to come into force on April 1. Lancaster has become one of the faces of a sweeping effort by Republican lawmakers across the country to introduce hundreds of laws regulating the conduct of gay and transgender people, ranging from what can be taught in classrooms to bathroom use and medical care.

"It spiraled out of control and everybody started doing crazy stuff," Lancaster said. "We are being forced back into the closet. We are being told we have to go back into the shadows."

Lancaster's performance was disapprovingly discussed by state senators in Nashville after Tennessee became one of 16 states where Republicans have proposed laws restricting drag since last summer. In January, Lancaster, who has done drag for more than a decade, for the first time encountered armed neo-Nazis, Proud Boys and other far-right groups protesting outside one of his events.

The Tennessee legislature passed the bill earlier this year banning "adult cabaret performances," including at least some drag acts, in public or in front of minors, with prison sentences for violations. Its impacts are already being felt.

Several planned drag events were canceled over the winter after protests, and many venues felt forced to make previously family-friendly drag shows into adults-only events. Drag performers and venue owners say they are worried about their livelihoods and their rights of free expression. Some transgender Tennesseans fear being arrested under the law's vague language, which lumps together "male or female impersonators," a term not defined in the law, in the same X-rated category as strippers and exotic dancers.

"It's not about getting the law to stick," said Joslynn Fish, a trans woman who hosts 18+ drag shows at South Press Coffee, her business in Knoxville. "It's about creating fear."

After Starbuck posted the video, the next monthly drag show at Tennessee Tech was canceled by the university president, Phil Oldham, who released a statement saying he was "disturbed and dismayed" by Witchcrafted's performance.

The video was broadcast by Tucker Carlson on Fox News and by other conservative news outlets. Lancaster, who lives in a one-story house with a cluttered porch in the farmlands outside Cookeville, a small city dominated by the Tennessee Tech campus, began receiving threatening messages. He peeled off the large Witchcrafted decal he had stuck on his car. The cowl he wore in the video he put out with the trash.

He says he would not dream of mocking Christianity in his act, not least because it would earn a slap from his mother, a devout Christian who has sewed costumes for his drag.

What particularly pains him, he said in an interview, is that the kids pictured with him in the video are the children of drag performers and were there with their parents. He resents the accusation he would harm them.

"The little girl that's tipping me is my honorary niece," Lancaster said. "She's my best friend's kid. I've known her since she was born."

VENUES FEEL THE HEAT

Starbuck was a recording artist in Los Angeles until a few years ago when she moved with her former movie video director husband and three children to Franklin, a wealthy Nashville suburb, seeking more conservative-minded neighbors.

Last year she founded Freedom Forever, a non-profit organization that campaigns against the sexual abuse of children and gender-affirming medical treatment for minors, such as puberty blockers and surgery.

Her husband, Robby Starbuck, hosts a conservative podcast and last year unsuccessfully ran for the Republican nomination for a Tennessee congressional seat.

A few weeks after the Starbucks circulated the Witchcrafted video, the couple released a legislative agenda they called the Child Protection & Restoration Act, which called for the banning of drag shows and gender-affirming medical care for minors.

"We started noticing an alarming trend of these sexually explicit all-age family-friendly drag shows popping up," Landon Starbuck said. "They want to expose children to other identities that are not heteronormative."

By November, Senator Jack Johnson, a Republican, had introduced the bills restricting gender-affirming treatment and drag that the Starbucks had sought, in the latter case citing the videos he had seen. Landon Starbuck testified at hearings, where senators asked her about the Witchcrafted video and other videos she had since posted. Both bills were finally passed by the legislature on the same day in February.

The Starbucks say they are speaking to Republicans in half a dozen other states about passing similar laws, and they continue to seek videos of children at drag shows. "That's what woke these legislators up to the problem," Robby Starbuck said.

Much of the debate in Tennessee has been over whether drag is inherently a sexually explicit artform.

The Starbucks say there is no such thing as family-friendly drag; drag performers cite Bugs Bunny, Shakespeare's cross-dressing comedies and the Robin Williams film "Mrs. Doubtfire" among counterexamples.

"Drag is not inherently sexual," said Story VanNess, a drag queen and the trans program director at Knox Pride. "It can be a lot of things, but the vast majority of drag, if anything, is comedic."

She noted there was reams of video from her group's annual Pride festival in downtown Knoxville over the years with both drag performers and children in attendance, yet no clips had gone viral "because responsible producers put on a responsible show."

Outside of public Pride events, most Tennessee drag performers largely work in clubs and bars that admit only those over 18. Even with an adult audience, performers are bound by state laws barring strip shows and other sexually explicit entertainment in venues with a liquor license, so Tennessee drag shows tend to be relatively chaste.

DJs remind the audience that only hand-to-hand tipping is allowed. Tennessee queens know to wear multiple pairs of stockings, lest they be accused of showing too much skin.

In the more conservative areas outside Tennessee's major cities, some LGBT-friendly venues are under threat.

Drag shows have been held for years at Temptation, a low-slung building on a back road outside Cookeville that Lancaster and other regulars say is the only gay bar in the 150 miles between Knoxville and Nashville. Wendy Williams, a drag performer who owns the bar, watched as Temptation's Facebook page filled up with abusive comments over the winter as conservatives ramped up their campaign.

"First it was trans people in the bathroom, now it's drag queens," she said. "It's just trying to find something that will rile up their base because there's elections coming up."

She said the new law helped seal a difficult decision: she put the bar up for sale in February. She expects it most likely will become a church.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen; editing by Paul Thomasch and Claudia Parsons)

African migrants stuck in Tunisia say racism persists after crackdown

African migrant, Josephus Thomas, takes part in a protest in Tunis

Fri, March 24, 2023 

TUNIS (Reuters) - Weeks after a violent crackdown on migrants in Tunisia that triggered a perilous rush to leave by smuggler boats for Italy, many African nationals are still homeless and jobless and some say they still face racist attacks.

Outside the United Nations refugee agency in Tunis, dozens of African migrants stood protesting this week by the temporary camp where they have lived, including with children, since authorities urged landlords to force them from their homes.

"We need evacuation. Tunisia is not safe. No one has a future here when you have this colour. It is a crime to have this colour," said Josephus Thomas, pointing to the skin on his forearm.

In announcing the crackdown on Feb. 21, President Kais Saied said illegal immigration was a criminal conspiracy to change Tunisia's demography, language the African Union described as "racialised hate speech".

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Barbara Leaf told Reuters on Thursday that Saied's comments had unleashed "attacks and a tidal wave of racist rhetoric", with rights groups saying hundreds of migrants reported being attacked or insulted.

Saied and Tunisia's foreign minister have rejected accusations that he or the government are racist and they announced steps to ease visa regulations for Africans and reminded police of anti-racism laws.

While the official crackdown appeared to end weeks ago, migrants say they still face abuse.

"People told me 'since you are in our country after the president's speech, don't you have any dignity?' I kept silent and they told me I am dirt," said Awadhya Hasan Amine, a Sudanese refugee outside the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis.

Amine has lived in Tunis for five years after fleeing Sudan and then Libya with her husband. Now 30, she has been living on the street outside the UNHCR headquarters since local people pelted her house in the capital's Rouad district with rocks.

"We want to live in a place of safety, stability and peace. We don't want problems in Tunisia," she said.

CRACKDOWN

Although some West African countries evacuated hundreds of their citizens earlier this month, many remain stuck in Tunisia, unable to support themselves let alone afford passage home or pay smugglers hundreds of dollars to ferry them to Europe.

"Tunisia is an African country. Why do they do racist things to us?" said Moumin Sou, from Mali, who was sacked from his job working behind a bar after the president's speech and was beaten up the next day by a man in the street who stole his money.

Sou wants to return home, he said, but many others are determined to travel on to Europe.

In the wake of the crackdown, in which police detained hundreds of undocumented migrants and authorities urged employers to lay them off and landlords to evict them, smuggler crossings to Italy have surged.

Tunisian National Guard official Houssem Jbeli said on Wednesday alone the coast guard had stopped 30 boats carrying more than 2,000 people. On the same day and the following day four boats sank, with five people drowned, authorities said.

(Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by William Maclean)

Do Anti-ESG States Know They're Facing Some of the Worst Climate Change Hazards?

By The Daily Upside – Mar 24, 2023 
You’re reading a free article with opinions that may differ from The Motley Fool’s Premium Investing Services. 

Unless the data are dead wrong, it is increasingly clear that many of the U.S. states facing some of the greatest climate change hazards appear to be the ones most virulently opposed to environmental, social and governance (ESG) policies.

The data also show something else that we don't like to talk about: Americans are already dying due to climate change and have been since around 2005. U.S. cities from coast to coast are experiencing fatalities in the double digits yearly, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line, according to an in-depth project surveying more than 24,000 regions of the world, led by the United Nations Development Program and New York-based Rhodium Group, a provider of independent research, data and analytics tackling mission-critical global topics.

In Texas, the fatality rate due to climate change – for instance, from heat stroke or other underlying causes – is estimated to be 14 people a year per 100,000 of the population in both Dallas and Austin. Those numbers will rise to 38 and 39, respectively, by 2040, and leap to 130 and 131 people a year, respectively, by 2080, according to the data.

The situation in Phoenix is even more dire, with an annual fatality rate of 17 people per 100,000 of the population, climbing to 46 by 2040 and 148 people a year by 2080. In Atlanta, the fatality rate is estimated to be around 10 people a year per 100,000, with that number at 29 by 2040 and shooting to 100 people by 2080.

"The mortality impact is some of the most striking of the data," says Hannah Hess, associate director at Rhodium, who worked on the project. "When you look at the year 2040, it can seem really far out and distant in the future, but the people most affected by the heat are 65 and older – those are people in their 40s today who will be impacted."


By the same token, those in their 20s and 30s will be confronting even higher temperatures, and those who are currently in their teens or younger will be forced to contend with some of the most extreme climate challenges of anyone alive.

This week, President Biden cast his first veto since taking office, rejecting a bill that would have scuttled a Labor Department rule he put in place allowing money managers to account for climate change when making investment decisions for their clients' retirement savings. The Biden rule supplanted a Trump-era rule that sought to impede the consideration of ESG principles in investing, "even in cases where it is in the financial interest of plans to take such considerations into account."

In issuing the veto, Biden blasted "MAGA House Republicans" and others for risking Americans' retirement plan savings by making it illegal to weigh ESG principles. "Your plan manager should be able to protect your hard-earned savings, whether Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene likes it or not," he said, noting strong opposition from the Republican congresswoman from Georgia.

Two Democrats also backed the bill. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who charged that Biden's veto was "absolutely infuriating" and denounced the administration's "radical" and "progressive agenda," and Jon Tester of Montana, who voted alongside the Senate's Republicans to overturn the Biden rule.


Both Georgia and West Virginia are forecast to sustain pronounced effects from climate change relative to northern states, like Montana.

The ESG fight, not surprisingly, is focused on money – primarily, how resources will be marshaled or redirected in anticipation of future shifts that are expected to devastate real estate, housing and jobs markets. "Without concerted and urgent action, climate change will exacerbate inequalities and widen gaps in human development," the UNDP projected at the end of last year.

A smattering of top money managers and private equity firms have begun to prepare for the transition, touting pro-ESG investing principles that aim to capture a profit. But they have also warned adopting these strategies poses heightened financial and reputational risks with the growing anti-ESG backlash.

The world's biggest private-equity firm, Blackstone, disclosed in a recent filing that pushback from states across the country over so-called "boycotts" of investments in the fossil fuel industry could affect the company's fundraising and revenue and will be perceived negatively by some stakeholders. Others signaling similar headwinds include KKR & Co., State Street, Carlyle Group, T. Rowe Price, TPG Inc., Ares Private Equity Group, Raymond James, and BlackRock.


While partisanship seems to be ruling the debate, it's worth looking closely at what is forecast for some of the states that are most assiduously pursuing anti-ESG legislation, many of which are expected to experience some of the most serious fallout of climate change. Among them are Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.

Over the past few years, these states have sought to introduce or pass legislation barring companies from discriminating against investing in fossil fuel developers or energy companies contributing to climate change. Those succeeding in passing legislation against so-called "woke capitalism" include Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Idaho, Louisiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, South Carolina and Florida.

Other states that have tried or are still trying to pass anti-ESG legislation include North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Arkansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a Denver nonpartisan research organization. Meanwhile, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Florida have more anti-ESG legislation pending, in addition to what they've already enacted, even though all of them are now dealing with fatalities from climate change.

Hess says research shows that some states' attitudes may change on climate change as "those places start to feel the impact," but, until then, states suffering the ongoing fatalities of climate change while fighting to ban ESG-friendly policies, sustainability practices and "social credit scores" to protect investments in fossil fuels is "an odd reality."

Worth noting are the states that have pursued anti-ESG legislation, but will not feel the impact of climate change as strongly as some of the states mentioned above. They are Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and Alaska.

The one state that will be hard hit by climate change but is working to bolster pro-ESG initiatives – and block any attempts to stop it from doing so – is California. According to the UNDP-Rhodium data, the state's cities are already sustaining some of the highest annual fatality rates in the country due to climate change. At present, the death toll is estimated to be around a dozen people per 100,000 of the population in San Francisco and Sacramento, but is seen rising to 30 and 33, respectively, by 2040, and 104 and 113 people a year, respectively, by 2080.

Other cities that are being impacted by climate change include Los Angeles, Houston, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Miami, Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Charlotte and Washington, DC, according to the data.

Interestingly, the data show a handful of states will see some benefits from climate change, at least in theory. Rising temperatures likely will contribute to fewer mortality rates in cooler cities such as Seattle, Portland, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. These benefits stem from the fact that, as temperatures rise, annual fatality rates resulting from cold weather will ease, Hess says.

Even with fewer fatalities in some regions, by the end of the century, the effects of climate change will eventually overtake much of the U.S., whether through rising temperatures, changes in precipitation, droughts, serious weather patterns, or what is expected to be an influx of displaced populations – also known as "climate refugees" – who will need to migrate to safer locations to survive. That means anyone living in safe zones will find their regions more and more crowded.

"Income will matter a lot in how people will be able to adapt and respond to the impact of climate," Hess says.

Test shows hydrogen blending slightly reduces gas power plant emissions



Julian Spector
Fri, March 24, 2023 at 1:30 AM MDT·4 min read

A gas plant in Michigan successfully burned a mix of hydrogen and methane to generate electricity in a recent field test. That’s an important proof point for efforts to turn hydrogen into a pillar of the clean energy transition — but mass adoption of the fuel is still far from certain.

Fossil gas still provides more electricity in the U.S. than any other source, but carbon-free wind and solar power are growing much faster. Those resources need help to deliver power 24/7. Some countries and companies have pinned their hopes on hydrogen, which can be synthesized with clean electricity through electrolysis, stored and then used for carbon-free energy.

Boosters of clean hydrogen say the light, colorless gas can decarbonize everything from home heating and cooking to power plants to long-distance trucking. These claims range from preposterous to plausible, but none of them have been borne out by widespread real-world adoption. Few have even been demonstrated at small scale. That’s where the new testing comes in — Wärtsilä calls the test a “world-first achievement,” since it's the largest test using this type of power equipment at an active power plant.

Power producer WEC Energy Group blended hydrogen with the natural gas it normally burns in a 19-megawatt Wärtsilä reciprocating engine at the A.J. Mihm plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The participants fired up the engine at different levels and with different amounts of hydrogen in the mix to measure how it performed and how emissions changed. The Electric Power Research Institute, a utility-funded research nonprofit, was on hand to document the findings, and it published a report on the test earlier this month.

Notably, the companies wanted to test what happens when existing, commercially operating engines burn some hydrogen: “No mechanical modifications that would impact the engine performance were made to the engine,” the EPRI report notes. That makes the findings relevant to the broader population of currently operating plants, though reciprocating engines are just one of the common types of gas generator.

The basic finding is that hydrogen blending works, up to a point.

A company called Certarus successfully set up two trucks filled with pressurized, cleanly produced hydrogen that was pumped through a temporary blending rig into the power plant. The engine then burned the blended gases to make electricity, and its efficiency stayed effectively unchanged compared to a pure natural-gas burn. This was all done without incident, because, as the report narrates in stirring prose, “both written and verbal forms of communication were employed to ensure safety was maintained.”

The study was limited in scope, however. The participants only tested up to a 25 percent blend by volume. That level was dictated by the safety specifications for this type of engine, a Wärtsilä spokesperson told Canary Media. A model designed to use 100 percent hydrogen is planned to be offered for sale in 2026.*

At that 25 percent level, the engine maxed out at 95 percent of its normal capacity. When burning a 25 percent hydrogen mix, carbon dioxide emissions only dropped by around 9 or 10 percent in the various tests (a similar test at a GE combustion turbine in Long Island reduced carbon emissions by 14 percent when firing a mix of 35 percent hydrogen).

WEC has promised to cut its carbon emissions from electricity production by 60 percent in 2025 and 80 percent in 2030, compared to a 2005 baseline. An optimistic read on this experiment would be that WEC now knows it can notch easy incremental carbon reductions for those fast-approaching deadlines, without sacrificing performance or paying for expensive engine overhauls.

As with anything hydrogen-related, it won’t be so easy. Though WEC could avoid the expense of modifying its engines, it would still need to pay for the hydrogen and blending equipment, and weigh those costs against the fairly marginal emissions benefits. (Update: A spokesperson for WEC told Canary Media that the company does not have immediate plans to adopt hydrogen blending into its power production operations.)

Moreover, mass adoption of clean hydrogen blending would require access to a steady supply of clean hydrogen, which is hard to come by at this stage. The Department of Energy notes that 95 percent of U.S. hydrogen production today derives from refining methane; that makes it a major greenhouse gas emitter.

It goes without saying that cutting 10 percent of emissions from power generation won’t get WEC to its 60 percent reductions. Higher levels of blending may be possible, but that still needs to be proven, and it may require greater degrees of modification. At best, this technique could work alongside other tools like renewables and energy storage to achieve the company’s goals. Indeed, WEC is already working on testing a novel long-duration energy storage technology from CMBlu Energy, another way to deliver clean power on demand (without burning anything).

The test, in other words, pushes hydrogen one small step forward in a long and uncertain journey toward relevance to the clean power system.


*Correction: This article originally stated that Wärtsilä plans to produce an engine that can run on 100% hydrogen by 2025. The target date is 2026. We regret the error.