Wall Street Journal Under Fire For Publishing Lie-Filled Letter From Trump

WELL AT LEAST IT WASN'T USA TODAY A MORE POPULIST PAPER

Josephine Harvey
Wed, October 27, 2021

The Wall Street Journal faced backlash Wednesday for publishing a letter to the editor from former President Donald Trump filled with demonstrably false claims about the 2020 election.

Responding to a Sunday Wall Street Journal editorial titled “The Election for Pennsylvania’s High Court,” the former president wrote, “Well actually, the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out.”

He then provided a bulleted list of “examples” of voter fraud in Pennsylvania to support his claims, relying repeatedly on data from Audit the Vote PA, an organization that has no real experience in assessing elections and has promoted unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

Multiple audits into the state’s 2020 election results affirmed the vote count, and numerous lawsuits challenging the results failed in court. There is no evidence of widespread fraud in Pennsylvania or any other state’s election.

The Wall Street Journal published Trump’s letter without noting these facts. The former president was deplatformed from Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites earlier this year after spreading disinformation about the election for months and inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the U.S. Capitol to try and overturn the results.

Since then, Trump has resorted to campaign-style rallies and tweet-like statements released through his spokesperson to spread his lies.

Media critics, journalists and political commentators slammed the Journal Wednesday for giving Trump another platform for disinformation and for passing off his false claims as “opinion.”

“Trump couldn’t post this on Facebook but the editors at the WSJ collectively decided to put it on their platform. Think about that. And they think they can distance themselves from it by doing it as an LTE. As of that magically absolves them from pushing the lies,” tweeted Amanda Carpenter, political columnist for The Bulwark.

Jordan Fischer, an investigative reporter for Washington, D.C., channel WUSA9, called it a “new low” for the Journal’s opinion section.

“Today they printed a litany of election falsehoods from former President Trump – without even a single mention of the fact that their own editorial side has thoroughly debunked these claims,” he tweeted.

Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump made 14 observations about the letter’s veracity and observed that “the Journal would have been better served had it explained why it chose to run the letter without contextualizing it, since that might have at least offered some clarity on the otherwise inexplicable decision.” He noted that the paper had so far declined to comment on its rationale.

The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

US Hacker, 21, details how he breached T-Mobile in WSJ interview

‘Their security is awful,’ John Binns said of T-Mobile as he discussed hacking the personal details of 50 million users.

T-Mobile, which last week confirmed that more than 50 million customer records have been stolen, has also said that it had repaired the security hole that enabled the breach [File: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters]

By Al Jazeera Staff
26 Aug 2021

The 21-year-old American hacker who is taking responsibility for infiltrating T-Mobile’s systems said the wireless company’s weak security helped him access a trove of records with personal details on more than 50 million people, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday.

John Binns, who grew up in Virginia in the United States but now lives in Turkey, told the WSJ that he managed to break through T-Mobile’s defences after discovering an unprotected router exposed. Binns has used several online aliases since 2017, and said he had been scanning T-Mobile’s internet addresses for vulnerabilities using a simple tool available to the general public.

“Their security is awful,” said Binns, who has been communicating with the WSJ via Telegram messages from an account that discussed details of the hack before they were widely known.

“I was panicking because I had access to something big,” he added.

Binns has not said whether he has sold any of the data or whether he was paid for the hack, the WSJ reported.

The August hack is the third major customer data leak that T-Mobile has made public in the past two years. According to the company, the latest attack stole an array of personal details from more than 54 million customers including their names, Social Security numbers and birth dates.

Many of the records reported stolen were from prospective clients or former customers that have switched to other carriers.

T-Mobile, which began informing customers of the breach last week, also reminded its users to update passwords and personal identification number (PIN) codes.

The Washington-based company is the second-largest US mobile carrier, with some 90 million mobile phones connecting to its networks.

The Seattle office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking into the T-Mobile hack, a person familiar with the matter told the WSJ.

Binns also told the WSJ that it took him about a week to get into the servers.


T-Mobile, which confirmed that more than 50 million customer records have been stolen, has also said that it had repaired the security hole that enabled the breach. It began informing customers of the breach last week.

It remains unclear whether Binns worked alone. In his communications with the WSJ, he described a collaborative effort to crack T-Mobile’s internal databases.

Binns also told the WSJ that he wanted to draw attention to his perceived persecution by the US government.

“Generating noise was one goal,” said Binns.

In his conversations with the WSJ, Binns described an alleged incident in which he says he was kidnapped in Germany and put into a fake mental hospital.

“I have no reason to make up a fake kidnapping story and I’m hoping that someone within the FBI leaks information about that,” he wrote to the WSJ.

Last year, Binns sued the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI and other federal agencies to push them to fulfil a federal records request he had made for information about FBI investigations of botnet attacks.

The complaint is still active in the US District Court for the District of Columbia.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA

T-Mobile hack: Everything you need to know

More than 50 million T-Mobile customers were affected by the hack and about 48 million social security number were accessed


By Jonathan Greig | August 28, 2021 | Topic: Security


T-Mobile, one of the biggest telecommunications companies in the US, was hacked nearly two weeks ago, exposing the sensitive information of more than 50 million current, former and prospective customers.

Names, addresses, social security numbers, driver's licenses and ID information for about 48 million people were accessed in the hack, which initially came to light on August 16.

Here's everything we know so far.

What is T-Mobile?

T-Mobile is a subsidiary of German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG providing wireless voice, messaging and data services to customers in dozens of countries.

In the US, the company has more than 104 million customers and became the second largest telecommunications company behind Verizon after its $26 billion merger with Sprint in 2018.
How many people are affected by the hack?

T-Mobile released a statement last week confirming that the names, dates of birth, social security numbers, driver's licenses, phone numbers, as well as IMEI and IMSI information for about 7.8 million customers had been stolen in the breach.

Another 40 million former or prospective customers had their names, dates of birth, social security numbers and driver's licenses leaked.

47% of respondents' organizations currently use the technology.
Research provided by TechRepublic Premium

More than 5 million "current postpaid customer accounts" also had information like names, addresses, date of births, phone numbers, IMEIs and IMSIs illegally accessed.

T-Mobile said another 667,000 accounts of former T- Mobile customers had their information stolen alongside a group of 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customers, whose names, phone numbers and account PINs were exposed.

The names of 52,000 people with Metro by T-Mobile accounts may also have been accessed, according to T-Mobile.
Who attacked T-Mobile?

A 21-year-old US citizen by the name of John Binns told The Wall Street Journal and Alon Gal, co-founder of cybercrime intelligence firm Hudson Rock, that he is the main culprit behind the attack.

His father, who died when he was two, was American and his mother is Turkish. He and his mother moved back to Turkey when Binns was 18.
How did the attack happen?

Binns, who was born in the US but now lives in Izmir, Turkey, said he conducted the attack from his home. Through Telegram, Binns provided evidence to the Wall Street Journal proving he was behind the T-Mobile attack and told reporters that he originally gained access to T-Mobile's network through an unprotected router in July.

According to the Wall Street Journal, he had been searching for gaps in T-Mobile's defenses through its internet addresses and gained access to a data center near East Wenatchee, Washington where he could explore more than 100 of the company's servers. From there, it took about one week to gain access to the servers that contained the personal data of millions. By August 4 he had stolen millions of files.

"I was panicking because I had access to something big. Their security is awful," Binns told the Wall Street Journal. "Generating noise was one goal."

Binns also spoke with Motherboard and Bleeping Computer to explain some dynamics of the attack.

He told Bleeping Computer that he gained access to T-Mobile's systems through "production, staging, and development servers two weeks ago." He hacked into an Oracle database server that had customer data inside.

To prove it was real, Binns shared a screenshot of his SSH connection to a production server running Oracle with reporters from Bleeping Computer. They did not try to ransom T-Mobile because they already had buyers online, according to their interview with the news outlet.

In his interview with Motherboard, he said he had stolen the data from T-Mobile servers and that T-Mobile managed to eventually kick him out of the breached servers, but not before copies of the data had already been made.

On an underground forum, Binns and others were found selling a sample of the data with 30 million social security numbers and driver licenses for 6 Bitcoin, according to Motherboard and Bleeping Computer.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert explained that the hacker behind the attack "leveraged their knowledge of technical systems, along with specialized tools and capabilities, to gain access to our testing environments and then used brute force attacks and other methods to make their way into other IT servers that included customer data."

"In short, this individual's intent was to break in and steal data, and they succeeded," Sievert said.

Binns claimed he stole 106GB of data but it is unclear whether that is true.
Why did Binns do it?

The 21-year-old Virginia native told the Wall Street Journal and other outlets that he has been targeted by US law enforcement agencies for his alleged involvement in the Satori botnet conspiracy.

He claims US agencies abducted him in Germany and Turkey and tortured him. Binns filed a lawsuit in a district court against the FBI, CIA and Justice Department in November where he said he was being investigated for various cybercrimes and for allegedly being part of the Islamic State militant group, a charge he denies.

"I have no reason to make up a fake kidnapping story and I'm hoping that someone within the FBI leaks information about that," he explained in his messages to the Wall Street Journal.

The lawsuit includes a variety of claims by Binns that the CIA broke into his homes and wiretapped his computers as part of a larger investigation into his alleged cybercrimes. He filed the suit in a Washington DC District Court.

Before he was officially identified, Binns sent Gal a message that was shared on Twitter.

"The breach was done to retaliate against the US for the kidnapping and torture of John Erin Binns (CIA Raven-1) in Germany by CIA and Turkish intelligence agents in 2019. We did it to harm US infrastructure," the message said, according to Gal.
Was Binns alone in conducting the attack?

He would not confirm if the data he stole has already been sold or if someone else paid him to hack into T-Mobile in his interview with The Wall Street Journal.

While Binns did not explicitly say he worked with others on the attack, he did admit that he needed help in acquiring login credentials for databases inside T-Mobile's systems.

Some news outlets have reported that Binns was not the only person selling the stolen T-Mobile data.
When did T-Mobile discover the attack?

The Wall Street Journal story noted that T-Mobile was initially notified of the breach by a cybersecurity company called Unit221B LLC, which said their customer data was being marketed on the dark web.

T-Mobile told ZDNet on August 16 that it was investigating the initial claims that customer data was being sold on the dark web and eventually released a lengthy statement explaining that while the hack did not involve all 100 million of their customers, at least half had their information involved in the hack.
Is law enforcement involved?

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said on August 27 that he could not share more information about the technical details of the attack because they are "actively coordinating with law enforcement on a criminal investigation."

It is unclear what agencies are working on the case and T-Mobile did not respond to questions about this.
What is T-Mobile doing about the hack?

Sievert explained that the company hired Mandiant to conduct an investigation into the incident.

"As of today, we have notified just about every current T-Mobile customer or primary account holder who had data such as name and current address, social security number, or government ID number compromised," he said in a statement

T-Mobile will also put a banner on the MyT-Mobile.com account login page of others letting them know if they were not affected by the attack.

Sievert admitted that the company is still in the process of notifying former and prospective customers, millions of whom also had their information stolen.

In addition to offering just two years of free identity protection services with McAfee's ID Theft Protection Service, T-Mobile said it was recommending customers sign up for "T-Mobile's free scam-blocking protection through Scam Shield."

The company will also be offering "Account Takeover Protection" to postpaid customers, which they said will make it more difficult for customer accounts to be fraudulently ported out and stolen. They urged customers to reset all passwords and PIN numbers as well.

Sievert also announced that T-Mobile had signed "long-term partnerships" with Mandiant and KPMG LLG to beef up their cybersecurity and give the telecommunications giant the "firepower" needed to improve their ability to protect customers from cybercriminals.

"As I previously mentioned, Mandiant has been part of our forensic investigation since the start of the incident, and we are now expanding our relationship to draw on the expertise they've gained from the front lines of large-scale data breaches and use their scalable security solutions to become more resilient to future cyber threats," Sievert added.

"They will support us as we develop an immediate and longer-term strategic plan to mitigate and stabilize cybersecurity risks across our enterprise. Simultaneously, we are partnering with consulting firm KPMG, a recognized global leader in cybersecurity consulting. KPMG's cybersecurity team will bring its deep expertise and interdisciplinary approach to perform a thorough review of all T-Mobile security policies and performance measurement. They will focus on controls to identify gaps and areas of improvement."

Both Mandiant and KPMG will work together to sketch out a plan for T-Mobile to address its cybersecurity gaps in the future.

Has this happened to T-Mobile before?

No attack of this size has hit T-Mobile before, but the company has been attacked multiple times.

Before the attack two weeks ago, the company had announced four data breaches in the last three years. The company disclosed a breach in January after incidents in August 2018, November 2019, and March 2020.

The investigation into the January incident found that hackers accessed around 200,000 customer details such as phone numbers, the number of lines subscribed to an account, and, in some cases, call-related information, which T-Mobile said it collected as part of the normal operation of its wireless service.

The previous breaches included a March 2020 incident where T-Mobile said hackers gained access to both its employees' and customers' data, including employee email accounts, a November 2019 incident where T-Mobile said it "discovered and shut down" unauthorized access to the personal data of its customers, and an August 2018 incident where T-Mobile said hackers gained access to the personal details of 2 million of its customers.

Before it merged with T-Mobile in 2020, Sprint also disclosed two security breaches in 2019 as well, one in May and a second in July.

What happens now?

Binns has not said if he has sold the data he stole, but he told Bleeping Computer that there were already multiple prospective buyers.

Phoenix police detain Wall Street Journal reporter; investigation opened


Miguel Torres, Arizona Republic
Fri, January 6, 2023

Phoenix police opened an administrative investigation into the detainment of a Wall Street Journal reporter on Nov. 23 in north Phoenix, officials said. The investigation will be conducted by the department's Professional Standards Bureau.

Dion Rabouin, a finance reporter for the Journal, stood outside a Chase Bank at around 2:40 p.m. in north Phoenix, conducting brief interviews with people walking inside for a story about banking.

A Phoenix police officer, Caleb Zimmerman, approached Rabouin about a trespassing call he said was placed by bank employees, according to reporting by ABC 15.

In a police report filed by Zimmerman, bank employees claimed they told Rabouin to leave the property after getting complaints from customers who felt uncomfortable.

In a video provided by a concerned citizen Katelyn Parady, Rabouin told Zimmerman that no one at the bank had asked him to leave but he would if he was given a chance.

In the video, Zimmerman handcuffed Rabouin as Rabouin repeated that he would voluntarily leave.

According to the report, Zimmerman wrote that Rabouin didn’t provide identification and told him he was trespassing.

Zimmerman claimed that he had spoken with an employee at the bank and was told that the bank was willing to “aid in prosecution if Dion was unwilling to leave,” and wanted Rabouin removed from the property.

Throughout the video, Rabouin told Zimmerman that he would walk away from the property if he would uncuff him.

But Zimmerman held that he had to trespass him from the property, which involves personally removing him from the property and writing up a trespass notification that identifies Rabouin to the property owner so they can make sure he does not return.

Zimmerman pressed Rabouin into the back seat of his patrol SUV and pulled Rabouin’s ID from his pants, but Rabouin sat with his feet out of the vehicle, preventing Zimmerman from closing the door.

According to an interview with ABC 15, Rabouin was afraid of what would happen if he got into the car and Zimmerman closed the door.

“I didn’t trust what was going to happen," he told ABC15. “While the woman was recording, I thought the odds of him not doing anything to me, whether physically or anything else, are a lot higher. Once he closes that door, he could take off. He could take me somewhere. I could be placed under arrest.”

The video showed Zimmerman and Rabouin at a standstill, facing each other and stating their positions. Zimmerman claimed Rabouin refused to leave when asked to by the property owner and was trespassing, while Rabouin kept repeating he had never been asked to leave but would do it now.

Rabouin explained to Zimmerman in the video that someone at the bank had come outside and asked if he had been soliciting, and he said he wasn’t.

”They said they were going to go inside and talk to someone, and then you showed up and I said I would leave,” he told Zimmerman on the recording.

Eventually, two other officers showed up and were seen on the video watching over Rabouin as Zimmerman used Rabouin’s ID to write a trespassing notice.

Parady tried to stay close to Rabouin, but at one point, an unidentified police officer told Parady to step back, exclaiming, “Eight feet is the law,” citing a defunct Arizona law deemed unconstitutional in September.

Minutes later, Zimmerman uncuffed and let Rabouin go.

Rabouin’s Editor-in-Chief Matt Murray, wrote a letter to Phoenix police Chief Michael Sullivan, stressing his concern about how officers treated Rabouin.

“I am appalled and concerned that officers at your department would attempt to interfere with Mr. Rabouin’s constitutional right to engage in journalism and purport to limit anyone's presence in a public location. Such conduct is offensive to civil liberties, and also a pretty good news story,” Murray wrote.

Phoenix police spokesperson Sgt. Melissa Soliz told The Arizona Republic the department received a copy of the letter and opened an administrative investigation.

Rabouin said he got a call from a Phoenix official weeks later and was told that after reviewing the case the department found the officer did nothing wrong, according to ABC 15.

Black Wall Street Journal reporter detained, cuffed while working on bank story

TheGrio Staff
Fri, January 6, 2023

Dion Rabouin submitted an internal complaint, claiming that a few weeks after the incident, a Phoenix official called to inform him they found no evidence of police misconduct relating to his detainment on Nov. 23, 2022.

Phoenix police are conducting an administrative probe into a Black Wall Street Journal reporter’s detainment while working on a bank story.

ABC15 News reported that the Nov. 23, 2022, incident involving Dion Rabouin prompted Journal editor-in-chief Matt Murray to send a letter to Phoenix Chief Michael Sullivan requesting a review and demanding they take action to protect journalists’ rights.

“I am appalled and concerned that officers at your department would attempt to interfere with Mr. Rabouin’s constitutional right to engage in journalism and purport to limit anyone’s presence in a public location,” Murray wrote, according to ABC15.

Dion Rabouin interviews Michelle Girard of NatWest Markets during the 2018 Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit at The Times Center on Sept. 20, 2018, in New York City. Rabouin has filed an internal complaint against the Phoenix Police Department after he was detained while working on a story for The Wall Street Journal. (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)More

The event prompts further accusations that Phoenix violated First Amendment rights.

Rabouin, a journalist for the Journal based in New York, visited family in Phoenix for the Thanksgiving break.

He asserted that he dressed casually when he visited a Chase Bank location in north Phoenix to conduct man-on-the-street interviews for a report about savings accounts.

While he was on the sidewalk outside the building, two employees allegedly approached Rabouin and asked what he was doing before heading back inside.

The bank allegedly never asked him to leave, and he was unaware that the sidewalk was private property.

Rabouin said he identified himself to a police officer who showed up and told them bank employees knew what was going on, to which he replied, “Well, you can’t do that.”

Officer Caleb Zimmerman reported that bank staff claimed Rabouin refused to leave, and the reporter initially declined to identify himself.

A bystander started recording on her cell phone after seeing the scene unfold. Katelyn Parady’s video starts several minutes after the exchange between Rabouin and Zimmerman begins, with the reporter being placed in handcuffs.

Rabouin claimed that he told the officer he would leave if he weren’t on public property, but the officer shifted his body to keep him from doing so.

Zimmerman noted in his incident report that he had sufficient grounds to detain Rabouin for trespassing.

Backup officers came around eight minutes into the cell phone video. After two more minutes, with other cops present as witnesses, Zimmerman releases Rabouin from his handcuffs.

Rabouin submitted an internal complaint, claiming that a few weeks later, a Phoenix official called to inform him they found no evidence of police misconduct that day.

“As journalists, we don’t really want to be the story. We want to report the story,” Rabouin said, ABC15 reported. “I think it’s important to talk about. This is a department that’s under DOJ investigation for excessive force, under investigation for the way they operate and handle business, and despite that, they continue to operate this way.”

My job of 14 years was destroyed by a private equity company. It's time for Democrats to actually stand up to Wall Street.

Kristi Lynn Van Bucken,
Opinion Contributor
Oct 4, 2020

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) arrive to deliver remarks at the Alexis Dupont High School on August 12, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Drew Angerer/Getty

A private equity firm bought and bankrupted Shopko, a popular retail chain store.

I was one of thousands of Shopko employees who faced the wrath of Wall Street flippancy.

If Democrats don't stand up to these big banks, this behavior will continue to cost regular people their jobs.

Kristi Lynn Van Bucken was an employee at Shopko for 14 years.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

The November election will determine whether our economy for the next four years will benefit working people like me or continue to enrich Wall Street millionaires.

We already know what four more years of a Trump presidency and Republican agenda will mean: more deregulation and tax breaks for the wealthy, which only make it harder for working families like mine to put food on the table.

So I was eager to hear from Joe Biden and his campaign when the Democratic National Convention came to my home state of Wisconsin last month. Hearing Democrats talk about building a fair economy for all, including for essential workers like myself, was a stark contrast to what we've seen and heard from President Trump and his fellow Republicans. But while the Biden campaign introduced a number of platforms to put working people first, it became clear to me that there are not yet enough concrete and permanent solutions to fight back against Wall Street's rampant greed, which is only growing during this pandemic.

Democrats, be a party that actually stands up to Wall Street.

During the Trump Administration, I was one of thousands of Shopko employees throughout the Midwest who were left unemployed, uninsured and struggling to make ends meet when Shopko was purchased by a private equity firm and bankrupted last year.

As the New York Times revealed , wealthy investors like Carl Icahn are exploiting the coronavirus crisis to literally make money off of the demise of people's jobs and livelihoods. They're calling it the "Big Short 2.0." Instead of betting on the housing crash, as they did in 2008, Wall Street executives are betting on the demise of malls.

It's clear Republicans will give a pass to the Big Short 2.0. The ball is now in the Democratic Party's court to demonstrate that it will chart a different course.

However, Democrats must go beyond lip service, and offer real solutions and policies that will rein in Wall Street. Unfortunately, that was all but missing in last month's convention.

And yet, in the Democratic party's national 2020 policy platform, Wall Street was mentioned just four times — including once in the table of contents. There is not a single mention of the pain that private equity firms inflict on our communities, as Sun Capital did with Shopko in Wisconsin, or a plan to relieve that pain and rein these firms in. The Wall Street Journal even noted corporate America's "sigh of relief" when Senator Kamala Harris was added to the Democratic presidential ticket.

The demise of Shopko, where I worked and found community for 14 years, is a classic example of why Wall Street is the enemy of working people.

For more than a decade, Shopko offered me and my coworkers not just a paycheck, but a family. We were proud to work at a company that was founded in Green Bay and served Wisconsin families.

But when Sun Capital Partners, a Florida-headquartered private equity firm, bought out Shopko in 2005, that community and my financial security were ripped away. No matter how successfully we ran the business, Sun Capital's apparent intention was not growth but profit, and they made that profit by ruining people's lives.

Over the next decade, Sun Capital executives drowned Shopko in nearly $1 billion in debt. They pushed the store into bankruptcy, leaving more than 14,000 employees desperately searching for a lifeline. Even during Shopko's liquidation, Sun Capital executives continued to collect: In total, Shopko executives paid themselves nearly $67 million in dividends and fees. My coworkers and I were offered nothing.

When Sun Capital finally shuttered Shopko's doors, they also broke commitments to Shopko workers by failing to distribute once-promised severance payments, leaving many in utter financial distress. Sun Capital pulled the same move on the state of Wisconsin, when it skipped out on $8 million in sales tax payments.

Astonishingly, Sun Capital isn't the only culprit in destroying the lives of working families and crippling our economy. Since 2009, private equity firms have destroyed over 1.3 million jobs by bankrupting retail companies and stripping them for parts. Many of the brands you used to shop at — from Toys 'R' Us, to Payless ShoeSource, Sears, and ArtVan — were destroyed the same way. In nearly all cases, workers were left with nothing.

Even our hospitals and nursing homes are being taken over by Wall Street, leading to major staffing cuts and unsafe conditions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As the Big Short 2.0 shows, action is urgently required, and that's why former retail employees have come together with United for Respect, a multiracial national nonprofit organization fighting for bold policy changes that improve the lives of people who work in retail, to fight for and win severance pay and demand legislators establish common sense rules for private equity firms.

Without a specific plan to combat Wall Street's excesses and greed, the Democrats' vision for a just and fair economic recovery — and their outreach to working people like me in this election — needs improvement. They can start by adopting the Stop Wall Street Looting Act (SWSLA) in their party platform, which was introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Mark Pocan last year, and would rein in the most harmful private equity tactics.

SWSLA would accomplish this by ending Wall Street's immunity from the debts, legal liabilities, and legal violations they pile on companies after they buy them out and gut them. SWSLA would also end the federal tax benefits for private equity firms which encourage their excessive use of leveraged buyouts. And in the event of company bankruptcy, like what we experienced at Shopko, SWSLA would ensure that private equity firms like Sun Capital Partners cannot just cut and run on their paycheck, severance, and pension obligations to employees.

It bears repeating: Democrats, be a party that actually stands up to Wall Street, and offer concrete and permanent solutions to fight back against Wall Street greed, because the strongest economic recovery — one that provides paid family leave, affordable health care and financial security — will be the one led by working people, not Wall Street.

Facebook acknowledges Instagram's damage to teen mental health, but says there's good stuff too

The good doesn't negate the bad, but it's still there, I guess.

By Amanda Yeo on September 27, 2021

Facebook admitted Instagram does make some teenagers' mental health worse, but claimed it improves others.

 Credit: Fabian Sommer/Picture Alliance Via Getty Images

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal published a report stating that Facebook's own in-house research revealed Instagram has a significant negative impact on teenagers' mental health. Now Facebook has responded, basically saying it's a matter of interpretation.

In a blog post published on Sunday afternoon, the social media giant claimed The Wall Street Journal's Sept. 14 article had mischaracterised Facebook's research, as well as left out important context.

"Suggesting that Instagram is toxic for teens is simply not backed up by the facts," wrote Facebook researcher Pratiti Raychoudhury.

On the face of it, the facts certainly look damning. The Wall Street Journal viewed several internal Facebook documents discussing the issue of teen mental health, the company having performed various focus groups and surveys between 2019 and 2021. Among the documents cited was a 2019 presentation on Instagram, which stated, "We make body image issues worse for one in three teen girls."

However, Facebook alleges that in context this simply meant Instagram makes body image issues worse for girls who already have such issues, not one in three teen girls overall. This still isn't great by any means, but at least it isn't as bad as it could have been.

"And, among those same girls who said they were struggling with body image issues, 22% said that using Instagram made them feel better about their body image issues and 45.5% said that Instagram didn’t make it either better or worse (no impact)," wrote Raychoudhury.

Of course, Facebook doesn't state what percentage of teenage girls it surveyed self-reported having body image issues, which seems like a relevant bit of info. One in three of 30 percent is a much different statistic to one in three of 90 percent.

Facebook was unable to provide Mashable with this information when reached for comment, but a spokesperson stated not all surveyed girls who reported body image issues were asked about Instagram's impact.

Still, as the slide shared by Facebook indicates, more surveyed teen girls with body image issues thought Instagram made this problem worse than better. But Facebook also noted that Instagram was good at other things, with surveyed teens stating Instagram made other issues such as "sadness" better in situations where they had "felt sadness in the past month."


"Body image was the only area where teen girls who reported struggling with the issue said Instagram made it worse as compared to the other 11 areas," wrote Raychoudhury. "Our internal research is part of our effort to minimize the bad on our platforms and maximize the good. We invest in this research to proactively identify where we can improve — which is why the worst possible results are highlighted in the internal slides."

SEE ALSO: It shouldn’t be teen girls’ job to mitigate harm on Instagram

Facebook further addressed The Wall Street Journal's concerning revelation that the company's research found 6 percent of American and 13 percent of British teens who reported suicidal thoughts traced their origins to Instagram.

"When we take a step back and look at the full data set, about 1% of the entire group of teens who took the survey said they had suicidal thoughts that they felt started on Instagram," said Raychoudhury.

According to Facebook, 1296 American and 1309 British teens participated in the relevant survey, which means around 26 reported that their suicidal thoughts began on Instagram. The company acknowledged that any number above zero is not good, but also claimed 38 percent of surveyed teenage girls who experience suicidal thoughts stated Instagram makes the problem better for them.

Facebook's general defence to all of The Wall Street Journal's revelations basically boiled down to the good outweighing the bad, with more surveyed teens considering Instagram's impact to be positive than negative. The company also stressed that, in addition to contextual considerations of the data, their research itself should be put into context.

"This research, some of which relied on input from only 40 teens, was designed to inform internal conversations about teens’ most negative perceptions of Instagram," wrote Raychoudhury. "These documents were also created for and used by people who understood the limitations of the research, which is why they occasionally used shorthand language, particularly in the headlines, and do not explain the caveats on every slide."

Facebook characterised its research as evidence the company is taking steps to tackle Instagram's problems, citing steps it's undertaken such as providing links to eating disorder hotlines, banning graphic images of self harm, and allowing users to limit interaction from non-followers.

"We have a long track record of using our research...to inform changes to our apps and provide resources for the people who use them," wrote Raychoudhury.

Sadly, implementation of said changes has historically been slow. Instagram only announced it would start linking to eating disorder hotlines in February this year, after being in operation for over a decade and knowing of the issue for almost as long. Facebook also has a history of downplaying or ignoring the potentially negative influences of its services — it is a trillion-dollar company, after all. But at least it's something, I guess.

If you feel like you’d like to talk to someone about your eating behavior, call the National Eating Disorder Association’s helpline at 800-931-2237. You can also text “NEDA” to 741-741 to be connected with a trained volunteer at the Crisis Text Line or visit the nonprofit’s website for more information.

If you want to talk to someone or are experiencing suicidal thoughts, Crisis Text Line provides free, confidential support 24/7. Text CRISIS to 741741 to be connected to a crisis counselor. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. ET, or email info@nami.org. You can also call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. Here is a list of international resources.

Brittney Griner urges Biden to bring home reporter Gershkovich, accused of spying in Russia

 

Griner and her wife Cherelle 

Reporter for U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich leaves a court building in Moscow

Sun, April 2, 2023 at 2:42 AM MDT


(Reuters) - U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who was freed from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner exchange last year, has urged the Biden administration to keep using "every tool possible" to win the release of a U.S. reporter accused of spying in Russia.

Griner and her wife Cherelle said on Instagram that "our hearts are filled with great concern" for Evan Gershkovich, the journalist arrested by Russia's FSB security service last week in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.

The Kremlin says Gershkovich was using journalism as a cover for spying activity - something his newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, has vehemently denied.

Russia has not made public any evidence to support the charges, under which Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in jail. The White House has described the accusations as "ridiculous" and President Joe Biden has called on Moscow to release him.

The Griners said they were grateful for Biden's "deep commitment to rescue Americans". They cited the cases of aid worker Jeff Woodke, freed last month after being kidnapped for more than six years in West Africa, and Paul Rusesabagina, a permanent U.S. resident who returned home last week after being released from prison in Rwanda.

The couple added, "we call on all of our supporters to both celebrate the wins and encourage the administration to continue to use every tool possible to bring Evan and all wrongfully detained Americans home".

Brittney Griner, a WNBA star and double Olympic gold medallist who played for a Russian team in the off-season, was arrested at a Moscow airport one week before Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

She was found with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil in her luggage and sentenced to nine years in a penal colony after being convicted on drug smuggling and possession charges, a verdict that Biden called "unacceptable".

She was freed in December in exchange for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who spent 14 years in jail in the United States for arms trafficking, money laundering and conspiring to kill Americans.

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Journalist Detained by Russia Was Reporting Stories That ‘Needed to Be Told’


Reporter for U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal Evan Gershkovich appears in a photograph obtained by Reuters, in Moscow, Russia December 2021. (Stringer . / reuters)

Katie Robertson
Sun, April 2, 2023 

The reporting job in Moscow had everything Evan Gershkovich was looking for, his friends said: experience in a far-flung location with the chance to connect with his Russian roots.

Gershkovich, 31, an American journalist born to Soviet émigrés, moved from New York to Russia in late 2017 to take up his first reporting role, a job at The Moscow Times and, his friends and co-workers said, he quickly embraced life in Moscow.

“He had no hesitation; he was really ready to try something totally new,” said Nora Biette-Timmons, a friend from college and the deputy editor of Jezebel, adding, “I remember so distinctly how much he loved what he was doing.”

In January 2022, he was hired as a Moscow-based correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, a dream job, his friends said.

But on Thursday, in a move that intensified tensions between Moscow and the West, Russian authorities said that they had detained the journalist, accusing him of “spying in the interests of the American government.”

Russia has not provided any evidence to back up the accusations, and Gershkovich and his employer have denied the allegation. Russian state media said Gershkovich was being held at a prison in Moscow to await trial after being transported from Yekaterinburg, a city 900 miles away in the Ural Mountains where he was arrested. He is the first American journalist detained on espionage charges since the end of the Cold War and faces up to 20 years in jail.

Dozens of global news organizations have condemned the arrest and President Joe Biden on Friday called for Gershkovich’s immediate release. Top editors and press freedom organizations from around the world wrote to the Russian ambassador to the United States on Thursday, saying that the arrest was “unwarranted and unjust” and “a significant escalation in your government’s anti-press actions.”

The letter went on, “Russia is sending the message that journalism within your borders is criminalized and that foreign correspondents seeking to report from Russia do not enjoy the benefits of the rule of law.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago has drastically heightened the risks for journalists trying to report in the region. After the start of the war, many independent Russian outlets were shut down and Russian journalists were forced to flee. Western outlets that had operated bureaus in the country for decades moved their reporters out, and few Western journalists remain full time in the country today. Some reporters have continued to file stories from Russia by traveling in and out as needed.

In interviews, friends of Gershkovich described him as an extroverted journalist with an abiding love for Russia and its people, who was cleareyed about the risks facing him in his reporting.

Polina Ivanova, a correspondent who covers Russia and Ukraine for the Financial Times, said she met Gershkovich soon after they both arrived in Moscow in 2017.

“Evan is a completely gifted reporter and someone for whom journalism is incredibly natural because he is an amazing talker and charms everybody and is very funny,” she said.

Ivanova said that the pair frequently discussed the risks they faced in covering the country but that Gershkovich felt he should make every effort to report stories outside of Moscow.

“He always understands Russia with an extreme amount of insight and nuance and depth and that is based on the fact that he’s lived and breathed this story for the past five years,” she said. “And that’s what makes this all so painful because he really cares so much about what is happening in the country.”

Ivanova said she last saw Gershkovich in February, when she was traveling with him and friends in Vietnam. Afterward, he flew straight to Moscow for his latest reporting assignment.

Known to many of his American friends as “Gersh,” Gershkovich grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. His parents had emigrated to the United States from the Soviet Union, part of a wave of Jews who left in the 1970s. He spoke Russian at home and, in an article in the magazine Hazlitt in 2018, he reminisced about growing up with his mother’s Russian superstitions, including not spilling salt on the dinner table, and looking for ways to increase his connection with his heritage.

Gershkovich studied philosophy and English at Bowdoin College in Maine, graduating in 2014. He then lived in Bangkok for a year on a Princeton in Asia fellowship.

After college, Gershkovich moved to New York City and worked at The New York Times as a news assistant, handling reader emails for public editors Margaret Sullivan and Liz Spayd, from early 2016 until September 2017. He left the Times to take The Moscow Times job and get the reporting experience he craved. In 2020, Gershkovich started covering Russia and Ukraine for Agence France-Presse, then moved to The Wall Street Journal.

Jazmine Hughes, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine who became friends with Gershkovich when he worked at the Times, described a message he sent her in December 2021 telling her the news about his new job at the Journal.

“Remember when we were in The New York Times cafeteria and you were convincing me to give journalism a shot for another few years and not give up just yet?” Gershkovich wrote to Hughes. “I just got hired by The Wall Street Journal. I’m the Moscow correspondent. I’m in the bureau. I did the thing. Look at us!”

Hughes said in an email: “Getting the Moscow correspondent job was basically his too-big-to-dream job.”

Jeremy Berke, a former Insider reporter who now writes the cannabis industry newsletter Cultivated, said he and Gershkovich had been close friends since their freshman year at Bowdoin College and lived together for a time in the New York City borough of Brooklyn.

“Evan’s parents are Soviet émigrés, so he always felt very strongly about connecting with his roots,” Berke said.

“He felt like not only was this a moment in time in Russia where the country is very interesting but that he was a person who could really bridge the gap between U.S. audiences and Russia,” Berke added.

Berke said Gershkovich had made many friends in Moscow and built a life there before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“He was getting invited to friends’ cottages; he knew where all the cool bars were,” he said. “He loved his life there.”

Joshua Yaffa, a writer for The New Yorker who first met Gershkovich five years ago in Moscow, wrote in an article on Friday that Gershkovich, like some other Western reporters, had relocated outside of Russia after the war began, but returned last summer because his accreditation was still valid.

“It seemed like the old logic might still apply: Foreigners could get away with reporting that would be far more problematic, if not off limits entirely, for Russians,” Yaffa wrote.

In recent months, Gershkovich had written articles about an artillery shortage hampering Russia’s war effort in Ukraine and an acquiescence to the war by most Russians. His last byline was Tuesday, on a story about Russia’s dimming economic outlook as it is squeezed by Western sanctions.

Emma Tucker, the editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal, said in an email to the staff Friday that the publication was working with the State Department as well as legal teams in the U.S. and in Russia to secure Gershkovich’s release.

“Evan is a member of the free press who right up until he was arrested was engaged in news gathering,” Tucker wrote. “Any suggestions otherwise are false.”

Berke said he had spoken with Gershkovich’s mother on Thursday and Friday. (Gershkovich’s family declined to comment for this article.)

“It’s really hard,” he said. “They left the Soviet Union and were very worried about him going back. So I think this hits close to home.”

Ivanova of The Financial Times said foreign journalists who had worked with Gershkovich were distraught about his detention. She and others have asked people to email letters of support, which they will translate into Russian, as required by Russian law, and send to Gershkovich in prison.

Ivanova said there were now very few Western journalists still traveling in to Russia.

“What he was doing was incredibly important,” she said. “It was a story that really needed to be told because we need to understand it.” She added, “It helps no one if Russia remains a black box.”

c.2023 The New York Times Company

MONOPOLY FINANCE CAPITALI$M
Goldman Sachs reportedly just landed GM's $2.5 billion credit card business, its second co-branded deal after the Apple Card
Tyler Sonnemaker

Goldman Sachs trading booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on Thursday, January 6, 2011. Ramin Talaie/Corbis/Getty Images


Goldman Sachs won the bid for General Motors' credit-card business for roughly $2.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The Wall Street giant beat out Barclays, acquiring more than one million GM cardholders and the $8.5 billion they spend annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

This is Goldman Sachs' second co-branded card, following the Apple Card, as it looks to expand its consumer-lending business.

The bank recently shuffled its organizational structure to create a new standalone consumer division that includes its Marcus lending unit.

Goldman Sachs is picking up General Motors' credit-card business for a price tag of roughly $2.5 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, as it doubles down on its push into consumer lending.

Goldman beat out UK-based Barclays for the deal, which gives it more than one million GM cardholders and the approximately $8.5 billion they spend annually, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Goldman and GM did not respond to requests for comment.

The paper initially reported in August that Goldman was looking to acquire GM's card business away from Capital One, which currently issues GM's three cards — the BuyPower Card, a business card, and a card for GM employees and suppliers — and has a year left on its contract.

According to Thursday's report, Goldman and Capital One have reached an agreement on the general terms of the deal, such as top-line price, and plan to finalize the details in the next few weeks.

Landing GM's card business would be Goldman's second co-branded consumer credit card and another significant step into the consumer-lending business, following its underwriting of the Apple Card, which launched in 2019.

On Wednesday, Business Insider's Dakin Campbell reported that Goldman has shuffled its divisions to create a new standalone consumer division that includes its Marcus lending unit. Strategy chief Stephanie Cohen and Tucker York, the head of its private-wealth business, will co-lead the new unit, which will be named the Consumer and Wealth Management Division. The changes will go into effect on January 1.


Get the latest Goldman Sachs stock price here.

https://marxists.architexturez.net/archive/bukharin/works/1917/imperial/08.htm

 

GameStop saga makes

Wall Street an issue for Biden team

Updated Mon., February 1, 2021

WASHINGTON — The drama surrounding the trading in shares of GameStop, AMC Entertainment, Blackberry and other beaten-down companies has suddenly thrust Wall Street near the top of a crowded list of issues that President Joe Biden's regulatory team needs to tackle early in its term.

A number of wealthy institutions on Wall Street bet the stocks of these companies would fall, only to be thwarted by small investors who banded together on social media and sent the prices higher. Many of the small investors trade on online platforms such as Robinhood, which suddenly restricted the buying of shares of GameStop and other companies, sparking outrage from the social media crowd and politicians alike.

Biden's financial regulators — especially the Securities and Exchange Commission — will likely have to address questions about a number of Wall Street practices, such as short-selling and whether the business model of online trading platforms is as investor-friendly as the companies say it is. The airing of complex issues will come in addition to anticipated efforts by regulators at the SEC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies to overturn Trump-era rules deemed more favourable to the financial industry than to consumers or retail investors.

Biden is naming as the new SEC chairman Gary Gensler, who set a record as a tough regulator heading the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the financial crisis. The SEC took a deregulatory tilt under chair Jay Clayton, a former Wall Street lawyer appointed by President Donald Trump.

The GameStop saga has drawn expressions of outrage over Wall Street's treatment of the “little guy" from lawmakers from both parties. The populist strain recalls the anger fueling the Occupy Wall Street movement over the big bank bailouts that Congress brought in response to the financial crisis.

The uproar is occurring at a time when the small investor appears to be winning. Some prominent hedge funds are reeling with losses due to the collective efforts of the online community. At least two of them have closed out January's trading with losses of more than 40%, according to reports by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News.

Even so, when Robinhood took the step of preventing investors from buying shares of GameStop and a dozen other companies last week, some in Washington immediately called for action by regulators. Robinhood said it acted to meet regulatory capital requirements. Politicians and critics said Robinhood changed the rules of the road midway through, in favour of Wall Street firms who were still able to trade these shares.

Both the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee plan to hold hearings on the GameStop controversy.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who heads the Financial Services subcommittee on investor protection, entrepreneurship and capital markets, said lawmakers will examine, for example, whether Robinhood may have blocked customers from buying the stocks at the behest of other market players with competing interests — who are also Robinhood clients.

Another issue to be aired is that of short-selling, where firms bet that a company's stock price will drop. Lawmakers could look at the need for fuller disclosure requirements for short sellers, as now prevail in Europe and Britain, Sherman suggested.

“There is a casino. To the extent there’s a casino, it ought to be fair,” he said in a telephone interview. “The capital markets need to be less of a casino and more of a place where people ... can invest in companies that are leading the new economy.”

Also under Washington’s microscope will be the business model of companies like Robinhood. At issue is the common practice in the securities markets of payment for order flow, in which Wall Street trading firms pay companies like Robinhood to send their customers' orders to those firms for execution.

In addition, much as Facebook and other tech giants provide users' personal data to online advertisers, platforms like Robinhood give the trading firms data on stocks its users are buying and selling.

Last year, Robinhood agreed to pay $65 to settle SEC charges of providing misleading or incomplete information on its order-flow payments, its largest revenue source.

The practice of firms like Robinhood lending money to customers to make trades, which can fuel trading frenzies by small investors, also will be scrutinized. Questions also will be raised on whether the SEC's existing rules on market manipulation are sufficient.

Wall Street brokerages, big banks and other financial companies were already expecting the Biden administration to be tougher on them than the Trump regime.

Regulators largely took a hands-off approach to the financial industry under the Trump administration, with some exceptions like Wells Fargo. Fines became a fraction of what they used to be, and rules and regulations designed to curtail abusive practices like payday lending or lending discrimination were repealed or significantly rolled back, to the dismay of consumer advocates.

There were already signs that Biden was planning to do more to look out for consumers. He fired Trump's head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Kathy Kraninger, and nominated consumer advocate Rohit Chopra to replace her.

Chopra, appointed by Trump to the Federal Trade Commission, was one of two Democrats on the five-member commission. While in the minority, Chopra used his perch to try to push the FTC to be more aggressive in going after bad behaviour , particularly in the technology industry.

"I think his purpose (as CFPB Director) will be two-fold: more deterrence and to make consumers whole,” said Ori Lev, a partner at Mayer Brown and a former official at the CFPB.

“I think the people the president has nominated ... will have a more pro-consumer attitude, and a bit more antagonistic toward Wall Street,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who is set to become chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

____

Sweet reported from Charlotte

POST MODERN FALSE FLAG

U.S. Energy Department believes lab leak was most likely the source of COVID, report says

The conclusion is due to new intelligence, but the department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report, The Wall St. Journal said.

By Olivia Konotey-Ahulu

Bloomberg
Mon., Feb. 27, 2023

A laboratory leak was the most likely origin of the COVID-19 virus, according to findings by the U.S. Energy Department, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A classified intelligence report provided to the White House and key members of Congress said the virus likely spread due to a mishap at a Chinese laboratory, The Journal reported on Sunday.

The Energy Department had previously been undecided on the source of the virus. The conclusion is due to new intelligence, but the department made its judgment with “low confidence,” according to people who have read the classified report, The Journal said.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday there’s “a variety of views” in the U.S. intelligence community about whether the virus originated naturally or in a lab and he “can’t confirm or deny” the Wall Street Journal report.

President Joe Biden has asked the National Laboratories, which are part of the Energy Department, to be part of the assessment, Sullivan said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“And if we gain any further insight or information, we will share it with Congress and we will share it with the American people,” he said. “But, right now, there is not a definitive answer that has emerged from the intelligence community on this question.”

China has long hit back at any suggestion that the COVID-19 virus originated in a lab. The Chinese Embassy in Washington didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular working hours.

China Must Be 'More Honest' on COVID Origins, Envoy Says

By Reuters
Feb. 27, 2023

Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns attends the World Peace Forum at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China July 4, 2022. 

REUTERS/Yew Lun Tian

By Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) -China must be more honest about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. ambassador to China said on Monday, after reports that the U.S. Energy Department concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak.

Nicholas Burns, speaking by video link at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event, said it was necessary to push China to take a more active role in the World Health Organization (WHO) if the U.N. health agency was to be strengthened.

China also needed to "be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the COVID-19 crisis," Burns said, referring to the central Chinese city where the first human cases were reported in December 2019.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on Sunday that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the pandemic likely arose from a Chinese laboratory leak, an assessment Beijing denies.

The department made its judgment with "low confidence" in a classified intelligence report recently provided to the White House and key members of Congress, the Journal said, citing people who had read the intelligence report.

Four other U.S. agencies, along with a national intelligence panel, still judge that COVID-19 was likely the result of natural transmission, while two are undecided, the Journal reported.

The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.

President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Sunday there were a "variety of views in the intelligence community" on the pandemic's origins.

"A number of them have said they just don't have enough information," Sullivan told CNN.

Asked to comment on the report, which was confirmed by other U.S. media, China's foreign ministry referred to a WHO-China report that pointed toward a natural origin for the pandemic, likely from bats, rather than a lab leak.

"Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing the origins-tracing issue," foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said.

'A LITTLE BIT ORWELLIAN'

Burns told the Chamber event that it was a difficult moment for U.S.-China relations, with Beijing seeking to deflect blame after the U.S. military this month downed an alleged Chinese spy balloon that drifted across the continental United States.

"We're now in this surreal moment where the Chinese, who I think lost the debate over the balloon globally, lost influence and credibility around the world because of what they've done - they're now blaming this on us," Burns said.

"It's a little bit Orwellian. And it's a little bit frustrating, because I think everybody knows the truth here."

China reacted angrily when the U.S. military downed the balloon on Feb. 4, saying it was for monitoring weather conditions and had blown off course.

Burns added that it was the obligation of the United States to maintain its military strength "in and around Taiwan" to ensure the self-governed island claimed by Beijing has the ability to deter any kind of "offensive action" by China.

"It's also ... our responsibility to galvanize the rest of the world to make sure that the Chinese cannot get away with coercion or intimidation against Taiwan itself," he said.

(Reporting by Michael Martina and David Brunnstrom in Washington and the Beijing newsroom; Editing by Don Durfee and Alistair Bell)

China Responds to 'Politicized' Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

BY JOHN FENG ON 2/27/23 

China said Monday that studies into the origins of COVID-19 "should not be politicized" after a new assessment led to fresh scrutiny into a possible laboratory accident in late 2019 in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.

Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, pointed to the March 2021 findings of a joint WHO-China report that called the lab leak theory "extremely unlikely." That verdict was "a science-based, authoritative conclusion," she said at a regular press briefing in Beijing.

"Certain parties should stop rehashing the 'lab leak' narrative, stop smearing China and stop politicizing origin tracing," Mao said after The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the United States Department of Energy concluded, with "low confidence," that SARS-CoV-2 had emerged as a result of a lab mishap.

The DOE, which oversees U.S. national laboratories, was previously undecided about the virus's origins. It now joins the FBI's own "moderate confidence" assessment as only the second agency to side with the lab leak theory. Four other agencies still lean toward natural transmission as the most likely explanation for the initial outbreak, while two remain undecided.

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's central Hubei province on May 27, 2020. China has said that studies into the origins of COVID-19 "should not be politicized."

HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The WHO-China report published almost two years ago was the only authoritative assessment the United Nations health agency was able to produce about the start of the pandemic. Beijing appointed half the researchers on the mission, restricted the team's access to critical data, and blocked WHO attempts to conduct a phase-two study that included a review of Wuhan's surroundings.

Beijing's decisions went some way toward undermining the report's eventual findings, which were largely dismissed by American officials. As a result, the phase-one mission report lacked "extensive recognition from the international community," contrary to China's claim.

Four months after taking office, President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. intelligence community to determine the likely origins of the virus behind the disease that has now killed at least 6.8 million people worldwide, including upward of a million Americans. The report after 90 days was inconclusive, but the agencies judged the virus was not a biological weapon and wasn't released with Beijing's knowledge.

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead on COVID, said at a press conference on February 15 that the unsuccessful phase-two plans later morphed into the Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), a multinational panel that included Chinese experts, announced in October 2021.

"I think we need to be perfectly clear that WHO has not abandoned studying the origins of COVID-19. We have not and we will not," Van Kerkhove said in Geneva. "But let me also be very clear that we continue to ask for more cooperation and collaboration with our colleagues in China to advance studies that need to take place in China."

"We will follow the science. We will continue to ask for countries to depoliticize this work, but we need cooperation from our colleagues in China to advance this," she said.

"We will not stop until we understand the origins of this. And it is becoming increasingly difficult because the more time that passes, the more difficult it becomes to really understand what happened in those early stages of the pandemic."

Republicans React to Energy Department’s Reported Finding That COVID ‘Likely’ Leaked From Wuhan Lab

By Gary Bai
February 27, 2023

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) questions Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, during Senate Judiciary Committee on data security at Twitter, on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 13, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Republican lawmakers responded to a news report saying that the U.S. Energy Department had concluded the lab leak theory was “likely,” saying that the finding supports what many have long suspected.

A Wall Street Journal article on Feb. 26 reported that a classified intelligence report by the Energy Department said that the virus likely leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“So the government caught up to what Real America knew all along,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in a Twitter post on Sunday.

The responses came as GOP lawmakers ramp up investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and allegations of government-big tech censorship of the debate.

The Energy Department was previously undecided on the issue but now joins the FBI in corroborating the lab leak hypothesis, according to the report. Several people who have read the report said the Department’s judgment was made with “low confidence,” the Journal reported.

Responding to the report on Sunday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN that the intelligence community does not have a “definitive answer” on the matter at this point.

Republican lawmakers have been vocal about the theory that the virus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory soon after the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Initially, some health professionals and legacy media outlets dismissed the theory, labeling the theory’s proponents as racist and conspiracy theorists.

Fauci

Some lawmakers also accused Anthony Fauci, former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of colluding with big tech companies, such as Facebook and Twitter, and censoring stories about the lab leak theory via what these companies describe as a crackdown on “misinformation.”

“Fauci knew this immediately but dismissed it because of funding for the Wuhan lab,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) wrote in another post. “We know what happened next — when Fauci spoke Big Tech censored. I exposed this collusion as AG and I’ll work to ensure this type of censorship never happens again.”

“Americans knew this from Day One,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) wrote on Twitter on Sunday. “Unfortunately, Big Tech and Big Government silenced them.”

Republicans and critics of Fauci have raised concerns about the NIAID’s funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology via the non-governmental organization EcoHealth Alliance, including for research described by experts as gain-of-function. The NIAID issued about 3.4 million in grants to EcoHealth.

Gain-of-function research makes the virus more deadly by enhancing its pathogenicity, its ability to cause disease and harm the host, or transmissibility, how easily it spreads.

The NIH has denied that the grants were for gain-of-function research, while Fauci has defended the decision to issue the grants to EcoHealth.

“More evidence continues to mount that COVID came from the Wuhan lab. We’ve uncovered emails showing Dr. Fauci was warned that the virus looked man-made & came from a lab, but he may have acted to cover it up. Why? We need answers & accountability,” wrote the official Twitter account of the House Oversight Republican Committee.

Republicans on the committee previously disclosed internal NIH emails that showed Fauci was informed by senior scientists early in the pandemic that the theory that COVID-19 had a natural origin was “highly unlikely,” even while Fauci was publicly promoting the natural origin theory.

Additional Responses

Republican lawmakers such as Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) took issue with what he described as a lack of transparency in government investigations related to the origins of COVID-19.

“The American people deserve the full truth about #covid origins. No more whitewash. I will again introduce legislation to make the US government’s intelligence reports on covid open to the people,” Hawley wrote.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) echoed Hawley’s view.

“The elites and academics owe everyone who had legitimate questions and concerns about the origins of COVID an apology,” Buck wrote in a Twitter post. “The American people deserve to see all the information concerning the Chinese lab leak and the origins of COVID. This won’t be forgotten.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) says the United States should focus on the further implications of the report, namely, the need for the U.S. government to act to hold the Chinese regime accountable for the pandemic.

“Re. China’s lab leak, being proven right doesn’t matter,” Cotton wrote in a Twitter post. “What matters is holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable so this doesn’t happen again.”

The Epoch Times contacted the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy for comment.

From The Epoch Times