- Direct [link] to the mp3 file
- Experimental IPFS RSS Feed
- Executive Producers:
- Sir Macanudo de La Paz and Dame Sparkler
- Associate Executive Producers:
- Sir Charles of the Coin-Operated Laundromat
- Become a member of the 1415 Club, support the show here
- Knights & Dames
- Paul Branum -> Sir Paul Branum
- End of Show Mixes: Dustin Jones - Phantomville
- Engineering, Stream Management & Wizardry
- Mark van Dijk - Systems Master
- Ryan Bemrose - Program Director
- Clip Custodian: Neal Jones
- Mass Formation
- Shame is breaking out of mass formation
- Malone
- Dr. Robert Malone
- Relevant part :quote:
- You’re kind of asking my origin story with COVID?Joe Rogan25:57Yes. Have you taken the COVID vaccine?Dr. Robert Malone26:03So the answer is yes. I’ve also been infected twice after you took it once before I was infected at the end of February because I was attending an MIT conference on drug discovery and artificial intelligence.Joe Rogan26:16This is pre lockdown February.Dr. Robert Malone26:19But it goes back further than that. There’s a CIA agent that I’ve co published with in the past named Michael Callahan. He was in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019. He called me from Wuhan on January 4. I was currently managing a team that was focusing on drug discovery for organophosphate poisoning, Ergo nerve agents for Ditcher defense reduction agency involving high performing computing and bio robot screening, high end stuff. And he told me, Robert, you got to get your team spun up because we got a problem with this new virus. I worked with him through prior outbreaks. So it was then that I turned my attention to this, started modeling a key protein, a protease inhibitor of this virus when the sequence was released on January 11 as the Wuhan Seafood Market virus. And I’ve been pretty much going nonstop ever since. To that point, with drug repurposing, I’m the one that originally discovered the as an agent because I was self treating myself after I got infected with agents that we identified through the computer modeling.Joe Rogan27:43So February of 2020, you get infected. And how bad is your case?Dr. Robert Malone27:49Bad? I thought I was going to die. You have to remember, I was up on all the latest information from China and everywhere else. I knew all about this virus. I’ve been watching the videos of people dropping the street. My lungs were burning until I took famotodine. And that relieved that.Joe Rogan28:10And what is famotodine.Dr. Robert Malone28:11So otherwise known as Pepsid. So just on this tangent, since I’ve said it, I’ve got some good news to announce. First time here today, we believe we should have the first patient enrolled in our clinical trials of the combination of famotodine and celecoxib for treating SARS-CoV-2. This is trials being run by the company Lidos, which is one of my clients that I’ve helped design. It’s based on my discoveries. They’re funded by Defense Threat Reduction Agency. So this is another drug combination. Now I work with all these folks like Peter and Pierre that I know.
- Cancelling lends credibility :quote:
- Possible exploitable mental issue :quote:
- But the situation in lab was not healthy, when the harassment got to the point, where Robert literally was diagnosed with severe PTSD from abuse at the hands of his thesis advisor and institutional attorneys, he knew he had to abandon his PhD and go back to Northwestern to finish his medical degree. His thesis advisor was the now infamous Dr. Inder Verma. Dr. Verma’s behavior abusing women and employees is now legendary and documented in both the scientific and lay press
- Will talk about Callahan in a moment
- Incorrect MF naming and explanation on Rogan Intro
- Renamed is the Tell it's not Mass Formation Psychosis
- Michael Callahan
- Russian bio warfare lab
- The RCMDT is described as a “small-molecule research facility that traditionally focused on entities the body generates, such as interferon and cytokines, to turn on or turn down the immune response system”. The former Soviet research center obtained a grant from the National Institutes of Health via BII “for a collaborative project on new approaches to disease research”.
- DARPA Expansion
- In the space of just seven years, from 2005 to 2012, Callahan would expand DARPA’s biodefense portfolio from $61 million to $260 million per year and launch eight programs that would generate nine investigational new drugs (INDs) and three new drug applications with products in market, including the injectable fungal treatment, Ambisome (Gilead), which has generated over $6 billion since approval.
- Relevant quote
- “The dark science of biological weapon design and manufacture parallels that of the health sciences and the cross mixed disciplines of modern technology. Potential advances in biological weapon lethality will in part be the byproduct of peaceful scientific progress. So, until the time when there are no more terrorists, the U.S. Government and the American people will depend on the scientific leaders of their field to identify any potential dark side aspect to every achievement…”
- Scott Adams Incorrect analysis
- Scott Adams Genesis of MFP
- Ingraham Malone all jiddy
- VAERS
- Insurer 40% death RATE increase bullcrap
- thanks for asking. Also I don't know if you'll cover the hype but a word
- of caution: 40% is a deceptively oversimplified number and I smell BS.
- The spook is all in on it:
- https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/what-if-the-largest-experiment-on
- But read this carefully, emphasis mine: "We are seeing, right now, the
- highest *death rates* we have seen in the history of this business". And
- this: "And what we saw just in third quarter, we’re seeing it continue into
- fourth quarter, is that *death rates* are up 40% over what they were
- 1. Death rate is NOT the same thing as number of deaths. Death rate is
- population-adjusted by age. A longer explanation here
- with this money quote: "Remember that an age-adjusted rate evens the
- differences in demographic factors such as age distribution but becomes an
- artificial figure in the process. Therefore, it is not an indicator of the
- absolute level of mortality in a population and is only useful for purposes
- By "comparison" they mean compare state to state, or county to county. A
- time to time comparison adds a new dimension to the calculation-- The
- divisor (population) needs to change accurately, and the standard model
- would need to change too, especially if say a pandemic wiped out all your
- grannies. Who knows what the insurance actuarial did but I think some
- skepticism is in order. Maybe not ferguson-covid-19-predictions level
- skepticism but still, it's kinda sketch to draw conclusions about a vaccine
- from the numbers used to calculate insurance rates and profitability.
- 2. "pre-pandemic" is not defined. They likely mean Q3 year over year, but
- could also be a cherry-picked year, could be over a 5 year avg. etc. There
- is an annual variance in deaths, though it's nowhere near 40%. The smaller
- the timeframe, the more variance you might see since you lose averaging
- effects and introduce reporting effects.
- 3. This is all-cause deaths, with some mumbling about covid vs non-covid.
- For all we know a huge component of this 40% could be fentanyl, or people
- talking to a shotgun about losing their job.
- 4. Other insurance companies are saying the same, and define things a bit
- better. American thinker did some research:
- https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/more_preliminary_evidence_that_the_vaccines_have_led_to_a_spike_in_deaths.html
- The state dashboards suck, I spent 20 minutes trying to contextualize the
- numbers and gave up. I'll be talking to an insurance industry insider on
- WEF / BBB
- NFTs fulfill Klaus WEF dream:
- You will own nothing and you will be happy!
- Mandates and Boosters
- Vegas unvaxxed nurses BOTG
- My best friend works in a Las Vegas hospital. She got Covid Original, now tested positive again, guessing its omicron. She said it wasn't as bad as the first time. She just sent me this text today. They were told they can work when they have covid as long as they wear an n95. They don't need a negative test to come back to work because they are understaffed.
- Boots on the ground report on the Pass for going to work Luxembourg
- I'm in Luxembourg. Starting January 15th everyone in Luxembourg will have
- to use the 3G system to go to work (any work, any where). I think we are
- the first country in Europe doing so. So you have to be healed, vaccinated
- or do certified tests everyday. We can choose between certified selftest
- that have to be done by a medical professionnal and cost about 30€ or PCR
- which cost more. selftest are valid 24h, PCR are valid 48 but counting from
- the moment the test is done and as the result take about a day, it doesn't
- Sadly everyone is all-in. We can't get fired (yet) if we don't go to work
- I don't know what I am going to do.
- Fixing the Economy and Banks
- Big Tech
- Elizabeth Holmes - It's abou the patents
- I’ve been following this case for months. She got a bum rap. The investors were idiots and in the end they did no due diligence. She got railroaded to protect the reputation of politicians and other clowns like George Schultz, James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis and the CEOs of Walgreens and Safeway who were exposed during the trial as clueless morons. And these people run the world. Remember that.
- Then there are the patents, some 200+ of them.
- The inventive devices she was touting were novel and did work just not in the specific embodiments that they were installed. That being said, the company went bankrupt and the patents were acquired by SoftBank who is now suing others for infringement.
- Follow the patents and the money will come.
- OTG / 5G
- Pfizer microwave tracking patent
- This Pfizer patent application was approved August 31st, 2021, and is the very first patent that shows up in a list of over 18500 for the purpose of remote
- contact tracing of all vaccinated humans worldwide who will be or are now connected to the “internet of things" by a quantum link of pulsating microwave
- frequencies of 2.4 gHz or higher from cell towers and satellites directly to the graphene oxide held in the fatty tissues of all persons who’ve had the
- GETTR Onboarding is slick
- Climate Change
- New EU Rules Spark Fight Over What Is ‘Green’ Energy - WSJ
- Proposal to include some natural gas and nuclear power investments as relatively climate-friendly draws harsh response in Germany
- STORIES
- AT&T and Verizon back down in standoff with FAA, agree to 5G delay [Updated] | Ars Technica
- Getty Images | Marco Bottigelli
- Update at 11:20 pm ET: AT&T and Verizon reversed course on Monday night, announcing that they agreed to the request for a two-week delay of their 5G rollouts on C-Band frequencies, according to reports from several news organizations. "At Secretary [of Transportation Pete] Buttigieg's request, we have voluntarily agreed to one additional two-week delay of our deployment of C-Band 5G services," an AT&T spokesperson said, according to CNN. "We also remain committed to the six-month protection zone mitigations we outlined in our letter. We know aviation safety and 5G can co-exist and we are confident further collaboration and technical assessment will allay any issues."
- Verizon also confirmed to news organizations that it agreed to the delay, despite both carriers rejecting the request from Buttigieg and the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday. While the two-week delay requested by the FAA apparently applies nationwide, it isn't clear whether AT&T and Verizon will agree to the FAA's request for longer delays in areas surrounding airports.
- Original story as published on January 3, 2022 at 2:50 pm ET follows:
- AT&T and Verizon yesterday rejected a Federal Aviation Administration request to further delay a 5G rollout on C-Band frequencies but said they will adopt one of the world's "most conservative" power limits near airports for six months after the planned January 5 deployment. This is in addition to other voluntary limits the carriers recently announced even though it has been almost two years since the Federal Communications Commission determined that use of the spectrum should not interfere with properly designed airplane altimeters.
- "Specifically, for six months, until July 5, 2022, we will adopt the same C-Band radio exclusion zones that are already in use in France, with slight adaptation to reflect the modest technical differences in how C-Band is being deployed in the two countries," the carriers said in yesterday's letter. "That approach'--which is one of the most conservative in the world'--would include extensive exclusion zones around the runways at certain airports. The effect would be to further reduce C-Band signal levels by at least 10 times on the runway or during the last mile of final approach and the first mile after takeoff."
- Advertisement The exclusion zones in France are 9102100 meters, the letter said. AT&T and Verizon said they will use bigger exclusion zones with "an additional 540m on all four sides to accommodate" the higher power levels permitted in the US.
- The carriers noted that "US aircraft currently fly in and out of France every day with thousands of US passengers and with the full approval of the FAA," and that the "laws of physics are the same in the United States and France. If US airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States."
- Meanwhile, a group representing major airlines sent a letter to the FCC threatening a lawsuit and claimed that "thousands of flights" could be diverted or canceled every day due to interference from 5G transmissions. But the spectrum is already being used for 5G in nearly 40 other countries, and the FAA admitted there are no "proven reports of harmful interference" to altimeters.
- Buttigieg on FAA's sideThe AT&T/Verizon letter was a response to a December 31 letter from FAA Administrator Steve Dickson and US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Dickson and Buttigieg asked AT&T and Verizon to delay all commercial C-Band service for another two weeks, until January 19, and to wait for the aviation industry to conduct further analysis before deploying 5G on the C-Band near airports.
- AT&T and Verizon previously agreed to a one-month delay of the deployment that was originally scheduled for December 5, 2021. In yesterday's letter, they objected that the new FAA/DOT request "asks that we agree to transfer oversight of our companies' multi-billion dollar investment in 50 unnamed metropolitan areas representing the lion's share of the US population to the FAA for an undetermined number of months or years."
- Advertisement The FCC approved 5G transmissions in the C-Band in February 2020, while requiring power limits as well as a 220 MHz guard band that will remain unused to protect altimeters. AT&T and Verizon then spent a combined $69 billion to purchase C-Band spectrum licenses from 3.7-3.98 GHz. The radio altimeters used to determine airplane altitudes rely on spectrum from 4.2 GHz to 4.4 GHz.
- The guard band is effectively even bigger in 2022 because carriers have said they don't plan to deploy between 3.8 and 3.98 GHz until 2023.
- Airlines plan to sue if FCC doesn't actAirlines for America, a trade group that represents the major US airlines, filed an emergency petition on December 30 asking the FCC to stop C-Band deployment near airports. The group said if the FCC doesn't act by noon ET on January 3, the group "will be forced to seek judicial or other relief to avoid the immediate and unacceptable safety risks to its members' operations from interference to radio altimeters."
- The emergency petition claimed that interference from the C-Band "will cause irreparable harm and jeopardize the function of critical aircraft safety systems, which in turn threatens to divert or cancel thousands of flights every day, thus disrupting millions of passenger reservations, causing substantial disruptions for air crews, further interrupting the U.S. and global supply chains, and eroding the safety margin that the industry and the Federal Aviation Administration have worked so hard to achieve."
- "A4A is playing stupid games, because they waited until the FCC closed on Dec. 30 to file. Since the FCC was closed Dec. 31, and A4A says they will appeal today [Monday], this gives FCC no time to review or respond to stay petition," wrote Harold Feld, a telecom attorney who is senior VP of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.
- Six former FCC chairs last month criticized the FAA's fight against C-Band deployment, saying that the "FAA position threatens to derail the reasoned conclusions reached by the FCC after years of technical analysis and study."
- Biden Executive Order Seeks to Rein In Bank Mergers | ThinkAdvisor
- What You Need to KnowBiden's order urges an update to guidelines on banking mergers to provide more scrutiny.The curb of bank mergers is Democrats' attempt to clean up their own mess caused by Dodd-Frank, says Rep. McHenry.The SEC is urged to force the financial services industry to share data, Greg Valliere said. President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday afternoon to promote ''open and fair'' economic competition in the United States which, among other measures, curbs bank mergers and urges the Securities and Exchange Commission to force the financial services industry to share data.
- The order '-- which includes 72 specific actions, Biden said Friday in televised remarks '-- ''commits the federal government to full and aggressive enforcement of our antitrust laws,'' Biden said. ''No more tolerance for abusive actions by monopolies. No more bad mergers that lead to mass layoffs, higher prices, fewer options for workers and consumers alike.''
- Added Biden: ''I expect the federal agencies, and they know this, to help restore competition so that we have lower prices, higher wages, more money, more options and more convenience for the American people.''
- Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, said Friday in a statement that Biden's ''misguided'' executive order would ''drive up regulatory costs on financial institutions, leading to further consolidation.''
- What Your Peers Are ReadingBiden's curb of bank mergers is ''nothing more than Democrats' attempt to clean up their own mess caused by Dodd-Frank,'' McHenry said.
- ''The law's maze of mandates and regulations drove consolidation within the banking sector. When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging,'' McHenry continued. ''Democrats have instead decided to double down and want to impose even more regulation. This won't help institutions '-- especially small and community banks '-- better serve their customers or create more competition in financial services.''
- In the order, Biden encourages the Department of Justice and ''the agencies responsible for banking (the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to update guidelines on banking mergers to provide more robust scrutiny of mergers.''
- KFC to launch plant-based fried chicken made with Beyond Meat nationwide
- KFC restaurants nationwide will add Beyond Meat's plant-based chicken to its menus, starting Monday for a limited time.
- The launch comes after years of testing from the Yum Brands chain and Beyond Meat to create a meat substitute that mimicked the taste and texture of whole muscle chicken, like chicken breast, rather than the ground-up consistency of nuggets.
- The two companies first tested plant-based chicken at an Atlanta restaurant in August 2019 '-- and sold out their limited supply in less than five hours. KFC then tested the new item in Nashville, Charlotte, N.C., and southern California two years ago.
- KFC's new Beyond Fried Chicken
- The popular fried chicken chain is counting on customers making healthier choices to fulfill typical New Year's resolutions. "This is really about where the customer is going; they want to eat more plant-based proteins," said Kevin Hochman, U.S. president of KFC. "It's January, so it's a time of New Year's resolutions and wanting to do something different in your diet."
- More Americans are embracing a so-called flexitarian diet in which consumers cut down on their meat consumption for health and environmental reasons. That has driven the growing popularity of plant-based substitutes.
- "From a supply perspective, we feel really good about it, and it's something we have experience with in initial trials," said Beyond Meat CEO Ethan Brown.
- Hochman and Brown are so bullish on the product that they're not deterred by the current nationwide surge in the Covid omicron variant.
- The partnership hits at the time of a national labor crunch, with many eateries running short-staffed. To run smoothly even with fewer workers, some chains have been reluctant to add new items or even scaled back their menus. Surges in new Covid-19 cases exacerbate those issues as workers call in sick due to positive tests or exposure to infection.
- Nearly a year ago, Beyond Meat announced a formal partnership with Yum to make exclusive plant-based substitutes for Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC. Chipotle Mexican Grill rolled out plant-based chorizo Monday at its restaurants nationwide. It also is targeting customers who are trying to eat less meat in 2022.
- Ramping up for launchesIn preparing for launches to come in the new year, Beyond Meat poached industry veterans from Tyson Foods for its C-suite in December, adding Doug Ramsey as chief operating officer and Bernie Adcock in a new role of chief supply chain officer.
- Ramsey spent three decades at Tyson, overseeing its poultry and McDonald's businesses. Adcock also spent 30 years at Tyson with a focus on operations and supply chain management.
- "We're continuing to grow the operations team; they did a lot of work to help the team get ready in these final days," Brown said, adding the Yum tie-up has been years in the making. "They've helped us prepare for this and we brought in, I think, some of the top executives in the industry."
- Beyond Meat is looking to get its stock back on track. In the last 12 months, shares have lost half their value, dragging the company's market value down to $3.9 billion. The stock closed Tuesday down 5% at $61.62 and short sellers betting against the stock represent 37.2% of available shares, according to Factset.
- On the other hand, shares of Yum have climbed 30% in the last year, bringing its market value to $40.3 billion. Strong demand for KFC's fried chicken has helped lift the price. The chain's U.S. same-store sales jumped 13% on a two-year basis during its third quarter.
- Synergies with retailThe partnership does provide an opportunity, however, for "Beyond" restaurant sales. The company is hoping to attract more customers to its grocery store products, which sold briskly early in the pandemic, but then saw declines in subsequent quarters.
- "It has great synergies with what we are trying to do in retail," Brown said.
- To promote the new menu item, YouTube star Liza Koshy will star in the plant-based chicken's ad campaign, in the latest partnership between fast food chains and influencers. However, KFC will not be targeting vegans and vegetarians directly with its marketing because the Beyond Fried Chicken is made using the same equipment as KFC's traditional fried chicken.
- Customers can buy KFC's Beyond Fried Chicken in six- or 12-piece orders, with dipping sauce included. Prices start at $6.99, excluding tax.
- Majority of Teenagers Hospitalized With COVID-19 Had Severe Obesity: CDC Study
- Most teenagers hospitalized with COVID-19 across six major hospitals over the summer were severely obese, according to a recently published Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study.
- Researchers with the agency and children's hospitals examined data on adolescents who went to hospitals in July or August and had COVID-19.
- Of the 713 patients identified as being hospitalized for COVID-19, approximately two-thirds had one or more underlying medical conditions, with obesity being the most common (32.4 percent).
- Among children 12 through 17, 61.4 percent of the patients were obese. Most of them were described as having severe obesity.
- Among children aged 5 to 11, 33.6 percent were obese.
- ''Compared with patients without obesity, those with obesity required higher levels and longer duration of care. These findings are consistent with previous reports and highlight the importance of obesity and other medical conditions as risk factors for severe COVID-19 in children and adolescents,'' authors wrote in the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed.
- The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19, primarily causes severe illness in people with serious underlying conditions, including obesity and kidney disease, according to the CDC.
- ''Having obesity puts people at risk for many other serious chronic diseases and increases the risk of severe illness from COVID-19,'' the CDC says on its website.
- Researchers also found that children who weren't vaccinated were more likely to end up in the hospital for COVID-19.
- In another recent study, a peer reviewed paper published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that COVID-19 patients who were obese but had had weight loss surgery were less likely to require hospitalization, supplemental oxygen, or have severe disease.
- Researchers with the Cleveland Clinic said the findings ''represent the best available evidence on the implications of a successful weight loss intervention for COVID-19 outcomes.''
- ''The results of this study should not be misinterpreted as demonstrating the superiority of weight loss surgery over nonsurgical treatment of obesity because the control group consisted of patients with obesity and was not exclusively composed of patients who were actively pursuing behavioral interventions or weight loss medications for their obesity,'' they added.
- Zachary Stieber covers U.S. news and stories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. He is based in Maryland.
- EU Plans to Classify Nuclear and Natural Gas As Green Energy - The Daily Upside
- Despite what it looks like on The Simpsons , nuclear energy does not glow green. But the European Union may soon call it green anyway.
- Leaked documents from Brussels over the weekend revealed the European Commissionis planning to reclassify nuclear power and some forms of natural gas '-- two controversial forms of energy production '-- as ''green,'' opening the door to billions of dollars flowing to the new category of sustainable investment. '' Excellent ,'' said Mr. Burns.
- Billion Dollar LabelThe EU's big environmental policy goal is to reach net carbon zero by 2050, a lofty goal which will require cutting pollution in just about every way imaginable. In 2020 the economic union created the ''EU taxonomy,'' a classification system that spells out which investments it considers environmentally sustainable and [eligible for preferential tax treatment].
- The system was designed to help drive capital into emissions-free categories like solar and wind power, and provide clarity to asset managers and hedge funds eager to slap the coveted ''ESG'' tag on their portfolios.
- Nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gasses, but it's not currently on the taxonomy list. Natural gas, which produces far less pollution than traditional fossil fuels, isn't either. But, over the weekend, copies of a draft plan from the EU leaked with both forms of energy now on the list. It's a huge deal in international energy markets for a few reasons:
- There's tons of money to be made: European Central Bank estimates that just 1.3% of EU bond and equity markets, or about '¬290 billion, are currently financing sustainable activities, but that could grow to 10% under the taxonomy.Only nuclear plants that use the most up-to-date standards for waste disposal will get the green label, a huge boost for the $20 billion nuclear waste management market.What Changed? Basically, France beat Germany. The French '-- who get over 70% of their power from nuclear plants '-- organized a coalition of nuclear and natural gas friendly countries to overpower a coalition led by Germany, which shut down its last nuclear power plants on New Year's Day. Talk about bad timing.
- New EU Rules Spark Fight Over What Is 'Green' Energy - WSJ
- Proposal to include some natural gas and nuclear power investments as relatively climate-friendly draws harsh response in Germany
- The European Union has proposed treating nuclear energy and natural-gas investments as similar to renewables over coming years in pursuit of a carbon-neutral economy, but the approach faces criticism from some of the bloc's governments.
- The draft recommendation, which needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, underlines the political controversy already stirred up by environmental policies in Europe, despite broad public support for action to prevent climate change.
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- The European Union has proposed treating nuclear energy and natural-gas investments as similar to renewables over coming years in pursuit of a carbon-neutral economy, but the approach faces criticism from some of the bloc's governments.
- The draft recommendation, which needs approval from EU governments and the European Parliament, underlines the political controversy already stirred up by environmental policies in Europe, despite broad public support for action to prevent climate change.
- The proposal from the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, spells out changes to what counts as investment in environmentally sustainable energy. Known as the ''green taxonomy,'' it is being closely watched by investors and industries including power generation, transportation and manufacturing.
- Europe needs massive investment to meet its 2050 target for a carbon-neutral economy. In 2019, the Commission estimated it would need between 175 billion euros to 250 billion euros'--equivalent to $199.02 billion to $284.31 billion'--in additional annual investment in coming decades to achieve the goal. Most of that will need to come from the private sector.
- The EU hopes that by clearly classifying what counts as green investment and setting out stricter rules for what is required to achieve that, it will encourage investment in green projects, potentially lowering their funding costs relative to other energy plans.
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- Under EU law, each country can use its own energy mix. The taxonomy rules don't affect that or the use of public finances for different energy sources.
- The rules require energy companies to transition away from carbon-emitting energy sources and require firms that sell financial products to disclose in detail the impact of their investments on environmentally sustainable products, including what proportion of their investments go to green projects.
- The Commission's changes come amid growing questions about the bloc's climate ambitions, prompted by surging electricity prices. Europe has committed to slashing its carbon emissions by 55% by 2030.
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- In recent months, France has led a push to include nuclear energy, its main electricity source, on the green investment list, despite strong opposition to its use in Germany, the EU's other heavyweight economy.
- A number of countries in eastern and southern Europe have pushed the Commission to not discourage investment in natural gas supplies. The EU imports three quarters of its natural gas, an energy source that emits less carbon than coal.
- Under the proposals, investments in nuclear plants can be classified as green until 2045, while investments to extend the life of existing nuclear plants can count as sustainable until 2040. Conditions apply. Nuclear plants will have to show they and their governments have plans to handle toxic nuclear waste and for the cost of decommissioning plants in future.
- Natural gas investments can be counted as green until at least 2030 if their carbon emissions are under a fixed threshold, which is estimated to mean it will produce no significant environmental harm. Even then, electricity firms must show that they are generating a growing percentage of their energy from renewable sources in coming years.
- Germany's vice chancellor and economy and climate minister,
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- Robert Habeck, said he expected the Commission proposal to be rejected.
- ''It's questionable anyway if this greenwashing will find any kind of acceptance in financial markets,'' he said.
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- Germany set out plans to shift away from nuclear energy in the wake of Japan's Fukushima plant disaster in 2011. Mr. Habeck's Green Party has strongly opposed nuclear energy, which doesn't emit greenhouse gasses.
- Austria's climate minister Leonore Gewessler said the government would seek a legal opinion on suing the Commission if it implemented its proposal as recommended.
- The Commission's proposal will be subject to government feedback in coming days, which could lead to changes. Once approved by the Commission, EU governments and the European Parliament will have four months to approve it.
- The green energy classification is only one of several elements of the Commission's climate plans to come under political fire from EU capitals.
- Hungary's Viktor Orban has criticized the Commission and promised opposition to Brussels' plans to extend its emission-trading system to the transport and housing sectors. There have also been calls for the Commission to intervene in the carbon emissions-credit market to prevent what critics call speculation.
- Supporters of EU climate plans say the rapid scale-up of renewable, clean energy resources wouldn't only battle climate change but could lower costs for consumers and increase the EU's geopolitical independence, by making the bloc less dependent on energy exporters including Russia.
- Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com
- Novak Djokovic and Kyrie Irving Prepare to Return Despite Rules Barring Unvaccinated Players - WSJ
- The 20-time major winner and the Brooklyn Nets star, who have said they didn't want to be vaccinated, are both expected to take the court this month at the Australian Open and in the NBA
- Updated Jan. 4, 2022 2:47 pm ETAs the rest of the tennis elite boarded flights to Australia in recent weeks, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic sat at home waiting to know where he might be allowed to play next.
- Meanwhile, halfway across the world, NBA star Kyrie Irving watched the Brooklyn Nets and wondered if, when or where he would be allowed to play his first game of the season.
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- As the rest of the tennis elite boarded flights to Australia in recent weeks, world No. 1 Novak Djokovic sat at home waiting to know where he might be allowed to play next.
- Meanwhile, halfway across the world, NBA star Kyrie Irving watched the Brooklyn Nets and wondered if, when or where he would be allowed to play his first game of the season.
- Now two of the sports world's most prominent vaccine skeptics have found exceptions to stringent rules and find themselves returning to competition at almost exactly the same time, even as the Omicron variant is leading to the latest wave of Covid-19 cases.
- Djokovic said on Tuesday that he had received an exemption to play in this month's Australian Open despite rules the country and the tournament have put in place requiring players to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to participate.
- Djokovic, who has said publicly that he didn't want to be vaccinated, indicated that he had received an unspecified medical exemption to enter the country. He made the announcement in a social media post that showed him with his luggage on an airport tarmac, ready to fly to Australia, prompting plenty of frustration from locals who have spent much of the past two years under lockdown.
- ''I've spent fantastic quality time with my loved ones over the break and today I'm heading Down Under with an exemption permission,'' he wrote. ''Let's go 2022!''
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- In a bit of transcontinental symmetry, Djokovic's unexpected trip to Australia coincides with Irving's possible debut in Indianapolis on Wednesday, where the Nets are hoping their standoff with the NBA's most valuable unvaccinated player officially ends.
- Djokovic and Irving are not the only unvaccinated professional athletes who happen to be huge stars. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said he was ''immunized'' and then admitted that he was unvaccinated in an extraordinary series of events after he tested positive for Covid and missed a game. He also led his team to the NFL's best record and distinguished himself as the front-runner to win the league's MVP award.
- The difference between Irving and the overwhelming majority of athletes who declined to get the shot, including Rodgers and Djokovic, is that his defiance meant he couldn't do his job. Irving was banished by his own team and risked losing more than $15 million for refusing to comply with New York City's indoor vaccine mandate. Since he couldn't play for the Nets at home, the Nets decided he wouldn't play anywhere.
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- Irving, who remained mostly silent with the exception of cryptic posts on social media during his absence, said recently that he respected their decision after he made his.
- Then the team backed down. Covid ripped through Brooklyn's locker room as the Omicron variant slammed New York in December, and the Nets softened their position about paying a star not to work. Their plan to survive a Covid surge was to welcome back a proudly unvaccinated employee and effectively make Irving the NBA's only part-time player.
- His return plans were immediately complicated. It took less than 24 hours for Irving to be sidelined by the league's health and safety protocols.
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- As soon as he was cleared, Irving hit another snag: The Nets were playing at home.
- Wednesday's game against the Pacers is his first chance to see the floor since coming back to work. He's currently eligible for 22 of their remaining 47 games, but a prolonged Nets home stand toward the end of the regular season means he might go nearly a month before the playoffs having played exactly once. It's unclear if that means he will be rested or rusty. It's also unclear whether Irving's availability next to Kevin Durant and James Harden will change the way the Nets strategize for the playoffs.
- But the temporary solution to the Irving saga was somehow more probable than Djokovic making it to Melbourne to chase a 10th Australian Open title. While he was able to comply with negative testing requirements to make it through last season'--and win three Grand Slam tournaments along the way'--Australia's tougher policies in 2022 were always going to be a challenge. The tournament had insisted that no player, staff member, or fan would be admitted without being vaccinated.
- Australian Open organizers said on Tuesday that Djokovic's application for an exemption had been reviewed by a body called the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, which didn't give any details on his case. Djokovic contracted and recovered from Covid in the summer of 2020.
- ''Fair and independent protocols were established for assessing medical exemption applications that will enable us to ensure Australian Open 2022 is safe and enjoyable for everyone,'' tournament director
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- Tiley added on Australian television's ''Today'' Wednesday morning that 26 players made requests for exemptions and ''a handful'' were granted after a blind review.
- ''For tennis players, it was a process that goes above and beyond what anyone coming to Australia would have experienced,'' he said.
- While Djokovic is far from the biggest ratings draw in the sport'--players such as Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal remain more popular with television audiences'--he would have been a glaring absence from the tournament. Djokovic is the most successful male player in Australian Open history and is looking for his 21st major title overall, which would put his tally ahead of Federer and Nadal for the first time in his career.
- Yet in recent months, Djokovic had seemed prepared to skip the tournament altogether. He said as recently as early December that he was taking a wait-and-see approach until an official announcement on health protocols. When those turned out to be as stringent as everyone expected, Djokovic remained quiet, leaving organizers in Melbourne in limbo until as late as possible.
- ''Everyone who will attend'--spectators, players, officials, staff, everyone'--is expected to be fully vaccinated. They're the rules,'' the deputy premier of the Australian state of Victoria, James Merlino, told reporters last month. ''Medical exemptions are just that. It's not a loophole for privileged tennis players.''
- On Tuesday, however, the state of Victoria defended the exemption for Djokovic, saying that it had been assessed through ''an independent and rigorous process.''
- Both sides were running out of time to make a call. With the first round kicking off on Jan. 17, this was likely the last week for players to travel and still arrive with enough time to acclimate to the summer heat and time difference. Most of the sport's other major stars, including Nadal, U.S. Open champion Daniil Medvedev, and two-time Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka, who have all been in the country practicing for days.
- But even with shorter preparation, this month's tournament feels suddenly familiar. Djokovic will be the instant favorite to defend his title the moment he lands in Melbourne.
- Write to Joshua Robinson at Joshua.Robinson@wsj.com
- 18 U.S. Code § 1512 - Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
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- Skip to main content U.S. Code Notes (a) (1) Whoever kills or attempts to kill another person, with intent to'-- (A) prevent the attendance or testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
- (B) prevent the production of a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
- (C) prevent the communication by any person to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
- shall be punished as provided in paragraph (3).
- (2) Whoever uses physical force or the threat of physical force against any person, or attempts to do so, with intent to'-- (A) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
- (B) cause or induce any person to'-- (i) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;
- (ii) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the integrity or availability of the object for use in an official proceeding;
- (iii) evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
- (iv) be absent from an official proceeding to which that person has been summoned by legal process; or
- (C) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation, supervised release, parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
- shall be punished as provided in paragraph (3).
- (3) The punishment for an offense under this subsection is'-- (A) in the case of a killing, the punishment provided in sections 1111 and 1112;
- (B) in the case of'-- (i) an attempt to murder; or
- (ii) the use or attempted use of physical force against any person;
- imprisonment for not more than 30 years; and
- (C) in the case of the threat of use of physical force against any person, imprisonment for not more than 20 years.
- (b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to'-- (1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
- (2) cause or induce any person to'-- (A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;
- (B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding;
- (C) evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
- (D) be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or
- (3) hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation'¯
- [1] parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
- shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
- (c) Whoever corruptly'-- (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
- (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so,
- shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
- (d) Whoever intentionally harasses another person and thereby hinders, delays, prevents, or dissuades any person from'-- (1) attending or testifying in an official proceeding;
- (2) reporting to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense or a violation of conditions of probation'¯1 supervised release,,1 parole, or release pending judicial proceedings;
- (3) arresting or seeking the arrest of another person in connection with a Federal offense; or
- (4) causing a criminal prosecution, or a parole or probation revocation proceeding, to be sought or instituted, or assisting in such prosecution or proceeding;
- or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 3 years, or both.
- (e) In a prosecution for an offense under this section, it is an affirmative defense, as to which the defendant has the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, that the conduct consisted solely of lawful conduct and that the defendant's sole intention was to encourage, induce, or cause the other person to testify truthfully.
- (f) For the purposes of this section'-- (1) an official proceeding need not be pending or about to be instituted at the time of the offense; and
- (2) the testimony, or the record, document, or other object need not be admissible in evidence or free of a claim of privilege.
- (g) In a prosecution for an offense under this section, no state of mind need be proved with respect to the circumstance'-- (1) that the official proceeding before a judge, court, magistrate judge, grand jury, or government agency is before a judge or court of the United States, a United States magistrate judge, a bankruptcy judge, a Federal grand jury, or a Federal Government agency; or
- (2) that the judge is a judge of the United States or that the law enforcement officer is an officer or employee of the Federal Government or a person authorized to act for or on behalf of the Federal Government or serving the Federal Government as an adviser or consultant.
- (h) There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction over an offense under this section.
- (i) A prosecution under this section or
- section 1503 may be brought in the district in which the official proceeding (whether or not pending or about to be instituted) was intended to be affected or in the district in which the conduct constituting the alleged offense occurred.
- (j) If the offense under this section occurs in connection with a trial of a criminal case, the maximum term of imprisonment which may be imposed for the offense shall be the higher of that otherwise provided by law or the maximum term that could have been imposed for any offense charged in such case.
- (k) Whoever conspires to commit any offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.
- Pub. L. 97''291, §'¯4(a),
- Pub. L. 100''690, title VII, §'¯7029(a), (c),
- Pub. L. 101''650, title III, §'¯321,
- Pub. L. 103''322, title VI, §'¯60018, title XXXIII, §'¯330016(1)(O), (U),
- Pub. L. 104''214, §'¯1(2),
- Pub. L. 104''294, title VI, §'¯604(b)(31),
- Pub. L. 107''204, title XI, §'¯1102,
- Pub. L. 107''273, div. B, title III, §'¯3001(a), (c)(1),
- Pub. L. 110''177, title II, §'¯205,
- Amendments2008'--Subsec. (a)(3)(A). Pub. L. 110''177, §'¯205(1)(A), amended subpar. (A) generally. Prior to amendment, subpar. (A) read as follows: ''in the case of murder (as defined in section 1111), the death penalty or imprisonment for life, and in the case of any other killing, the punishment provided in section 1112;''.
- Subsec. (a)(3)(B). Pub. L. 110''177, §'¯205(1)(B), substituted ''30 years'' for ''20 years'' in concluding provisions.
- Subsec. (a)(3)(C). Pub. L. 110''177, §'¯205(1)(C), substituted ''20 years'' for ''10 years''.
- Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 110''177, §'¯205(2), substituted ''20 years'' for ''ten years'' in concluding provisions.
- Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 110''177, §'¯205(3), substituted ''3 years'' for ''one year'' in concluding provisions.
- 2002'--Subsec. (a)(1). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(a)(1)(A), substituted ''as provided in paragraph (3)'' for ''as provided in paragraph (2)'' in concluding provisions.
- Subsec. (a)(2). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(a)(1)(C), added par. (2). Former par. (2) redesignated (3).
- Subsec. (a)(3). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(a)(1)(B), (D), redesignated par. (2) as (3), added subpars. (B) and (C), and struck out former subpar. (B) which read as follows: ''(B) in the case of an attempt, imprisonment for not more than twenty years.''
- Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(a)(2), struck out ''or physical force'' after ''intimidation'' in introductory provisions.
- Subsec. (b)(3). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(c)(1), inserted ''supervised release,'' after ''probation''.
- Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 107''204 added subsec. (c). Former subsec. (c) redesignated (d).
- Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 107''204 redesignated former subsec. (c) as (d). Former subsec. (d) redesignated (e).
- Subsec. (d)(2). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(c)(1), inserted ''supervised release,'' after ''probation''.
- Subsecs. (e) to (j). Pub. L. 107''204 redesignated former subsecs. (d) to (i) as (e) to (j), respectively.
- Subsec. (k). Pub. L. 107''273, §'¯3001(a)(3), added subsec. (k).
- 1996'--Subsec. (a)(2)(A). Pub. L. 104''294 inserted ''and'' after semicolon at end.
- Subsec. (i). Pub. L. 104''214 added subsec. (i).
- 1994'--Subsec. (a)(2)(A). Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯60018, amended subpar. (A) generally. Prior to amendment, subpar. (A) read as follows: ''(A) in the case of a killing, the punishment provided in sections 1111 and 1112 of this title; and''.
- Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯330016(1)(U), substituted ''fined under this title'' for ''fined not more than $250,000'' in concluding provisions.
- Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 103''322, §'¯330016(1)(O), substituted ''fined under this title'' for ''fined not more than $25,000'' in concluding provisions.
- 1988'--Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 100''690, §'¯7029(c), substituted ''threatens, or corruptly persuades'' for ''or threatens''.
- Subsec. (h). Pub. L. 100''690, §'¯7029(a), added subsec. (h).
- 1986'--Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 99''646, §'¯61(2), (3), added subsec. (a) and redesignated former subsec. (a) as (b).
- Subsecs. (b) to (g). Pub. L. 99''646, §'¯61(1), (3), redesignated former subsec. (a) as (b), inserted '','delay, or prevent'', and redesignated former subsecs. (b) to (f) as (c) to (g), respectively.
- Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
- Change of NameWords ''magistrate judge'' and ''United States magistrate judge'' substituted for ''magistrate'' and ''United States magistrate'', respectively, in subsec. (f)(1) pursuant to section 321 of Pub. L. 101''650, set out as a note under section 631 of Title 28, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure.
- Effective DatePub. L. 97''291, §'¯9, Oct. 12, 1982 , 96 Stat. 1258, provided that:
- ''(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), this Act and the amendments made by this Act [enacting this section and sections
- 3580 of this title, amending sections
- 3146 of this title and Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and enacting provisions set out as notes under this section and sections
- 3579 of this title] shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act [
- ''(b) (1) The amendment made by section 2 of this Act [enacting provisions set out as a note under this section] shall apply to presentence reports ordered to be made on or after March 1, 1983 .
- ''(2) The amendments made by section 5 of this Act [enacting sections
- 3580 of this title] shall apply with respect to offenses occurring on or after
- Congressional Findings and Declaration of PurposesPub. L. 97''291, §'¯2, Oct. 12, 1982 , 96 Stat. 1248, provided that:
- ''(a) The Congress finds and declares that: ''(1) Without the cooperation of victims and witnesses, the criminal justice system would cease to function; yet with few exceptions these individuals are either ignored by the criminal justice system or simply used as tools to identify and punish offenders.
- ''(2) All too often the victim of a serious crime is forced to suffer physical, psychological, or financial hardship first as a result of the criminal act and then as a result of contact with a criminal justice system unresponsive to the real needs of such victim.
- ''(3) Although the majority of serious crimes falls under the jurisdiction of State and local law enforcement agencies, the Federal Government, and in particular the Attorney General, has an important leadership role to assume in ensuring that victims of crime, whether at the Federal, State, or local level, are given proper treatment by agencies administering the criminal justice system.
- ''(4) Under current law, law enforcement agencies must have cooperation from a victim of crime and yet neither the agencies nor the legal system can offer adequate protection or assistance when the victim, as a result of such cooperation, is threatened or intimidated.
- ''(5) While the defendant is provided with counsel who can explain both the criminal justice process and the rights of the defendant, the victim or witness has no counterpart and is usually not even notified when the defendant is released on bail, the case is dismissed, a plea to a lesser charge is accepted, or a court date is changed.
- ''(6) The victim and witness who cooperate with the prosecutor often find that the transportation, parking facilities, and child care services at the court are unsatisfactory and they must often share the pretrial waiting room with the defendant or his family and friends.
- ''(7) The victim may lose valuable property to a criminal only to lose it again for long periods of time to Federal law enforcement officials, until the trial and sometimes and [sic] appeals are over; many times that property is damaged or lost, which is particularly stressful for the elderly or poor.
- ''(b) The Congress declares that the purposes of this Act [see Short Title of 1982 Amendment note set out under section 1501 of this title] are'-- ''(1) to enhance and protect the necessary role of crime victims and witnesses in the criminal justice process;
- ''(2) to ensure that the Federal Government does all that is possible within limits of available resources to assist victims and witnesses of crime without infringing on the constitutional rights of the defendant; and
- ''(3) to provide a model for legislation for State and local governments.''
- Federal Guidelines for Treatment of Crime Victims and Witnesses in the Criminal Justice SystemPub. L. 97''291, §'¯6, Oct. 12, 1982 , 96 Stat. 1256, as amended by Pub. L. 98''473, title II, §'¯1408(b), Oct. 12, 1984 , 98 Stat. 2177, provided that:
- ''(a) Within two hundred and seventy days after the date of enactment of this Act [Oct. 12, 1982 ], the Attorney General shall develop and implement guidelines for the Department of Justice consistent with the purposes of this Act [see Short Title of 1982 Amendment note set out under section 1501 of this title]. In preparing the guidelines the Attorney General shall consider the following objectives: ''(1) Services to victims of crime.'-- Law enforcement personnel should ensure that victims routinely receive emergency social and medical services as soon as possible and are given information on the following'-- ''(A) availability of crime victim compensation (where applicable);
- ''(B) community-based victim treatment programs;
- ''(C) the role of the victim in the criminal justice process, including what they can expect from the system as well as what the system expects from them; and
- ''(D) stages in the criminal justice process of significance to a crime victim, and the manner in which information about such stages can be obtained.
- ''(2) Notification of availability of protection.'--A victim or witness should routinely receive information on steps that law enforcement officers and attorneys for the Government can take to protect victims and witnesses from intimidation.
- ''(3) Scheduling changes.'--All victims and witnesses who have been scheduled to attend criminal justice proceedings should either be notified as soon as possible of any scheduling changes which will affect their appearances or have available a system for alerting witnesses promptly by telephone or otherwise.
- ''(4) Prompt notification to victims of serious crimes.'-- Victims, witnesses, relatives of those victims and witnesses who are minors, and relatives of homicide victims should, if such persons provide the appropriate official with a current address and telephone number, receive prompt advance notification, if possible, of'-- ''(A) the arrest of an accused;
- ''(B) the initial appearance of an accused before a judicial officer;
- ''(C) the release of the accused pending judicial proceedings; and
- ''(D) proceedings in the prosecution and punishment of the accused (including entry of a plea of guilty, trial, sentencing, and, where a term of imprisonment is imposed, a hearing to determine a parole release date and the release of the accused from such imprisonment).
- ''(5) Consultation with victim.'-- The victim of a serious crime, or in the case of a minor child or a homicide, the family of the victim, should be consulted by the attorney for the Government in order to obtain the views of the victim or family about the disposition of any Federal criminal case brought as a result of such crime, including the views of the victim or family about'-- ''(B) release of the accused pending judicial proceedings;
- ''(C) plea negotiations; and
- ''(D) pretrial diversion program.
- ''(6) Separate waiting area.'--Victims and other prosecution witnesses should be provided prior to court appearance a waiting area that is separate from all other witnesses.
- ''(7) Property return.'--Law enforcement agencies and prosecutor should promptly return victim's property held for evidentiary purposes unless there is a compelling law enforcement reason for retaining it.
- ''(8) Notification to employer.'--A victim or witness who so requests should be assisted by law enforcement agencies and attorneys for the Government in informing employers that the need for victim and witness cooperation in the prosecution of the case may necessitate absence of that victim or witness from work. A victim or witness who, as a direct result of a crime or of cooperation with law enforcement agencies or attorneys for the Government, is subjected to serious financial strain, should be assisted by such agencies and attorneys in explaining to creditors the reason for such serious financial strain.
- ''(9) Training by federal law enforcement training facilities.'--Victim assistance education and training should be offered to persons taking courses at Federal law enforcement training facilities and attorneys for the Government so that victims may be promptly, properly, and completely assisted.
- ''(10) General victim assistance.'--The guidelines should also ensure that any other important assistance to victims and witnesses, such as the adoption of transportation, parking, and translator services for victims in court be provided.
- ''(b) Nothing in this title shall be construed as creating a cause of action against the United States.
- ''(c) The Attorney General shall assure that all Federal law enforcement agencies outside of the Department of Justice adopt guidelines consistent with subsection (a) of this section.''
- [Amendment of section 6 of Pub. L. 97''291 by Pub. L. 98''473, set out above, effective 30 days after Oct. 12, 1984 , see section 1409(a) of Pub. L. 98''473, set out as an Effective Date note under section 20101 of Title 34, Crime Control and Law Enforcement.]
- Whoopi Goldberg Off 'The View' After Testing Positive for COVID-19
- Jan. 3 (UPI) '-- Whoopi Goldberg is recovering at home after testing positive for COVID-19.
- Joy Behar, Goldberg's co-host on The View, announced the news on the show Monday.
- ''Why am I here instead of Whoopi? Well, Whoopi, unfortunately, tested positive over the break but she'll be back probably next week,'' Behar said.
- ''Since she's vaxxed and boosted, her symptoms have been very, very, mild. But we're being super cautious here at The View,'' she added.
- .@JoyVBehar shares on #TheView that @WhoopiGoldberg tested positive for COVID-19 over the holiday break and is recovering at home: ''Since she's vaxxed and boosted, her symptoms have been very, very mild.''
- .@JoyVBehar shares on #TheView that @WhoopiGoldberg tested positive for COVID-19 over the holiday break and is recovering at home: "Since she's vaxxed and boosted, her symptoms have been very, very mild."
- Get well soon, Whoopi! ''¤¸ pic.twitter.com/Oo1Qakfbcn
- '-- The View (@TheView) January 3, 2022
- Behar, fellow hosts Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines, and guest host Ana Navarro are filming from home this week as a precaution.
- On Monday, Hostin said she and her mom also tested positive for COVID-19 over the holiday break but have since recovered. Navarro's father also tested positive for the virus but was able to join the family for New Year's.
- HOW COVID HIT HOME OVER THE HOLIDAYS: @JoyVBehar, @sarahaines, @sunny Hostin, and @ananavarro share how COVID-19 and the omicron variant surge impacted their holidays. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/bGzRpr6hCC'-- The View (@TheView) January 3, 2022
- Goldberg previously said on Good Morning America that she's ''not going to argue'' with people who don't follow COVID-19 safety protocols.
- ''We could've been past all of this by now, but we are a nation of hard heads and soft backsides. So now we'll take another year to figure out how to do this, and hopefully make it easier for the little kids,'' she said.
- Goldberg and The View kicked off Season 25 in September.
- Hollywood Consultant Admits 'Glee' Started the Wokeness Epidemic"
- Where did cancel culture and wokeness come from? This is the question that consumes many conservative writers almost as much as the question of how to beat it. While others have pointed to the rise of postmodern critical theory in universities in the 80's, or to the political correctness wave of the 90's, I believe these explanations only tell part of the story and leave a very important question unanswered: why now? Why this generation?
- It is not possible to answer this question without talking about the influence of social media, and specifically the social media used to propagate millennial fan culture, where social justice warriorism and cancel culture truly had their testing grounds. Personally, I devoted considerable space to the culture of Tumblr, the social media site that is equally responsible for the development of wokeness as 4chan is for the evolution of the populist right. In examining Tumblr, I believe any right-winger has to conclude that wokeness is anything but a serious commitment to equality and justice, but has rather always been nothing but a way for resentful and self-harming teenagers to pick on each other using the language of critical theory, without actually engaging with it beyond one's own narcissistic frame of reference.
- But even if this explains the appeal of wokeness to the young (and particularly the young and female), it leaves one vital question unanswered: where on Tumblr did the whole business start? There had to be a first fandom that fell to social justice, and that then infected the others. What was that fandom, and what might it tell us about the modern left's nature in general? In short, if wokeness was a plague, where was Patient Zero?
- It is with the aim of answering that question that I write this sequel, because as it turns out, the woke phenomenon's origins are as shallow, childish, and risible as it is possible to get. It is difficult to imagine a movement with more absurdly provincial origins rising to ruin so many lives. And, once those origins are exposed, I believe it will be that much harder to take wokeness of any kind seriously.
- 1. God and Man at McKinley
- In late September of 2017, a post appeared on Tumblr by a user calling herself twelveclara. Sounding like a combination between Jonathan Edwards and Enoch Powell by way of the girl's locker room, twelveclara issued the following jeremiad to her followers about certain events that took place in 2011:
- '' y'all have no idea. none of u understand the suffering we went through. the hell. the endless war. u come in here and u try to start The Discourse but u dont get that we already made these mistakes. we already had the discourse and its done now. its over. its all over and u should let it stay dead but u wont and that's why we all hate u ''
- Later on, twelveclara said of the same phenomenon, ''its not history, its blood.''
- Reading this, you might think twelveclara was describing some horrible world-historical event '' a natural disaster, a plague, perhaps even a great mass outbreak of violence. You would be wrong. What she was actually describing was what it was like to spend time on Tumblr as a fan of the TV show Glee.
- No, I'm not kidding. The above are descriptions of so-called ''fan wars'' among fans of Glee in the early 2010's, written with the benefit of hindsight from a survivor. And, ironically, the things that survivor writes about the Glee wars read like dress rehearsals for eventual postmortems on the wokeness of our current era. Witness lines like this:
- '' we fought its wars until it was too late. until it was nothing but a distorted picture of a parody of reality, a cracked mirror in which our souls were sucked and encased in glass. ''
- '' u asked for history. theres no history, only rage and pain and regret, the image of anonymous with a grey face and sunglasses telling u to kill urself ''
- '' the void could not consume anything more, and the posts on it now, the social justice ''discourse'' that is just giant piles of steaming, unsifted, unrefined shit is from those who refused to learn from us. the history is here and it followed us and we can never ever escape it. ''
- It is difficult to imagine more salient words about how it feels to live in the world cancel culture created, and how America will no doubt feel when we finally escape it.
- However, in order to understand the specifics of twelveclara's indictment, it is necessary to first do a quick summary of the TV show Glee for the uninitiated. As it happens, I inflicted the show on myself for at least its first three seasons (honestly, it all started to blend together after that), and I believe I can therefore offer a decent enough summary of its plot, characters, and overall philosophy for the purposes of this article.
- To begin with, it would be remiss of me not to note that if any show could claim to be a curse not merely on the United States, but on its own cast members, it would be Glee. No less than three of the show's main cast died far before their time. Cory Monteith, who played the main romantic lead for the show's first season, died at 31 of a drug overdose in 2013. Mark Salling, who played football team bad boy Noah Puckerman, was arrested for possession of child porn in 2015, pled guilty to the charges in 2017, and committed suicide in 2018 before he could be sentenced. Naya Rivera, who played the lesbian cheerleader Santana, drowned in the summer of 2020 while swimming with her 4-year-old son. A cloud hangs over Glee , to the point that pop culture sites speak of a ''Glee curse.'' Short of Macbeth , no other show has acquired Glee's reputation for inflicting bad luck on its actors.
- Which is surprising, when you consider what it's actually about. Glee is a teenage-oriented drama centered around the members of the fictional McKinley High School's eponymous Glee club, the ''New Directions'' (a name meant to provoke a snigger due to its resemblance to the phrase ''nude erections''). The show's primary, though by no means exclusive protagonist is the club's faculty adviser Will Schuester (played by Matthew Morrison), who teaches Spanish at McKinley High and becomes the faculty adviser for the Glee Club after its previous director is fired for inappropriately touching a male student. Schuester, as we will see shortly, is not an improvement on this count, but let that pass for the moment. More relevant for our purposes is that the Glee club, which Shuester once led to victory at regional competitions as a member, is now in disarray and an underfunded haven for social pariahs, the majority of the school's extracurricular budget going to the cheerleading squad, led by coach Sue Sylvester (played by Jane Lynch), a woman who can best be described as what would happen if you threw the Wicked Witch of the West, Agatha Trunchbull from Matilda, Rep. Michele Bachmann, and disgraced former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer in a blender and hit ''puree.'' Needless to say, when Schuester begins demanding (and receiving) money formerly reserved for Sylvester's squad, she resolves to bring down the Glee Club by any means necessary. This forms the main conflict of the first season.
- Why only the first? Because while Sylvester would remain one of the great antagonists of teen media, perhaps only surpassed by JD from Heathers and Regina George from Mean Girls , Schuester is at best a dull, white-bread hero and at worst'...well, I'll let Sue herself describe him at his worst:
- ''You are a fatuous, dim-witted, borderline pederast, who tears up faster than a gay jihadi in a sandstorm. You have befouled the profession of teaching by accepting not only one but two Teacher of the Year awards despite not speaking a word of the foreign language you purport to teach. Like the storied predators of yesteryear, Will, you pick only the most vulnerable students to favor while actively neglecting the others.''
- Yeah. A protagonist who can carry a multi-season TV show, Will Schuester ain't. Such shows naturally gravitate toward the more interesting characters, and as it happens, the members of Schuester's New Directions are far more interesting characters than their hapless leader. And as a matter of fact, they are far more relevant for our purposes as well, so let's move onto them.
- When Schuester first opens the club's doors, he only attracts the students who comprise the absolute bottom of the school's social hierarchy. Those founding members are Rachel Berry (played by Lea Michele), a blatantly stereotypical female Jewish theater kid with two gay dads; Kurt Hummel (played by Chris Colfer), a flamingly gay (and hilariously vicious) male soprano who is frequently the object of bullying by the football team; Mercedes Jones (played by Amber Riley), an obese black girl with oodles of stereotypical sass; Tina Cohen-Chang (played by Jenna Ushkowitz), a stuttering and morose Asian Goth girl whose distinguishing traits rapidly vanish as the series goes on; and Artie Abrams (played by Kevin McHale), a wheelchair-bound bespectacled wiseacre. However, this outcast status soon becomes a transparently ridiculous pose, as the club grows to include members of the football team and the cheerleading squad, including the show's initial teen antagonist, the bitchy ''Queen Bee'' head cheerleader (and Celibacy Club president) Quinn Fabray (played by Dianna Agron), and Finn Hudson (played by Cory Monteith), the all-American captain of the football team and object of the (initially) unsuccessful affections of Rachel Berry. Along with Fabray and Hudson, the aforementioned black sheep of the football team Noah ''Puck'' Puckerman (Mark Salling), and Fabray's two lesbian henchmen, comically nasty Santana Lopez (Naya Rivera) and comically stupid Brittany S. Pierce (Heather Morris), as well as back-up dancers Mike Chang (Harry Shum Jr) and Matt Rutherford (Dijon Talton), round out the initial roster.
- The majority of the show pretty much consists of an obsessive focus on the love lives and adolescent trials faced by these various teenagers, with the conflict between Will Schuester and Sue Sylvester vanishing into the background the more the show continues. Eventually, this first roster of Glee Club members and their associates would ''graduate,'' to be replaced by new members, while the show intersperses subplots consisting of the old club's exploits in college and beyond. As the original cast is pretty much the group that would define the show's identity, I do not think it is necessary to inflict the full roster of the second iteration of ''New Directions'' on the reader. Enough to note that they exist and move on. However, there is one final second character who I would be remiss not to note because he will become highly relevant before this summary is concluded: Jacob Ben Israel (Josh Sussman), a conspicuously horny unsuccessful suitor of Rachel Berry's who only sporadically involves himself with the Glee Club, but eventually takes to interviewing people around the school with a microphone emblazoned with Hebrew letters while sporting what is often referred to as a ''Jew-fro.''
- Now, as I don't have time to summarize the plot of each season in exhaustive detail, from here the reader will have to take my word for it about what happens on the show. However, before I get into analyzing plot elements, I do want to draw the reader's attention to two important points about the cast of characters, which may have been lost in listing them off. Namely, that the members of ''New Directions'' are a Diversity and Equity Inclusion Committee's dream. You have multiple Asian students, one black girl (who compounds her marginalization by being fat), a lesbian couple (one of whom is Latina), a gay kid, a Jewish girl with gay parents, a disabled boy, a Jewish football player, and the lone straight white guy Finn, who just happens to also be the character who consistently makes the most mistakes. In other words, from a critical theory perspective, everyone except Finn in this show is ''oppressed'' or ''marginalized,'' and even Finn has to face some marginalization when dealing with his one-time girlfriend's pregnancy (Quinn, who manages to earn her stripes as a marginalized person by being a teen mother).
- Secondly, and here the reader will have to take my word for it, the absolute most consistent message that Glee drills into its viewers is that its protagonists are supposed to be at the bottom of the high school food chain. They are outcasts, dorks, losers. In fact, one of the show's few original songs literally brands them ''losers'' as a point of pride: the triumphal anthem ''Loser Like Me'' (as in ''You wanna be/A loser like me''). However, besides the fact that the cast routinely bursts into perfectly choreographed song and dance numbers in the middle of school, this might be the least plausible part of the show. By the time the first ''New Directions'' class graduates, they are not only a decorated Glee club, but most of their members are either members of the cheerleading squad, or of the football team, or have had romantic relationships with members of said squad/team. In any real American high school, this would mark the New Directions as anything but social pariahs, and yet we are expected to believe they are marginalized because they'...like to sing? Honestly, the show never really justifies why they're supposed to be outcasts except with the occasional afterschool special-style episode about subjects like homophobia or racism. In other words, the ''oppression'' of the Glee club is purely a theoretical function of their identity markers, while the actual on-the-ground social reality they live in marks them as undoubted high school aristocracy. I think it's safe to say that any conservative should recognize just who an aristocracy that speciously claims to be oppressed and is led by a character accused of being a ''borderline pederast'' resembles. Glee 's protagonists unwittingly stand for nothing less than the unjustified persecution complex of elite liberal America.
- And just like liberal America, Glee cannot seem to muster very much sympathy for its one cast member who actually experiences consistent marginalization throughout the series. I refer you back to the unfortunate Jacob Ben Israel. Israel's crime, in the show's eyes, is daring to lust after Rachel Berry, a girl who (I must remind you) is both as Jewish and as much an outcast as he is when the show starts. Rachel, however, has her eyes set on the handsome straight white male captain of the football team, despite being palpably of lower social status than him. This hypergamous attraction on her part is treated with the utmost sympathy by the show, while Jacob's clumsy and overzealous but doubtlessly sincere attraction to Rachel is portrayed as either creepy or cringingly funny, as in a sequence where Jacob is caught masturbating to Rachel's picture in the library. There are many sequences like this, which all lead up to the impression that Jacob is something of a teenage Harvey Weinstein , as described by his accusers.
- It would be tempting (and not entirely wrong) to treat the portrayal of Jacob Ben Israel as antisemitic, and certainly, elements of his characterization are right out of the Nazi propaganda film Jud S¼ . But given that the show is also extremely charitable toward the (objectively, much more unpleasant) Jewish football player Noah Puckerman, it seems that Jacob's real sin in the show's eyes is not being particularly good looking. In other words, the instant someone who is not conventionally beautiful aspires to be loved by one of the beautiful people, all of Glee's vaunted concern for those victimized by arbitrary social constructs goes right out the window. It is hard to miss the similarity to how wokeness, despite its claims to want to eliminate bigotry, is perfectly happy to countenance antisemitism and misandry. Certainly, it is troubling that the show treats it as perfectly normal that a woman should aspire to the affections of a social ''better,'' but treats a man in a comparable position as a contemptible joke. Jacob is the only character in the show who is believable as a bullying victim, but the show has no sympathy for him, because he is ugly and ''uncool,'' unlike the Glee Club. This, too, is an obvious way in which the show enforced the ''morality'' of proto-wokeness: one that only cares about ''oppression'' when it happens to the supposedly beautiful, cool people who it is socially acceptable to pity.
- Which brings me, at last, to the most pitiless and most unintentionally sympathetic character on the show: Sue Sylvester. There's no point dancing around an obvious point about Sue '' she is supposed to be a cartoon villain bereft of redeeming qualities, and the show regards portraying her as a stereotypical Obama-era Tea Party populist as something that aids that characterization. In short, the show wants its viewers to believe that conservatives, like Sue, are cartoon villains bereft of any inner emotional life short of Darwinian, winner-take-all malice. The irony, however, is that in portraying Sue this way, the show ended up putting a lot of uncomfortable truths in her dialogue (something even the show's proto-woke fans noticed ), and turned her into less a monstrous antagonist than as something of a court jester mocking the pretensions of the ''oppressed'' Glee Club. As fictional portrayals of conservatives go, we could do a lot worse than Sue, and indeed, the fact that she comes off as so likable despite being written as an ogre is also revelatory when it comes to the weakness of wokeness: that while it views its enemies as cartoon villains and treats them with that sort of shrill disdain, it has real trouble not making them sound cool and correct by accident when it does this.
- But I digress. The point of this lengthy description of the show is to illustrate something very important: that Glee was propagandizing wokeness before anyone knew what wokeness was. I don't think this was conscious. In fact, I think the show was originally meant to be a lot more self-aware, as the first season carries an implicit disdain for its protagonists that utterly vanishes in the second season, where characters return to the screen almost completely rewritten. Kurt, for example, goes from being a cuttingly accurate stereotype of a catty, bitchy gay man, to a Christlike martyr whose suffering for his sexuality is implicitly treated as a metaphor for the suffering of all gay people. What's more, the plot of the show devolves into incoherence, as episodes become little more than framing devices for the real point of the show: performances of the day's hits by the Glee club, a trend which arguably hit its nadir when Glee tried to do a cove of the K-Pop hit ''Gangnam Style.'' If I had to guess what caused these developments, I would assume that the show attracted an audience that was both far larger and far younger than its creators initially expected, and the company making it realized they could monetize it as a promotional vehicle for pop music and liberal social messaging far more easily than as a teen black comedy with singing thrown in. The intersectional nature of the cast was almost certainly nothing more than a cynical play to make sure every potential consumer who watched the show would have their own Glee character to relate to.
- In other words, it was not deliberate political scheming that made Glee into what its best character calls ''a symphony of self-congratulatory sodomy.'' It was focus grouped cynicism that made the first woke show exist. And it might have been harmless, as so many shallow shows that are popular with teenagers become harmless with time. Who, after all, still harbors a deep-seated identification with High School Musical? But unfortunately, its attempt to give everyone watching someone to relate to made Glee the unintended plague ship carrying the ideology that is now seeking to remake all of American society in the image of high school so as to forever live out its fans' adolescent fantasies of belonging. And that is why wokeness was created. For the sake of fictional characters who became totems to an entire generation's self-regard.
- But don't take my word for it: the confession is right there on Tumblr.
- 2. New Directions Become Old Hatreds
- Having come so far, the reader might accuse me of burying the lede. It took quite a lot of exposition to get here, the disgruntled reader might say, why couldn't I have just led with this supposed ''confession?'' Believe me, I would have liked to, but had I pasted in the full contents of what twelveclara wrote on Tumblr, or attempted to quote the interview that she gave after that same post became one of the most viral in the site's history, any reader not already familiar with Glee would have been hopelessly lost as to what she was talking about. Now, you too can understand the full magnitude of just what twelveclara confessed to in late September of 2017 on Tumblr. It is the skeleton key to the conquest of the millennial generation, and much of Gen Z, by wokeness '' the smoking gun of where wokeness started. So here, without further ado, is the full contents of what twelveclara originally and fatefully wrote :
- [The Glee fandom is] not history, its blood. i still see it all over this website. the vague posts. the deactivated urls. where do u think the word problematic became popular. where do u think the representational anger started. glee was the hungry gaping void that consumed us all. it said watch us and find yourself. there is someone for everyone. santana is a lesbian and kurt is gay and brittany is bisexual and quinn, god knows what quinn is, she's straight but we have her say things like ''you were singing to finn and only finn, right?'' and artie is disabled. mercedes is black and our outlet for body positivity. we are all oppressed by something and we are different and we are outcasts and we are you.
- and we fell for it. we watched glee and we related to its characters and we fought its wars until it was too late. until it was nothing but a distorted picture of a parody of reality, a cracked mirror in which our souls were sucked and encased in glass. finn outed santana but it's fine because he had good intentions. sam was supposed to be gay but we're bringing blaine anderson in for that instead. the q in quinn is for queerbait. brittany was maybe raped but it was a one liner so who really knows. will schuester was a horrible fucking adult and should never have been allowed to care for children. finn, the white straight boy, did everything wrong but it was narratively presented as right. we turned on each other. klaine vs kum and finchel vs faberry. santana fought everyone so brittana stans fought everyone. character vs character, ship vs ship, blogger against blogger. we fucking hated each other. there was no glee fandom. there were character fandoms and ship fandoms and that is it and our mottos were all fuck glee.
- we won every popularity contest, every online poll. we voted our fingers to the bone. we created art and wrote fanfic and made such excellent photo manips they were published in newspapers. we were prolific. we were consumers of the hell we created and we just kept producing more in a fucked up dystopian fandom chain of supply and demand. don't get me started on the rpf. dianna wore a likes girls shirt on tour and made a statement an hour later revoking it. some people still say heya is real but it's like a breath of the wind, a sound so bare i can't quite make out the words.
- u asked for history. theres no history, only rage and pain and regret, the image of anonymous with a grey face and sunglasses telling u to kill urself because u thought artie was a dick for calling brittany stupid that one time. this website is a reflection of the hole glee left when it finished taking all it could from us, when the void could not consume anything more, and the posts on it now, the social justice ''discourse'' that is just giant piles of steaming, unsifted, unrefined shit is from those who refused to learn from us. the history is here and it followed us and we can never ever escape it.
- There is a lot to unpack in this frankly astounding passage, so let's not waste any time. Firstly, what twelveclara is saying is that the usage of the word ''problematic'' on Tumblr, which was the undoubted precursor to its explosion in today's political climate, began to be widespread among the Glee fandom. Moreover, according to her, the ''representational anger,'' IE the obsessive policing of how minority groups are portrayed in every form of media, also began with Glee. Granted, this is one witness, but it is a witness who attracted an unprecedented 78,098 notes expressing agreement on Tumblr. That, I think, speaks to the veracity of this account. Which means that here we have the self-confessed beginnings of the very intellectual trends that would eventually intrude on all of modern media, provoke mass phenomena like #Gamergate, destroy franchises like Star Wars and Masters of the Universe, and prompt the entire collapse of the entertainment industry thanks to the obvious ''get woke go broke'' phenomenon. And lest you think I am reading into it, Slate themselves did an interview with twelveclara (whose real name is apparently Erin), where it turned out that since her time in the Glee fandom, she has become (what else) a consultant with the entertainment industry. That seems like pretty convincing proof of the existence of a pipeline from the dregs of Tumblr into Hollywood's boardrooms. And don't worry, we'll come back to that interview later, but for now, let's get back to twelveclara's post.
- Having told us that the label ''problematic'' and ''representational anger'' over portrayal of minority groups among young people began with Glee, twelveclara then moves onto explaining, with honestly very impressive eloquence, how Glee provoked all these things: namely, it didn't just represent every individual group onscreen, it weaponized that representation. Twelveclara is saying that when she and other young viewers looked at the characters on Glee, they did not see fictional characters acting out a plot. They quite literally saw themselves. And therefore, they took every plot twist on the show personally , because from their perspective, what happened on the show also felt as if it was happening directly to them.
- Besides the utter disconnect with reality this suggests, a more practical problem is obvious: when millions of viewers are seeing themselves onscreen, they will naturally relate most to different elements of certain characters, because they themselves are different people. Which means that what might seem like a terrible betrayal in the writing to one viewer might seem perfectly consistent and even comforting to another. In the solipsistic confines of one's own room, one can rage against the injustices of the show harmlessly, but when all the fans are online talking to each other through Tumblr? The result will obviously be naked tribal aggression, as one group of fans who feels betrayed will lash out and attack another group of fans who feels, for just the same reason, that they have been seen. And both groups will be doing this because they think they are defending the validity of their own identities, rather than the writing of fictional characters.
- Bad enough that this happened with plot twists, but in a show with as much romance as Glee, where every potential viewer is liable to find a different member of the cast attractive, this tribalism will become even worse. Hence what are called ''shipping'' wars. In fan lingo, ''to ship'' means to pair one character with another romantically. Shipping wars have a long, proud history in fan culture, starting with Harry Potter, but if twelveclara is to be believed, they obviously were far worse in the case of Glee, because every viewer took the choices of their chosen onscreen avatar personally. So if that character ended up with someone they weren't attracted to, or if other viewers wanted them to end up with someone they weren't attracted to, that didn't feel like a reasonable disagreement over media. It felt like a vicarious frustration of one's own personal romantic ambitions. And so, once more, rage could be expected to result. Hence the reference to wars among members of different shipping communities like ''klaine'' (a portmanteau of Kurt and Blaine) or ''kum'' (Kurt and Sam, stop sniggering), or ''finchel'' (Finn and Rachel).
- If the cause weren't so trivial, this would be even more frightening than it is '' the ''representation'' on Glee was apparently so significant and so accurately done that it reawakened ancient tribal hatreds among the teenagers watching the show because they could no longer tell the difference between the show and themselves. And again, twelveclara's note got responses from almost 80,000 individual Tumblr users. That means that, conservatively speaking, tens of thousands of angry teenagers and young adults were shouting anonymous abuse at each other every week during the run of Glee. More likely, given that Glee's pilot episode debuted with 9.6 million viewers , and one post-Superbowl episode commanded an audience of almost 30 million people, as much as ten percent of the entire US population could've conceivably been wrapped up in this crucible of adolescent cruelty. If those viewers had gone on to be Republicans, we no doubt would have heard more stories about the obvious toxicity involved, but as they ended up as SJWs, the fact that tens of thousands of teens were subjected to vicious weekly psychological abuse on Tumblr goes unremarked by the press, I guess on the theory that all's well that ends well.
- Not, of course, that anything ever ended well for these people on the show they claimed to love. Rather, every member of this vicarious wish-fulfillment clique grew to hate the show itself and the writers of the show, because there was no way to satisfy every single viewer's wishes while writing characters that were supposed to be recognizably human. The viewers wanted idealized representations of themselves put onscreen, but the show had to be populated by actual people, and so these Tumblr users learned to rage at how media ''represented'' them because it refused to reflect the perfection they demanded in their own personal portrayals. The reality, of course, is that it was not the show that they were raging against, not really. It was the fact that the show was acting as a mirror, and every choice that a character made felt like a reminder of the viewer's imperfection.
- And apparently, this demand for personal vindication from the show's creators didn't even stop when the cameras were off! Twelveclara mentions the rpf, or ''real person fandom,'' and how they obsessed over whether Dianna Agron (the actress who played Quinn Fabray) might be gay because of a shirt she wore. In other words, it wasn't enough that the writers conform to the Tumblr users' wish fulfillment fantasies: they wanted the cast to do so in their personal lives, as well. If there is a textbook case of unhealthy relationship to media, this is it. And no, I am not exaggerating or reading into this. Twelveclara, or Erin, or whatever she calls herself, says as much in the Slate interview:
- It was at a time in my life where I had just come out'--I'm a lesbian'--and Glee started tackling what I had just been through. To see that represented from a character standpoint is something that really impacted me personally. It's not like Glee was just a show I was watching and enjoying; it was like this was me personally, almost, that I was watching on screen. That was what it was for most of the people who were in it. Because on Glee they really tried to represent everybody or every issue you could tackle, every minority.['...]
- We would watch the episode. Something inevitably would piss off some subsection, or some character would fight with a different character, or maybe somebody would break up or whatever. Because of that, it would just be a bombardment of their fans on Tumblr yelling at each other, fighting or trying to claim that what happened was problematic or that it shouldn't have been represented this way, just nonstop harassment from every side. If something happened that you were happy about, you couldn't even be happy about it because here's a whole other section of the fandom who was furious with you as if you were the people who wrote the episode. It wasn't just that there was one side to an issue, but all of a sudden there were 50 different sides to an issue, and every single side had 30,000 people behind it all screaming at you.
- Again, if twelveclara is to be believed, individual factions of the show's fandom could number in the tens of thousands. Think what that says about how large the fandom as a whole was, and how thoroughly that could have affected America's entire adolescent population.
- Speaking of effects, what actually happened as a result of this? Well, constantly enraged by the fact that their wish fulfillment wasn't being perfectly fulfilled onscreen, and even more infuriated that other people had the gall to be okay with story decisions that felt like personal attacks, the Glee fandom transformed into a bellum omnium contra omnes . To fight that war, more than mere personal desire and preference would be necessary to achieve victory. These things would have to be intellectualized, and so the Glee fandom cast about and found critical theory, and absorbed its narcissistic message that basically enabled you to cry ''racism,'' ''sexism,'' ''homophobia,'' etc at anything because what they really were after was a way to demand that nothing ever happen on the show that didn't make them feel personally fulfilled. They threatened each other with death, this war was so fierce, and when it was over, while they slunk away bleeding and miserable and full of regret that they had ever let themselves be driven so mad by a freaking TV show , the damage was done. They had already absorbed the intellectual patterns of critical theory and were now determined to inflict this same overly personal, emotionally toxic relationship to media on every other fandom they entered. Again, twelveclara in the interview (emphasis mine):
- [I]t was almost like the word ''problematic'' became the bible of Glee . It was like this is your way to instantly prove somebody else wrong. Then people were instantly shut down, it was the be-all, end-all of an argument. I'm sure the most times anybody's ever used that word in history were probably during the days of Glee . It's sort of infiltrated Tumblr vocabulary. When everybody left Glee and they went to their new fandoms, we all took that with us . ['...]
- Glee gave us all language to talk about the problems we were seeing in media that we may not have seen before. I would say the sweet spot in age for Glee at that time was probably like 14 or 15 to early 20s. For a lot of people, this is the first time they were coming to contact with identity politics , and this was the first time we were coming into contact with each other and these other identities. That really is a staple now of Tumblr in a way I didn't see as much before Glee.
- In other words, a group of people who numbered, at minimum, in the tens of thousands, and could've numbered in the tens of millions, became so obsessed with a TV show, and with characters they related to, that they went and indoctrinated themselves with critical theory just so they could more effectively complain whenever the show did something they didn't like, and harass anyone who disagreed without consequence. And when this toxicity ruined the show for them, they then spread this behavior to the fandoms of every other art form, and even carried it with them into adult life as participants in America's cultural institutions.
- There's no other way to put this: this interview and the Tumblr post that preceded it form a confession. These girls (and it almost certainly was mostly girls) were so incapable of telling the difference between fiction and reality, so desperate to pretend that it was them reflected onscreen in a glorified teenage music revue , that they went to the trouble of intellectualizing their discontent through critical theory, and then took the same mission that animated the wars over Glee on Tumblr into the real world, and into real professions, in real industries, with real consequences. And just like they insisted that the actors on Glee live out their personal wish-fulfillment fantasies, the autonomy of those actors be damned, they are now insisting that all of us play the parts they have written for us in a political fanfic while they transform all of the United States not into a utopia, but into an eternal fantasy high school, where our new woke overlords, like the New Directions, will be constantly validated by everyone around them while still being able to claim oppression.
- This is the reality of wokeness: It is not a utopian philosophy. It isn't even really a Leftist one, though it uses Leftist language to mask its true intentions. No, what it is, is a sad, pathetic teenage wish fulfillment fantasy: a reactionary ideology determined not to move forward, but to restore the power dynamics of high school, the only place where the woke have ever had any power, or where petty, cruel, emotional infants like them can ever have any power. But even in the confession of one of those infants, there is hope, for as soon as these children experience the high school wish fulfillment fantasy they think they want, they soon regret creating it. Look at twelveclara/Erin. She speaks of her days in the Glee fandom as a solipsistic nightmare punctuated by endless persecution from other people. And are her goals more modest now? I'll let her answer:
- I did my time. Now I just want to enjoy things in peace and have a critical discussion about them when necessary and not every waking minute of the day.
- Hear, hear. For the sake of America, let us hope that, understanding wokeness for the pathetic Mary Sue power fantasy that it is, we can finally laugh in its face as it deserves and return to a world where the entire West can, once more, ''enjoy things in peace.''
- Breaking: Double vaccinated required to provide negative Covid test to enter establishments in Hamburg, Germany
- Breaking: Double vaccinated required to provide negative Covid test to enter establishments in Hamburg, Germany.Breaking: Double vaccinated and recovered people required to provide negative Covid test to enter establishments in Hamburg, Germany.BREAKING NEWS '' New restrictions have been announced today (January 4) which will affect double vaccinated and those who have recovered from Covid, who will now need to provide a daily negative test in order to enter many establishments in Hamburg, Germany.
- Only those who have received their booster shot will be able to attend restaurants, cultural and sporting events indoors in the city without testing, meaning that double vaccinated are no longer considered fully vaccinated.
- The 2G+ rule now requires those who have been double vaccinated to show their Covid passport AND provide a negative test result before entering a number of restaurants, cultural and indoor sporting events. Unvaccinated people no longer have access to such activities, according to Senate spokesman Marcel Schweitzer.
- The new restrictions will come into place on Monday, January 10 while the 2G rule will continue to apply in the retail sector.
- Professional sporting events in Hamburg will now be played behind closed doors while amateur outdoor sporting events will be held in front of a maximum of 1000 spectators. In sports halls, an upper limit of 200 spectators will apply, Schweitzer said. Up to now, a maximum of 5000 spectators have been allowed outdoors and 2500 in halls for events under the 2G rule.
- The reason for the new restrictions is the increase of the seven-day incidence in Hamburg. The health authorities have reported the number of new infections per 100,000 inhabitants is at 463.3 on Tuesday, January 4. On Monday the value was 440.3 and a week ago it was 329.8.
- Today's figure in Hamburg is well above the national average.
- Germany-wide, the seven-day incidence rose to 239.9 on January 4 from 232.4 the previous day, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
- According to the RKI, 79.4 per cent of Hamburg residents have been vaccinated at least once and 77 per cent are said to already have full vaccination protection '' representing the third highest in the country.
- However, so far, only 33.5 per cent of its residents have received a booster shot.
- Thank you for taking the time to read this article, do remember to come back and check The Euro Weekly News website for all your up-to-date local and international news stories and remember, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram .
- New Hampshire State Agency Seeking to Remove Children from Parents for Using Ivermectin to Treat COVID-19
- Recently, New Hampshire State Representative Jim Kofalt wrote a piece for the RAIR Foundation USA, reporting that New Hampshire's Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) has made a move to separate a teenage boy from his father and mother because the former administered ivermectin to the young man to treat COVID-19.
- How far will authorities go now to declare how people living in the United States will care for themselves and their family members? In New Hampshire, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) possesses considerable authority when it comes to matters of child neglect, abuse, and other relevant matters. But what about the case when an off-label treatment is used for a teenager in response to COVID-19?
- In this case, a father had no ill intent and arguably there was little risk, depending on whether the ivermectin was prescribed by a licensed professional. Ivermectin is a safe treatment only known for mild side effects if any. Some could argue, as did Representative Kofalt, that many over-the-counter medications pose more danger than ivermectin used for COVID-19 indication. But what if it is used off-label? Obviously, if a licen...
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- New coronavirus variant identified in France | Science | In-depth reporting on science and technology | DW | 04.01.2022
- B.1.640.2 was discovered in a traveler returning from Cameroon and has a high number of mutations. And a first "flurona" case has been confirmed in Israel.
- Just when we thought things were looking up at least a little, because the omicron variant, while being more contagious, often takes a milder course than delta, a new variant has emerged. We do not yet know how dangerous it is, or even where it originated.
- The new variant was detected in early December in a traveler who returned to France from Cameroon, the hospital IHU Mediterrannee in Marseille announced. The returnee from Cameroon reportedly infected 12 people in southern France.
- Large number of mutationsThis new mutant, called B.1.640.2, has 46 mutations in an "atypical combination," according to a preprint study that has not yet been peer-reviewed.
- According to this study, the two already known spike protein mutations N501Y and E484K are also found in the new coronavirus variant. The N501Y mutation, for example, was detected very early in the alpha variant. It causes the pathogen to bind more strongly to human cells and thus to spread more easily in the body.
- E484K is one of the escape mutations located directly in the spike protein and thus possibly reduces the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines.
- Little known about danger and originBut what these mutations mean and whether the new coronavirus variant B.1.640.2 is actually more contagious than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus cannot yet be said with any real confidence, due to the lack of available data and the small number of cases.
- J¶rg Timm, head of the Institute for Virology at University Hospital D¼sseldorf, believes that the new variant isn't extremely dangerous.
- "The variant was first described a little while ago and hasn't become more prominent in areas where a lot of sequencing is being done," he said. "It hasn't spread widely."
- Timm added that this was a marked difference to the omicron variant, which researchers realized from the start would spread very quickly.
- "Nobody expects that the B.1640 variant will cause truly significant problems," Timm said. "Of course you'll have to add a small question mark to that, but this is my current view of it."
- We do not yet know anything about the origin of this new variant, either. The fact that B.1.640.2 has now been detected for the first time in a returnee from Cameroon does not mean that the variant has also emerged in the Central African country.
- However, very low vaccination rates generally favor the emergence of new coronavirus mutations. In Cameroon, only 2.4% of the population is fully vaccinated, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in the United States.
- As long as the vaccination campaign isn't advanced globally, new variants will continue to develop. Sometimes they are more harmless, sometimes more dangerous. It remains to be seen how harmful this new variant will be.
- Omicron attacks the lungs less severely '-- therefore, COVID-19 patients require artificial respiration less often
- Possible reasons for milder omicron courseWe already know that the omicron variant is much more contagious, and is spreading rapidly around the world. But at the same time, the courses are much milder in most patients, as ever more studies are confirming.
- It is also gradually becoming clearer which factors are at work here. The T-cells of vaccinated and recovered persons react to omicron, thus protecting most infected persons from a severe course of COVID-19.
- It is true that the mutations in omicron have altered the spike protein such that the antibodies generated by previous infection or vaccination are no longer as protective.
- But the acquired immune response by T-cells still works in 70% to 80% of cases, similar to the older beta and delta variants, researchers from Cape Town, South Africa, found. The T-cells of vaccinated and recovered patients recognized omicron nearly as well as the original coronavirus variant, the group concluded.
- Omicron attacks the lungs less severelyIn addition, the omicron variant attacks the lungs much less frequently, researchers from Japan and the US found in animal studies.
- Instead, the omicron variant is more likely to attack the upper respiratory tract, such as the nose, throat and trachea, according to the study, which also has not yet been peer-reviewed.
- The viral load in the noses of hamsters and mice infected with omicron was just as high as with earlier mutations. But in the lungs, the viral load and thus the damage was significantly less.
- In mid-December, researchers at the University of Hong Kong came to very similar conclusions. They found that although the omicron variant infects the bronchus up to 70 times faster than the delta variant and multiplies there, it spreads up to 10 times less in lung tissue.
- Fewer patients need artificial respiration These research findings are in line with observations from Great Britain. There, too, the highly contagious omicron variant is causing a sharp rise in the number of infections.
- But at the same time, the statistical risk of having to be treated in a hospital is reduced by a third compared to the delta variant. The number of patients requiring artificial respiration is also largely unchanged, despite the significantly higher infection rate with omicron.
- That's a reason for hope; however, concerns remain. The significantly higher case numbers are a major challenge for overburdened health care systems.
- And those who have not yet been vaccinated, or recovered from a previous COVID-19 infection, can still fall seriously ill if they contract the omicron variant.
- First 'flurona' case in IsraelMeanwhile, in Israel, a 31-year-old pregnant woman has contracted COVID-19 and the seasonal influenza virus at the same time. It is the world's first registered "flurona" case, a neologism composed of flu and corona.
- The pregnant woman, who local paper Hamodia reported was not vaccinated against COVID-19 or the flu, was only mildly ill. Because Israel has seen a sharp increase in flu infections in recent weeks, and its Health Ministry is investigating the case to see if "flurona" could be causing more severe illness. This has stoked fears of a "twindemic" of both COVID-19 and the flu.
- Israel has seen a particularly dramatic increase in severe flu cases this winter. According to the Times of Israel, nearly 2,000 people had to be hospitalized with influenza by the end of 2021.
- Health authorities fear that with such a strong flu wave, there could be many more such cases of double infections coming.
- This article was translated from German.
- The story was adjusted on January 5 to reflect what is known about mutations in the omicron variant, also the vaccination status of the pregnant woman infected with both coronavirus and influenza. The statement by J¶rg Timm was added as well.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures Virus with a crownMay we present: The coronavirus! This is how 10-year-old Andrej from Russia views SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and is behind the pandemic that's had the world in its grip for almost two years now. The name for this virus family is derived from the Latin "corona" for crown. It was first used in 1968 and refers to the spike proteins on the virus' surface.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures The real dealAnd this is what the novel coronavirus actually looks like. Each SARS-CoV-2 particle is about 80 nanometers in diameter. Each particle contains a ball of RNA, the virus's genetic code. That is protected by spike protein, the protusions that gave the virus its name. SARS-CoV-2 is a member of the coronavirus family, which includes the viruses responsible for SARS and MERS. More on that later.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures An airborne virusSARS-CoV-2 particles are transferred through droplets and aerosols that a person emits when they breathe, cough or talk. That's why face masks have become ubiquitous during the pandemic: Health authorities recommend citizens wear them to stop the spread of the virus. It can also be transmitted via contaminated surfaces.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures Entering human cellsSARS-CoV-2 uses its spike proteins to bind with a protein on the surface of cells. That sets off chemical changes, which allow the virus's RNA to enter the cell (green in this image). The virus then forces the cell to make copies of its RNA. A single cell can produce tens of thousands of new virus particles (purple in this image) like this, which then infect other healthy cells.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures New to humansAnother electron microscope image of a cell (blue) heavily infected with SARS-CoV-2 particles (red). The virus behind our current pandemic isn't too different from viruses like the ones causing the flu or common cold. But before 2019, human immune systems hadn't seen this particular strain before, which is why no one had built up immunity.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures SARS-CoV: The first coronavirus outbreak of the 21st centuryThe first time this century that humanity came in contact with a coronavirus was in China in 2002. In March 2003, the WHO issued a global alert warning of atypical pneumonia spreading quickly. SARS, or severe accute respiratory syndrome, spread to roughly 30 countries, but not all of these recorded deaths. The WHO declared the epidemic contained in July 2003.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures MERS-CoV, another coronavirus family memberIn 2012, researchers discovered MERS-CoV, a novel coronavirus, after genome sequencing of samples from people who had fallen ill with a new flu-like illness. This illness came to be known as MERS, or Middle East respiratory syndrome, after where the first outbreak occurred. It is less infectious than COVID-19. Transmission usually occurs among family members or in healthcare settings.
- COVID: SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses in pictures HIV: The other pandemicThe HI-virus (here in yellow), attacks the immune system, for examples T-cells (here in blue). Like SARS-CoV-2, it's an RNA-based virus. If left untreated, it'll weaken the immune system until it can't fight infections anymore. HIV is transmitted through bodily fluids like semen or blood. There's no vaccine, but there's medication that brings down the viral load and stops AIDS from breaking out.
- Mayo Clinic fires 700 workers who failed to comply with Covid vaccine mandate
- The Mayo Clinic fired roughly 700 employees who failed to comply with the nonprofit medical center's mandatory Covid-19 vaccination policy.
- Workers at the Mayo Clinic had been given until Monday to get their first dose of a vaccine or obtain a medical or religious exemption to the rule. They were also expected not to delay on receiving a second dose if they had already gotten the first jab.
- Hundreds of employees failed to meet those requirements and were let go, the Mayo Clinic said in a statement shared with NBC News on Wednesday.
- "Nearly 99 percent of employees across all Mayo Clinic locations complied with Mayo's required Covid-19 vaccination program by the Jan. 3 deadline," the clinic said of its staff, which consists of around 73,000 workers.
- The Mayo Clinic said approximately 1 percent of its staff, or around 700 people, would be "released from employment."
- Download the NBC News app for full coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic
- The clinic added that the majority of medical or religious exemption requests made by workers were granted.
- ''While Mayo Clinic is saddened to lose valuable employees, we need to take all steps necessary to keep our patients, workforce, visitors and communities safe,'' the clinic said.
- However, it said fired employees could have the chance to return to the medical center if they choose to comply with its vaccine mandate.
- ''If individuals released from employment choose to get vaccinated at a later date, the opportunity exists for them to apply and return to Mayo Clinic for future job openings,'' it said.
- The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Around 700 workers at the medical center have been fired over their vaccination status. Kerem Yucel / AFP via Getty Images fileThe Mayo Clinic has faced some backlash over its policy, with 38 lawmakers signing a letter to the hospital last month asking it to ax the rule.
- In the letter, which was orchestrated by Peggy Bennett, a Republican member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, lawmakers said they had heard from "a large number of highly concerned Mayo employees" who raised concerns about the policy move.
- "This top down, heavy-handed, all-or-none employee policy does not fit the reputation or image we know the Mayo Clinic to have," they said.
- "Your amazing employees stepped up under unimaginable pandemic conditions over the last year and a half, exposing themselves and their families to a then mostly unknown virus and working long, grueling hours to take care of sick patients," they said. "Many of your employees were sickened by the virus at that time. They did all this willingly to serve Mayo Clinic patients and the people of Minnesota. They did so for all these months without the protection of any vaccine."
- The lawmakers said they were not "opposed to vaccinations" but said "people deserve to make this decision based on the benefits and risks for themselves and not coerced or forced into doing so by threat of losing one's job."
- Asked to respond to the letter, the Mayo Clinic referred NBC News to its initial statement.
- In the statement, the clinic said that "based on science and data, it's clear that vaccination keeps people out of the hospital and saves lives."
- "That's true for everyone in our communities '-- and it's especially true for the many patients with serious or complex diseases who seek care at Mayo Clinic each day," it said.
- In the midst of the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, the Mayo Clinic said it "urges all who are not vaccinated to get vaccinated as soon as possible. And if you are eligible for a booster, Mayo Clinic urges you to get a booster as soon as possible to help protect your health and the health of everyone around you."
- Chantal Da Silva is a breaking news editor for NBC News Digital based in London.
- The Great Debaters - Wikipedia
- The Great Debaters is a 2007 American biographical drama film directed by and starring Denzel Washington. It is based on an article written about the Wiley College debate team by Tony Scherman for the spring 1997 issue of American Legacy.[2]
- The film co-stars Forest Whitaker, Denzel Whitaker, Kimberly Elise, Nate Parker, Gina Ravera, Jermaine Williams and Jurnee Smollett. The screenplay is written by Robert Eisele, with story by Robert Eisele and Jeffrey Porro. The film was released in theaters on December 25, 2007.[3]
- Plot [ edit ] Based on a true story, the plot revolves around the efforts of debate coach Melvin B. Tolson (Denzel Washington) at Wiley College, a historically black college related to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now The United Methodist Church), to place his team on equal footing with whites in the American South during the 1930s, when Jim Crow laws were common and lynch mobs were a fear for blacks. The Wiley team eventually succeeds to the point where they are able to debate Harvard University. (In 1935, the Wiley College debate team defeated the reigning national debate champion, the University of Southern California, depicted as Harvard University in The Great Debaters).
- The movie explores social constructs in Texas during the Great Depression, from day-to-day insults African Americans endured to lynching. Also depicted is James L. Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker), who, at 14 years old, was on Wiley's debate team after completing high school (and who later went on to co-found the Congress of Racial Equality). Another character on the team, Samantha Booke, is based on the real individual Henrietta Bell Wells, acclaimed poet and the only female member of the 1930 Wiley team who participated in the first collegiate interracial debate in the US.[4]
- The key line of dialogue, used several times, is a famous paraphrase of theologian St. Augustine of Hippo: "An unjust law is no law at all", which would later be the central thesis of Letter from a Birmingham Jail, by Martin Luther King, Jr. Another major line, repeated in slightly different versions according to context, concerns doing what you "have to do" in order that we "can do" what we "want to do." In all instances, these vital lines are spoken by the James L. Farmer Sr. and James L. Farmer, Jr. characters.
- Historical notes [ edit ] The film depicts the Wiley Debate team beating Harvard College in the 1930s. The real Wiley team instead defeated the University of Southern California, who at the time were the reigning debating champions.[4][5] Though they beat the reigning champions, Wiley was not allowed to officially call themselves champions, because they were not full members of the debate society; black people were not admitted until after World War II.[6]
- Cast [ edit ] Denzel Washington as Melvin B. TolsonForest Whitaker as James L. Farmer, Sr.Denzel Whitaker as James L. Farmer, Jr.Nate Parker as Henry LoweJurnee Smollett as Samantha BookeJermaine Williams as Hamilton BurgessGina Ravera as Ruth TolsonJohn Heard as Sheriff DozierKimberly Elise as Pearl FarmerDevyn A. Tyler as Helen FarmerTrenton McClain Boyd as Nathaniel FarmerJackson Walker as Pig OwnerTim Parati as Pig FarmerJustice Leak as Harland OsbourneRobert X. Golphin as Dunbar ReedDamien Leake as WilsonFrank L. Ridley as Security GuardRelease [ edit ] The Great Debaters was released in theaters on December 25, 2007.
- The release of the film coincided with a nationally stepped-up effort by urban debate leagues to get hundreds of inner-city and financially challenged schools to establish debate programs.[7][8] Cities of focus included Denver, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
- On December 19, 2007, Denzel Washington announced a $1 million donation to Wiley College so they could re-establish their debate team.[9] June 2007, after completing filming at Central High School, Grand Cane, Louisiana, Washington donated $10,000 to Central High School.[citation needed ]
- Home media [ edit ] The Great Debaters was released on DVD on May 13, 2008 on 1-disc and 2-disc editions. In the 2-disc edition, the first disc includes no extra material, but the second disc includes an audio commentary, a making of documentary, deleted scenes, featurettes, and a still gallery.
- The film was the first since 1979 allowed to film on Harvard's campus.
- Reception [ edit ] Box office [ edit ] The Great Debaters debuted at No. 11 in its first weekend with a total of $6,005,180 from 1,171 venues. The film grossed $30,236,407 in the US.[1]
- Critical response [ edit ] As of November 20, 2012 the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 79% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 131 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "A wonderful cast and top-notch script elevate The Great Debaters beyond a familiar formula for a touching, uplifting drama."[10] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 32 critics.[11]
- Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer named it the 5th best film of 2007[12] and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times named it the 9th best film of 2007.[13]
- Some critics have criticized the film for "playing it safe."[14] John Monaghan of the Detroit Free Press stated, "Serious moviegoers, especially those attracted by the movie's aggressive Oscar campaign, will likely find the package gorgeously wrapped, but intellectually empty."[15]
- Motion picture-historian Leonard Maltin, however, hailed the movie as "Inspiring...plays with the facts but, despite its at-times-formulaic storytelling, shows us how education and determination can help ordinary people surmount even the most formidable obstacles."[16]
- Accolades [ edit ] Won: Image Award for Outstanding Motion PictureWon: Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture: Denzel WashingtonWon: Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture: Jurnee SmollettWon: Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture: Forest Whitaker, Nate Parker, Denzel WhitakerWon: Stanley Kramer AwardNominated: Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture '' Drama[17]Nominated: Image Award for Outstanding Director in a Motion Picture: Denzel WashingtonNominated: Golden Reel Award for Best Music Sound Editing in a Feature FilmSoundtrack [ edit ] The songs for the soundtrack to the film were hand-picked by Denzel Washington from over 1000 candidates.[18] It contains remakes of traditional blues and gospel songs from the 1920s and 1930s by artists including Sharon Jones, Alvin Youngblood Hart, David Berger, and the Carolina Chocolate Drops.[19] It features favorites, such as "Step It Up and Go," "Nobody's Fault But Mine," and the Duke Ellington classic, "Delta Serenade."[18] Var¨se Sarabande released a separate album of the film's score, composed by James Newton Howard and Peter Golub.
- The complete soundtrack album includes the following songs:[20]
- Track listing"My Soul is a Witness" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart & Sharon Jones"That's What My Baby Likes" '' Sharon Jones, Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges"I've Got Blood in My Eyes for You" '' The Carolina Chocolate Drops & Alvin "Youngblood" Hart"Step It Up and Go" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart & Teenie Hodges"It's Tight Like That" '' Sharon Jones, Alvin Youngblood Hart & Teenie Hodges"Busy Bootin'" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart & The Carolina Chocolate Drops"City of Refuge" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart & The Carolina Chocolate Drops"Two Wings" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart, Sharon Jones w/Billy Rivers and the Angelic Voices of Faith"Delta Serenade" '' David Berger & The Sultans of Swing"Rock n' Rye" '' David Berger & The Sultans of Swing"Wild About That Thing" '' Sharon Jones, Alvin Youngblood Hart, & Teenie Hodges"Nobody's Fault but Mine" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart & The Carolina Chocolate Drops"How Long Before I Change My Clothes" '' Alvin "Youngblood" Hart"We Shall Not Be Moved" '' Sharon Jones w/Billy Rivers and the Angelic Voices of Faith"Up Above My Head" '' Sharon Jones w/Billy Rivers and the Angelic Voices of Faith"The Shout" '' Art Tatum"Begr¼ssung" '' Marian AndersonReferences [ edit ] ^ a b "The Great Debaters". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 2016-05-12 . ^ "BlackNews.com '' American Legacy Magazine's Story The Great Debaters Turns from Pages to the Big Screen Directed By and Starring Denzel Washington and Produced By Oprah Winfrey". Archived from the original on June 30, 2008. ^ "The Great Debaters '' Official Site". Thegreatdebatersmovie.com . Retrieved 2012-10-12 . ^ a b Martin, Douglas (2008-03-12). "Henrietta Bell Wells, a Pioneering Debater, Dies at 96". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved 2019-08-06 . ^ "The Great Debater's". Roger Ebert. 2007-12-24 . Retrieved 2008-06-29 . ^ "For Struggling Black College, Hopes of a Revival." The New York Times, December 5, 2007. ^ "thegreatdebaters.org - thegreatdebaters Resources and Information". Thegreatdebaters.org. Archived from the original on December 11, 2007 . Retrieved 10 August 2019 . ^ "National Association for the Urban Debate Leagues". Naudl.org. Archived from the original on 2012-10-26 . Retrieved 2012-10-12 . ^ " ' Debaters' college gets $1-million gift". Los Angeles Times. December 20, 2007. ^ "The Great Debaters '' Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. 2007-12-24 . Retrieved 2008-01-20 . ^ "Great Debaters, The (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive . Retrieved 2008-01-05 . ^ "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 2008-01-02 . Retrieved 2008-01-05 . ^ Ebert, Roger. "The year's ten best films and other shenanigans | Roger Ebert | Roger Ebert". www.rogerebert.com/ . Retrieved 2021-07-15 . ^ "The Great Debaters Movie Reviews, Pictures '' Rotten Tomatoes". Rottentomatoes.com . Retrieved 2012-10-12 . ^ [1] [dead link ] ^ Maltin's TV, Movie, & Video Guide ^ "HOLLYWOOD FOREIGN PRESS ASSOCIATION 2008 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS FOR THE YEAR ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2007". goldenglobes.org. 2007-12-13. Archived from the original on 2007-12-15 . Retrieved 2007-12-17 . ^ a b " " Denzel Washington Hand Picks Songs for New Film" '' The Insider". ^ "The Great Debaters (2007)". IMDb.com . Retrieved 10 August 2019 . ^ "The Great Debaters (Soundtrack)" on Amazon.com Scherman, Tony (Spring 1997). "The Great Debaters" (PDF) . American Legacy. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-07. Original article about Melvin Tolson's Wiley College debate team.Bell, Gail K. (December 2007). "Tolson, Farmer intertwined by Wiley debate team". Marshall News Messenger. Archived from the original on 6 June 2009. Another very detailed article on the team and the film.External links [ edit ] Official website The Great Debaters at IMDbThe Great Debaters at AllMovieThe Great Debaters at Box Office MojoThe Great Debaters at MetacriticThe Great Debaters at Rotten Tomatoes
- Roberta Kaplan, Who Aided Cuomo, Resigns from Time's Up - The New York Times
- New York | Roberta Kaplan, Who Aided Cuomo, Resigns from Time's Up https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/09/nyregion/roberta-kaplan-times-up-cuomo.htmlMs. Kaplan, a prominent progressive lawyer, was involved in an effort to discredit a woman who had accused Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, a report said.
- Roberta A. Kaplan resigned from her post at Time's Up as the fallout from sexual harassment allegations against Mr. Cuomo widened. Credit... Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Fortune Published Aug. 9, 2021 Updated Aug. 26, 2021
- [New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will resign after sexual harassment investigation.]
- The fallout from a damaging report that found Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women widened on Monday when Roberta A. Kaplan, a nationally prominent lawyer with ties to the governor, resigned from Time's Up, the organization founded by Hollywood women to fight sexual abuse and promote gender equality.
- Ms. Kaplan, the chairwoman of Time's Up and the co-founder of its legal defense fund, was one of several prominent figures whom the report found to be involved in an effort to discredit one of Mr. Cuomo's alleged victims, and she has continuing legal ties to a former Cuomo aide accused of leading that effort.
- ''Unfortunately, recent events have made it clear that even our apparent allies in the fight to advance women can turn out to be abusers,'' Ms. Kaplan wrote in a letter submitting her resignation from the group. ''We have felt the raw, personal and profound pain of that betrayal.''
- She said that her work as a practicing lawyer meant that she could not openly answer questions about her involvement with Mr. Cuomo or Melissa DeRosa, the aide to the governor whom Ms. Kaplan represented in the attorney general inquiry.
- Ms. DeRosa, who investigators said had led the effort against Ms. Boylan, announced her resignation from the Cuomo administration on Sunday. She believed the governor no longer had a path to remain in office and she did not want to continue to publicly support him, according to two people familiar with her thinking.
- The report from the state attorney general's office found that Ms. Kaplan had reviewed a draft of a disparaging op-ed letter that was aimed at attacking the character of Lindsey Boylan, a former Cuomo aide who was the first to publicly accuse him of sexual harassment.
- The op-ed letter was never published. It was part of a broader effort in which Mr. Cuomo and his aides sought counsel from former administration officials including Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest L.G.B.T.Q. political lobbying organization in the country; Tina Tchen, the chief executive of Time's Up; and the governor's brother, Chris Cuomo, an anchor on CNN.
- All of those figures have come under criticism for their connections to Mr. Cuomo.
- The involvement of Mr. David, who previously served as counsel to the governor, has led to calls for his resignation from the Human Rights Campaign. The organization said in a statement on Monday that it had hired a law firm to investigate whether Mr. David's work on the op-ed aligned with its mission of ''fighting for equality and justice for all.''
- Mr. David, who has called on Mr. Cuomo to resign, said in a statement that he had no knowledge of ''any incidents of misconduct'' involving the 11 women in the attorney general's report.
- He said that he did not sign the op-ed letter about Ms. Boylan, an assertion confirmed by the report. But the investigators also said that Mr. David agreed to help get other former staffers to sign the letter, an allegation that he denied in his statement.
- He said that while he provided the administration with a counseling memo about Ms. Boylan because he ''was legally obligated'' to do so, he was not involved in leaking her personnel files to reporters in an effort to undermine her.
- Ms. Kaplan has come under similar scrutiny given the mission of her organization. A prominent attorney who helped win the legalization of gay marriage, she represented the promise of Time's Up, founded in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein revelations by leading Hollywood figures such as the actress Reese Witherspoon and the star producer Shonda Rhimes. The concept was that high-profile women would be able to use their connections and influence to toughen protections and advance gender equality.
- The Downfall of Andrew Cuomo Card 1 of 5The path to resignation. After drawing national praise for his leadership in the early days of the pandemic, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was confronted with several scandals that eventually led to his resignation on Aug. 10, 2021. Here is what to know about his political demise:
- Sexual harassment accusations. Multiple women accused Mr. Cuomo of harassment, including groping and lewd remarks. An independent inquiry by the New York State attorney general corroborated the accounts. The investigation also found that he retaliated against at least one woman who made her complaints public.
- But the allegations against Mr. Cuomo '-- an ally of the organization who worked with them to strengthen laws in New York '-- has called that bargain into question.
- On Monday morning, a group of survivors of sexual harassment and assault posted an open letter to board of Time's Up, saying that the organization had betrayed its ideals. ''Time's Up has abandoned the very people it was supposed to champion,'' the letter, which was published on Medium, said. ''The board continues to fail to heed the outcry from survivors. Time's Up is failing all survivors.''
- In a statement, Ms. Tchen and the Time's Up board said they agreed with Ms. Kaplan that her resignation was ''the right and appropriate thing to do.''
- They also vowed that the organization would make itself more accountable and transparent to the community it sought to represent, though the statement did not provide details.
- ''We are counting on our sisters and allies not to lose sight of the broader work and let a man's treachery be overshadowed in any way,'' the statement said. ''We do not ask for a pass. We ask for perspective.''
- Ms. Kaplan was in a particularly awkward position after the report was released last Tuesday. Ms. DeRosa is represented by Ms. Kaplan's firm, and Ms. DeRosa testified in the attorney general's inquiry that Ms. Kaplan was her lawyer. Asked by The New York Times if she had ever counseled Ms. DeRosa beyond the op-ed letter, Ms. Kaplan declined to answer.
- ''Today is a very sad day,'' Ms. Kaplan said in an email to The Times. ''I will so miss time spent with this board and our sisterhood. Going forward, I hope they will be able to stick together and continue this important work.''
- Jurnee Smollett - Wikipedia
- BornJurnee Diana Smollett
- ( 1986-10-01 ) October 1, 1986 (age 35) Other namesJurnee Smollett-BellOccupationActressYears active1991''present Spouse(s) Josiah Bell
- Children1RelativesJussie Smollett (brother)Jake Smollett (brother)Jurnee Diana Smollett (born October 1, 1986) is an American actress. Smollett began her career as a child actress appearing on television sitcoms, including On Our Own (1994''1995) and Full House (1992''1994).
- As an adult, Smollett has starred in the films The Great Debaters (2007), Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013), and Birds of Prey (2020). Her television roles include the NBC sports drama Friday Night Lights (2009''2011), the HBO fantasy horror drama True Blood (2013''2014), the WGN America period drama Underground (2016''2017), and the HBO horror drama Lovecraft Country (2020). For the latter, she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
- Early life [ edit ] Jurnee Diana Smollett was born in New York City,[1] to Janet Harris and Joel Smollett. Her father was Ashkenazi Jewish, with ancestors from Romania, Russia and Poland,[2][3][4] while her mother is African American.[5][6][7] She is the fourth of six siblings, all performers:[8] one sister, Jazz Smollett,[9] and four brothers, Jussie, JoJo, Jake, and Jocqui.
- Career [ edit ] Early works [ edit ] Smollett began her acting career appearing on Martin and Out All Night in 1992. She then had recurring roles as Denise Frazer on the ABC family sitcoms Full House and Hangin' with Mr. Cooper.[10] From 1994 to 1995, she co-starred with her siblings in the short-lived ABC sitcom On Our Own. In 1996, she appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola film Jack, making her big-screen debut.[10]
- Smollett received critical acclaim for her performance as 10-year-old Eve in the 1997 film Eve's Bayou opposite Lynn Whitfield, Samuel L. Jackson and Debbi Morgan.[11][12] In casting the role, writer-director Kasi Lemmons envisioned "a light-skinned black child who could convey the nuances of a Creole child in the 60s."[8] She received the Critic's Choice Award and was nominated for a NAACP Image Award.[13] The following year, she joined the cast of the CBS sitcom Cosby, for which she won two NAACP Image Awards.[13] In 1999, Smollett starred in the ABC TV film Selma, Lord, Selma. In 2000, she co-starred with Sharon Stone and Billy Connolly in the film Beautiful Joe. In 2001, she played the daughter of Angela Bassett in the television film Ruby's Bucket of Blood. In 2005, she co-starred with Bow Wow and Brandon T. Jackson in the roller skating film Roll Bounce. In 2006, she appeared in the drama film Gridiron Gang.[14]
- 2007''2012 [ edit ] In 2007, Smollett portrayed Samantha Booke (loosely based on Henrietta Bell Wells), the sole female debater at Wiley College in the historical film The Great Debaters.[15] The film was produced by Oprah Winfrey and Harvey Weinstein and starred Denzel Washington, who also directed the feature. For her performance, Smollett received NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. The following year, she returned to television, appearing in two episodes of ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy. From 2009 to 2011, she was a regular cast member in the DirecTV drama series Friday Night Lights playing Jess Merriweather. From 2010 to 2011, she also co-starred with Jim Belushi and Jerry O'Connell on the short-lived CBS legal drama The Defenders.
- 2013''present [ edit ] In 2013, Smollett played the leading role in the drama film Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor directed by Tyler Perry. The film received negative reviews from critics, but was a box-office hit, grossing $53,125,354. It is the highest-grossing Tyler Perry film which the writer-director did not star in, and the highest-grossing Tyler Perry drama.[16] From 2013 to 2014, she was a regular on the HBO series True Blood.[17] She later played Juanita Leonard, the wife of boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, in the 2016 biographical sport film Hands of Stone co-starring with Usher and Robert De Niro.[18][19]
- In 2015, Smollett was cast as lead character in the WGN America period drama series Underground. Smollett played Rosalee, a shy house slave working on a plantation in 1857.[20] She portrayed Black Canary in the 2020 film Birds of Prey,[21][22] and Letitia "Leti" Lewis in the 2020 HBO series Lovecraft Country.[23] In August 2021, it was revealed that Smollett will star in a solo Black Canary Movie from Warner Bros. and DC Films at HBO Max.[24] In November 2021, she joined Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones in Amazon Studios' courtroom drama project The Burial directed by Maggie Betts.[25]
- Personal life [ edit ] Smollett has been active in HIV/AIDS causes since she was 11. Her first encounter with the disease came at age seven when a crew member of On Our Own died of AIDS.[26] She was inspired by the HIV/AIDS survivor Hydeia Broadbent, with whom she eventually worked for HIV/AIDS awareness, including for the Black AIDS Institute and Red Cross. She spoke at the Ryan White Youth Conference, and is on the Board of Directors of Artists for a New South Africa, an organization dedicated to HIV/AIDS in Africa.[27] Smollett is also on the Board of Directors for the Children's Defense Fund.[28]
- On October 24, 2010, Smollett married musician Josiah Bell.[29] Their first child, a son named Hunter, was born on October 31, 2016.[30] In March 2020, Smollett filed for divorce.[31]
- Filmography [ edit ] Film [ edit ] Television [ edit ] Awards and nominations [ edit ] References [ edit ] ^ "Jurnee Smollett Bio". BET . Retrieved March 12, 2016 . ^ Ryzik, Melena (March 9, 2016). "The Smollett Family Business: Acting and Activism". The New York Times . Retrieved June 18, 2019 . ^ Shepard, Linda (January 21, 2015). "Actress aims to keep 'Dream' alive". C & G Newspapers . Retrieved June 24, 2019 . ^ Bloom, Nate (March 18, 2016). "Celebrity jews". J. The Jewish News of Northern California . Retrieved June 18, 2019 . ^ Garmel, Marion (1994-09-06). "You're never on your own in a big family". Indianapolis Star . Retrieved 2011-03-20 . ^ "What a nice Girl". Hot Sauce. April 1, 2008. Archived from the original on 2012-03-21 . Retrieved 2015-02-19 . ^ RandomTandem (2010-12-31). "New Artist Alert: Jussie Smollett". Random Tandem. Archived from the original on 2014-05-04 . Retrieved 2014-05-03 . ^ a b Lena Williams (November 2, 1997). "Up and Coming - Jurnee Smollett - Calm Child at the Center of an Adult Storm". The New York Times . Retrieved September 17, 2015 . ^ Jessica Fecteau. From Actors to Cookbook Authors: How the Smollett Siblings Are Breaking Into the Food World. People.com. Jjuly 6, 2018. ^ a b "Jurnee Smollett". Hollywood.com . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ "Eve's Bayou". Rotten Tomatoes. 1 June 1996 . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ Roger Ebert (7 November 1997). "Eve's Bayou" . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ a b "Jurnee Smollett". IMDb. ^ "Gridiron Gang". Rotten Tomatoes. Sep 15, 2006 . Retrieved 15 May 2020 . ^ "The Great Debaters". Rotten Tomatoes. 25 December 2007 . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ "Tyler Perry's Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor (2013)". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ Dickson, Evan (21 January 2013). "Two Ladies Move Into Bon Temps For Some 'True Blood ' ". Bloody Disgusting . Retrieved 14 May 2013 . ^ "Usher & Jurnee Smollett gear up in Panama to film 'Hands of Stone ' ". MStarsNews. 2 December 2013 . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ "Hands of Stone trailer: Robert De Niro coaches Edgar Ramirez". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 9 May 2016 . ^ Cynthia Littleton (February 27, 2015). "WGN America Gives Series Order to Slavery Drama 'Underground ' ". Variety. ^ Couch, Aaron; McMillan, Graeme (November 20, 2018). "Margot Robbie Reveals Full 'Birds of Prey' Title: 'The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn ' ". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2019-03-02 . Retrieved November 20, 2018 . ^ D'Alessandro, Anthony (September 26, 2018). " ' Birds Of Prey' Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead Wins Role Of Huntress; Jurnee Smollett-Bell Is Black Canary". Deadline . Retrieved September 26, 2018 . ^ Yap, Audrey Cleo (2020-08-16). " ' Lovecraft Country' Star Jurnee Smollett and Creator Misha Green on If They Would Reteam for a Black Canary Project". Variety . Retrieved 2020-08-19 . ^ "DC Films Developing 'Black Canary' Movie with Jurnee Smollett Starring And Misha Green Writing". ^ Donnelly, Matt (November 18, 2021). "Jurnee Smollett Joins Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones in Amazon's 'The Burial' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. ^ "Cover Story". Art & Understanding Magazine. August 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-06-12. (AIDS-related issues magazine) ^ "Board of Directors". ANSA. Archived from the original on 2007-08-19. ^ "Board of Directors". Children's Defense Fund. Archived from the original on 2020-04-13 . Retrieved 2020-04-13 . ^ Zuckerman, Blaine (December 16, 2010). "See Friday Night Lights's Jurnee Smollett's Wedding Photo". People. ^ Mizoguchi, Karen. "Jurnee Smollett-Bell and Husband Josiah Welcome First Child, Son Hunter Zion". People. ^ Hearon, Sarah (March 27, 2020). "Jurnee Smollett Files for Divorce From Josiah Bell After Nearly 10 Years of Marriage". Us Weekly . Retrieved August 17, 2020 . External links [ edit ] Jurnee Smollett at IMDbAwards for Jurnee Smollett
- Emmett Till - Wikipedia
- 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955
- Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 '' August 28, 1955) was a 14-year-old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the fact that his killers were acquitted drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.[2]
- Till was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. During summer vacation in August 1955, he was visiting relatives near Money, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white married proprietor of a small grocery store there. Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the unwritten code of behavior for a black male interacting with a white female in the Jim Crow-era South.[3] Several nights after the incident in the store, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam were armed when they went to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted Emmett. They took him away and beat and mutilated him, before shooting him in the head and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river.
- Till's body was returned to Chicago where his mother insisted on a public funeral service with an open casket which was held at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ.[4] It was later said that "The open-coffin funeral held by Mamie Till Bradley exposed the world to more than her son Emmett Till's bloated, mutilated body. Her decision focused attention not only on U.S. racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy".[5] Tens of thousands attended his funeral or viewed his open casket, and images of his mutilated body were published in black-oriented magazines and newspapers, rallying popular black support and white sympathy across the U.S. Intense scrutiny was brought to bear on the lack of black civil rights in Mississippi, with newspapers around the U.S. critical of the state. Although local newspapers and law enforcement officials initially decried the violence against Till and called for justice, they responded to national criticism by defending Mississippians, temporarily giving support to the killers.
- In September 1955, an all-white jury found Bryant and Milam not guilty of Till's murder. Protected against double jeopardy, the two men publicly admitted in a 1956 interview with Look magazine that they had killed Till. Till's murder was seen as a catalyst for the next phase of the civil rights movement. In December 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott began in Alabama and lasted more than a year, resulting eventually in a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that segregated buses were unconstitutional. According to historians, events surrounding Emmett Till's life and death continue to resonate. An Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established in the early 21st century. The Sumner County Courthouse was restored and includes the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. Fifty-one sites in the Mississippi Delta are memorialized as associated with Till.
- Early childhood Emmett Till was born in 1941 in Chicago; he was the son of Mamie Carthan (1921''2003) and Louis Till (1922''1945). Emmett's mother Mamie was born in the small Delta town of Webb, Mississippi. The Delta region encompasses the large, multi-county area of northwestern Mississippi in the watershed of the Yazoo and Mississippi rivers. When Carthan was two years old, her family moved to Argo, Illinois, as part of the Great Migration of rural black families out of the South to the North to escape violence, lack of opportunity and unequal treatment under the law.[6] Argo received so many Southern migrants that it was named "Little Mississippi"; Carthan's mother's home was often used by other recent migrants as a way station while they were trying to find jobs and housing.[7]
- Mississippi was the poorest state in the U.S. in the 1950s, and the Delta counties were some of the poorest in Mississippi.[7] Mamie Carthan was born in Tallahatchie County, where the average income per white household in 1949 was $690 (equivalent to $7,000 in 2016). For black families, the figure was $462 (equivalent to $4,700 in 2016).[8] In the rural areas, economic opportunities for blacks were almost nonexistent. They were mostly sharecroppers who lived on land owned by whites. Blacks had essentially been disenfranchised and excluded from voting and the political system since 1890, when the white-dominated legislature passed a new constitution that raised barriers to voter registration. Whites had also passed ordinances establishing racial segregation and Jim Crow laws.
- Mamie largely raised Emmett with her mother; she and Louis Till separated in 1942 after she discovered that he had been unfaithful. Louis later abused her, choking her to unconsciousness, to which she responded by throwing scalding water at him.[9] For violating court orders to stay away from Mamie, Louis Till was forced by a judge in 1943 to choose between jail or enlisting in the U.S. Army. In 1945, a few weeks before his son's fourth birthday, he was executed for the murder of an Italian woman, and the rape of two others.[10][11]
- At the age of six, Emmett contracted polio, which left him with a persistent stutter.[12] Mamie and Emmett moved to Detroit, where she met and married "Pink" Bradley in 1951. Emmett preferred living in Chicago, so he returned there to live with his grandmother; his mother and stepfather rejoined him later that year. After the marriage dissolved in 1952, "Pink" Bradley returned alone to Detroit.[13]
- The Chicago two-flat at 6427 S. St. Lawrence Avenue where Emmett Till lived with his mother in mid-1955
- [14]Mamie Till Bradley and Emmett lived together in a busy neighborhood in Chicago's South Side, near distant relatives. She began working as a civilian clerk for the U.S. Air Force for a better salary. She recalled that Emmett was industrious enough to help with chores at home, although he sometimes got distracted. His mother remembered that he did not know his own limitations at times. Following the couple's separation, Bradley visited Mamie and began threatening her. At eleven years old, Emmett, with a butcher knife in hand, told Bradley he would kill him if the man did not leave.[15] Usually, however, Emmett was happy. He and his cousins and friends pulled pranks on each other (Emmett once took advantage of an extended car-ride when his friend fell asleep and placed the friend's underwear on his head), and they also spent their free time in pickup baseball games. He was a natty dresser and was often the center of attention among his peers.[16] By 1955, Emmett was stocky and muscular, weighed about 150 pounds (68 kg) and stood 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall.[citation needed ]
- Plans to visit relatives in Mississippi In 1955, Mamie Till Bradley's uncle, 64-year-old Mose Wright, visited her and Emmett in Chicago during the summer and told Emmett stories about living in the Mississippi Delta. Emmett wanted to see for himself. Bradley was ready for a vacation and planned to take Emmett with her on a trip to visit relatives in Nebraska, but after he begged her to let him visit Wright instead, she relented.[citation needed ]
- Wright planned to accompany Till with a cousin, Wheeler Parker; another cousin, Curtis Jones, would join them soon. Wright was a sharecropper and part-time minister who was often called "Preacher".[17] He lived in Money, Mississippi, a small town in the Delta that consisted of three stores, a school, a post office, a cotton gin, and a few hundred residents, 8 miles (13 km) north of Greenwood. Before Emmett departed for the Delta, his mother cautioned him that Chicago and Mississippi were two different worlds, and he should know how to behave in front of whites in the South.[18] He assured her he understood.[19]
- Statistics on lynchings began to be collected in 1882. Since that time, more than 500 African Americans have been killed by extrajudicial violence in Mississippi alone, and more than 3,000 across the South.[20] Most of the incidents took place between 1876 and 1930; though far less common by the mid-1950s, these racially motivated murders still occurred. Throughout the South, whites publicly prohibited interracial relationships as a means to maintain white supremacy. Even the suggestion of sexual contact between black men and white women could carry severe penalties for black men. A resurgence of the enforcement of such Jim Crow laws was evident following World War II, when African-American veterans started pressing for equal rights in the South.[21]
- Racial tensions increased after the United States Supreme Court's 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education to end segregation in public education, which it ruled as unconstitutional. Many segregationists believed the ruling would lead to interracial dating and marriage. Whites strongly resisted the court's ruling; one Virginia county closed all its public schools to prevent integration. Other jurisdictions simply ignored the ruling. In other ways, whites used stronger measures to keep blacks politically disenfranchised, which they had been since the turn of the century. Segregation in the South was used to constrain blacks forcefully from any semblance of social equality.[22]
- A week before Till arrived in Mississippi, a black activist named Lamar Smith was shot and killed in front of the county courthouse in Brookhaven for political organizing. Three white suspects were arrested, but they were soon released.[23]
- Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant The remains of Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market in 2009
- Bryant's Grocery Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker, 2018
- Till arrived in Money, Mississippi, on August 21, 1955. On August 24, he and cousin Curtis Jones skipped church where his great-uncle Mose Wright was preaching and joined some local boys as they went to Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market to buy candy. The teenagers were children of sharecroppers and had been picking cotton all day. The market mostly served the local sharecropper population and was owned by a white couple, 24-year-old Roy Bryant and his 21-year-old[24] wife Carolyn. Carolyn was alone in the front of the store that day; her sister-in-law was in the rear of the store watching children. Jones left Till with the other boys while Jones played checkers across the street.
- The facts of what took place in the store are still disputed. According to what Jones said at the time, the other boys reported that Till had a photograph of an integrated class at the school he attended in Chicago,[note 1] and Till bragged to the boys that the white children in the picture were his friends. He pointed to a white girl in the picture, or referred to a picture of a white girl that had come with his new wallet,[25] and said she was his girlfriend and one or more of the local boys dared Till to speak to Bryant.[24] However, writing a personal account of the incident in a book released in 2009, Till's cousin Simeon Wright, who was also present, disputed Jones' version of what happened on that day. According to Wright, Till did not have a photo of a white girl in his wallet and no one dared him to flirt with Bryant.[26] Speaking in 2015, Wright said: "We didn't dare him to go to the store '' the white folk said that. They said that he had pictures of his white girlfriend. There were no pictures. They never talked to me. They never interviewed me."[27] The FBI report completed in 2006 notes "... [Curtis] Jones recanted his 1955 statements prior to his death and apologized to Mamie Till-Mobley".[28]
- According to some versions, including comments from some of the youngsters standing outside the store,[29] Till may have wolf-whistled at Bryant. Till's cousin, Simeon Wright, who was with him at the store, stated that Till whistled at Bryant, saying, "I think [Emmett] wanted to get a laugh out of us or something", adding, "He was always joking around, and it was hard to tell when he was serious." Wright stated that following the whistle he became immediately alarmed, saying, "Well, it scared us half to death" and "You know, we were almost in shock. We couldn't get out of there fast enough, because we had never heard of anything like that before. A black boy whistling at a white woman? In Mississippi? No." Wright stated "The Ku Klux Klan and night riders were part of our daily lives".[26][30] Following his disappearance, a newspaper account stated that Till sometimes whistled to alleviate his stuttering.[31] His speech was sometimes unclear; his mother said he had particular difficulty with pronouncing "b" sounds, and he may have whistled to overcome problems asking for bubble gum.[32][33][34] She said that, to help with his articulation, she taught Till how to whistle softly to himself before pronouncing his words.[33]
- During the murder trial,[note 2] Bryant testified that Till grabbed her hand while she was stocking candy and said, "How about a date, baby?"[35][36] She said that after she freed herself from his grasp, the young man followed her to the cash register,[35] grabbed her waist and said, "What's the matter baby, can't you take it?"[35][note 3] Bryant said she freed herself, and Till said, "You needn't be afraid of me, baby",[35] used "one 'unprintable' word"[35] and said "I've been with white women before."[35][37] Bryant also alleged that one of Till's companions came into the store, grabbed him by the arm, and ordered him to leave.[35] According to historian Timothy Tyson, Bryant admitted to him in a 2008 interview that her testimony during the trial that Till had made verbal and physical advances was false.[38][39][40] Bryant had testified Till grabbed her waist and uttered obscenities but later told Tyson "that part's not true".[41] As for the rest of what happened, the 72-year-old stated she could not remember.[42] Bryant is quoted by Tyson as saying "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him".[43] However, the tape recordings that Tyson made of the interviews with Bryant do not contain Bryant saying those things. In addition, the woman with Bryant at the interviews, her daughter-in-law, Marsha Bryant, says that Bryant never told Tyson that.[44]
- Decades later, Till's cousin Simeon Wright also challenged the account given by Carolyn Bryant at the trial.[45] Wright entered the store "less than a minute" after Till was left inside alone with Bryant,[45] and he saw no inappropriate behavior and heard "no lecherous conversation".[45] Wright said Till "paid for his items and we left the store together".[45] In their 2006 investigation of the cold case, the FBI noted that a second anonymous source, who was confirmed to have been in the store at the same time as Till and his cousin, supported Wright's account.[25]
- Author Devery Anderson writes that in an interview with the defense's attorneys, Bryant told a version of the initial encounter that included Till grabbing her hand and asking her for a date, but not Till approaching her and grabbing her waist, mentioning past relationships with white women, or having to be dragged unwillingly out of the store by another boy. Anderson further notes that many remarks prior to Till's kidnapping made by those involved indicate that it was his remarks to Bryant that angered his killers, rather than any alleged physical harassment. For instance, Mose Wright (a witness to the kidnapping) said that the kidnappers mentioned only "talk" at the store, and Sheriff George Smith only spoke of the arrested killers as accusing Till of "ugly remarks". Anderson suggests that this evidence taken together implies that the more extreme details of Bryant's story were invented after the fact as part of the defense's legal strategy.[46]
- In any event, after Wright and Till left the store, Bryant went outside to retrieve a pistol from underneath the seat of a car. The teenagers saw her do this and left immediately.[37] It was acknowledged that Till whistled while Bryant was going to her car.[25] However, it is disputed whether Till whistled toward Bryant or toward a checkers game that was occurring just across the street.[25]
- One of the other boys ran across the street to tell Curtis Jones what happened in the store. When the older man with whom Jones was playing checkers heard the story, he urged the boys to leave quickly, fearing violence. Bryant told others of the events at the store, and the story spread quickly. Jones and Till declined to tell his great-uncle Mose Wright, fearing they would get in trouble.[47] Till said he wanted to return home to Chicago. Carolyn's husband Roy Bryant was on an extended trip hauling shrimp to Texas and did not return home until August 27.[48] Historian Timothy Tyson said an investigation by civil rights activists concluded Carolyn Bryant did not initially tell her husband Roy Bryant about the encounter with Till, and that Roy was told by a person who hung around down at their store.[49] Roy was reportedly angry at his wife for not telling him. Carolyn Bryant told the FBI she didn't tell her husband because she feared he would beat Till up.[50]
- Lynching When Roy Bryant was informed of what had happened, he aggressively questioned several young black men who entered the store. That evening, Bryant, with a black man named J. W. Washington, approached a black teenager walking along a road. Bryant ordered Washington to seize the boy, put him in the back of a pickup truck, and took him to be identified by a companion of Carolyn's who had witnessed the episode with Till. Friends or parents vouched for the boy in Bryant's store, and Carolyn's companion denied that the boy Bryant and Washington seized was the one who had accosted her. Somehow, Bryant learned that the boy in the incident was from Chicago and was staying with Mose Wright.[note 4] Several witnesses overheard Bryant and his 36-year-old half-brother, John William "J. W." Milam, discussing taking Till from his house.[51]
- In the early morning hours of August 28, 1955, sometime between 2 and 3:30 a.m., Bryant and Milam drove to Mose Wright's house. Milam was armed with a pistol and a flashlight. He asked Wright if he had three boys in the house from Chicago. Till was sharing a bed with another cousin; there were eight people in the small two-bedroom cabin. Milam asked Wright to take them to "the nigger who did the talking". Till's great-aunt offered the men money, but Milam refused as he rushed Emmett to put on his clothes. Mose Wright informed the men that Till was from up north and didn't know any better. Milam reportedly then asked, "How old are you, preacher?" to which Wright responded "64". Milam threatened that if Wright told anybody he wouldn't live to see 65. The men marched Till out to the truck. Wright said he heard them ask someone in the car if this was the boy, and heard someone say "yes". When asked if the voice was that of a man or a woman Wright said "it seemed like it was a lighter voice than a man's".[52] In a 1956 interview with Look magazine, in which they confessed to the killing, Bryant and Milam said they would have brought Till by the store in order to have Carolyn identify him, but stated they did not do so because they said Till admitted to being the one who had talked to her.[36]
- They tied up Till in the back of a green pickup truck and drove toward Money, Mississippi. According to some witnesses, they took Till back to Bryant's Groceries and recruited two black men. The men then drove to a barn in Drew. They pistol-whipped him on the way and reportedly knocked him unconscious. Willie Reed, who was 18 years old at the time, saw the truck passing by. Reed recalled seeing two white men in the front seat, and "two black males" in the back.[53] Some have speculated that the two black men worked for Milam and were forced to help with the beating, although they later denied being present.[54][55]
- Willie Reed said that while walking home, he heard the beating and crying from the barn. He told a neighbor and they both walked back up the road to a water well near the barn, where they were approached by Milam. Milam asked if they heard anything. Reed responded "No". Others passed by the shed and heard yelling. A local neighbor also spotted "Too Tight" (Leroy Collins) at the back of the barn washing blood off the truck and noticed Till's boot. Milam explained he had killed a deer and that the boot belonged to him.[citation needed ]
- Some have claimed that Till was shot and tossed over the Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, Mississippi, near the Tallahatchie River.[56] The group drove back to Roy Bryant's home in Money, where they reportedly burned Emmett's clothes.
- Well, what else could we do? He was hopeless. I'm no bully; I never hurt a nigger in my life. I like niggers'--in their place'--I know how to work 'em. But I just decided it was time a few people got put on notice. As long as I live and can do anything about it, niggers are gonna stay in their place. Niggers ain't gonna vote where I live. If they did, they'd control the government. They ain't gonna go to school with my kids. And when a nigger gets close to mentioning sex with a white woman, he's tired o' livin'. I'm likely to kill him. Me and my folks fought for this country, and we got some rights. I stood there in that shed and listened to that nigger throw that poison at me, and I just made up my mind. 'Chicago boy,' I said, 'I'm tired of 'em sending your kind down here to stir up trouble. Goddam you, I'm going to make an example of you'--just so everybody can know how me and my folks stand.'
- '--J. W. Milam, Look magazine, 1956[36]
- In an interview with William Bradford Huie that was published in Look magazine in 1956, Bryant and Milam said that they intended to beat Till and throw him off an embankment into the river to frighten him. They told Huie that while they were beating Till, he called them bastards, declared he was as good as they, and said that he had sexual encounters with white women. They put Till in the back of their truck, drove to a cotton gin to take a 70-pound (32 kg) fan'--the only time they admitted to being worried, thinking that by this time in early daylight they would be spotted and accused of stealing'--and drove for several miles along the river looking for a place to dispose of Till. They shot him by the river and weighted his body with the fan.[36][note 5]
- Mose Wright stayed on his front porch for twenty minutes waiting for Till to return. He did not go back to bed. He and another man went into Money, got gasoline, and drove around trying to find Till. Unsuccessful, they returned home by 8:00 am.[57] After hearing from Wright that he would not call the police because he feared for his life, Curtis Jones placed a call to the Leflore County sheriff, and another to his mother in Chicago. Distraught, she called Emmett's mother Mamie Till Bradley.[58] Wright and his wife Elizabeth drove to Sumner, where Elizabeth's brother contacted the sheriff.[59]
- Bryant and Milam were questioned by Leflore County sheriff, George Smith. They admitted they had taken the boy from his great-uncle's yard, but claimed they had released him the same night in front of Bryant's store. Bryant and Milam were arrested for kidnapping.[60] Word got out that Till was missing, and soon Medgar Evers, Mississippi state field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and Amzie Moore, head of the Bolivar County chapter, became involved. They disguised themselves as cotton pickers and went into the cotton fields in search of any information that might help find Till.[61]
- Three days after his abduction and murder, Till's swollen and disfigured body was found by two boys who were fishing in the Tallahatchie River. His head was very badly mutilated, he had been shot above the right ear, an eye was dislodged from the socket, there was evidence that he had been beaten on the back and the hips, and his body weighted by a fan blade, which was fastened around his neck with barbed wire. He was nude, but wearing a silver ring with the initials "L. T." and "May 25, 1943" carved in it.[62][note 6] His face was unrecognizable due to trauma and having been submerged in water. Mose Wright was called to the river to identify Till. The silver ring that Till was wearing was removed, returned to Wright, and next passed on to the district attorney as evidence.
- Funeral and reaction Mamie Till at Emmett's funeral
- Although lynchings and racially motivated murders had occurred throughout the South for decades, the circumstances surrounding Till's murder and the timing acted as a catalyst to attract national attention to the case of a 14-year-old boy who had allegedly been killed for breaching a social caste system. Till's murder aroused feelings about segregation, law enforcement, relations between the North and South, the social status quo in Mississippi, the activities of the NAACP and the White Citizens' Councils, and the Cold War, all of which were played out in a drama staged in newspapers all over the U.S. and abroad.[63]
- After Till went missing, a three-paragraph story was printed in the Greenwood Commonwealth and quickly picked up by other Mississippi newspapers. They reported on his death when the body was found. The next day, when a picture of him his mother had taken the previous Christmas showing them smiling together appeared in the Jackson Daily News and Vicksburg Evening Post, editorials and letters to the editor were printed expressing shame at the people who had caused Till's death. One read, "Now is the time for every citizen who loves the state of Mississippi to 'Stand up and be counted' before hoodlum white trash brings us to destruction." The letter said that Negroes were not the downfall of Mississippi society, but whites like those in White Citizens' Councils that condoned violence.[64]
- Till's body was clothed, packed in lime, placed into a pine coffin and prepared for burial. It may have been embalmed while in Mississippi. Mamie Till Bradley demanded that the body be sent to Chicago; she later said that she worked to halt an immediate burial in Mississippi and called several local and state authorities in Illinois and Mississippi to make sure that her son was returned to Chicago.[65] A doctor did not examine Till post-mortem.[66]
- Mississippi's governor, Hugh L. White, deplored the murder, asserting that local authorities should pursue a "vigorous prosecution". He sent a telegram to the national offices of the NAACP, promising a full investigation and assuring them "Mississippi does not condone such conduct". Delta residents, both black and white, also distanced themselves from Till's murder, finding the circumstances abhorrent. Local newspaper editorials denounced the murderers without question.[37][67] Leflore County Deputy Sheriff John Cothran stated, "The white people around here feel pretty mad about the way that poor little boy was treated, and they won't stand for this."[68]
- Soon, however, discourse about Till's murder became more complex. Robert B. Patterson, executive secretary of the segregationist White Citizens' Council, used Till's death to claim that racial segregation policies were to provide for blacks' safety and that their efforts were being neutralized by the NAACP. In response, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins characterized the incident as a lynching and said that Mississippi was trying to maintain white supremacy through murder. He said, "there is in the entire state no restraining influence of decency, not in the state capital, among the daily newspapers, the clergy, nor any segment of the so-called better citizens."[69] Mamie Till Bradley told a reporter that she would seek legal aid to help law enforcement find her son's killers and that the State of Mississippi should share the financial responsibility. She was misquoted; it was reported as "Mississippi is going to pay for this."[70]
- Till's mutilated corpse on display. His mother had insisted on an open-casket funeral. Images of Till's body, printed in
- Jet magazine, made international news and directed attention to the lack of rights of blacks in the U.S. South.
- The A. A. Rayner Funeral Home in Chicago received Till's body. Upon arrival, Bradley insisted on viewing it to make a positive identification, later stating that the stench from it was noticeable two blocks away.[71] She decided to have an open-casket funeral, saying: "There was just no way I could describe what was in that box. No way. And I just wanted the world to see."[61] Tens of thousands of people lined the street outside the mortuary to view Till's body, and days later thousands more attended his funeral at Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ.
- Photographs of his mutilated corpse circulated around the country, notably appearing in Jet magazine and The Chicago Defender, both black publications, generating intense public reaction. According to The Nation and Newsweek, Chicago's black community was "aroused as it has not been over any similar act in recent history".[72][note 7] Time later selected one of the Jet photographs showing Mamie Till over the mutilated body of her dead son, as one of the 100 "most influential images of all time": "For almost a century, African Americans were lynched with regularity and impunity. Now, thanks to a mother's determination to expose the barbarousness of the crime, the public could no longer pretend to ignore what they couldn't see."[73] Till was buried on September 6 in Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois.[74]
- News about Emmett Till spread to both coasts. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Illinois Governor William Stratton also became involved, urging Mississippi Governor White to see that justice be done. The tone in Mississippi newspapers changed dramatically. They falsely reported riots in the funeral home in Chicago. Bryant and Milam appeared in photos smiling and wearing military uniforms,[75] and Carolyn Bryant's beauty and virtue were extolled. Rumors of an invasion of outraged blacks and northern whites were printed throughout the state, and were taken seriously by the Leflore County Sheriff. T. R. M. Howard, a local businessman, surgeon, and civil rights proponent and one of the wealthiest blacks in the state, warned of a "second civil war" if "slaughtering of Negroes" was allowed.[76]
- Following Roy Wilkins' comments, white opinion began to shift. According to historian Stephen Whitfield, a specific brand of xenophobia in the South was particularly strong in Mississippi. Whites were urged to reject the influence of Northern opinion and agitation.[77] This independent attitude was profound enough in Tallahatchie County that it earned the nickname "The Freestate of Tallahatchie", according to a former sheriff, "because people here do what they damn well please", making the county often difficult to govern.[78]
- Tallahatchie County Sheriff Clarence Strider, who initially positively identified Till's body and stated that the case against Milam and Bryant was "pretty good", on September 3 announced his doubts that the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River was that of Till. He speculated that the boy was probably still alive. Strider suggested that the recovered body had been planted by the NAACP: a corpse stolen by T. R. M. Howard, who colluded to place Till's ring on it.[79] Strider changed his account after comments were published in the press denigrating the people of Mississippi, later saying: "The last thing I wanted to do was to defend those peckerwoods. But I just had no choice about it."[37][note 8]
- Bryant and Milam were indicted for murder. The state's prosecuting attorney, Hamilton Caldwell, was not confident that he could get a conviction in a case of white violence against a black male accused of insulting a white woman. A local black paper was surprised at the indictment and praised the decision, as did the New York Times. The high-profile comments published in Northern newspapers and by the NAACP were of concern to the prosecuting attorney, Gerald Chatham; he worried that his office would not be able to secure a guilty verdict, despite the compelling evidence. Having limited funds, Bryant and Milam initially had difficulty finding attorneys to represent them, but five attorneys at a Sumner law firm offered their services pro bono.[77] Their supporters placed collection jars in stores and other public places in the Delta, eventually gathering $10,000 for the defense.[80]
- Trial The trial was held in the county courthouse in Sumner, the western seat of Tallahatchie County, because Till's body was found in this area. Sumner had one boarding house; the small town was besieged by reporters from all over the country. David Halberstam called the trial "the first great media event of the civil rights movement".[81] A reporter who had covered the trials of Bruno Hauptmann and Machine Gun Kelly remarked that this was the most publicity for any trial he had ever seen.[37] No hotels were open to black visitors. Mamie Till Bradley arrived to testify, and the trial also attracted black congressman Charles Diggs from Michigan. Bradley, Diggs, and several black reporters stayed at T. R. M. Howard's home in Mound Bayou. Located on a large lot and surrounded by Howard's armed guards, it resembled a compound.
- The day before the start of the trial, a young black man named Frank Young arrived to tell Howard he knew of two witnesses to the crime. Levi "Too Tight" Collins and Henry Lee Loggins were black employees of Leslie Milam, J. W.'s brother, in whose shed Till was beaten. Collins and Loggins were spotted with J. W. Milam, Bryant, and Till. The prosecution team was unaware of Collins and Loggins. Sheriff Strider, however, booked them into the Charleston, Mississippi, jail to keep them from testifying.[82]
- The trial was held in September 1955 and lasted for five days; attendees remembered that the weather was very hot. The courtroom was filled to capacity with 280 spectators; black attendees sat in segregated sections.[83] Press from major national newspapers attended, including black publications; black reporters were required to sit in the segregated black section and away from the white press, farther from the jury. Sheriff Strider welcomed black spectators coming back from lunch with a cheerful, "Hello, Niggers!"[84] Some visitors from the North found the court to be run with surprising informality. Jury members were allowed to drink beer on duty, and many white male spectators wore handguns.[85]
- Till's uncle, Mose Wright, identifying J. W. Milam during Milam's trial, an act which "signified intimidation of Delta blacks was no longer as effective as the past".
- [86] Wright had "crossed a line that no one could remember a black man ever crossing in Mississippi".
- Ernest Withers defied the judge's orders banning photography during the trial to capture this shot.
- The defense sought to cast doubt on the identity of the body pulled from the river. They said it could not be positively identified, and they questioned whether Till was dead at all. The defense also asserted that although Bryant and Milam had taken Till from his great-uncle's house, they had released him that night. The defense attorneys attempted to prove that Mose Wright'--who was addressed as "Uncle Mose" by the prosecution and "Mose" by the defense'--could not identify Bryant and Milam as the men who took Till from his cabin. They noted that only Milam's flashlight had been in use that night, and no other lights in the house were turned on. Milam and Bryant had identified themselves to Wright the evening they took Till; Wright said he had only seen Milam clearly. Wright's testimony was considered remarkably courageous. It may have been the first time in the South that a black man had testified to the guilt of a white man in court'--and lived.[88]
- Journalist James Hicks, who worked for the black news wire service, the National Negro Publishers Association (later renamed the National Newspaper Publishers Association), was present in the courtroom; he was especially impressed that Wright stood to identify Milam, pointing to him and saying "There he is",[note 9] calling it a historic moment and one filled with "electricity".[89] A writer for the New York Post noted that following his identification, Wright sat "with a lurch which told better than anything else the cost in strength to him of the thing he had done".[90] A reporter who covered the trial for the New Orleans Times-Picayune said it was "the most dramatic thing I saw in my career".[91]
- Mamie Till Bradley testified that she had instructed her son to watch his manners in Mississippi and that should a situation ever come to his being asked to get on his knees to ask forgiveness of a white person, he should do it without a thought. The defense questioned her identification of her son in the casket in Chicago and a $400 life insurance policy she had taken out on him.[92]
- While the trial progressed, Leflore County Sheriff George Smith, Howard, and several reporters, both black and white, attempted to locate Collins and Loggins. They could not, but found three witnesses who had seen Collins and Loggins with Milam and Bryant on Leslie Milam's property. Two of them testified that they heard someone being beaten, blows, and cries.[92] One testified so quietly the judge ordered him several times to speak louder; he said he heard the victim call out: "Mama, Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy."[93] Judge Curtis Swango allowed Carolyn Bryant to testify, but not in front of the jury, after the prosecution objected that her testimony was irrelevant to Till's abduction and murder. It may have been leaked in any case to the jury. Sheriff Strider testified for the defense his theory that Till was alive, and that the body retrieved from the river was white. A doctor from Greenwood stated on the stand that the body was too decomposed to identify, and therefore had been in the water too long for it to be Till.[94]
- In the concluding statements, one prosecuting attorney said that what Till did was wrong, but that his action warranted a spanking, not murder. Gerald Chatham passionately called for justice and mocked the sheriff and doctor's statements that alluded to a conspiracy. Mamie Bradley indicated she was very impressed with his summation.[95] The defense stated that the prosecution's theory of the events the night Till was murdered was improbable, and said the jury's "forefathers would turn over in their graves" if they convicted Bryant and Milam. Only three outcomes were possible in Mississippi for capital murder: life imprisonment, the death penalty, or acquittal. On September 23 the all-white, all-male jury (both women and blacks had been banned)[96] acquitted both defendants after a 67-minute deliberation; one juror said, "If we hadn't stopped to drink pop, it wouldn't have taken that long."[97][98]
- In post-trial analyses, blame for the outcome varied. Mamie Till Bradley was criticized for not crying enough on the stand. The jury was noted to have been picked almost exclusively from the hill country section of Tallahatchie County, which, due to its poorer economic make-up, found whites and blacks competing for land and other agrarian opportunities. Unlike the population living closer to the river (and thus closer to Bryant and Milam in Leflore County), who possessed a noblesse oblige outlook toward blacks, according to historian Stephen Whitaker, those in the eastern part of the county were virulent in their racism. The prosecution was criticized for dismissing any potential juror who knew Milam or Bryant personally, for fear that such a juror would vote to acquit. Afterwards, Whitaker noted that this had been a mistake, as those who knew the defendants usually disliked them.[37][95] One juror voted twice to convict, but on the third discussion, voted with the rest of the jury to acquit.[99] In later interviews, the jurors acknowledged that they knew Bryant and Milam were guilty, but simply did not believe that life imprisonment or the death penalty were fit punishment for whites who had killed a black man.[100] However, two jurors said as late as 2005 that they believed the defense's case. They also said that the prosecution had not proved that Till had died, nor that it was his body that was removed from the river.[99]
- In November 1955, a grand jury declined to indict Bryant and Milam for kidnapping, despite their own admissions of having taken Till. Mose Wright and a young man named Willie Reed, who testified to seeing Milam enter the shed from which screams and blows were heard, both testified in front of the grand jury.[101] After the trial, T. R. M. Howard paid the costs of relocating to Chicago for Wright, Reed, and another black witness who testified against Milam and Bryant, in order to protect the three witnesses from reprisals for having testified.[95] Reed, who later changed his name to Willie Louis to avoid being found, continued to live in the Chicago area until his death on July 18, 2013. He avoided publicity and even kept his history secret from his wife until she was told by a relative. Reed began to speak publicly about the case in the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till, aired in 2003.[102]
- Media discourse Newspapers in major international cities and religious, and socialist publications reported outrage about the verdict and strong criticism of American society. Southern newspapers, particularly in Mississippi, wrote that the court system had done its job.[103] Till's story continued to make the news for weeks following the trial, sparking debate in newspapers, among the NAACP and various high-profile segregationists about justice for blacks and the propriety of Jim Crow society.[citation needed ]
- In October 1955, the Jackson Daily News reported facts about Till's father that had been suppressed by the U.S. military. While serving in Italy, Louis Till raped two women and killed a third. He was court-martialed and executed by hanging by the Army near Pisa in July 1945. Mamie Till Bradley and her family knew none of this, having been told only that Louis had been killed for "willful misconduct". Mississippi senators James Eastland and John C. Stennis probed Army records and revealed Louis Till's crimes. Although Emmett Till's murder trial was over, news about his father was carried on the front pages of Mississippi newspapers for weeks in October and November 1955. This renewed debate about Emmett Till's actions and Carolyn Bryant's integrity. Stephen Whitfield writes that the lack of attention paid to identifying or finding Till is "strange" compared to the amount of published discourse about his father.[104] According to historians Davis Houck and Matthew Grindy, "Louis Till became a most important rhetorical pawn in the high-stakes game of north versus south, black versus white, NAACP versus White Citizens' Councils".[11] In 2016, reviewing the facts of the rapes and murder for which Louis Till had been executed, John Edgar Wideman posited that, given the timing of the publicity about Emmett's father, although the defendants had already confessed to taking Emmett from his uncle's house, the post-murder trial grand jury refused to even indict them for kidnapping.[105][106]Wideman also presented evidence suggesting that the conviction and punishment of Louis Till may have been racially motivated.[107]
- If the facts as stated in the Look magazine account of the Till affair are correct, this remains: two adults, armed, in the dark, kidnap a fourteen-year-old boy and take him away to frighten him. Instead of which, the fourteen-year-old boy not only refuses to be frightened, but, unarmed, alone, in the dark, so frightens the two armed adults that they must destroy him ... What are we Mississippians afraid of?
- '--William Faulkner, "On Fear", 1956[108]
- Protected against double jeopardy, Bryant and Milam struck a deal with Look magazine in 1956 to tell their story to journalist William Bradford Huie for between $3,600 and $4,000. The interview took place in the law firm of the attorneys who had defended Bryant and Milam. Huie did not ask the questions; Bryant and Milam's own attorneys did. Neither attorney had heard their clients' accounts of the murder before. According to Huie, the older Milam was more articulate and sure of himself than the younger Bryant. Milam admitted to shooting Till and neither of them believed they were guilty or that they had done anything wrong.[109]
- Reaction to Huie's interview with Bryant and Milam was explosive. Their brazen admission that they had murdered Till caused prominent civil rights leaders to push the federal government harder to investigate the case. Till's murder contributed to congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957: it authorized the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene in local law enforcement issues when individual civil rights were being compromised.[37] Huie's interview, in which Milam and Bryant said they had acted alone, overshadowed inconsistencies in earlier versions of the stories. As a consequence, details about others who had possibly been involved in Till's abduction and murder, or the subsequent cover-up, were forgotten, according to historians David and Linda Beito.[110][note 10]
- Later events Till's murder increased fears in the local black community that they would be subjected to violence and the law would not protect them. According to Deloris Melton Gresham, whose father was killed a few months after Till, "At that time, they used to say that 'it's open season on n*****s.' Kill'em and get away with it."[111]
- After Bryant and Milam admitted to Huie that they had killed Till, the support base of the two men eroded in Mississippi.[112] Many of their former friends and supporters, including those who had contributed to their defense funds, cut them off. Blacks boycotted their shops, which went bankrupt and closed, and banks refused to grant them loans to plant crops.[37] After struggling to secure a loan and find someone who would rent to him, Milam managed to secure 217 acres (88 ha) and a $4,000 loan to plant cotton, but blacks refused to work for him. He was forced to pay whites higher wages.[113] Eventually, Milam and Bryant relocated to Texas, but their infamy followed them; they continued to generate animosity from locals. In 1961, while in Texas, when Bryant recognized the license plate of a Tallahatchie County resident, he called out a greeting and identified himself. The resident, upon hearing the name, drove away without speaking to Bryant.[114] After several years, they returned to Mississippi. Milam found work as a heavy equipment operator, but ill health forced him into retirement. Over the years, Milam was tried for offenses such as assault and battery, writing bad checks, and using a stolen credit card. He died of spinal cancer on December 30, 1980, at the age of 61.[113]
- Bryant worked as a welder while in Texas, until increasing blindness forced him to give up this employment. At some point, he and Carolyn divorced; he remarried in 1980. He opened a store in Ruleville, Mississippi. He was convicted in 1984 and 1988 of food stamp fraud. In a 1985 interview, he denied killing Till despite having admitted to it in 1956, but said: "if Emmett Till hadn't got out of line, it probably wouldn't have happened to him." Fearing economic boycotts and retaliation, Bryant lived a private life and refused to be photographed or reveal the exact location of his store, explaining: "this new generation is different and I don't want to worry about a bullet some dark night".[115] He died of cancer on September 1, 1994, at the age of 63.[116]
- Till's mother married Gene Mobley, became a teacher, and changed her surname to Till-Mobley. She continued to educate people about her son's murder. In 1992, Till-Mobley had the opportunity to listen while Bryant was interviewed about his involvement in Till's murder. With Bryant unaware that Till-Mobley was listening, he asserted that Till had ruined his life, expressed no remorse, and said: "Emmett Till is dead. I don't know why he can't just stay dead."[117]
- In 1996, documentary filmmaker Keith Beauchamp, who was greatly moved by Till's open-casket photograph,[81] started background research for a feature film he planned to make about Till's murder. He asserted that as many as 14 people may have been involved, including Carolyn Bryant Donham (who by this point had remarried). Mose Wright heard someone with "a lighter voice" affirm that Till was the one in his front yard immediately before Bryant and Milam drove away with the boy. Beauchamp spent the next nine years producing The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till, released in 2003.
- That same year, PBS aired an installment of American Experience titled The Murder of Emmett Till. In 2005, CBS journalist Ed Bradley aired a 60 Minutes report investigating the Till murder, part of which showed him tracking down Carolyn Bryant at her home in Greenville, Mississippi.[118]
- A 1991 book written by Stephen Whitfield, another by Christopher Metress in 2002, and Mamie Till-Mobley's memoirs the next year all posed questions as to who was involved in the murder and cover-up. Federal authorities in the 21st century worked to resolve the questions about the identity of the body pulled from the Tallahatchie River.[119]
- In 2004, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it was reopening the case to determine whether anyone other than Milam and Bryant was involved.[120] David T. Beito, a professor at the University of Alabama, states that Till's murder "has this mythic quality like the Kennedy assassination".[91] The DOJ had undertaken to investigate numerous cold cases dating to the civil rights movement, in the hope of finding new evidence in other murders as well.
- The body was exhumed, and the Cook County coroner conducted an autopsy in 2005. Using DNA from Till's relatives, dental comparisons to images taken of Till, and anthropological analysis, the exhumed body was positively identified as that of Till. It had extensive cranial damage, a broken left femur, and two broken wrists. Metallic fragments found in the skull were consistent with bullets being fired from a .45 caliber gun.[121]
- In February 2007, a Leflore County grand jury, composed primarily of black jurors and empaneled by Joyce Chiles, a black prosecutor, found no credible basis for Beauchamp's claim that 14 people took part in Till's abduction and murder. Beauchamp was angry with the finding. David Beito and Juan Williams, who worked on the reading materials for the Eyes on the Prize documentary, were critical of Beauchamp for trying to revise history and taking attention away from other cold cases.[122] The grand jury failed to find sufficient cause for charges against Carolyn Bryant Donham. Neither the FBI nor the grand jury found any credible evidence that Henry Lee Loggins, identified by Beauchamp as a suspect who could be charged, had any role in the crime. Other than Loggins, Beauchamp refused to name any of the people he alleged were involved.[91]
- Historical markers For 50 years nobody talked about Emmett Till. I think we just have to be resilient and know there are folks out there that don't want to know this history or who want to erase the history. We are just going to be resilient in continuing to put them back up and be truthful in making make sure that Emmett didn't die in vain.
- '--Patrick Weems, executive director of the Emmett Till Memorial Commission, speaking in October 2019 at the unveiling of a bullet proof historical marker (the previous three markers at the site having been shot up) near the Tallahatchie River.[123]
- The first highway marker remembering Emmett Till, erected in 2006, was defaced with "KKK", and then completely covered with black paint.[124]
- In 2007, eight markers were erected at sites associated with Till's lynching. The marker at the "River Spot" where Till's body was found was torn down in 2008, presumably thrown in the river. A replacement sign received more than 100 bullet holes over the next few years.[125] Another replacement was installed in June 2018, and in July it was vandalized by bullets. Three University of Mississippi students were suspended from their fraternity after posing in front of the bullet-riddled marker, with guns, and uploading the photo to Instagram.[126] As stated by Jerry Mitchell, "It is not clear whether the fraternity students shot the sign or are simply posing before it."[126] In 2019, a fourth sign was erected. It is made of steel, weighs 500 pounds (230 kg), is over 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick, and is said by its manufacturer to be indestructible.[127]
- Claim that Carolyn Bryant recanted her testimony In 2017, author Timothy Tyson released details of a 2008 interview with Carolyn Bryant. He claimed that during the interview she had disclosed that she had fabricated parts of her testimony at the trial.[128][40][129] Tyson said that during the interview, Bryant retracted her testimony that Till had grabbed her around her waist and uttered obscenities, saying "that part's not true".[130][131] The jury did not hear Bryant's testimony at the trial as the judge had ruled it inadmissible, but the court spectators heard. The defense wanted Bryant's testimony as evidence for a possible appeal in case of a conviction.[128][132] In the 2008 interview, the 72-year-old Bryant said she could not remember the rest of the events that occurred between her and Till in the grocery store.[128] She also said: "nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him".[131] Tyson said that Roy Bryant had been abusive toward Carolyn, and "it was clear she was frightened of her husband". Tyson believed Carolyn embellished her testimony under coercive circumstances. Bryant described Milam as "domineering and brutal and not a kind man".[131] An editorial in The New York Times said, regarding Bryant's admission that portions of her testimony were false: "This admission is a reminder of how black lives were sacrificed to white lies in places like Mississippi. It also raises anew the question of why no one was brought to justice in the most notorious racially motivated murder of the 20th century, despite an extensive investigation by the F.B.I."[133]
- The New York Times quoted Wheeler Parker, a cousin of Till's, who said: "I was hoping that one day she [Bryant] would admit it, so it matters to me that she did, and it gives me some satisfaction. It's important to people understanding how the word of a white person against a black person was law, and a lot of black people lost their lives because of it. It really speaks to history, it shows what black people went through in those days."[3]
- In a report to Congress in March 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice stated that it was reopening the investigation into Till's death due to new information.[134][135]
- However, the 'recanting' claim made by Tyson was not on his tape-recording of the interview. "It is true that that part is not on tape because I was setting up the tape recorder" Tyson said. Donham's daughter-in-law, Marsha Bryant, who was present for the two interviews, said her mother-in-law "never recanted." The support Tyson provided to back up his claim, was a handwritten note that he said had been made at the time.[136]
- In December 2021, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had closed its investigation in the case.[137][138]
- Influence on civil rights Somehow [Till's death and trial] struck a spark of indignation that ignited protests around the world ... It was the murder of this 14-year-old out-of-state visitor that touched off a world-wide clamor and cast the glare of a world spotlight on Mississippi's racism.
- Till's case attracted widespread attention because of the brutality of the lynching, the victim's young age, and the acquittal of the two men who later admitted killing him. It became emblematic of the injustices suffered by blacks in the South. In 1955 The Chicago Defender urged its readers to react to the acquittal by voting in large numbers; this was to counter the disenfranchisement since 1890 of most blacks in Mississippi by the white-dominated legislature; other southern states followed this model, excluding hundreds of thousands of citizens from politics.[140] Myrlie Evers, the widow of Medgar Evers, said in 1985 that Till's case resonated so strongly because it "shook the foundations of Mississippi'--both black and white, because ... with the white community ... it had become nationally publicized ... with us as blacks ... it said, even a child was not safe from racism and bigotry and death."[141]
- The NAACP asked Mamie Till Bradley to tour the country relating the events of her son's life, death, and the trial of his murderers. It was one of the most successful fundraising campaigns the NAACP had ever conducted.[142] Journalist Louis Lomax acknowledges Till's death to be the start of what he terms the "Negro revolt", and scholar Clenora Hudson-Weems characterizes Till as a "sacrificial lamb" for civil rights. NAACP operative Amzie Moore considers Till the start of the Civil Rights Movement, at the very least, in Mississippi.[143]
- The 1987 Eyes on the Prize, a 14-hour Emmy award-winning documentary, begins with the murder of Emmett Till. Accompanying written materials for the series, Eyes on the Prize and Voices of Freedom (for the second time period), exhaustively explore the major figures and events of the Civil Rights Movement. Stephen Whitaker states that, as a result of the attention Till's death and the trial received,
- Mississippi became in the eyes of the nation the epitome of racism and the citadel of white supremacy. From this time on, the slightest racial incident anywhere in the state was spotlighted and magnified. To the Negro race throughout the South and to some extent in other parts of the country, this verdict indicated an end to the system of 'noblesse oblige.' The faith in the white power structure waned rapidly. Negro faith in legalism declined, and the revolt officially began on December 1, 1955, with the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott.[37]
- In Montgomery, Rosa Parks attended a rally for Till, led by Martin Luther King Jr.[144] Soon after, she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus to a white passenger. The incident sparked a year-long well-organized grassroots boycott of the public bus system. The boycott was designed to force the city to change its segregation policies. Parks later said when she did not get up and move to the rear of the bus, "I thought of Emmett Till and I just couldn't go back."[145]
- According to author Clayborne Carson, Till's death and the widespread coverage of the students integrating Little Rock Central High School in 1957 were especially profound for younger blacks: "It was out of this festering discontent and an awareness of earlier isolated protests that the sit-ins of the 1960s were born."[146] After seeing pictures of Till's mutilated body, in Louisville, Kentucky, young Cassius Clay (later famed boxer Muhammad Ali) and a friend took out their frustration by vandalizing a local railyard, causing a locomotive engine to derail.[147][148]
- In 1963, Sunflower County resident and sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer was jailed and beaten for attempting to register to vote. The next year, she led a massive voter registration drive in the Delta region, and volunteers worked on Freedom Summer throughout the state. Before 1954, 265 black people were registered to vote in three Delta counties, where they were a majority of the population. At this time, blacks made up 41% of the total state population. The summer Emmett Till was killed, the number of registered voters in those three counties dropped to 90. By the end of 1955, fourteen Mississippi counties had no registered black voters.[149] The Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964 registered 63,000 black voters in a simplified process administered by the project; they formed their own political party because they were closed out of the Democratic Regulars in Mississippi.[150]
- Legacy and honors Emmett Till Memorial Highway, US 49E, Tutwiler, Mississippi, 2019
- A statue was unveiled in Denver in 1976 (and has since been moved to Pueblo, Colorado) featuring Till with Martin Luther King Jr.In 1984, a section of 71st Street in Chicago was named "Emmett Till Road" and in 2005, the 71st street bridge was named in his honor.[151]In 1989, Till was included among the forty names of people who had died in the Civil Rights Movement; they are listed as martyrs on the granite sculpture of the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.[152][153]A demonstration for Till was held in 2000 in Selma, Alabama, on the 35th anniversary of the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge. His mother Mamie Till-Mobley attended and later wrote in her memoirs: "I realized that Emmett had achieved the significant impact in death that he had been denied in life. Even so, I had never wanted Emmett to be a martyr. I only wanted him to be a good son. Although I realized all the great things that had been accomplished largely because of the sacrifices made by so many people, I found myself wishing that somehow we could have done it another way."[154]In 2005, James McCosh Elementary School in Chicago, where Till had been a student, was renamed the "Emmett Louis Till Math And Science Academy".[155]In 2006 the "Emmett Till Memorial Highway" was dedicated between Greenwood and Tutwiler, Mississippi; this was the route his body was taken to the train station, to be returned to his mother for burial in Chicago. It intersects with the H. C. "Clarence" Strider Memorial Highway.[156]In 2006 the Emmett Till Memorial Commission was established by the Tallahatchie Board of Supervisors[157]In 2007, the Emmett Till Memorial Commission issued a formal apology to Till's family at an event attended by 400 people. It readsWe the citizens of Tallahatchie County recognize that the Emmett Till case was a terrible miscarriage of justice. We state candidly and with deep regret the failure to effectively pursue justice. We wish to say to the family of Emmett Till that we are profoundly sorry for what was done in this community to your loved one.[158][157]
- The same year, Georgia congressman John Lewis sponsored a bill to provide a plan for investigating and prosecuting unsolved (cold case) Civil Rights-era murders. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act was signed into law in 2008.[159]In 2008 a memorial plaque that was erected in Tallahatchie County, next to the Tallahatchie River at Graball Landing where Till's body was retrieved, was stolen, and never recovered.[160] The plaque was a "frequent target for racist vandalism".[160] The location is in a remote area and down a gravel road, meaning that vandals had to go out of the way to get to it.[160] Its replacement was soon also shot up, as was the replacement sign after that.[161] In October 2019, a new bulletproof sign costing over $10,000, and weighing over 500 pounds (230 kg) was installed.[162][161] In November 2019, a group of white supremacists was caught making a propaganda video in front of the sign raising new concerns that more vandalism is being planned. The group was carrying a white flag with a black St. Andrews cross, a flag commonly used by a racist Neo-Confederate group called the League of the South. The group quickly scattered when they set off alarms designed to protect the sign.[163][164]The Tallahatchie County Courthouse in Sumner, site of the 1955 trial of Till's killers, was restored and re-opened in 2012. The Emmett Till Interpretive Center opened across the street and is also serving as a community center.[157]The Emmett Till Memorial Project is an associated website and smartphone app to commemorate Till's death and his life. It identifies 51 sites in the Mississippi Delta associated with him.[157] On August 29, 2015, the Center held a 60th anniversary event.[165][166]In 2015, Florida State University Libraries created the Emmett Till archives.[167][168]A 2018 film about the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine introduced a starship named after Till, the USS Emmett Till.[169]In 2020, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Roberts Temple Church of God in Christ, the site of Till's funeral, as one of America's most endangered historic places.[4]Casket The story of Emmett Till is one of the most important of the last half of the 20th century. And an important element was the casket ... It is an object that allows us to tell the story, to feel the pain and understand loss. I want people to feel like I did. I want people to feel the complexity of emotions.
- '--Lonnie Bunch III, director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture[170]
- During a renewed investigation of the crime in 2005, the Department of Justice exhumed Till's remains to conduct an autopsy and DNA analysis which confirmed the identification of his body. Till was reburied in a new casket later that year. In 2009, his original glass-topped casket was found, rusting in a dilapidated storage shed at the cemetery.[171] The casket was discolored and the interior fabric torn. It bore evidence that animals had been living in it, although its glass top was still intact. The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. acquired the casket a month later.[170]
- Representation in culture Langston Hughes dedicated an untitled poem (eventually to be known as "Mississippi'--1955") to Till in his October 1, 1955, column in The Chicago Defender. It was reprinted across the country and continued to be republished with various changes from different writers.[172] Author William Faulkner, a prominent white Mississippi native who often focused on racial issues, wrote two essays on Till: one before the trial in which he pleaded for American unity and one after, a piece titled "On Fear" that was published in Harper's in 1956. In it he questioned why the tenets of segregation were based on irrational reasoning.[108]
- Till's murder was the focus of a 1957 television episode for the U.S. Steel Hour titled "Noon on Doomsday" written by Rod Serling. He was fascinated by how quickly Mississippi whites supported Bryant and Milam. Although the script was rewritten to avoid mention of Till, and did not say that the murder victim was black, White Citizens' Councils vowed to boycott U.S. Steel. The eventual episode bore little resemblance to the Till case.[173]
- Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem titled "A Bronzeville Mother Loiters in Mississippi. Meanwhile, A Mississippi Mother Burns Bacon" (1960).[174] The same year Harper Lee published To Kill a Mockingbird, in which a white attorney is committed to defending a black man named Tom Robinson, accused of raping a white woman. Lee, whose novel had a profound effect on civil rights, never commented on why she wrote about Robinson. Literature professor Patrick Chura noted several similarities between Till's case and that of Robinson.[175] Writer James Baldwin loosely based his 1964 drama Blues for Mister Charlie on the Till case. He later divulged that Till's murder had been bothering him for several years.[176]
- Anne Moody mentioned the Till case in her autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, in which she states she first learned to hate during the fall of 1955.[177][178] Audre Lorde's poem "Afterimages" (1981) focuses on the perspective of a black woman thinking of Carolyn Bryant 24 years after the murder and trial. Bebe Moore Campbell's 1992 novel Your Blues Ain't Like Mine centers on the events of Till's death. Toni Morrison mentions Till's death in the novel Song of Solomon (1977) and later wrote the play Dreaming Emmett (1986), which follows Till's life and the aftermath of his death.[179] The play is a feminist look at the roles of men and women in black society, which she was inspired to write while considering "time through the eyes of one person who could come back to life and seek vengeance".[180] Emmylou Harris includes a song called "My Name is Emmett Till" on her 2011 album, Hard Bargain. According to scholar Christopher Metress, Till is often reconfigured in literature as a specter that haunts the white people of Mississippi, causing them to question their involvement in evil, or silence about injustice.[176] The 2002 book Mississippi Trials, 1955 is a fictionalized account of Till's death. The 2015 song by Janelle Mone "Hell You Talmbout" invokes the names of African-American people '' including Emmett Till '' who died as a result of encounters with law enforcement or racial violence. In 2016 artist Dana Schutz painted Open Casket, a work based on photographs of Till in his coffin as well as on an account by Till's mother of seeing him after his death.[181]
- Documentaries The Murder and the Movement: The Story of the Murder of Emmett Till (1985) by Rich Samuel and produced by Anna Vasser (originally aired on WMAQ-TV in Chicago)[182]The Murder of Emmett Till which aired during Season 15 of the TV series American Experience: website links to program transcript and additional materials for the PBS film[183]The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (2005) by Keith Beauchamp[184]Eyes on the Prize: Transcript of 2006 PBS documentary[185] Books, plays, and other works inspired by Till This section includes creative works inspired by Till. For non-fiction books on Till, see Bibliography, below.
- Songs "The Death of Emmett Till", (1955) written by A. C. Bilbrew, recorded by The Ramparts with Scatman Crothers[186]"The Ballad of Emmett Till" (1956), recorded by Red River Dave (David McEnery), in the TNT label's True Story Series[187]"My Name is Emmett Till", (2013) from Hard Bargain, the twenty-sixth studio album by Emmylou Harris."Too Many Martyrs" (1964) by Phil Ochs, mentions and eulogizes Till[188]"The Death of Emmett Till" (1962), also known as "The Ballad of Emmett Till", by Bob Dylan"Emmett's Ghost" written and recorded by American blues singer Eric Bibb.[189]Other Poem: "Emmett Till" (1991) by James EmanuelWolf Whistle (1993) by Lewis Nordan[190]Juvenile fiction: Mississippi Trial, 1955 (2003) by Chris Crowe[191]Drama: The State of Mississippi and the Face of Emmett Till (2005) by David BarrPoem: "A Wreath for Emmett Till" (2005) by Marilyn NelsonThe Sacred Place (2007) by Daniel Black[192]Musical: The Ballad of Emmett Till (2008) by Ifa Bayeza[193]Drama: Anne and Emmett (2009) by Janet Langhart. An imaginary conversation between Till and Anne Frank, both killed as young teenagers because of racial persecution, the play features recorded narration by Morgan Freeman.[194]Gathering of Waters (2012) by Bernice L. McFadden[195]Painting: Emmett Till: How She Sent Him and How She Got Him Back (2012) by Lisa Whittington, on display at the Mississippi Civil Rights MuseumFilm: Ava DuVernay was commissioned by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture to create a film which debuted at the museum's opening on September 24, 2016. This film, August 28: A Day in the Life of a People (2016), tells of six significant events in African-American history that happened on the same date, August 28. Events depicted include (among others) Till's lynching.[196]Film: My Nephew Emmett dramatizes Till's uncle Mose Wright waiting for Till's killers. The film was nominated for the Oscar for best live action short, 2018.[197]Television series: HBO's science-fiction horror series Lovecraft Country features a version of Till, portrayed by Rhyan Hill, as a recurring character who appears in 2 episodes. The episode "Jig-A-Bobo" recreates Till's funeral in Chicago.[198]Gallery Glendora Gin history sign. Here Milam and Bryant got the fan they used to weigh down Till's body.
- Sign identifying the site of Milam's house, near Glendora Gin.
- Clinton Melton was the victim of a racially motivated killing a few months after Till. Despite eyewitness testimony, his killer, a friend of Milam's, was acquitted by an all-white jury at the same courthouse.[111]
- The reconstructed Ben Roy Service Station that stood next to the grocery store where Till encountered Bryant in Money, Mississippi,[200] 2019
- Bryant's Grocery (2018). By 2018, the store was described as "not much left" and given owner's demands, no preservation occurred.[201]
- See also 1920 Duluth lynchingsIsaac WoodardLouis AllenOssian SweetScottsboro BoysNotes ^ Accounts are unclear; Till had just completed the seventh grade at the all-black McCosh Elementary School in Chicago (Whitfield, p. 17). ^ During trial, Carolyn Bryant's testimony was taken outside the presence of the jury and ruled inadmissible. ("Emmett Till: US reopens investigation into killing, citing new information". The Guardian. Associated Press. Event occurs at July 12, 2018. ) ^ Notes later obtained from the defense give a different story, with Bryant earlier claiming she was "insulted" but not mentioning him touching her. (Mitchell, Jerry (September 4, 2017). "Emmett Till eyewitness dies; saw 1955 abduction of his cousin". Chicago Sun-Times. USA Today . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ) ^ Some recollections of this part of the story relate that news of the incident traveled in both black and white communities very quickly. Others say that Carolyn Bryant refused to tell her husband about it. Till's oldest cousin Maurice Wright, perhaps put off by Till's bragging and clothes, told Roy Bryant at his store about Till's interaction with Bryant's wife. (Whitfield, p. 19.) ^ Several major inconsistencies between what Bryant and Milam told interviewer William Bradford Huie and what they had told others were noted by the FBI in 2006. The pair of men told Huie they were sober, yet reported years later they had been drinking. In the interview, they said they had driven what would have been 164 miles (264 km) looking for a place to dispose of Till's body, to the cotton gin to obtain the fan, and back again, which the FBI noted would be impossible in the time they were witnessed having returned. Several witnesses recalled that they saw Bryant, Milam, and two or more black men with Till's beaten body in the back of the pickup truck in Glendora, yet they did not tell Huie they were in Glendora. (FBI, [2006], pp. 86''96.) ^ Many years later, there were allegations that Till had been castrated. (Mitchell, 2007) John Cothran, the deputy sheriff who was at the scene where Till was removed from the river testified, however, that apart from the decomposition typical of a body being submerged in water, his genitals had been intact. (FBI [2006]: Appendix Court transcript, p. 176.) Mamie Till-Mobley also confirmed this in her memoirs. (Till-Bradley and Benson, p. 135.) ^ When Jet publisher John H. Johnson died in 2005, people who remembered his career considered his decision to publish Till's open-casket photograph his greatest moment. Michigan congressman Charles Diggs recalled that for the emotion the image stimulated, it was "probably one of the greatest media products in the last 40 or 50 years". (Dewan, 2005) ^ Following the trial, Strider told a television reporter that should anyone who had sent him hate mail arrive in Mississippi, "the same thing's gonna happen to them that happened to Emmett Till". (Whitfield, p. 44.) ^ The trial transcript says "There he is", although witnesses recall variations of "Dar he", "Thar he", or "Thar's the one". Wright's family protested that Mose Wright was made to sound illiterate by newspaper accounts and insist he said "There he is." (Mitchell, 2007) ^ A month after Huie's article appeared in Look, T. R. M. Howard worked with Olive Arnold Adams of The New York Age to publish a version of the events that agreed more with the testimony at the trial and what Howard had been told by Frank Young. It appeared as a booklet titled Time Bomb: Mississippi Exposed and the Full Story of Emmett Till. Howard also acted as a source for an as-yet unidentified reporter using the pseudonym Amos Dixon in the California Eagle. Dixon wrote a series of articles implicating three black men, and Leslie Milam, whom he reported had participated in Till's murder in some way. Time Bomb and Dixon's articles had no lasting effect in the shaping of public opinion. Huie's article in the far more widely circulated Look became the most commonly accepted version of events. (Beito and Beito, pp. 150''151.) References ^ Thompson, Wright (July 22, 2021). "His name was Emmett Till". The Atlantic . Retrieved July 24, 2021 . ^ Brown, DeNeen L. (July 12, 2018). "Emmett Till's mother opened his casket and sparked the civil rights movement". The Washington Post . Retrieved February 26, 2020 . ^ a b P(C)rez-Pe±a, Richard (January 27, 2017). "Woman Linked to 1955 Emmett Till Murder Tells Historian Her Claims Were False". The New York Times . Retrieved February 17, 2017 . ^ a b Brandon, Elissaveta M. "Eleven historic places in America that desperately need saving". Smithsonian . Retrieved October 20, 2020 . ^ Jr, Deborah Gray White, Mia Bay, Waldo E. Martin (2013). Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's. p. 637. ISBN 978-0-312-64884-8. ^ Whitfield, p. 15. ^ a b Beito and Beito, p. 116. ^ Whitaker (1963), p. 19. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 14''16. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, p. 17. ^ a b Houck and Grindy, pp. 134''135. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 36''38. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 56''58. ^ Vivanco, Leonor (November 13, 2017). "Group pushes landmark status for Emmett Till's Woodlawn home, nearby school". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved January 30, 2018 . ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 59''60. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 70''87. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), p. 6. ^ Hampton, p. 2. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 98''101. ^ Whitfield, p. 5. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 2''10. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 61''82. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), p. 18. ^ a b Hampton, p. 3. ^ a b c d FBI (2006), p. 44. ^ a b Benson, Christopher (December 18, 2009). "Eyewitness Account: Emmett Till's cousin Simeon Wright seeks to set the record straight". Chicago magazine . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ^ Kim, Michelle (April 27, 2015). "Emmett Till's cousin gives eyewitness account of relative's death, says little has changed". The Daily Northwestern . Retrieved June 25, 2017 . ^ "FBI Records: The Vault". U.S. Government, U.S. Department of Justice, page 44 . Retrieved June 7, 2017 . ^ Timeline: The Murder of Emmett Till, PBS.org, accessed January 27, 2014. ^ Wright, pp. 50''51. ^ Metress, p. 20. ^ Whitfield, p. 18. ^ a b Jones, Chris (May 4, 2008). "Ballad of Emmett Till' comes to stage at a momentous time". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved June 21, 2017 . Emmett, she said, had a speech impediment. She'd taught him to whistle softly to himself before pronouncing his words, in order to help with his articulation. He'd been ordering bubble gum in the store. Till-Mobley was convinced he'd merely been trying to do so with clarity. ^ Hales, Dianne (2011). Of War and Men: World War II in the Lives of Fathers and Their Families. University of Chicago Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-226-47002-3 . Retrieved June 21, 2017 . Some claimed that Till had made 'indecent advances' and wolf-whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, whose family owned the store. Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, however, rejected this assertion, saying that her son sometimes whistled when he got stuck pronouncing a word (she gave, as an example, bubblegum.) ^ a b c d e f g Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), p. 40. ^ a b c d Huie, William Bradford (January 1956). "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi". Look Magazine. Archived from the original on April 22, 2020 . Retrieved June 4, 2020 . ^ a b c d e f g h i Whitaker, Stephen (Summer 2005). "A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Murder and Trial of Emmett Till", (PDF) Rhetoric & Public Affairs 8 (2), pp. 189''224. ^ Blakemore, Erin (February 3, 2017). "What the Director of the African American History Museum Says About the New Emmett Till Revelations". smithsonianmag.com . Retrieved February 6, 2017 . ^ services, Tribune news. "Emmett Till accuser admits to giving false testimony at murder trial: book". chicagotribune.com . Retrieved February 6, 2017 . ^ a b Tyson, Timothy B. (2017). The Blood of Emmett Till. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-4767-1486-8. Carolyn Bryant Donham, interview with the author, Raleigh, NC, September 8, 2008. ^ Phillips, Kristine (July 12, 2018). "New details in book about Emmett Till's death prompted officials to reopen investigation". The Washington Post . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ^ Weller, Shelia (January 26, 2017). "How Author Timothy Tyson Found the Woman at the Center of the Emmett Till Case". Vanity Fair . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ^ Carroll, Rory (January 27, 2017). "Woman at center of Emmett Till case tells author she fabricated testimony". The Guardian . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ^ Mitchell, Jerry (August 21, 2018). "Bombshell quote missing from Emmett Till tape. So did Carolyn Bryant Donham really recant?". Mississippi Clarion Ledger. ^ a b c d Linder, Douglas (2012). "The Emmett Till Murder Trial: An Account". University of Missouri-Kansas City . Retrieved January 28, 2014 . ^ Anderson, Devery (August 29, 2018). " ' She lied. He died.' Not so fast, says Emmett Till expert" . Retrieved September 19, 2020 . ^ Hampton, pp. 3''4. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), p. 46. ^ "Full Interview with Timothy Tyson, Author of The Blood of Emmett Till" (Matter of Fact TV). February 11, 2017: 8:40 . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ^ Mitchell, Jerry (February 6, 2017). "Could lies about Emmett Till lead to prosecution?". Clarion Ledger . Retrieved July 13, 2018 . ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), pp. 47''49. ^ "Emmett Till". FBI Records: The Vault. pg 51''56 . Retrieved July 14, 2018 . ^ Nix, Naomi (July 24, 2013). "Willie Louis dies at 76; witness to 1955 murder of Emmett Till" . Retrieved February 6, 2017 '' via Los Angeles Times. ^ Barry, Ellen (May 18, 2004). "Counting on Time to Break a Silence". Archived from the original on September 3, 2015 '' via Los Angeles Times. ^ Barry, Ellen (August 19, 2005). "Son thinks dad needs to clear conscience in Till case". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved February 6, 2017 . ^ "Black Bayou Bridge, Glendora '' Emmett Till Memory Project". tillmemoryproject.com. Archived from the original on February 3, 2017 . Retrieved February 6, 2017 . ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), pp. 55''57. ^ Hampton, p. 4. ^ Whitfield, p. 21. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), p. 68. ^ a b Hampton, p. 6. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), pp. 69''79. ^ Houck and Grindy, p. 6. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 19''21. ^ Hampton, p. 5. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), pp. 80''81. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 118. ^ Whitfield, pp. 23''26. ^ Metress, pp. 16''20. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 22''24. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, p. 132. ^ Whitfield, p. 23. ^ "Emmett Till". TIME 100 Photos: The Most Influential Images of All Time . Retrieved June 25, 2017 . ^ Nodjimbadem, Katie (September 2, 2015). "Emmett Till's Open Casket Funeral Reignited the Civil Rights Movement". Smithsonian . Retrieved July 14, 2018 . ^ Houck and Grindy, p. 29. ^ Houck and Grindy, pp. 31''37. ^ a b Whitfield, pp. 28''30. ^ Whitaker (1963), pp. 21''22. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 119. ^ Whitfield, p. 34. ^ a b Dewan, Shaila (August 28, 2005). "How Photos Became Icon of Civil Rights Movement". The New York Times . Retrieved October 5, 2010 . ^ Beito and Beito, pp. 121''122. ^ Whitfield, p. 38. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 122. ^ Hampton, pp. 10''11. ^ Whitfield, image spread p. 6. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, image spread p. 12. ^ "Brave Testimony". WBGH American Experience. PBS . Retrieved November 8, 2021 . ^ Hampton, p. 11. ^ Whitfield, p. 39. ^ a b c Mitchell, Jerry (February 19, 2007). "Re-examining Emmett Till case could help separate fact, fiction". USA Today . Retrieved October 1, 2010 . (Originally published in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.) ^ a b Beito and Beito, pp. 124''126. ^ Whitfield, p. 40. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 126. ^ a b c Beito and Beito, p. 127. ^ "Timeline: The Murder of Emmett Till". American Experience. PBS . Retrieved November 8, 2021 . ^ Whitfield, pp. 41''42. ^ Note: Blacks were generally excluded from juries because they were disenfranchised; jurors were drawn only from registered voters. ^ a b Rubin, Richard (July 21, 2005). "The Ghosts of Emmett Till". The New York Times Magazine . Retrieved October 3, 2010 . ^ Beito and Beito, p. 128. ^ Whitfield, pp. 48''49. ^ Fox, Margalit. "Willie Louis, Who Named the Killers of Emmett Till at Their Trial, Dies at 76". The New York Times . Retrieved July 24, 2013 . ^ Whitfield, pp. 46''47. ^ Whitfield, p. 117. ^ McGowan, Amanda (November 16, 2016). "The Brutal Murder Of Emmett Till Has Been Burned Into History. But What About The Fate Of His Father?". News-WGBH . Retrieved July 14, 2018 . ^ Buckly, Gail Lumet (December 14, 2016). "The Eerie Tragedy of Emmett Till's Father, Told by John Edgar Wideman". The New York Times . Retrieved July 15, 2018 . ^ Wideman, John (October 19, 2016). "A Black and White Case". Esquire. Esquire . Retrieved June 6, 2017 . ^ a b Whitfield, p. 68. ^ Whitfield, p. 52. ^ Beito and Beito, pp. 150''151. ^ a b "Clinton Melton: A Man Who Was Killed In Mississippi Just 3 Months After Emmett Till". NPR. August 27, 2020 . Retrieved August 28, 2020 . ^ Hampton, pp. 13''14. ^ a b Anderson, Devery (February 27, 2014). "Widow of Emmett Till killer dies quietly, notoriously". USA Today. ^ Whitaker, 2005 ^ Atiks, Joe. (August 25, 1985). "Emmett Till: More Than A Murder." The Clarion-Ledger. Reproduced July 2, 2011, at "US Slave" blog. Retrieved July 16, 2013. ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), pp. 24''26. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, p. 261. ^ Bradley, Ed (2005). " 60 Minutes Story on Emmett Till Targets Carolyn Bryant". George Mason University's History News Network. Archived from the original on January 2, 2013 . Retrieved December 22, 2012 . ^ Segall, Rebecca; Holmberg, David (February 3, 2003). "Who Killed Emmett Till?". The Nation. 276 (4). pp. 37''40. ^ U.S. Department of Justice (May 10, 2004). "Justice Department to Investigate 1955 Emmett Till Murder". Press release . Retrieved October 5, 2010 . ^ Federal Bureau of Investigation (2006), pp. 99''109. ^ Breed, Allen (March 3, 2007). "End of Till case draws mixed response". The Boston Globe. Associated Press . Retrieved October 6, 2010 . ^ "Emmett Till: new memorial to murdered teen is bulletproof". The Guardian . Retrieved November 1, 2019 . ^ Haag, Matthew (August 6, 2018). "Emmett Till Sign Is Hit With Bullets Again, 35 Days After Being Replaced". The New York Times. ^ Andreas Preuss (October 22, 2016). "Emmett Till memorial sign scarred by bullet holes". CNN . Retrieved October 23, 2016 . ^ a b Mitchell, Jerry (July 25, 2019). "University of Mississippi Students Face Possible Civil Rights Investigation After Posing With Guns in Front of Emmett Till Memorial". ProPublica . Retrieved July 25, 2019 . ^ Ortiz, Aimee (October 20, 2019). "Emmett Till Memorial Has a New Sign. This Time, It's Bulletproof". The New York Times. ^ a b c Weller, Sheila (January 26, 2017). "How Author Timothy Tyson Found the Woman at the Center of the Emmett Till Case". Vanity Fair. ^ P(C)rez-Pe±ajan, Richard (January 27, 2017). "Woman Linked to 1955 Emmett Till Murder Tells Historian Her Claims Were False". The New York Times . Retrieved October 23, 2017 . ^ "Full Interview with Timothy Tyson, Author of The Blood of Emmett Till". Matter of Fact TV: 3:10. February 11, 2017 . Retrieved July 14, 2018 . ^ a b c "Historian Recalls Moment Emmett Till's Accuser Admitted She Lied". CBS News. January 31, 2017. ^ Mitchell, Jerry (July 12, 2018). "Emmett Till case reinvestigated, but what does that really mean?". Clarion Ledger . Retrieved July 14, 2018 . ^ The Editorial Board (February 6, 2017). "Black Lives, White Lies and Emmett Till". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved February 7, 2017 . ^ "Emmett Till: US reopens investigation into killing, citing new information". The Guardian. Associated Press. Event occurs at July 12, 2018. ^ Reeves, Jay (July 12, 2018). "Government probing "new information" in Emmett Till slaying". Associated Press. Archived from the original on July 12, 2018 . Retrieved July 12, 2018 . ^ Mitchell, Jerry (August 21, 2018). "NEWS Bombshell quote missing from Emmett Till tape. So did Carolyn Bryant Donham really recant?". Mississippi Clarion Ledger. ^ Laura, Jarrett (December 6, 2021). "Justice Department closes investigation into Emmett Till killing". CNN . Retrieved December 6, 2021 . ^ "Federal Officials Close Cold Case Re-Investigation of Murder of Emmett Till". U.S. Department of Justice (Press release). December 6, 2021 . Retrieved December 6, 2021 . ^ a b Whitfield, p. 60. ^ Carson, et al, pp. 39''40. ^ "Interview with Myrlie Evers". Blackside, Inc. November 27, 1985. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 191''196. ^ Beito and Beito, p. 130. ^ "Who, what, why: Who was Emmett Till?". BBC News. July 23, 2013 . Retrieved June 26, 2017 . ^ Houck and Grindy, p. x. ^ Carson, et al, p. 107. ^ Hampton, p. 321. ^ Gorn, pp. 76''77. ^ Whitfield, p. 62. ^ Carson, et al, pp. 177''178. ^ Francisco, Jamie (August 29, 2005). "Need to heal marks brutal anniversary". Chicago Tribune . Retrieved January 30, 2018 . ^ Civil Rights Memorial, Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved on October 12, 2010. ^ Ap (November 4, 1989). "The 40 Who Fell in the Turbulence Of the U.S. Battles for Civil Rights". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved May 2, 2021 '' via NYTimes.com. ^ Till-Mobley and Benson, pp. 259''260, 268. ^ Lynch, La Risa R. (March 1, 2006). "South Side School Named for Emmett Till". Chicago Citizen. Archived from the original on May 18, 2013. ^ Houck and Grindy, p. 4. ^ a b c d Emmett Till Interpretive Center, official website ^ Resolution Presented to Emmett Till's Family, Emmett Till Memorial Committee -Tallahatchie County (October 2, 2007). Retrieved on October 6, 2010. ^ H.R. 923: Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007, govtrack.us (2007''2008). Retrieved on September 8, 2009. ^ a b c Epstein, Kayla (October 19, 2019). "This Emmett Till memorial was vandalized again. And again. And again. Now, it's bulletproof". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 21, 2019 . Retrieved October 20, 2019 . ^ a b Levenson, Eric (October 19, 2019). "Emmett Till memorial sign in Mississippi is now protected by bulletproof glass". CNN. Nicole Chavez, Martin Savidge and Devon M. Sayers . Retrieved October 20, 2019 . ^ Ortiz, Aimee (October 20, 2019). "Emmett Till Memorial Has a New Sign. This Time, It's Bulletproof". The New York Times . Retrieved November 3, 2019 . ^ Pitton, Ashton (November 2, 2019). "White Supremacists Caught at Emmett Till Memorial Making Propaganda Film". Jackson Free Press . Retrieved November 3, 2019 . ^ Madani, Doha (November 3, 2019). "White nationalists caught trying to record video in front of Emmett Till memorial". NBC News . Retrieved November 3, 2019 . ^ Miller, Maya (August 26, 2015). "Till Interpretive Center Seeks to Rewrite Civil Rights Narrative". Jackson Free Press. ^ Chavez, Nicole; Savidge, Martin; Sayers, Devon M. (July 27, 2019). "The Emmett Till memorial where the frat students posed is gone. A bulletproof sign will replace it soon". CNN . Retrieved July 28, 2019 . ^ Weeks, Linton (August 24, 2015). "The Creation Of An Emmett Till Archive". NPR.org . Retrieved October 2, 2017 . ^ "LibGuides: Emmett Till Archives: Home". guides.lib.fsu.edu . Retrieved July 15, 2018 . ^ Whalen, Andrew (October 22, 2018). " ' Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' Season 8 Starship Possible Glimpse at Future of the Enterprise: Could Picard Pilot Something Like the USS Emmett Till?". Newsweek . Retrieved October 24, 2018 . ^ a b Trescott, Jacqueline (August 27, 2009). "Emmett Till's Casket Donated to the Smithsonian", The Washington Post. Retrieved on October 6, 2010. ^ "Authorities discover original casket of Emmett Till". CNN. July 10, 2009. Archived from the original on September 13, 2009. ^ Metress, Christopher (Spring 2003). "Langston Hughes's 'Mississippi-1955': A Note on Revisions and an Appeal for Reconsideration", African American Review, 37 (1), pp. 139''148. ^ Whitfield, pp. 83''84. ^ "Illinois Poet Laureate". www.illinois.gov. Archived from the original on September 7, 2017 . Retrieved June 26, 2017 . ^ Chura, Patrick (Spring 2000). "Prolepsis and Anachronism: Emmett Till and the Historicity of To Kill a Mockingbird", Southern Literary Journal, 32 (2), pp. 1''26. ^ a b Metress, Christopher (Spring 2003). "No Justice, No Peace": The Figure of Emmett Till in African American Literature" MELUS, 28 (1), pp. 87''103. ^ Carson, et al, pp. 41''43. ^ Wheeler, Leigh Ann (October 6, 2018). " ' Coming of Age in Mississippi' still speaks to nation's racial discord, 50 years later". Tulsa World. ^ Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. pp. 80''82. ^ Whitfield, pp. 119''120. ^ Smith, Roberta (March 27, 2017). "Should Art That Infuriates Be Removed?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved March 28, 2017 . ^ " " The Murder and the Movement": The Emmett Tilll Story". ^ "The Murder of Emmett Till | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. ^ Documentary website (October 15, 2019) ^ "Awakenings (1954-1956)" (PDF) . PBS.org . Retrieved September 28, 2021 . ^ "Ballad of Emmett Till Released by Record Firm". The Carolina Times. December 31, 1955. p. 1 . Retrieved April 19, 2019 '' via North Carolina Newspapers. ^ "Red River Dave - The Ballad Of Emmitt Till" '' via www.45cat.com. ^ Watson, Bruce (June 10, 2010). Freedom Summer: The Savage Season of 1964 That Made Mississippi Burn and Made America a Democracy. Penguin. ISBN 9781101190180 '' via Google Books. ^ Owen, Matt (July 23, 2021). "Eric Bibb pays tribute to Emmett Till in stripped-back new single, Emmett's Ghost". Guitar World. Guitar World . Retrieved July 23, 2021 . ^ "Wolf Whistle". Publishers Weekly . Retrieved September 7, 2020 . ^ "Mississippi Trial, 1955 by Chris Crowe". PenguinRandomhouse.com. ^ "THE SACRED PLACE by Daniel Black" '' via www.kirkusreviews.com. ^ Oxman, Steven (May 6, 2008). "The Ballad of Emmett Till". Variety . Retrieved February 2, 2018 . ^ Courtland Milloy (June 14, 2009). "Courtland Milloy on the Debut of 'Anne and Emmett ' ". The Washington Post . Retrieved July 28, 2011 . (subscription required) - Diana Furchtgott-Roth. "Education policies fail brilliant young multi-instrumentalist". San Francisco Examiner. Archived from the original on June 5, 2012 . Retrieved July 28, 2011 . ^ Gathering of Waters '' via www.akashicbooks.com. ^ Davis, Rachaell (September 22, 2016). "Why Is August 28 So Special To Black People? Ava DuVernay Reveals All In New NMAAHC Film". Essence. ^ Taylor, Ella (February 12, 2018). "Reviewed: This Year's 5 Oscar-Nominated Live-Action Short Films". NPR . Retrieved February 12, 2018 . ^ Specter, Emma (August 31, 2020). "Lovecraft Country's Latest Episode Featured a Brief, Heartbreaking Reference to Emmett Till". Vogue . Retrieved October 12, 2020 . ^ "Welcome to The Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center (E.T.H.I.C. Museum)". Emmett Till Historic Intrepid Center . Retrieved August 30, 2019 . ^ "Gas Station Will Be Restored In Memory Of Emmett Till". WOL News. August 1, 2011 . Retrieved August 30, 2019 . ^ Mitchell, Jerry (August 29, 2018). " ' They just want history to die:' Owners demand $4 million for crumbling Emmett Till store". The Clarion Ledger . Retrieved August 30, 2019 . Bibliography Tyson, Timothy B. (2017). The Blood of Emmett Till. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4767-1484-4. OCLC 949922865. Anderson, Devery S. (2015). Emmett Till: The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-4968-0285-9. OCLC 904801152. Wright, Simeon; Boyd, Herb (2010). Simeon's Story: An Eyewitness Account of the Kidnapping of Emmett Till. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books. ISBN 978-1-55652-783-8. OCLC 558536178. Beito, David; Beito, Linda (2009). Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252034206. OCLC 244246562. Houck, Davis; Grindy, Matthew (2008). Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781604733044. OCLC 317329290. Kolin, Philip C. (Summer 2008). "The Legacy of Emmett Till". Southern Quarterly. 45 (4): 6''8. Federal Bureau of Investigation (February 9, 2006). Prosecutive Report of Investigation Concerning (Emmett Till) Part 1 & Part 2 (PDF). Retrieved October 2011.Whitten, Ellen (2005). "Revisiting the Murder of Emmett Till". William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation . Retrieved October 15, 2019 . Till-Mobley, Mamie; Benson, Chris (2003). Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America. New York: Random House. ISBN 1-4000-6117-2. OCLC 52208468. Metress, Christopher (2002). The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-2122-8. OCLC 49225218. Gorn, Elliott (1998). Muhammad Ali, The People's Champ. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06721-1. OCLC 32014469. Whitfield, Stephen (1991). A Death in the Delta: The story of Emmett Till. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-4326-6. OCLC 23941005. Carson, Clayborne; Garrow, David; Gill, Gerald; Harding, Vincent; Hine, Darlene Clark, eds. (1991). Eyes on the Prize: Civil Rights Reader Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle 1954''1990. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-84217-9. OCLC 23767205. Hampton, Henry (1990). Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York: Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-05734-8. OCLC 20628084. Whitaker, Hugh Stephen (1963). A Case Study in Southern Justice: The Emmett Till Case (MA). Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University . Retrieved October 15, 2019 . Further reading Burch, Audra D. S.; Shastri, Veda; Chaffee, Tim (February 20, 2019). "Emmett Till's Murder, and How America Remembers Its Darkest Moments". The New York Times. Shastri, Veda; Burch, Audra D. S.; Chaffee, Tim; Fineman, Nicole (February 21, 2019). "Remembering Emmett Till: The Legacy of a Lynching". The New York Times. Shastri, Veda (February 22, 2019). "A Grocery, a Barn, a Bridge: Returning to the Scenes of a Hate Crime". The New York Times. Houck, Davis W. (Summer 2005). "Killing Emmett". Rhetoric & Public Affairs. 8 (2): 225''262. doi:10.1353/rap.2005.0078. S2CID 201795757 '' via Project MUSE. Huie, William Bradford (January 1956). "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi". Look . Retrieved February 25, 2019 . Huie, William Bradford (January 1957). "What's Happened to the Emmett Till Killers?". Look. Archived from the original on May 16, 2017 . Retrieved February 25, 2019 . Emmett Till at CurlieThe original 1955 Jet magazine with Emmett Till's murder story pp. 6''9, and Emmett Till's Legacy 50 Years Later" in Jet, 2005.NPR pieces on the Emmett Till murderDevery S. Anderson, "A Wallet, a White Woman, and a Whistle: Fact and Fiction in Emmett Till's Encounter in Money, Mississippi" (PDF) The Southern Quarterly (July 2008)Booknotes interview with Christopher Benson on Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America, April 25, 2004.Testimony of Carolyn Bryant at trial of Roy Bryant and J. W. MilamExternal links Media related to Emmett Till at Wikimedia Commons
- Emmett Till Archives Florida State UniversityDocuments regarding the Emmett Till Case Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential LibraryVideo interview with Mamie Till-Mobley Emmett Till's mother"Emmett Till Murder", Civil Rights Digital Library.Treading the Tightrope of Jim Crow: Emmett Till. The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks.2006 FBI investigation and transcript of 1955 trial (464 pages)Emmett Till Interpretative CenterEmmett Till Historic Intrepid CenterMamie Till Mobley Memorial FoundationMultiple victims
- Death of Joseph Smith (Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith) (1844)Marais des Cygnes, KS, massacre (1858)Great Hanging at Gainesville, TX (1862)New York City draft riots (1863)Detroit race riot (1863)? Lachenais and four others (1863)Fort Pillow, TN, massacre (1864)Plummer Gang (1864)Memphis massacre (1866)Gallatin County, KY, race riot (1866)New Orleans massacre of 1866Reno Brothers Gang (1868)Camilla, GA, massacre (1868)Steve Long and two half-brothers (1868)Pulaski, TN, riot (1868)Samuel Bierfield and Lawrence Bowman (1868)Opelousas, LA, massacre (1868)Bear River City riot (1868)Chinese massacre of 1871Meridian, MS, race riot (1871)Colfax, LA, massacre (1873)Election riot of 1874 (AL)Juan, Antonio, and Marcelo Moya (1874)Benjamin and Mollie French (1876)Ellenton, SC, riot (1876)Hamburg, SC, massacre (1876)Thibodeax, LA, massacre (1878)Nevlin Porter and Johnson Spencer (1879)New Orleans 1891 lynchings (1891)Ruggles Brothers (CA) (1892)Thomas Moss, Henry Stewart, Calvin McDowell (TN) (1892)Porter and Spencer (MS) (1897)Phoenix, SC, election riot (1898)Wilmington, NC, insurrection (1898)Julia and Frazier Baker (1898)Pana, IL, riot (1899)Watkinsville lynching (1905)Atlanta race riot (1906)Kemper County, MS (1906)Walker family (1908)Springfield race riot of 1908Slocum, TX, massacre (1910)Laura and L.D. Nelson (1911)Harris County, GA, lynchings (1912)Forsyth County, GA (1912)Newberry, FL, lynchings (1916)East St. Louis, IL, riots (1917)Lynching rampage in Brooks County, GA (1918)Jenkins County, GA, riot (1919)Longview, TX, race riot (1919)Elaine, AR, race riot (1919)Omaha race riot of 1919Knoxville riot of 1919Red Summer (1919)Duluth, MN, lynchings (1920)Ocoee, FL, massacre (1920)Tulsa race massacre (1921)Perry, FL, race riot (1922)Rosewood, FL, massacre (1923)Jim and Mark Fox (1927)Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith (1930)Tate County, MS (1932)Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes (1933)Roosevelt Townes and Robert McDaniels (1937)Beaumont, TX, Race Riot (1943)O'Day Short, wife, and two children (1945)Moore's Ford, GA, lynchings (1946)Harry and Harriette Moore (1952)Anniston, AL (1961)Freedom Summer Murders (James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner) (1964)Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore (1964)
- Prominent political podcasters played key role in spreading the 'Big Lie'
- Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon speaks with press while leaving a federal courthouse building in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 15, 2021.(Bryan Olin Dozier/NurPhoto)On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, Steve Bannon encouraged the audience of his podcast not to waver in their faith. ''We're coming in right over target,'' President Donald Trump's former chief strategist intoned. ''This is the point of attack we always wanted'...today is the day we can affirm the massive landslide on November 3.''
- In the aftermath of the ensuing attack on the Capitol, Bannon's podcast stands out for its prescient blend of violent rhetoric and blatant disinformation. In the run-up to Jan. 6, Bannon and his podcast guests extensively promoted the false belief that Trump had rightfully and overwhelmingly won the November election, only to have it stolen from him by fraud. In doing so, Bannon was one of several prominent podcast hosts to champion the misleading electoral narratives known collectively as the ''Big Lie.'' While digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter have received significant scrutiny for their role in permitting the spread of those narratives, far less attention has been paid to podcasting. By virtue of both its intimacy and its scale, podcasting can serve as a powerful vector for misinformation, yet there has been comparatively little analysis to date of the role the podcasting ecosystem played in the lead up to the Jan. 6 attack.
- To better understand that role, we compiled a dataset of the most popular political podcast series in the United States in November 2020. More specifically, we examined the ''Top 100'' list for that month from Apple Podcasts, the most widely used podcast app in the United States at the time, and then downloaded episodes for 20 of the 23 series in the Top 100 that we identified as primarily providing political commentary. We found that:
- Between Aug. 20, 2020, when the then-candidate Joe Biden accepted the Democratic nomination, and the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, over 25% of all episodes in our dataset (393 of 1,490) endorsed misleading electoral narrativesThe rate at which popular podcasts endorsed misleading narratives rose dramatically after the election, with more than 50% of all episodes (344 of 666) between November 3 and January 6 endorsing unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud or related claimsPopular podcasters on the right, who were largely responsible for the proliferation of electoral misinformation during this period, are more ideologically homogenous in their partisan leanings than popular podcasters on the leftEpisodes that endorsed false or misleading electoral narratives had broad cross-platform reach, with total audiences on Twitter and YouTube in the tens of millionsThese findings suggest that the most popular political podcasts in the United States played a critical and underappreciated role in spreading false electoral narratives prior to the Jan. 6 attack. At a time when just one-third of all Republicans say they will trust the outcome of the 2024 presidential election results regardless of who wins, the findings underscore the need for further research on the political podcasting space. Without a better understanding of how the ''Big Lie'' spread so widely in the weeks and months after last November's election, similarly false narratives are likely to plague future elections as well, with dire consequences for American democracy.
- The unsubstantiated claim that former President Trump won the 2020 presidential election represents a major and enduring threat to the integrity of U.S. democracy. By insisting without evidence that the election was plagued by fraud and that Trump was the rightful victor, supporters of the former president have cast doubt not only on the legitimacy of the current occupant of the White House but also the democratic process writ large. With doubting that Biden legitimately won the last election, the stage has been set for the future elections to be delegitimized before they even take place. As the legal scholar Richard L. Hasen has argued, ''the democratic emergency is already here.''
- A key question is how exactly that emergency arose and what enabled the ''Big Lie'' to spread so widely. Although journalists, researchers, and academics have largely focused on the critical role played by digital platforms like Facebook and Twitter, there has been comparatively little focus on podcasts, despite the growing popularity of the medium. The reach and scale of the podcasting ecosystem has exploded in recent years, with Spotify and Apple alone now boasting more than 25 million monthly podcast listeners each in the United States. Major political commentators have taken note, with prominent figures from both the Obama and Trump administrations launching massively successful podcasts. Yet conservative commentators in particular have flocked toward the medium. Just as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity exploited the infrastructure of talk radio from the late 1980s through the early 2000s to establish themselves as major players in conservative politics, they and a newer generation of hosts are using podcasts to build large and influential audiences in a far more decentralized medium.
- In light of the wide reach podcasting now enjoys, understanding whether and how political podcasts contributed to the spread of the ''Big Lie'' is vital. To do this, we compiled a dataset of popular political podcast episodes from series featured in Apple's ''Top 100'' podcasts in November 2020.[1] We filtered this dataset for episodes released between the first major party convention on Aug. 20, 2020, and the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. We then searched transcripts of those episodes for a list of keywords associated with different claims of electoral fraud, including both generic terms like ''stolen election'' and ''rigged election'' as well as references to specific conspiracy theories, such as ''sharpies.'' Finally, we reviewed each keyword match manually to ensure that a podcast host or guest was endorsing or promoting an unsubstantiated allegation or false electoral narrative, rather than merely describing or reporting on one.[2] Our methodology means that it is unlikely our data includes false positives (i.e., instances where we coded a false or misleading claim when we should not have), but it may include false negatives (i.e., there may be instances where we did not code a false or misleading claim when we should have, since a podcast host or guest may have made a false claim that did not trigger a keyword match). Furthermore, due to data restrictions, some series had episodes that we were not able to download. This was an issue in particular with Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense podcast, for which we were only able to access two episodes that aired after the election. Since Giuliani repeatedly endorsed false claims in other fora, it is likely that our data for his podcast series represents a significant undercount.
- All told, we found that misleading electoral narratives meant to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election were endorsed by a host or guest in 14 of 20 series and 393 of 1,490 episodes.[3] See the appendix below for a full table of episodes and counts.
- The Big Lie in the mainstream
- Based on our data, several key trends about how false and misleading electoral narratives spread within mainstream political podcasting stand out.
- First, as Figure 1 reveals, there was a massive and sustained post-election increase in episodes that endorsed unsubstantiated allegations of voter fraud and related narratives. Although Steve Bannon and others had consistently raised concerns about electoral integrity prior to Nov. 3, the percentage of all episodes that actively endorsed or promoted them nonetheless remained relatively low in the pre-election period. By contrast, after Nov. 3 the number spiked dramatically, with just over 50% of episodes in our sample of popular U.S. political podcasts endorsing false or misleading claims. Significantly, as Figure 2 illustrates, the reason for the high rate is not that each popular podcast series was endorsing false election claims in one out of every two episodes, but that the podcasts that endorsed false narratives most frequently'--such as The Sean Hannity Show, The Rush Limbaugh Show, and Steve Bannon's War Room'--were also those that produced the largest total number of post-election episodes. The trend is in keeping with Bannon's stated Trump-era media strategy of ''flooding the zone'' with inflammatory information, real or fabricated.
- The post-election increase in misleading electoral claims proved remarkably durable. The Electoral College has a ''safe harbor'' deadline by which time states are required to resolve all election-related disputes, which last year was Dec. 8. In theory, concerns about electoral fraud should have declined dramatically after that deadline. Yet as Figure 1 shows, the rate at which popular political podcast episodes endorsed misleading narratives declined only modestly after the ''safe harbor'' deadline passed, before rising again. In the week prior to the Capitol assault, 60% of popular U.S. political podcasts endorsed election fraud narratives. By that point claims of widespread voter fraud had failed to be substantiated.
- The role of podcasts in spreading election fraud narratives was especially important after Nov. 3, as influential outlets within the conservative media ecosystem declined to back Trump's claims that the election had been stolen. Whereas some hosts at Fox News cut away from Trump administration officials' briefings about election fraud and outlets owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch urged Trump to accept defeat gracefully, right-wing podcasts provided an unfettered venue to spread the lie that the election had been stolen.
- With few in the mainstream media willing to entertain Trump's claims of election fraud, podcast hosts expended considerable effort attempting to make them appear credible. Several podcasters pointed to the legal ramifications of signing false affidavits or highlighted the credentials of Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani (who ''took down the mafia in New York City'') and Sidney Powell (who ''worked for Michael Flynn'') to signal their credibility. Other podcasters blindly parroted even the most farfetched narratives, including those that claimed Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez had played a role in rigging the election, alleged that rogue USB cards had added votes to the election tally in Pennsylvania, or blamed the distribution of sharpies for Biden's win in Arizona.
- As Figure 3 shows, the podcasts that endorsed false and misleading electoral claims were not just more conservative, but also tended to be more ideologically homogeneous, at least as calculated by the accounts they follow on Twitter.[4] Whereas popular pundits on the left stretch across the ideological spectrum'--note the broad gap between Jon Lovett of ''Pod Save America'' and the comedian Sarah Silverman'--those on the right are much more tightly clustered. What this suggests is that the most popular liberal hosts represent a wider set of ideological views than those on the right.
- What's also striking about Figure 3 is that many of the hosts draw from a newer cohort of media figures.[5] Alongside familiar faces like Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck, our dataset also included a newer generation of pundits, native to the digital age. Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, and Steven Crowder, for example, are among the most popular hosts in our sample, and have remained on Apple's Top 100 list over the past year'--a signal of their growing reach and appeal.
- While it is difficult to determine the exact reach of podcasts, this new generation of hosts are using the medium to build sizeable audiences. Apple doesn't disclose download numbers for its ''Top 100'' podcasts, but Ben Shapiro's podcast claims to see 15 million downloads per month, while The Verdict with Ted Cruz reportedly had at least 20 million downloads in 2020. Yet because podcasts are often cross-posted on other media, podcast downloads alone do not capture their full reach. For series cross-posted on YouTube, episodes that promoted false election narratives collectively received 14 million views and over 700,000 likes. Given that this data is unavailable for all episodes, and many people do not listen to podcasts on YouTube, this level of engagement represents the lowest possible floor in terms of listener reach. Some podcasts in the sample are also rebroadcast over terrestrial radio, adding further complication to determining reach. Likewise, the Twitter followings of each podcast series and their hosts was also substantial. The podcasters who shared false election narratives in our dataset combined for over 40 million Twitter followers in November 2020, with a median Twitter follower count of over 2 million.
- Two weeks after the election, Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and Trump adviser, appeared as a guest on Megyn Kelly's podcast. ''You can't stand up there and say, 'there's been fraud, the election's been stolen, and I would have won easily,''' he explained, ''unless you produce evidence.'' In the world of right-wing podcasts, Christie's admonition fell on deaf ears.
- In the aftermath of the election, mainstream political podcasts repeatedly and consistently endorsed unsubstantiated voter fraud allegations and other false election narratives, even after the safe harbor deadline had passed. In the days before the Capitol riots, for example, anyone listening to the Mark Levin podcast heard claims that in Georgia ''they have well over a hundred thousand examples of people who voted that were dead, who were too young to vote,'' while the Trump adviser Peter Navarro insisted to Sean Hannity that there was an ''absolute flood of illegal ballots into Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin, in amounts more than enough to tip the balance to Joe Biden. It was an illegal stolen election.''
- To their credit, several platforms have taken steps to curb the reach of podcasts spreading the ''Big Lie'' and other false electoral information. Shortly after the safe harbor deadline, for example, YouTube launched an effort to remove content alleging ''widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of a historical U.S. Presidential election.'' The policy led the platform to take down Steve Bannon's channel altogether on Jan. 8, after an episode in which Rudy Giuliani claimed the election had been stolen. Nonetheless, the podcasting space has still largely escaped scrutiny for its role in spreading false election narratives, much less the kind of robust public debate over how best to moderate online content that have pushed social media platforms toward greater transparency and more mature practices. In its absence, additional research and debate regarding how best to curb misinformation in podcasts is urgently needed if we are to avoid another election cycle marred by unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
- Valerie Wirtschafter is a senior data analyst in the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative at the Brookings Institution. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.Chris Meserole is a fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and director of research for the Brookings Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative.
- Show nameTotal episodesEpisodes endorsing election fraudProportionThe Rush Limbaugh Show96500.52The Sean Hannity Show97480.49Bannon's War Room2631270.48Louder with Crowder40160.40The Glenn Beck Program119470.39Mark Levin Podcast97330.34The Michael Knowles Show84210.25The Dan Bongino Show110260.24The Ben Shapiro Show84100.12Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense1720.12Verdict with Ted Cruz1720.12The Charlie Kirk Show7170.10Real Time with Bill Maher1210.08The Megyn Kelly Show4730.06Adam Carolla Show9700.00Lovett or Leave It2900.00Pod Save America4800.00The Candace Owens Show900.00The Daily Show with Trevor Noah | Ears Edition13700.00The Sarah Silverman Podcast1600.00[1] We identified popular political podcasts at the time by selecting the punditry-based podcasts from Apple's Top 100 list in mid-November 2020. Political podcasts series include those that either (1) mention politics, policy, or current events in their show description; or (2) released a recent episode that covered political topics. The shows in our sample include: (1) The Adam Carolla Show; (2) Louder with Crowder; (3) Lovett or Leave It; (4) Pod Save America; (5) The Ben Shapiro Show; (6) The Candace Owens Show; (7) The Charlie Kirk Show; (8) The Dan Bongino Show; (9) The Megyn Kelly Show; (10) The Michael Knowles Show; (11) Mark Levin Podcast; (12) The Glenn Beck Program; (13) The Sean Hannity Show; (14) Verdict with Ted Cruz; (15) Bannon's War Room; (16) Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense; (17) The Rush Limbaugh Show; (18) Real Time with Bill Maher; (19) The Daily Show With Trevor Noah '' Ears Edition; and (20) The Sarah Silverman Podcast. Due to data limitations, we are unable to compile episodes for three popular series during this period: (1) the Rachel Maddow Show; (2) the Lincoln Project; and (3) Tim Pool Daily. Bannon's War Room RSS feed does not go back to the fall of 2020, so these episodes are downloaded directly from his website. Most of Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense podcast episodes are no longer available online, so our inferences for this series are extremely restricted.
- [2]The dictionary of terms used in our search draws on popular lies, phrases or statistics commonly referenced during this period. Election fraud related topics include: election fraud, software glitch, counting error, fraudulent biden elector, forensic electronic audit, forensic audit, voter integrity project, illegitimate president, election integrity, stop the steal, stop the steel, thrown out ballots, ditch along a wisconsin road, illegally flipped, missing usb cards, ballot stuffing, election irregularities, hugo chavez, indra, 800000 votes in pennsylvania, out of state license plates, 430 in the morning, venezuelan software, dominion company, 68 error rate, election hoax, surprise ballot dump, dominion systems, smartmatic, 450000 ballots, 3062 instances of voter fraud, stolen election, sharpies, dominion voting, arizona audit, voting machines, duplicate ballots, cyber ninjas, and rigged election. All episodes that referenced one of the terms in our dictionary were manually reviewed by two separate coders. Any discrepancies were resolved by a third coder.
- [3] This dataset represents a subset of a larger corpus of more than 30,000 podcast episodes from 69 prominent political podcasters that we have transcribed using speech-to-text methods or, where applicable, the YouTube API to collect video captions.
- [4] This strategy for identifying political ideology builds off Pablo Barber's 2015 Political Analysis paper, which details a method to calculate the political ideology of Twitter users based on decisions about who they choose to follow. The underlying assumption is that Twitter users will often follow accounts that reflect their political interest, which can then be used to develop a measure of their political ideology. In order to ensure the precision of ideology estimates, we exclude users who follow fewer than five ''elites'' or more than 5,000 accounts. More details on the methodology and implementation can be found here.
- [5] Sean Hannity follows just six people on Twitter and Candace Owens follows 30 people on Twitter. As a result, we are unable to calculate their ''ideological score.'' Charlie Kirk and Ted Cruz follow over 5,000 people on Twitter. As a result, relying on their following network may produce skewed results due to following practices that may not be reflective of interest in the account.
- Facebook and Google provide financial support to the Brookings Institution, a nonprofit organization devoted to rigorous, independent, in-depth public policy research.
- Election Falsehoods Surged on Podcasts Before Capitol Riots, Researchers Find - The New York Times
- A new study analyzed nearly 1,500 episodes, showing the extent to which podcasts pushed misinformation about voter fraud.
- In a new analysis, the podcast run by Stephen K. Bannon, President Donald J. Trump's former adviser, was flagged 115 times for misinformation in a designated time period. Credit... Justin T. Gellerson for The New York Times Jan. 4, 2022
- Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck outlined his prediction for how Election Day would unfold: President Donald J. Trump would be winning that night, but his lead would erode as dubious mail-in ballots arrived, giving Joseph R. Biden Jr. an unlikely edge.
- ''No one will believe the outcome because they've changed the way we're electing a president this time,'' he said.
- None of the predictions of widespread voter fraud came true. But podcasters frequently advanced the false belief that the election was illegitimate, first as a trickle before the election and then as a tsunami in the weeks leading up to the violent attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to new research.
- Researchers at the Brookings Institution reviewed transcripts of nearly 1,500 episodes from 20 of the most popular political podcasts. Among episodes released between the election and the Jan. 6 riot, about half contained election misinformation, according to the analysis.
- In some weeks, 60 percent of episodes mentioned the election fraud conspiracy theories tracked by Brookings. Those included false claims that software glitches interfered with the count, that fake ballots were used, and that voting machines run by Dominion Voting Systems were rigged to help Democrats. Those kinds of theories gained currency in Republican circles and would later be leveraged to justify additional election audits across the country.
- The new research underscores the extent to which podcasts have spread misinformation using platforms operated by Apple, Google, Spotify and others, often with little content moderation. While social media companies have been widely criticized for their role in spreading misinformation about the election and Covid-19 vaccines, they have cracked down on both in the last year. Podcasts and the companies distributing them have been spared similar scrutiny, researchers say, in large part because podcasts are harder to analyze and review.
- ''People just have no sense of how bad this problem is on podcasts,'' said Valerie Wirtschafter, a senior data analyst at Brookings who co-wrote the report with Chris Meserole, a director of research at Brookings.
- Dr. Wirtschafter downloaded and transcribed more than 30,000 podcast episodes deemed ''talk shows,'' meaning they offered analysis and commentary rather than strictly news updates. Focusing on 1,490 episodes around the election from 20 popular shows, she created a dictionary of terms about election fraud. After transcribing the podcasts, a team of researchers searched for the keywords and manually checked each mention to determine if the speaker was supporting or denouncing the claims.
- In the months leading up to the election, conservative podcasters focused mostly on the fear that mail-in ballots could lead to fraud, the analysis showed.
- At the time, political analysts were busy warning of a ''red mirage'': an early lead by Mr. Trump that could erode because mail-in ballots, which tend to get counted later, were expected to come from Democratic-leaning districts. As ballots were counted, that is precisely what happened. But podcasters used the changing fortunes to raise doubts about the election's integrity.
- Election misinformation shot upward, with about 52 percent of episodes containing misinformation in the weeks after the election, up from about 6 percent of episodes before the election.
- The biggest offender in Brookings's analysis was Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump's former adviser. His podcast, ''Bannon's War Room,'' was flagged 115 times for episodes using voter fraud terms included in Brookings' analysis between the election and Jan. 6.
- ''You know why they're going to steal this election?'' Mr. Bannon asked on Nov. 3. ''Because they don't think you're going to do anything about it.''
- As the Jan. 6 protest drew closer, his podcast pushed harder on those claims, including the false belief that poll workers handed out markers that would disqualify ballots.
- ''Now we're on, as they say, the point of attack,'' Mr. Bannon said the day before the protest. ''The point of attack tomorrow. It's going to kick off. It's going to be very dramatic.''
- Mr. Bannon's show was removed from Spotify in November 2020 after he discussed beheading federal officials, but it remains available on Apple and Google.
- When reached for comment on Monday, Mr. Bannon said that President Biden was ''an illegitimate occupant of the White House'' and referenced investigations into the election that show they ''are decertifying his electors.'' Many legal experts have argued there is no way to decertify the election.
- Episodes sharing electoral misinformation
- Sean Hannity, the Fox News anchor, also ranked highly in the Brookings data. His podcast and radio program, ''The Sean Hannity Show,'' is now the most popular radio talk show in America, reaching upward of 15 million radio listeners, according to Talk Media.
- ''Underage people voting, people that moved voting, people that never re-registered voting, dead people voting '-- we have it all chronicled,'' Mr. Hannity said during one episode.
- Key Figures in the Jan. 6 Inquiry Card 1 of 10Mark Meadows. Mr. Trump's chief of staff, who initially provided the panel with a trove of documents that showed the extent of his role in the efforts to overturn the election, is now refusing to cooperate. The House voted to recommend holding Mr. Meadows in criminal contempt of Congress.
- Fox News anchors. ''Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity and Brian Kilmeade texted Mr. Meadows during the Jan. 6 riot urging him to persuade Mr. Trump to make an effort to stop it. The texts were part of the material that Mr. Meadows had turned over to the panel.
- Michael Flynn. Mr. Trump's former national security adviser attended an Oval Office meeting on Dec. 18 in which participants discussed seizing voting machines and invoking certain national security emergency powers. Mr. Flynn has filed a lawsuit to block the panel's subpoenas.
- John Eastman. The lawyer has been the subject of intense scrutiny since writing a memo that laid out how Mr. Trump could stay in power. Mr. Eastman was present at a meeting of Trump allies at the Willard Hotel that has become a prime focus of the panel.
- Claims about voter fraud came not just from Mr. Hannity but also his guests, including the pollster John McLaughlin, who shared a private exchange he had with Mr. Trump.
- In the exchange, according to Mr. McLaughlin's on-air account, Mr. Trump said that the election was stolen.
- ''Yeah,'' Mr. McLaughlin said to the president. ''I said it yesterday on Hannity radio.''
- ''Keep saying it,'' Mr. Trump replied.
- Image Sean Hannity of Fox News broadcasting on the Republican National Convention in 2020. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times Mr. McLaughlin went on to say during the podcast: ''This election, easily, was stolen and these drop boxes and the Dominion Systems '-- their voting system '-- are definitely the culprits.''
- Claims about Dominion Voting Systems were debunked and internal Republican memos showed officials in Mr. Trump's re-election campaign knew the claims were false. Dominion later filed a number of lawsuits against people and media companies who pushed the conspiracies.
- Representatives for Mr. Hannity, Mr. McLaughlin and Mr. Beck did not comment when reached about the findings.
- Apple's podcast guidelines say the company does not allow podcasts that ''may lead to harmful or dangerous outcomes.'' Apple declined to comment.
- Spotify did not immediately comment on the research.
- The lack of moderation on podcast apps is particularly complicated for Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube. The video streaming site cracked down on videos about election fraud, the conspiracy theory QAnon, and vaccine misinformation, prompting some podcast episodes hosted there to be removed. But the same episodes remained accessible on Google's Podcasts app. Mr. Bannon's show was removed from YouTube shortly after Jan. 6, for instance, but the podcast remains available on Google's Podcasts app.
- Google has argued that its Podcasts app more closely resembles a search engine than a publishing service because no audio is hosted by the company. A Google spokesman, Farshad Shadloo, said the app simply ''crawls and indexes audio content'' hosted elsewhere and that they have ''policies against recommending podcasts that contain harmful misinformation, including misinformation about the 2020 U.S. elections.''
- How men in touch with their feminine side are the new heartthrobs | Daily Mail Online
- Ten years ago, baby-faced men were passed over in Hollywood for rugged looking stars with more traditionally masculine looks.
- But today more feminine-looking actors with delicate features, shorter stature and symmetrical faces are more in demand because they appear to younger viewers, experts claim.
- Gen Z audiences are drawn to celebrities like Tom Holland, Timoth(C)e Chalamet and Harry Styles who embody a 'brand of enlightened non-toxic masculinity', according to beauty expert Laura Kay.
- Their symmetrical, heart-shaped faces also make them more photogenic and therefore more popular on Instagram, which has become a key part in the Hollywood marketing machine.
- These non-traditional leading men also benefit because younger generations are more tolerant of things which would have seen as 'abnormal' in the past, such as height differences or attitudes to gender, says dating and relationship expert Alex Mellor-Brook.
- Tom Holland, 25, who is dating his co-star Zendaya, also 25, for example, is 5ft 8in, shorter than one might expect for a Hollywood A-lister, while Harry Styles, 27, proudly steps out in feminine clothing and has released a range of nail polishes.
- Gen Z audiences are drawn to celebrities like Tom Holland, Timoth(C)e Chalamet and Harry Styles who embody a 'brand of enlightened non-toxic masculinity', according to beauty expert Laura Kay. Pictured, Timoth(C)e Chalamet (left) and Cole Sprouse, who possess these qualities
- Laura said: 'The likes of Timoth(C)e Chalamet and Tom Holland have a perfect facial symmetry, it is almost heart shaped, which makes them naturally very photogenic. Studies have shown that heart shaped faces are deemed the most attractive facial shape around.
- 'They are not macho and sculpted in a different kind of way. Instead, they have a smouldering, brooding look about them that is both attractive to male and females.
- 'It is the perfect balance and, in my opinion, they look ''ageless'' which further adds to their wider appeal. To the untrained eye it is hard to tell their age.'
- She also said that celebs with these features appear more relatable and trustworthy than their more masculine counter-part.
- 'They also have a charismatic vibe about them, a cheeky smile and glimmer in their eyes,' Laura said.
- 'It is refreshing to see them embracing their individuality through fashion and style, for example.'
- Tom Holland, 25, who is dating his co-star Zendaya, pictured, for example, is 5ft 8in, shorter than one might expect for a Hollywood A-lister. But he is a heartthrob in the eyes of Gen Z fans
- WOMEN TURN TO MUSCULAR MEN FOR FLINGS, NOT MARRIAGE
- Meanwhile, Alex Mellor-Brook, dating and relationship expert at Select Services, said that while people finding slender features attractive is nothing new, the pandemic had changed women's attitudes as to what they are looking for in partners.
- 'Another factor is down to the younger generation being a lot more tolerant to what has been seen as 'out of the norm' by other generations,' Alex said.
- 'So the issue of height differences with a couple will not be questioned as much, similar to a more European attitude. However, it still remains a dominant choice for a lot of women when choosing a partner.'
- The relationship between Spider-Man costars Tom Holland and Zendaya has brought the topic of height difference between partners back into the spotlight recently.
- Alex said muscly men are deemed attractive because on a primal level, they look healthy and likely to produce good offspring. But in our modern world, Alex said that women turn to muscular men for flings rather than for marriage.
- 'If the woman finds herself attracted to both men and other women, then this will also influence those options,' he continued.
- 'The slender appearance will present a less "macho, tough guy, non-committal" impression and a more caring, committed, sensitive side which is currently a trend in women searching for a life-long partner after their experiences over lockdown,' he went on.'
- Dr Ross, Perry, Medical Director of Cosmedics skin clinics said that trends on what is attractive in men keep changing.
- 'Over the decades this has constantly changed from pumped up bodybuilders in the 90's such as the Gladiators or the Chippendales through to the days of heroin chic of Kurt Cobain- think ultra slim, small muscle mass and rugged yet attractive features,' he said.
- 'Culturally today we're more open in what is seen as attractive, the rise of the drag queen is a perfect example, we're seeing beauty and attractiveness in a completely different light.'
- Former One Direction Star Harry Styles, 27, has been playing with gender constructs and appeals to Gen Z fans because of his 'enlightened' views. Above, at the Met Gala in 2019
- A DIFFERENT ATTITUDE TO FITNESS
- Our attitude to fitness has changed, and Dr Ross said that people are now looking for their partner to be lean and physically strong rather than muscular.
- 'Someone who is lean, goes to yoga classes and chooses to express themselves and indeed their bodies in untraditional ways,' he explained.
- 'We don't necessarily need someone to be over 6ft to appreciate their attractiveness, small and slender is what's "trendy" on social media, it's attractive, edgy, cool and sexy as is someone who doesn't conform to what to masculinity traditionally looks like.'
- And the fact that men are more open about their mental health nowadays and showing their sensitive side more easily also influences how they appear to potential mates.
- The Korean pop band BTS, pictured with James Corden on his Late Late Show on December 8, have such dedicated fans they call themselves 'BTS Army'. They are a perfect example of the more androgynous look coveted by today's younger fans
- 'Today men openly talking about mental health, aren't afraid to wear make-up, play around with fashion and this shows confidence and makes them appear more personable and in turn makes them seen as more attractive not just to the younger generation but also the older generation too,' Dr Ross said.
- And these celebrities often cater to a 'woke' audience, because the idea of beauty has become more 'open and fluid.'
- 'There's a huge proportion of male "celebrity" who fit into a category of being "woke" in their outlook and thought process not feeling they have to conform to what society deems as classically handsome,' Dr Ross said.
- Chris Hemsworth trim physique as the god of thunder in Thor: Ragnarok was still a hit with fans
- Hyper masculine-looking men like Dwayne Johnson, pictured in Santa Monica in December, are deemed attractive because on a primal level, they look healthy and likely to produce good offspring, an expert said
- 'But they are having more fun with their appearance, sexuality and we're finding this hugely attractive.
- 'Someone who isn't afraid to express themselves with make-up, highlighting a strong cheek bone, waring eye make-up to accentuate the eye shape, not being afraid to show off flawless looking skin or sport full lips or washboard stomach is creating a much more attractive male.'
- And this also manifests itself in the number of men who ae turning to cosmetic surgery for 'tweakments.'
- 'Whereas before they were embarrassed to have fillers, or Botox, men are now wanting to look as good as women and take care of their appearance including their bodies,' he added.
- Vaccinated Women Are Now Lying About Their Vax Status As More Men See Them As Infertility Risk : The COVID World
- The COVID World post date: January 4th, 2022
- Everyone was told that those who did not get the jab would regret it, but now it seems that the opposite is true. In a startling reversal, women who have had the COVID vaccine are being shunned in the dating scene by potential partners due to issues with possible birth defects and infertility.
- Women in New York have started lying about their vaccination status because of widespread perception among men that they are infertile or will bear children with birth defects. One man, who wants to remain anonymous, said:
- ''In clubs, they claim they're NOT vax'd. They say things like 'Oh COVID is bullshit' or 'I don't want to try this new experimental shot'.
- However, after going out with them several times, the women finally admit they took the vax . . . and watch as most potential husbands leave them almost on the spot.''
- The person went on to say that at least two separate women asked him why he would break off relations with them over something like the jab, and he told them:
- ''I don't want defective children and I won't get closer to a girl who lied to my face from the start.''
- Reports of women who have been vaccinated experiencing birth defects are skyrocketing across the world. A very early theory raised by many respected doctors was that the mRNA vaccine would interfere with a protein called Syntectin-1, which is crucial in pregnancy.
- Unfortunately, many women 'trusted the science' from the MSM and are now reaping the consequences of their government's actions in amplifying propaganda and silencing dissenting voices.
- As a reminder of the kind of propaganda that was being pushed at the time, FullFact published a 'fact check' categorically denying that the vaccines cause any problems with pregnancy before any long-term studies were done on this question.
- ''There is no scientific reason the vaccine might be expected to affect pregnancy. Studies observing pregnant women who have been vaccinated have found people are not more likely to suffer a miscarriage if they have had the COVID-19 vaccine.''
- It is hard not to feel sorry for such young women who went along with the lies and mass formation. It was entirely correct to be concerned about a rushed and untested pharmaceutical product based on new technology.
- For those 'purebloods', the men and women who have managed to last this long and withstand the pressure to get vaccinated, there is widespread expectation that unvaccinated women and unvaccinated sperm will be extremely valuable. Indeed, some have joked that it may be the next Bitcoin.
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- El Salvador plans raft of legislation to cover bitcoin bond issue | Reuters
- Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSAN SALVADOR, Jan 4 (Reuters) - El Salvador's government will send to Congress about twenty bills covering financial markets and investment in securities to provide a legal foundation for issuing bitcoin bonds, Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya said on Tuesday.
- Zelaya said the government was drawing up the legislation to create a framework to cover corresponding market regulation and issuance of securities in crypto assets after the Central American country said in November it would issue bitcoin bonds.
- "(This is) to provide a legal structure and legal certainty to everyone who buys the bitcoin bond," Zelaya said in an interview on local television, without saying exactly when the legislation would be submitted to lawmakers.
- Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEl Salvador said its inaugural bitcoin bond issue, planned for this year, would be worth $1 billion and carry a coupon of 6.5%. The bond is intended to back President Nayib Bukele's plan of creating the world's first "Bitcoin City".
- Half of the funds raised will be used to build infrastructure, and the rest to purchase bitcoin, which El Salvador hopes to make a profit from, the government has said.
- El Salvador in September became the world's first country to make bitcoin legal tender alongside the U.S. dollar.
- Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Nelson Renteria, editing by Ed Osmond
- Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
- French President Macron Admits His 'Strategy' Is To 'Piss Off' The Unvaccinated 'As Much As Possible' '' Summit News
- In what surely will be a massive step in reducing the spread of COVID-19, authorities in Quebec will ban the unvaccinated from being able to purchase marijuana or hard liquor.
- The Journal de Montreal reports on plans being prepared by Quebec Prime Minister Francois Legault's administration which will most likely see proof of vaccination demanded at the cash register.
- ''Proof of vaccination is already required in Quebec at such non-essential venues as restaurants, theaters, bars, and casinos,'' reports RT. ''Under the new rule, unvaccinated residents will still be able to access convenience stores, which sell beer and wine, but they'll be essentially barred from legally buying hard liquor.''
- Legault referenced ''a certain anger'' towards unvaccinated people in justifying the new rules, which will only apply to shoppers but not employees, who don't have to be vaccinated.
- The measures are being introduced despite Quebec's high rate of vaccination, which stands at around 85% but didn't stop the province reporting an average of about 15,000 new COVID infections daily over the past week.
- The measures are clearly just another draconian way of punishing the unvaccinated for their refusal to comply and have absolutely nothing to do with fighting the pandemic.
- As we highlighted last month, grocery stores in New Brunswick, Canada were given the power to ban unvaccinated people from entering, meaning the unjabbed could be prevented from conducting the essential activity of buying food.
- Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously indicated that the mere existence of unvaccinated people was something that should no longer be tolerated.
- ''They don't believe in science/progress and are very often misogynistic and racist'....This leads us, as a leader and as a country, to make a choice: Do we tolerate these people?'' he said.
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- As Omicron surges, understaffed hospitals ease mandates, rehire unvaxxed employees | Just The News
- The Facts Inside Our Reporter's NotebookAfter unvaccinated healthcare workers were fired for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates, some are being asked to return to work due to staffing shortages amid increasing COVID-19 cases.
- In Canada, for example, Alberta Health Services announced on Dec. 23 it will allow unvaccinated healthcare workers to resume their jobs starting Jan. 10 if they submit to frequent testing. AHS cited expected increased demands on the health system due to the spread of the Omicron variant for the policy change. As of the date of the announcement, 1,400 healthcare workers who were not fully vaccinated had been placed on unpaid leave.
- AHS said that unvaccinated workers will be responsible for paying for and coordinating their COVID tests, which they must complete no more than 48 hours prior to their shifts.
- Quebec announced on Tuesday that some COVID-positive healthcare workers and other essential employees will be allowed to continue working in order to prevent breakdowns in services, CBC News reported. Healthcare workers who are triple-vaccinated will be prioritized.
- In Oregon, meanwhile, "30 percent of the nursing staff in some hospitals are made up of traveling nurses," Matt Calzia, a registered nurse and member of the Oregon Nurses Association, told Fox 12 Oregon in October. "In others, turn over [sic] is high. The majority of a unit might be composed of traveling nurses during some shifts."
- That same month, St. Charles Health System in Bend, Ore., having lost more than 100 full-time staff in the previous month, hired 120 traveling nurses and received aid from the state National Guard, OPB News reported. St. Charles had as of then approved a little more than half of all medical and religious exemption requests.
- President Biden told the National Governors Association last week that 1,000 military doctors, nurses, and medics are being mobilized to help hospitals with staffing. FEMA is also helping states struggling to keep up.
- "FEMA is deploying hundreds of ambulances and EMS crews to transport patients," Biden said. "We've already deployed emergency response teams in Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. We're ready to provide more hospital beds as well."
- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called the National Guard to assist with nursing homes after declaring a state of emergency over the omicron variant, Fox News reported.
- Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a healthcare worker vaccine mandate four months ago, terminating those who did not comply. Consequently, 31,858 health care workers in the state have either been terminated from their jobs, furloughed, or forced to resign, according to New York health data provided to the news outlet. As of Dec. 21, there was a total of 37,192 inactive employees in New York due to the mandate.
- States like Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Iowa have also been experiencing staffing shortages as Omicron cases surge, and some continue to enforce vaccine mandates.
- Both Massachusetts and New Jersey have at least hundreds of confirmed firings due to vaccine mandates, Fox News reported.
- Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker mobilized 500 National Guardsmen to assist hospitals as the state cuts some nonessential, elective procedures and services by half.
- Hospitals in Ohio paused their vaccine mandate in December for legal reasons and staffing shortages. Gov. Mike DeWine activated 1,050 National Guardsmen for hospital assistance.
- Biden Administration Unveils $1 Billion Plan To Address Inflation In Meat and Poultry Industry | The Daily Wire
- The Biden administration unveiled a $1 billion plan intended to address rising inflation by increasing competition in the meat and poultry industry.
- ''Over the last few decades, we've seen too many industries become dominated by a handful of large companies that control most of the business and most of the opportunities'--raising prices and decreasing options for American families, while also squeezing out small businesses and entrepreneurs,'' a fact sheet from the Biden administration read.
- ''The meat and poultry processing sector is a textbook example, with lack of competition hurting consumers, producers, and our economy.''
- The administration blamed the supply chain bottlenecks on an oligopoly of four meatpacking companies which control 85% of the packaged beef market, 70% of the pork market, and 54% of the poultry market. Those processors buy from farmers and sell to retailers, making them ''a key bottleneck in the food supply chain,'' the statement said.
- ''When dominant middlemen control so much of the supply chain, they can increase their own profits at the expense of both farmers'--who make less'--and consumers'--who pay more,'' the statement continued.
- ''Even as farmers' share of profits have dwindled, American consumers are paying more'--with meat and poultry prices now the single largest contributor to the rising cost of food people consume at home,'' it went on. ''And, when too few companies control such a large portion of the market, our food supply chains are susceptible to shocks. When COVID-19 or other disasters such as fires or cyberattacks shutter a plant, many ranchers have no other place to take their animals. Our overreliance on just a handful of giant processors leaves us all vulnerable, with any disruptions at these bottlenecks rippling throughout our food system.''
- ''The Biden-Harris Administration will dedicate $1 billion in American Rescue Plan funds for expansion of independent processing capacity,'' the statement read. It then outlined a strategy to use those funds. The US Department of Agriculture identified 8 key needs based on responses to a request for input on how to increase independent processing:
- Expand and diversify meat and poultry processing capacity;Increase producer income;Provide producers an opportunity to have ownership in processing facilities;Create stable, well-paying jobs in rural regions;Raise the bar on worker health, safety, training, and wages for meatpacking jobs;Spur collaboration among producers and workers;Prompt state, tribal, and private co-investment; andProvide consumers with more choices.The administration detailed those needs, and proposed a number of possible solutions to each, in the statement.
- The Biden administration's directive is the result of several weeks of rhetoric blaming corporations for supply chain problems and rising inflation. Last month, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki put the blame on the ''greed'' of ''meat conglomerates'' who were ''jacking up prices during a pandemic'' to take advantage of consumers, she said.
- Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren also blamed corporations for rising prices. ''Giant grocery store chains force high food prices onto American families while rewarding executives & investors with lavish bonuses and stock buybacks. I'm demanding they answer for putting corporate profits over consumers and workers during the pandemic,'' Warren tweeted.
- The Daily Wire is one of America's fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.
- A warning from Kazakhstan
- Some background on the days leading up to this evening's dramatic events in Kazakhstan. Protests erupted across Kazakhstan in the first days of the new year after the price of filling up a car's gas tank doubled. https://t.co/ojHLrR7Cvu
- '-- Bruce Pannier (@BrucePannier) January 4, 2022Things are popping off in Kazakhstan at the moment as citizens hit the streets in reaction to a combination of gas prices rising dramatically within a week and (from what I can tell) a citizenry coming to their wits end with their government. I will in no way claim to be an expert - or a novice for that matter - in Kazakh politics. But from what I can gleam after an hour's worth of research, it seems pretty clear that Kazakhstan is an energy rich country that is fumbling the ball in terms of taking the necessary steps to provide the individuals who live within those borders the benefit of that advantage.I do not know if this is being driven by Russia or some other foreign force, but it seems like there should be no reason for gas prices to rise this dramatically in this short a period of time considering the fact that it is the 64th largest country by population and produces a significant amount of energy relative to its population size.
- via google searchKazakhstan produces 42% of global uranium. It mined more uranium than Canada, Australia, and Namibia combined, which are the #2, #3 and #4 producers.https://t.co/bkxXx1LYKr pic.twitter.com/77P53iP3ky
- '-- zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 5, 2022via google searchOne would think that a country that is this resource rich in relation to its population size when compared to the rest of the world would be able to sufficiently supply its citizens with reliable energy. Uprisings over gas prices should be the last of their worries.Again, I will not pretend to understand the deep intricacies of Kazakh geopolitics and the inter-workings of its energy industry, but I think it is fair for your Uncle Marty to point out a simple fact; when you push people far enough, they will revolt. During the Arab Spring, grain prices experienced similar rapid appreciation and we saw revolts across Egypt that led to a fall and restructuring of the government.
- At a certain point there is a straw that breaks the camel's back. And what you'll come to find is that the straw is typically the type that is related to something on the bottom section of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. In the case of Egypt a decade ago, it was grain. In the case of Kazakhstan today, it is petrol. A downtrodden people can only take so much.
- What happens as a result of this uprising in Kazakhstan? I have no idea. However, I can say for certain that this is not some isolated phenomena that will be nothing more than a flash in the pan. People the world over are currently being pushed to the brink emotionally by authority figures attempting to exert top-down control on complex systems known as societies. At the same time, across the board, the prices of food, energy, healthcare, and education are being driven through the roof.
- Today we're seeing Kazakhstans reach their boiling point. Don't be surprised if this type of revolt pops up in other areas across the world.
- The most messed up part of it all is that it does not have to be this way. Humanity has the resources and collective intelligence to ensure these base layer necessities don't become a problem. We're just being held back by a "elite" class that is either too greedy, too evil, too incompetent, or a combination of the three to allow us to flourish.
- Fix the money, fix the world.
- Final thought...Walking on a dream...
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- Aaron Rodgers Bomb: NFL Teams Secretly Using ''Horse Dewormer'' To Treat COVID Players - The True Defender !
- ''They know it works and they know it's safe, they just don't want to be canceled for going against the agenda.''
- Join The True Defender Telegram Chanel Here: https://t.me/TheTrueDefender
- Just the previous month, one of the NFL's biggest stars, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19 even though it was widely believed that he got the jab.
- Was he lying about the shot, many wondered?
- This had to be cleared out.
- Appearing on the Pat McAfee SiriusXM Show, Rodger admitted that drugs like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are being adopted by National Football League teams. ''I do know, behind the scenes '-- this is 100% true '-- there are many teams who are recommending a lot of the same treatments that I got for their players.''
- "If science can't be questioned it's not science anymore it's propaganda & that's the truth" ~@AaronRodgers12#PatMcAfeeShowLIVE pic.twitter.com/8PHGdTgYmc
- '-- Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 28, 2021
- Speaking on the constant misinformation being spread, Rodgers called for a lively debate. ''Let's have a debate. Let's hear about sides. Wouldn't that be awesome? When did we lose the ability to respect somebody's opinion? My thoughts are just my own opinion on this matter.''
- Ava GarciaA small town girl, dreaming big, expecting to change the world with presenting the truthful events of the world today. Law degree with a master in criminology, and a devoted journalist for over 7 years, and counting."The pen is mightier than the sword."
- Protests Erupt In Kazakhstan After Gas Prices Double On New Year's Day
- When drivers in western Kazakhstan found out on New Year's Day that the cost of filling their gas tank had doubled, they got out of their cars and started protesting.
- The drastic price increase in Zhanaozen for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) -- which is used by many as a cheap alternative to gas -- sparked a movement that has brought people out to demonstrate across the country in support of the Zhanaozen protesters.
- Kazakhstan's government has already taken measures to lower the price of the propane-butane mixture in Zhanaozen, but problems over inflating prices have been building in western Kazakhstan generally -- and Zhanaozen, specifically -- for months.
- Zhanaozen is an oil-worker town that has grown in recent years to some 160,000 residents as part of the energy boom in Kazakhstan.
- It was in that city where at least 16 demonstrators were shot dead by police on December 16, 2011, after months of strikes and protests by employees of Kazakhstan's oil sector.
- It remains one of the worst incidents of violence in Kazakhstan's 30-year history and Kazakh authorities have been careful in dealing with workers in western Kazakhstan ever since the killings.
- Protesters who demonstrated on New Year's Day said the price of one liter of LPG in Zhanaozen was some 50 tenge for much of 2021, but started rising toward the end of the year to somewhere around 79-80 tenge (about $0.19), then jumped to 120 tenge (about $0.27) on January 1, 2022.
- Abbat Urisbaev is a member of the provincial "maslikhat" (council) in Mangystau, where Zhanaozen is located.
- Urisbaev said the increase is painful since ''90 percent of the residents of our province use [vehicles] that use liquefied gas.''
- Dozens of more people came out into the streets of Zhanaozen on the afternoon of January 2, and by evening there were reportedly several hundred blocking roads and demanding an immediate reduction in the price of LPG.
- A group of the protesters posted a video message to Mangystau Governor Nurlan Nogaev and President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev calling for the price to be lowered.
- People in other towns in Mangystau -- Akshukyr, Shetpe, Kyzyl Tobe, Fort Shevchenko, and Tyshchybek -- posted videos of support for the protesters.
- People in the towns of Kuryk and Zhetybay also demonstrated in support of those in Zhanaozen.
- In the neighboring Atyrau Province, veteran activist Maks Bokaev -- who was released from prison in 2021 after being put there for his role in the 2016 protests against land reform -- also turned out on a main square in the city of Atyrau.
- Residents a protest near the mayor's office in Zhanaozenb on January 3.On January 3, several dozen Zhanaozen protesters who spent the night outside to continue the protest were joined again by hundreds of people. Many in the Caspian coastal city of Aqtau also demonstrated in support of the Zhanaozen protesters.
- And some 100 people turned out in the city of Aqtobe to show their solidarity.
- Some, including Nurzhan Altaev and members of his unregistered El Tiregi (National Reliance) party, demonstrated in the capital, Nur-Sultan.
- The leader of the unregistered Democratic Party of Kazakhstan, Zhanbolat Mamai, led several dozen supporters to a rally in Almaty, where some 20 people were reportedly detained.
- Police in Nur-Sultan, Almaty, and in the southern city of Shymkent gathered near city squares to prevent rallies in support of the Zhanaozen protesters.
- Problems accessing the Internet were also reported in all three cities, with Telegram, WhatsApp, and Messenger being unavailable in the evening.
- 'We're Tired Of Fairy Tales!'
- By the evening of January 3, Prime Minister Askar Mamin's office released a statement that said all gas stations in Mangystau Province had been ordered to lower the price of LPG from 120 tenge to 85-90 tenge per liter and a government commission had been formed to look into the socioeconomic situation in the region.
- Authorities have been using such tactics for many months and it was therefore not surprising that hundreds of protesters in Aqtau continued their rally at a main city square late into the evening of January 3, even setting up a large yurt to emphasis they did not intend to leave.
- Nogaev, who was appointed Mangystau governor in September 2021 after serving as energy minister for two years, went to the square and repeated to the crowd Mamin's orders on reducing the cost of LPG.
- Residents protesting gas prices in Zhanaozen confront Mangystau Governor Nurlan Nogaev (right) on January 3.But the crowd chased Nogaev from the square shouting things such as ''We don't need a governor who can't solve problems. Get out! We're tired of fairy tales.''
- That same night, dozens of people in the northwestern city of Oral demonstrated and called for LPG prices to be reduced to 50 tenge per liter. The number grew into the hundreds, and they attempted to block the road.
- By the afternoon of January 4, the number of protesters in Oral had grown to some 500 and many were questioning why a commission was formed only to resolve economic problems in Mangystau and not in other provinces.
- By the early evening, authorities announced the price for LPG in Mangystau would be reduced to 50 tenge per liter.
- But detentions of activists and people trying to demonstrate were being reported on January 4 in Nur-Sultan, Almaty, Shymkent, Taraz, and other cities, while the websites KazTAG and Orda.kz -- which had been reporting on the protests -- were blocked.
- There were more labor strikes in Kazakhstan in 2021 than there had been in the three previous years combined as noted in an article in The Diplomat and on the Oxus Society's Central Asia protest tracker.
- Most of the strikes in 2021 happened in Mangystau Province and many of them took place in Zhanaozen.
- It was most often oil workers or employees in associated industries who went on strike, but health-care and public-transportation workers also temporarily stopped working until their demands were met.
- They always sought more pay and better working conditions and while they never received all they wanted, they usually got some concessions from management or state authorities.
- Some protesters have been calling for the price of LPG to be around 50 tenge per liter, but authorities initially seemed unwilling to drop the price so low.
- The Kazakh Energy Ministry has already said the price of LPG is based on the commodity exchange.
- ''Switching to e-commerce allows the gas price to be balanced based on supply and demand,'' the ministry said in a January 2 statement.
- Berdibek Kartbaev, the head of Mangystau's Department of Energy, Housing, and Communal Services, said the ''previous price of some 60 tenge [per liter] won't return'...'' since the cost of producing LPG was now some 70 to 85 tenge per liter and then there were additional operational and transportation costs.
- Kartbaev said the average cost of one liter of LPG in Kazakhstan is currently about 110 tenge.
- Olzhas Baidildinov, a freelance adviser to Kazakhstan's Energy Ministry was even more blunt.
- In an article for inbusiness.kz, Baidildinov also referred to the average price of LPG for Kazakhstan and questioned why any exceptions should be made for people in Zhanaozen.
- Baidildinov said the average monthly wage in Kazakhstan was a bit more than 250,000 tenge and claimed the ''average wage in Mangystau in the third quarter of 2021 was 346,542 tenge'' while in Zhanaozen it was 505,000 tenge.
- ''In Zhanaozen they are receiving twice more than the average wage in the country, but they want to pay half as much as everyone else in Kazakhstan,'' Baidildinov wrote.
- During the 2021 labor strikes in Mangystau, workers were claiming they made much less than 505,000 tenge per month, in some cases less than 100,000 tenge, and many of them are at sites where toxic chemicals are present and they wanted extra pay for the hazardous conditions at their worksites.
- Mangystau is also mainly desert and almost everything, including water, needs to be brought to the towns and cities in the interior, making the prices higher due to the transportation costs.
- Because the current protest is not confined to a single industry or group of industries, it is already more problematic for Kazakh authorities.
- There was a heavy police presence at a protest in Aqtau on January 3.The demand for lower LPG prices cuts across society and not only in the western parts of Kazakhstan.
- And there are already signs that the economic problems that spark unrest are turning into political protests that Kazakh authorities especially want to avoid.
- An early example of this was Nogaev being chased from the square in Aqtau.
- Some of the protesters in Zhanaozen were calling for the people to have the right to elect their local leaders and, in July 2021 when oil workers were on strike, a group of deputies from the pro-government Nur Otan and Ak Zhol parties came to speak with the group.
- They told them, ''We are deputies whom you elected,'' to which the striking workers replied, ''You were named to your posts; the people did not elect you.''
- If the price of LPG is really somewhere around 110 or 120 tenge per liter, Kazakh authorities will be hard-pressed to lower prices and with the number of labor strikes growing there are questions about how many concessions management and the government can make and what will happen when the answer to demands is finally "no."
- Covid omicron news: Biden says more Pfizer pills shipping this week
- President Joe Biden on Tuesday said another batch of Pfizer's Covid-19 treatment pills is shipping this week as the U.S. government doubles its order of the medication amid an unprecedented wave of infections driven by the highly contagious omicron variant.
- Biden on Tuesday directed the government to buy an additional 10 million courses of Pfizer's oral antiviral treatment, Paxlovid. With the new order, the U.S. has committed to purchase at least 20 million courses from Pfizer.
- The Biden administration is speeding up the delivery of the first 10 million treatment courses to June from September, according to the White House. Pfizer, in a statement announcing the new U.S. order Tuesday, said the remaining 10 million courses will be shipped by the end of September.
- A Pfizer employee checks the boxes containing Paxlovid, COVID-19 treatment pills, at a distribution facility in Memphis, Tennessee, in this undated handout picture.
- "I'm pleased to say that on Christmas Eve, we shipped out the first batch of these pills that we purchased and received, and more will be shipped this week," Biden said in a televised speech to the American people about his strategy to combat omicron.
- While the president said production is in "full swing," he noted that the complex chemistry involved in manufacturing the pills means it can take a significant amount of time for patients to get the treatments.
- The White House, in a statement, said the U.S. government is receiving the pills as soon as they come off the production line. Biden is prepared to offer Pfizer any resources it needs to make the pills, including using the Defense Production Act if needed, according to the White House.
- "These pills are going to dramatically decrease hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19," Biden said. "They're a game changer and have the potential to dramatically alter the impact of Covid-19."
- The U.S. recorded more than 1 million new infections on Monday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The record single-day total could be due in part to a delay in reporting over the holiday weekend, when a number of states did not publish new cases.
- However, the seven-day average of new infections also hit a record of more than 480,000 cases, nearly double the previous week, according to a CNBC analysis of the data from Hopkins.
- Pfizer's treatment, Paxlovid, was 89% effective at preventing hospitalization and death from Covid in a study of more than 2,000 high risk adults, according to the company.
- The Food and Drug Administration cleared the treatment in December for patients 12 and older with mild to moderate Covid who are at the highest risk of hospitalization or death. The twice-daily, five-day treatment is available by prescription only.
- Paxlovid is administered as three pills, two nirmatrelvir tablets and one tablet of ritonavir. Nirmatrelvir blocks an enzyme the virus needs to replicate while ritonavir, an HIV drug, helps slow the patient's metabolism to allow Pfizer's pill to remain active in the body longer to fight the virus.
- The treatment could help alleviate strain on health-care systems by keeping people, particularly those who are unvaccinated, out of hospitals as Covid cases continue to surge.
- Biden said the unvaccinated should be "alarmed" by omicron, warning that many people who have not received shots will become infected and suffer serious illness.
- "Some will die '-- needlessly die," Biden said. "Unvaccinated are taking up hospital beds and crowding emergency rooms and intensive care units. That's displaced other people who need access to those hospitals."
- Biden said people who are fully vaccinated, and particularly those who have received booster doses, are highly protected against severe illness from omicron. He again encouraged everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated and boosted.
- "You can still get Covid but it's highly unlikely, very unlikely, that you'll become seriously ill," Biden said. "We're seeing Covid-19 cases among vaccinated workplaces across America, including here at the White House, but if you're vaccinated and boosted '-- you are highly protected."
- About 98,000 Americans were hospitalized with Covid-19, according to a seven-day average of data from the Department of Health and Human Services as of Jan. 3, up 32% from a week earlier.
- -- CNBC's Nate Rattner contributed to this report.
- Lame Cherry: Death by Snowflakes
- As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
- The Lame Cherry is no the President of the United States, but is President Nominee of the Necrosapiens, so my expeience is with those who adore me and admire my God given abilities. In that, when I hear of Dictator Biden being held hostage in at Edwards Air Force Base in a snow gulag, something just does not add up.
- I remember thee American President Ronald Reagan, remarking with admiration of Air Force personnel every time, rolling up to the tarmac an stopping, exactly as the clock stated on the agenda that Ronald Reagan was to arrive, whether it was Moscow or Cleveland.
- See the people who are in the White House have lots of billion dollar things to make their lives look perfect and those who get in the way or that, do not last long. So the Lame Cherry questions in the Dictator, who has a staff, a meteorological staff, a military staff and a security staff, to make certain that Air Force One does not have shit weather to make the White House look bad or endanger the gender in the Oval Office.
- Meet you on the other side.
- Joe Biden was finally able to disembark from Air Force One on Monday after he was stuck on board for 30 minutes as airport personnel struggled through the heavy snowfall to bring the stair lift to the door of the presidential plane.
- The president was stuck on the plane, waiting on the snowy tarmac while the staff worked to free him and so the tarmac could be plowed.
- In review, how is it that Air Force One was landing in snow so deep that the Dictator was held hostage. That seems sort of dangerous to me. It seems a bit odd that Edwards staff which was aware the President was coming back to the every second, as the Air Force One pilots are precise in landing on time, that the snow clearing crews did not have the snow cleared as their making the Dictator wait, gets heard about in the Joint Chiefs who let the General at Andrews hear about it who does not get his star and is booted off the promotion list, but before he does, he makes life hell for the cleaning crews.
- None of this story makes any sense,, unless the DIA which installed Biden on Jan6 is in the process of removing the Dictator politically one way or the others.
- I thought the Secret Service investigated events which endangered the Dictator. The fact is the Dictator was endangered today. A Dictator can not be left exposed in one location for 30 minutes. Death by snowflakes is not an acceptable policy.
- As only the Lame Cherry is asking questions about this, as the Air Force does not make mistakes like this, an the Secret Service was not alerted to this problem, the alternative question is, did something happen to the Dictator which required a 30 minute delay to be blamed on the snow?
- Was the Dictator sleeping?Did the Dictator have a long bowel movement?Did the Dictator have some off book meeting with UFO aliens?
- It would be of benefit that the Dictator and the Air Force did not look incompetent, so Russia and China would not attack Ukraine and Taiwan and start another world war, unless that of course is what this is all about as that is why the DIA installed the Dictator.
- Marcos Menaldo dead at 25: Deportivo Marquense star dies after suffering heart attack in training
- FOOTBALL TRAGEDY 12:20, 4 Jan 2022 Updated : 15:12, 4 Jan 2022 GUATEMALAN star Marcos Menaldo has tragically passed away at the age of 25 after suffering a heart attack in training on Monday.
- The Deportivo Marquense defender complained of breathing difficulties during a session while preparing for the new season.
- Marcos Menaldo has sadly passed away at the age of 25 after suffering a heart attack 2
- Menaldo helped Deportivo Marquense win Guatemala's second division title last campaignMenaldo received emergency CPR at the Marquesa de la Ensenada Stadium in San Marcos.
- He was then transferred to the Hospital de Especialidades where he died.
- The centre-back was instrumental in helping Deportivo win Guatemala's second division title last campaign.
- They were crowned as Liga de Ascenso champions in December on the day that Menaldo turned 25.
- Deportivo club president Hernan Maldonado has spoken of his sadness after Menaldo's death was confirmed.
- Quoted by ESPN, he said: "One does not come out of astonishment.
- "A young, dynamic and jovial person, this happens to him.
- "It is quite strong and shocking because you lose not only a player, you lose a friend.
- "God has his plans and his purposes, but unfortunately we have the death.
- "It was around 11:00 hours that they called me to inform me that Marcos had fainted in training.
- "They transferred him to the assistance centre where they did everything possible.
- "But unfortunately, the death was confirmed."
- '½ Read our Transfer News Live blog for the very latest rumours, gossip and done deals
- The NBA and NFL Surrendered to Their Vaccine Refusers - The Atlantic
- Pro basketball and football showed that tough rules work, but now the leagues are giving up.
- Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE / Getty About the author: Jemele Hill is a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
- The Brooklyn Nets have officially ended their tug-of-war with Kyrie Irving over the star point guard's vaccination status. And Irving, who has refused to get a COVID-19 shot, is unquestionably the winner.
- The rapid spread of the coronavirus's Omicron variant has left gaps on rosters across the NBA. Because positive tests had rendered so many players ineligible, the Nets finally buckled to Irving, who had not played this season because New York City's vaccine mandate for certain indoor facilities had banished him from home games. To let Irving on the court now, even just for away games, is a drastic turnaround for a team that had sidelined him rather than deploy him part-time. After he cleared the NBA's COVID-19 protocols on Tuesday, Irving will be eligible to play for the Nets when they travel to Indiana to face the Pacers on January 5.
- Jemele Hill: Why LeBron James shouldn't cover for vaccine refusers
- This resolution of the Nets' high-profile dispute with Irving is part of a larger problem in professional sports: Confronted with this latest virus surge, both the NBA and the NFL have essentially waved the white flag. They are easing their health rules and sending conciliatory signals to players who have refused to get COVID-19 shots.
- Both leagues had adopted a range of health protocols that strongly encouraged vaccination. But now the leagues are choosing instead to cede to the forces of capitalism. Short-term financial concerns are dictating that even as Omicron spreads, games must go on. And if that means holding vaccinated and unvaccinated players to the same standards, the leagues will do it.
- After the CDC issued new guidelines Monday that will shorten quarantine times for anyone who tests positive for the coronavirus, the NBA announced that players who test positive will have to isolate for only six days, rather than 10, if they have no symptoms. The NFL and the NFL Players Association quickly announced that players with positive test results can return after five days. Stunningly, the two leagues' abbreviated new quarantine timelines apply to both vaccinated and unvaccinated players.
- Yascha Mounk: Omicron is the beginning of the end
- Until now, the NFL had rightly made a point of imposing additional burdens on unvaccinated players. For example, unvaccinated players had to undergo daily testing and, when the team traveled, could not fraternize with anyone but team personnel. These rules reflected the greater risk that unvaccinated players pose to others. The rules also created strong incentives: Among NFL players, the policy helped produce a vaccination rate of more than 94 percent'--far higher than the rate for all American adults. (The rate for NBA players is even better: at least 97 percent.)
- Some of these incentives are still in place. And earlier this month, the NFL suspended the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver Antonio Brown for three games because he brought a fake vaccination card to training camp. But the league started tinkering with its protocols after 150 positive cases turned up in mid-December. With the NFL playoffs looming, this was certainly a convenient time for the league and its health experts to devise ways of getting infected players back on the field faster. Under the old protocols, the Indianapolis Colts' unvaccinated quarterback, Carson Wentz, who tested positive for the virus earlier this week, would not have been eligible to play against the Las Vegas Raiders this Sunday. Now, with the reduced quarantine time, Wentz can take part in a game that could clinch a playoff berth for his team.
- Jemele Hill: Why Aaron Rodgers felt free to mislead people
- The NFL and NBA aren't exactly hiding their hand here. They are in the business of keeping business going. The Nets had seven players ineligible under the NBA's health-and-safety protocols heading into the team's marquee Christmas Day matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers. Among those left out was superstar forward Kevin Durant, who has since been cleared to play. The Nets have the best record in the Eastern Conference and a legitimate chance to win an NBA championship. Bringing Irving back will lighten the load on Durant'--his playing time of 37 minutes per game ranks second in the league'--as the NBA enters the meat of its season. And if another COVID surge comes over the team, Irving's return means one more superstar is available for road games.
- As of this week, the NBA has used 541 players this season'--a league record. That's because so many teams had to scramble to sign players to 10-day contracts to compensate for the staggering number of players on the COVID list. Despite that outrageous figure, neither the NBA nor the NFL were ever going to mimic the NHL, which decided to pause its season last week to deal with the surge in virus cases. (To compensate, the NHL also decided to pull its players from the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing to make them available for rescheduled games in February if necessary.)
- The NFL and NBA's latest protocol adjustments are just an extension of what's going on elsewhere in the economy. The CDC's decision to shorten quarantine times came six days after Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Air Lines, sent a letter begging the agency to reduce the isolation period for those who contracted the virus. Commercial aviation has been hit especially hard by the Omicron surge. Personnel shortages caused by positive tests have caused the cancellation of thousands of flights during a busy holiday season. According to The Washington Post, top health officials decided to reduce quarantine times because they feared far too many essential workers would otherwise be unable to work and industries would be crippled. Yet the new CDC breakthrough-infection guidance'--which recommends the same isolation period for unvaccinated and vaccinated people and asks neither to get a negative test before ending their isolation'--was even more permissive than many business leaders and sympathetic public-health experts had urged.
- From that standpoint, it's hard to blame the leagues for following a murky, complicated path. However, the shame is that these revised standards show that unvaccinated people will ultimately pay no penalty for adding so much chaos. Anti-vaxxers and right-wingers deemed Irving a martyr for his stance against vaccine mandates, and now he'll get to play on his terms. As long as Wentz remains asymptomatic, Wentz will get to play, despite not doing his part to end this pandemic. Brown is back on the field and wants the public to forget that he selfishly jeopardized the safety of everyone around him because he lacked the discipline to adhere to the stricter protocols for unvaccinated players.
- In the end, the NBA's and NFL's policies have emphasized two things'--keeping fans entertained and keeping teams and athletes working. The players who have refused vaccines now know that, regardless of the disruption they have contributed, the desire to keep revenue flowing is on their side.
- Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy | The White House
- By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to promote the interests of American workers, businesses, and consumers, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy .
- A fair, open, and competitive marketplace has long been a cornerstone of the American economy, while excessive market concentration threatens basic economic liberties, democratic accountability, and the welfare of workers, farmers, small businesses, startups, and consumers. The American promise of a broad and sustained prosperity depends on an open and competitive economy. For workers, a competitive marketplace creates more high-quality jobs and the economic freedom to switch jobs or negotiate a higher wage. For small businesses and farmers, it creates more choices among suppliers and major buyers, leading to more take-home income, which they can reinvest in their enterprises. For entrepreneurs, it provides space to experiment, innovate, and pursue the new ideas that have for centuries powered the American economy and improved our quality of life. And for consumers, it means more choices, better service, and lower prices. Robust competition is critical to preserving America's role as the world's leading economy. Yet over the last several decades, as industries have consolidated, competition has weakened in too many markets, denying Americans the benefits of an open economy and widening racial, income, and wealth inequality. Federal Government inaction has contributed to these problems, with workers, farmers, small businesses, and consumers paying the price. Consolidation has increased the power of corporate employers, making it harder for workers to bargain for higher wages and better work conditions. Powerful companies require workers to sign non-compete agreements that restrict their ability to change jobs. And, while many occupational licenses are critical to increasing wages for workers and especially workers of color, some overly restrictive occupational licensing requirements can impede workers' ability to find jobs and to move between States. Consolidation in the agricultural industry is making it too hard for small family farms to survive. Farmers are squeezed between concentrated market power in the agricultural input industries '-- seed, fertilizer, feed, and equipment suppliers '-- and concentrated market power in the channels for selling agricultural products. As a result, farmers' share of the value of their agricultural products has decreased, and poultry farmers, hog farmers, cattle ranchers, and other agricultural workers struggle to retain autonomy and to make sustainable returns. The American information technology sector has long been an engine of innovation and growth, but today a small number of dominant Internet platforms use their power to exclude market entrants, to extract monopoly profits, and to gather intimate personal information that they can exploit for their own advantage. Too many small businesses across the economy depend on those platforms and a few online marketplaces for their survival. And too many local newspapers have shuttered or downsized, in part due to the Internet platforms' dominance in advertising markets. Americans are paying too much for prescription drugs and healthcare services '-- far more than the prices paid in other countries. Hospital consolidation has left many areas, particularly rural communities, with inadequate or more expensive healthcare options. And too often, patent and other laws have been misused to inhibit or delay '-- for years and even decades '-- competition from generic drugs and biosimilars, denying Americans access to lower-cost drugs. In the telecommunications sector, Americans likewise pay too much for broadband, cable television, and other communications services, in part because of a lack of adequate competition. In the financial-services sector, consumers pay steep and often hidden fees because of industry consolidation. Similarly, the global container shipping industry has consolidated into a small number of dominant foreign-owned lines and alliances, which can disadvantage American exporters. The problem of economic consolidation now spans these sectors and many others, endangering our ability to rebuild and emerge from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with a vibrant, innovative, and growing economy. Meanwhile, the United States faces new challenges to its economic standing in the world, including unfair competitive pressures from foreign monopolies and firms that are state-owned or state-sponsored, or whose market power is directly supported by foreign governments. We must act now to reverse these dangerous trends, which constrain the growth and dynamism of our economy, impair the creation of high-quality jobs, and threaten America's economic standing in the world. This order affirms that it is the policy of my Administration to enforce the antitrust laws to combat the excessive concentration of industry, the abuses of market power, and the harmful effects of monopoly and monopsony '-- especially as these issues arise in labor markets, agricultural markets, Internet platform industries, healthcare markets (including insurance, hospital, and prescription drug markets), repair markets, and United States markets directly affected by foreign cartel activity. It is also the policy of my Administration to enforce the antitrust laws to meet the challenges posed by new industries and technologies, including the rise of the dominant Internet platforms, especially as they stem from serial mergers, the acquisition of nascent competitors, the aggregation of data, unfair competition in attention markets, the surveillance of users, and the presence of network effects. Whereas decades of industry consolidation have often led to excessive market concentration, this order reaffirms that the United States retains the authority to challenge transactions whose previous consummation was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act (26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. 1 et seq.) (Sherman Act), the Clayton Antitrust Act (Public Law 63-212, 38 Stat. 730, 15 U.S.C. 12 et seq.) (Clayton Act), or other laws. See 15 U.S.C. 18; Standard Oil Co. v. United States, 221 U.S. 1 (1911). This order reasserts as United States policy that the answer to the rising power of foreign monopolies and cartels is not the tolerance of domestic monopolization, but rather the promotion of competition and innovation by firms small and large, at home and worldwide. It is also the policy of my Administration to support aggressive legislative reforms that would lower prescription drug prices, including by allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, by imposing inflation caps, and through other related reforms. It is further the policy of my Administration to support the enactment of a public health insurance option. My Administration further reaffirms the policy stated in Executive Order 13725 of April 15, 2016 (Steps to Increase Competition and Better Inform Consumers and Workers to Support Continued Growth of the American Economy), and the Federal Government's commitment to the principles that led to the passage of the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, the Packers and Stockyards Act, 1921 (Public Law 67-51, 42 Stat. 159, 7 U.S.C. 181 et seq.) (Packers and Stockyards Act), the Celler-Kefauver Antimerger Act (Public Law 81-899, 64 Stat. 1125), the Bank Merger Act (Public Law 86-463, 74 Stat. 129, 12 U.S.C. 1828), and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-104, 110 Stat. 56), among others. Sec. 2. The Statutory Basis of a Whole-of-Government Competition Policy .
- (a) The antitrust laws, including the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Act (Public Law 63-203, 38 Stat. 717, 15 U.S.C. 41 et seq.), are a first line of defense against the monopolization of the American economy. (b) The antitrust laws reflect an underlying policy favoring competition that transcends those particular enactments. As the Supreme Court has stated, for instance, the Sherman Act ''rests on the premise that the unrestrained interaction of competitive forces will yield the best allocation of our economic resources, the lowest prices, the highest quality and the greatest material progress, while at the same time providing an environment conducive to the preservation of our democratic political and social institutions.'' Northern Pac. Ry. Co. v. United States, 356 U.S. 1, 4 (1958). (c) Consistent with these broader policies, and in addition to the traditional antitrust laws, the Congress has also enacted industry-specific fair competition and anti-monopolization laws that often provide additional protections. Such enactments include the Packers and Stockyards Act, the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (Public Law 74-401, 49 Stat. 977, 27 U.S.C. 201 et seq.), the Bank Merger Act, the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-417, 98 Stat. 1585), the Shipping Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-237, 98 Stat. 67, 46 U.S.C. 40101 et seq.) (Shipping Act), the ICC Termination Act of 1995 (Public Law 104-88, 109 Stat. 803), the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Fairness to Contact Lens Consumers Act (Public Law 108-164, 117 Stat. 2024, 15 U.S.C. 7601 et seq.), and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Public Law 111-203, 124 Stat. 1376) (Dodd-Frank Act). (d) These statutes independently charge a number of executive departments and agencies (agencies) to protect conditions of fair competition in one or more ways, including by: (i) policing unfair, deceptive, and abusive business practices; (ii) resisting consolidation and promoting competition within industries through the independent oversight of mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures; (iii) promulgating rules that promote competition, including the market entry of new competitors; and (iv) promoting market transparency through compelled disclosure of information. (e) The agencies that administer such or similar authorities include the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Transportation, the Federal Reserve System, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Maritime Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Surface Transportation Board. (f) Agencies can influence the conditions of competition through their exercise of regulatory authority or through the procurement process. See 41 U.S.C. 1705. (g) This order recognizes that a whole-of-government approach is necessary to address overconcentration, monopolization, and unfair competition in the American economy. Such an approach is supported by existing statutory mandates. Agencies can and should further the polices set forth in section 1 of this order by, among other things, adopting pro'competitive regulations and approaches to procurement and spending, and by rescinding regulations that create unnecessary barriers to entry that stifle competition. Sec. 3. Agency Cooperation in Oversight, Investigation, and Remedies .
- (a) The Congress frequently has created overlapping agency jurisdiction in the policing of anticompetitive conduct and the oversight of mergers. It is the policy of my Administration that, when agencies have overlapping jurisdiction, they should endeavor to cooperate fully in the exercise of their oversight authority, to benefit from the respective expertise of the agencies and to improve Government efficiency. (b) Where there is overlapping jurisdiction over particular cases, conduct, transactions, or industries, agencies are encouraged to coordinate their efforts, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, with respect to: (i) the investigation of conduct potentially harmful to competition; (ii) the oversight of proposed mergers, acquisitions, and joint ventures; and (iii) the design, execution, and oversight of remedies. (c) The means of cooperation in cases of overlapping jurisdiction should include, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law: (i) sharing relevant information and industry data; (ii) in the case of major transactions, soliciting and giving significant consideration to the views of the Attorney General or the Chair of the FTC, as applicable; and (iii) cooperating with any concurrent Department of Justice or FTC oversight activities under the Sherman Act or Clayton Act. (d) Nothing in subsections (a) through (c) of this section shall be construed to suggest that the statutory standard applied by an agency, or its independent assessment under that standard, should be displaced or substituted by the judgment of the Attorney General or the Chair of the FTC. When their views are solicited, the Attorney General and the Chair of the FTC are encouraged to provide a response to the agency in time for the agency to consider it in advance of any statutory deadline for agency action. Sec. 4. The White House Competition Council .
- (a) There is established a White House Competition Council (Council) within the Executive Office of the President. (b) The Council shall coordinate, promote, and advance Federal Government efforts to address overconcentration, monopolization, and unfair competition in or directly affecting the American economy, including efforts to: (i) implement the administrative actions identified in this order; (ii) develop procedures and best practices for agency cooperation and coordination on matters of overlapping jurisdiction, as described in section 3 of this order; (iii) identify and advance any additional administrative actions necessary to further the policies set forth in section 1 of this order; and (iv) identify any potential legislative changes necessary to further the policies set forth in section 1 of this order. (c) The Council shall work across agencies to provide a coordinated response to overconcentration, monopolization, and unfair competition in or directly affecting the American economy. The Council shall also work with each agency to ensure that agency operations are conducted in a manner that promotes fair competition, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law. (d) The Council shall not discuss any current or anticipated enforcement actions. (e) The Council shall be led by the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council, who shall serve as Chair of the Council. (f) In addition to the Chair, the Council shall consist of the following members: (i) the Secretary of the Treasury; (ii) the Secretary of Defense; (iii) the Attorney General; (iv) the Secretary of Agriculture; (v) the Secretary of Commerce; (vi) the Secretary of Labor; (vii) the Secretary of Health and Human Services; (viii) the Secretary of Transportation; (ix) the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; and (x) the heads of such other agencies and offices as the Chair may from time to time invite to participate. (g) The Chair shall invite the participation of the Chair of the FTC, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, the Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission, the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Chair of the Surface Transportation Board, to the extent consistent with their respective statutory authorities and obligations. (h) Members of the Council shall designate, not later than 30 days after the date of this order, a senior official within their respective agency or office who shall coordinate with the Council and who shall be responsible for overseeing the agency's or office's efforts to address overconcentration, monopolization, and unfair competition. The Chair may coordinate subgroups consisting exclusively of Council members or their designees, as appropriate. (i) The Council shall meet on a semi-annual basis unless the Chair determines that a meeting is unnecessary. (j) Each agency shall bear its own expenses for participating in the Council. Sec. 5. Further Agency Responsibilities .
- (a) The heads of all agencies shall consider using their authorities to further the policies set forth in section 1 of this order, with particular attention to: (i) the influence of any of their respective regulations, particularly any licensing regulations, on concentration and competition in the industries under their jurisdiction; and (ii) the potential for their procurement or other spending to improve the competitiveness of small businesses and businesses with fair labor practices. (b) The Attorney General, the Chair of the FTC, and the heads of other agencies with authority to enforce the Clayton Act are encouraged to enforce the antitrust laws fairly and vigorously. (c) To address the consolidation of industry in many markets across the economy, as described in section 1 of this order, the Attorney General and the Chair of the FTC are encouraged to review the horizontal and vertical merger guidelines and consider whether to revise those guidelines. (d) To avoid the potential for anticompetitive extension of market power beyond the scope of granted patents, and to protect standard-setting processes from abuse, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Commerce are encouraged to consider whether to revise their position on the intersection of the intellectual property and antitrust laws, including by considering whether to revise the Policy Statement on Remedies for Standards-Essential Patents Subject to Voluntary F/RAND Commitments issued jointly by the Department of Justice, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology on December 19, 2019. (e) To ensure Americans have choices among financial institutions and to guard against excessive market power, the Attorney General, in consultation with the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Comptroller of the Currency, is encouraged to review current practices and adopt a plan, not later than 180 days after the date of this order, for the revitalization of merger oversight under the Bank Merger Act and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 (Public Law 84-511, 70 Stat. 133, 12 U.S.C. 1841 et seq.) that is in accordance with the factors enumerated in 12 U.S.C. 1828(c) and 1842(c). (f) To better protect workers from wage collusion, the Attorney General and the Chair of the FTC are encouraged to consider whether to revise the Antitrust Guidance for Human Resource Professionals of October 2016. (g) To address agreements that may unduly limit workers' ability to change jobs, the Chair of the FTC is encouraged to consider working with the rest of the Commission to exercise the FTC's statutory rulemaking authority under the Federal Trade Commission Act to curtail the unfair use of non-compete clauses and other clauses or agreements that may unfairly limit worker mobility. (h) To address persistent and recurrent practices that inhibit competition, the Chair of the FTC, in the Chair's discretion, is also encouraged to consider working with the rest of the Commission to exercise the FTC's statutory rulemaking authority, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, in areas such as: (i) unfair data collection and surveillance practices that may damage competition, consumer autonomy, and consumer privacy; (ii) unfair anticompetitive restrictions on third-party repair or self-repair of items, such as the restrictions imposed by powerful manufacturers that prevent farmers from repairing their own equipment; (iii) unfair anticompetitive conduct or agreements in the prescription drug industries, such as agreements to delay the market entry of generic drugs or biosimilars; (iv) unfair competition in major Internet marketplaces; (v) unfair occupational licensing restrictions; (vi) unfair tying practices or exclusionary practices in the brokerage or listing of real estate; and (vii) any other unfair industry-specific practices that substantially inhibit competition. (i) The Secretary of Agriculture shall: (i) to address the unfair treatment of farmers and improve conditions of competition in the markets for their products, consider initiating a rulemaking or rulemakings under the Packers and Stockyards Act to strengthen the Department of Agriculture's regulations concerning unfair, unjustly discriminatory, or deceptive practices and undue or unreasonable preferences, advantages, prejudices, or disadvantages, with the purpose of furthering the vigorous implementation of the law established by the Congress in 1921 and fortified by amendments. In such rulemaking or rulemakings, the Secretary of Agriculture shall consider, among other things: (A) providing clear rules that identify recurrent practices in the livestock, meat, and poultry industries that are unfair, unjustly discriminatory, or deceptive and therefore violate the Packers and Stockyards Act; (B) reinforcing the long-standing Department of Agriculture interpretation that it is unnecessary under the Packers and Stockyards Act to demonstrate industry-wide harm to establish a violation of the Act and that the ''unfair, unjustly discriminatory, or deceptive'' treatment of one farmer, the giving to one farmer of an ''undue or unreasonable preference or advantage,'' or the subjection of one farmer to an ''undue or unreasonable prejudice or disadvantage in any respect'' violates the Act; (C) prohibiting unfair practices related to grower ranking systems '-- systems in which the poultry companies, contractors, or dealers exercise extraordinary control over numerous inputs that determine the amount farmers are paid and require farmers to assume the risk of factors outside their control, leaving them more economically vulnerable; (D) updating the appropriate definitions or set of criteria, or application thereof, for undue or unreasonable preferences, advantages, prejudices, or disadvantages under the Packers and Stockyards Act; and (E) adopting, to the greatest extent possible and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, appropriate anti-retaliation protections, so that farmers may assert their rights without fear of retribution; (ii) to ensure consumers have accurate, transparent labels that enable them to choose products made in the United States, consider initiating a rulemaking to define the conditions under which the labeling of meat products can bear voluntary statements indicating that the product is of United States origin, such as ''Product of USA''; (iii) to ensure that farmers have greater opportunities to access markets and receive a fair return for their products, not later than 180 days after the date of this order, submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, with a plan to promote competition in the agricultural industries and to support value-added agriculture and alternative food distribution systems through such means as: (A) the creation or expansion of useful information for farmers, such as model contracts, to lower transaction costs and help farmers negotiate fair deals; (B) measures to encourage improvements in transparency and standards so that consumers may choose to purchase products that support fair treatment of farmers and agricultural workers and sustainable agricultural practices; (C) measures to enhance price discovery, increase transparency, and improve the functioning of the cattle and other livestock markets; (D) enhanced tools, including any new legislative authorities needed, to protect whistleblowers, monitor agricultural markets, and enforce relevant laws; (E) any investments or other support that could bolster competition within highly concentrated agricultural markets; and (F) any other means that the Secretary of Agriculture deems appropriate; (iv) to improve farmers' and smaller food processors' access to retail markets, not later than 300 days after the date of this order, in consultation with the Chair of the FTC, submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, on the effect of retail concentration and retailers' practices on the conditions of competition in the food industries, including any practices that may violate the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Robinson-Patman Act (Public Law 74-692, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U.S.C. 13 et seq.), or other relevant laws, and on grants, loans, and other support that may enhance access to retail markets by local and regional food enterprises; and (v) to help ensure that the intellectual property system, while incentivizing innovation, does not also unnecessarily reduce competition in seed and other input markets beyond that reasonably contemplated by the Patent Act (see 35 U.S.C. 100 et seq. and 7 U.S.C. 2321 et seq.), in consultation with the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, enumerating and describing any relevant concerns of the Department of Agriculture and strategies for addressing those concerns across intellectual property, antitrust, and other relevant laws. (j) To protect the vibrancy of the American markets for beer, wine, and spirits, and to improve market access for smaller, independent, and new operations, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Chair of the FTC, not later than 120 days after the date of this order, shall submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, assessing the current market structure and conditions of competition, including an assessment of any threats to competition and barriers to new entrants, including: (i) any unlawful trade practices in the beer, wine, and spirits markets, such as certain exclusionary, discriminatory, or anticompetitive distribution practices, that hinder smaller and independent businesses or new entrants from distributing their products; (ii) patterns of consolidation in production, distribution, or retail beer, wine, and spirits markets; and (iii) any unnecessary trade practice regulations of matters such as bottle sizes, permitting, or labeling that may unnecessarily inhibit competition by increasing costs without serving any public health, informational, or tax purpose. (k) To follow up on the foregoing assessment, the Secretary of the Treasury, through the Administrator of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, shall, not later than 240 days after the date of this order, consider: (i) initiating a rulemaking to update the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau's trade practice regulations; (ii) rescinding or revising any regulations of the beer, wine, and spirits industries that may unnecessarily inhibit competition; and (iii) reducing any barriers that impede market access for smaller and independent brewers, winemakers, and distilleries. (l) To promote competition, lower prices, and a vibrant and innovative telecommunications ecosystem, the Chair of the Federal Communications Commission is encouraged to work with the rest of the Commission, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to consider: (i) adopting through appropriate rulemaking ''Net Neutrality'' rules similar to those previously adopted under title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (Public Law 73-416, 48 Stat. 1064, 47 U.S.C. 151 et seq.), as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, in ''Protecting and Promoting the Open Internet,'' 80 Fed. Reg. 19738 (Apr. 13, 2015); (ii) conducting future spectrum auctions under rules that are designed to help avoid excessive concentration of spectrum license holdings in the United States, so as to prevent spectrum stockpiling, warehousing of spectrum by licensees, or the creation of barriers to entry, and to improve the conditions of competition in industries that depend upon radio spectrum, including mobile communications and radio-based broadband services; (iii) providing support for the continued development and adoption of 5G Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) protocols and software, continuing to attend meetings of voluntary and consensus-based standards development organizations, so as to promote or encourage a fair and representative standard-setting process, and undertaking any other measures that might promote increased openness, innovation, and competition in the markets for 5G equipment; (iv) prohibiting unjust or unreasonable early termination fees for end-user communications contracts, enabling consumers to more easily switch providers; (v) initiating a rulemaking that requires broadband service providers to display a broadband consumer label, such as that as described in the Public Notice of the Commission issued on April 4, 2016 (DA 16''357), so as to give consumers clear, concise, and accurate information regarding provider prices and fees, performance, and network practices; (vi) initiating a rulemaking to require broadband service providers to regularly report broadband price and subscription rates to the Federal Communications Commission for the purpose of disseminating that information to the public in a useful manner, to improve price transparency and market functioning; and (vii) initiating a rulemaking to prevent landlords and cable and Internet service providers from inhibiting tenants' choices among providers. (m) The Secretary of Transportation shall: (i) to better protect consumers and improve competition, and as appropriate and consistent with applicable law: (A) not later than 30 days after the date of this order, appoint or reappoint members of the Advisory Committee for Aviation Consumer Protection to ensure fair representation of consumers, State and local interests, airlines, and airports with respect to the evaluation of aviation consumer protection programs and convene a meeting of the Committee as soon as practicable; (B) promote enhanced transparency and consumer safeguards, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, including through potential rulemaking, enforcement actions, or guidance documents, with the aims of: (1) enhancing consumer access to airline flight information so that consumers can more easily find a broader set of available flights, including by new or lesser known airlines; and (2) ensuring that consumers are not exposed or subject to advertising, marketing, pricing, and charging of ancillary fees that may constitute an unfair or deceptive practice or an unfair method of competition; (C) not later than 45 days after the date of this order, submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, on the progress of the Department of Transportation's investigatory and enforcement activities to address the failure of airlines to provide timely refunds for flights cancelled as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic; (D) not later than 45 days after the date of this order, publish for notice and comment a proposed rule requiring airlines to refund baggage fees when a passenger's luggage is substantially delayed and other ancillary fees when passengers pay for a service that is not provided; (E) not later than 60 days after the date of this order, start development of proposed amendments to the Department of Transportation's definitions of ''unfair'' and ''deceptive'' in 49 U.S.C. 41712; and (F) not later than 90 days after the date of this order, consider initiating a rulemaking to ensure that consumers have ancillary fee information, including ''baggage fees,'' ''change fees,'' and ''cancellation fees,'' at the time of ticket purchase; (ii) to provide consumers with more flight options at better prices and with improved service, and to extend opportunities for competition and market entry as the industry evolves: (A) not later than 30 days after the date of this order, convene a working group within the Department of Transportation to evaluate the effectiveness of existing commercial aviation programs, consumer protections, and rules of the Federal Aviation Administration; (B) consult with the Attorney General regarding means of enhancing effective coordination between the Department of Justice and the Department of Transportation to ensure competition in air transportation and the ability of new entrants to gain access; and (C) consider measures to support airport development and increased capacity and improve airport congestion management, gate access, implementation of airport competition plans pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 47106(f), and ''slot'' administration; (iii) given the emergence of new aerospace-based transportation technologies, such as low-altitude unmanned aircraft system deliveries, advanced air mobility, and high-altitude long endurance operations, that have great potential for American travelers and consumers, yet also the danger of early monopolization or new air traffic control problems, ensure that the Department of Transportation takes action with respect to these technologies to: (A) facilitate innovation that fosters United States market leadership and market entry to promote competition and economic opportunity and to resist monopolization, while also ensuring safety, providing security and privacy, protecting the environment, and promoting equity; and (B) provide vigilant oversight over market participants. (n) To further competition in the rail industry and to provide accessible remedies for shippers, the Chair of the Surface Transportation Board (Chair) is encouraged to work with the rest of the Board to: (i) consider commencing or continuing a rulemaking to strengthen regulations pertaining to reciprocal switching agreements pursuant to 49 U.S.C. 11102(c), if the Chair determines such rulemaking to be in the public interest or necessary to provide competitive rail service; (ii) consider rulemakings pertaining to any other relevant matter of competitive access, including bottleneck rates, interchange commitments, or other matters, consistent with the policies set forth in section 1 of this order; (iii) to ensure that passenger rail service is not subject to unwarranted delays and interruptions in service due to host railroads' failure to comply with the required preference for passenger rail, vigorously enforce new on-time performance requirements adopted pursuant to the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-423, 122 Stat. 4907) that will take effect on July 1, 2021, and further the work of the passenger rail working group formed to ensure that the Surface Transportation Board will fully meet its obligations; and (iv) in the process of determining whether a merger, acquisition, or other transaction involving rail carriers is consistent with the public interest under 49 U.S.C. 11323-25, consider a carrier's fulfillment of its responsibilities under 49 U.S.C. 24308 (relating to Amtrak's statutory rights). (o) The Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission is encouraged to work with the rest of the Commission to: (i) vigorously enforce the prohibition of unjust and unreasonable practices in the context of detention and demurrage pursuant to the Shipping Act, as clarified in ''Interpretive Rule on Demurrage and Detention Under the Shipping Act,'' 85 Fed. Reg. 29638 (May 18, 2020); (ii) request from the National Shipper Advisory Committee recommendations for improving detention and demurrage practices and enforcement of related Shipping Act prohibitions; and (iii) consider further rulemaking to improve detention and demurrage practices and enforcement of related Shipping Act prohibitions. (p) The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall: (i) to promote the wide availability of low-cost hearing aids, not later than 120 days after the date of this order, publish for notice and comment a proposed rule on over-the-counter hearing-aids, as called for by section 709 of the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 (Public Law 115-52, 131 Stat. 1005); (ii) support existing price transparency initiatives for hospitals, other providers, and insurers along with any new price transparency initiatives or changes made necessary by the No Surprises Act (Public Law 116-260, 134 Stat. 2758) or any other statutes; (iii) to ensure that Americans can choose health insurance plans that meet their needs and compare plan offerings, implement standardized options in the national Health Insurance Marketplace and any other appropriate mechanisms to improve competition and consumer choice; (iv) not later than 45 days after the date of this order, submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Director of the Domestic Policy Council and to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, with a plan to continue the effort to combat excessive pricing of prescription drugs and enhance domestic pharmaceutical supply chains, to reduce the prices paid by the Federal Government for such drugs, and to address the recurrent problem of price gouging; (v) to lower the prices of and improve access to prescription drugs and biologics, continue to promote generic drug and biosimilar competition, as contemplated by the Drug Competition Action Plan of 2017 and Biosimilar Action Plan of 2018 of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including by: (A) continuing to clarify and improve the approval framework for generic drugs and biosimilars to make generic drug and biosimilar approval more transparent, efficient, and predictable, including improving and clarifying the standards for interchangeability of biological products; (B) as authorized by the Advancing Education on Biosimilars Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-8, 135 Stat. 254, 42 U.S.C. 263-1), supporting biosimilar product adoption by providing effective educational materials and communications to improve understanding of biosimilar and interchangeable products among healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers; (C) to facilitate the development and approval of biosimilar and interchangeable products, continuing to update the FDA's biologics regulations to clarify existing requirements and procedures related to the review and submission of Biologics License Applications by advancing the ''Biologics Regulation Modernization'' rulemaking (RIN 0910-AI14); and (D) with the Chair of the FTC, identifying and addressing any efforts to impede generic drug and biosimilar competition, including but not limited to false, misleading, or otherwise deceptive statements about generic drug and biosimilar products and their safety or effectiveness; (vi) to help ensure that the patent system, while incentivizing innovation, does not also unjustifiably delay generic drug and biosimilar competition beyond that reasonably contemplated by applicable law, not later than 45 days after the date of this order, through the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, write a letter to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office enumerating and describing any relevant concerns of the FDA; (vii) to support the market entry of lower-cost generic drugs and biosimilars, continue the implementation of the law widely known as the CREATES Act of 2019 (Public Law 116-94, 133 Stat. 3130), by: (A) promptly issuing Covered Product Authorizations (CPAs) to assist product developers with obtaining brand-drug samples; and (B) issuing guidance to provide additional information for industry about CPAs; and (viii) through the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, prepare for Medicare and Medicaid coverage of interchangeable biological products, and for payment models to support increased utilization of generic drugs and biosimilars. (q) To reduce the cost of covered products to the American consumer without imposing additional risk to public health and safety, the Commissioner of Food and Drugs shall work with States and Indian Tribes that propose to develop section 804 Importation Programs in accordance with the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (Public Law 108-173, 117 Stat. 2066), and the FDA's implementing regulations. (r) The Secretary of Commerce shall: (i) acting through the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), consider initiating a rulemaking to require agencies to report to NIST, on an annual basis, their contractors' utilization activities, as reported to the agencies under 35 U.S.C. 202(c)(5); (ii) acting through the Director of NIST, consistent with the policies set forth in section 1 of this order, consider not finalizing any provisions on march-in rights and product pricing in the proposed rule ''Rights to Federally Funded Inventions and Licensing of Government Owned Inventions,'' 86 Fed. Reg. 35 (Jan. 4, 2021); and (iii) not later than 1 year after the date of this order, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, conduct a study, including by conducting an open and transparent stakeholder consultation process, of the mobile application ecosystem, and submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, regarding findings and recommendations for improving competition, reducing barriers to entry, and maximizing user benefit with respect to the ecosystem. (s) The Secretary of Defense shall: (i) ensure that the Department of Defense's assessment of the economic forces and structures shaping the capacity of the national security innovation base pursuant to section 889(a) and (b) of the William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 (Public Law 116-283, 134 Stat. 3388) is consistent with the policy set forth in section 1 of this order; (ii) not later than 180 days after the date of this order, submit to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, a review of the state of competition within the defense industrial base, including areas where a lack of competition may be of concern and any recommendations for improving the solicitation process, consistent with the goal of the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-369, 98 Stat. 1175); and (iii) not later than 180 days after the date of this order, submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, on a plan for avoiding contract terms in procurement agreements that make it challenging or impossible for the Department of Defense or service members to repair their own equipment, particularly in the field. (t) The Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, consistent with the pro-competition objectives stated in section 1021 of the Dodd-Frank Act, is encouraged to consider: (i) commencing or continuing a rulemaking under section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Act to facilitate the portability of consumer financial transaction data so consumers can more easily switch financial institutions and use new, innovative financial products; and (ii) enforcing the prohibition on unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices in consumer financial products or services pursuant to section 1031 of the Dodd-Frank Act so as to ensure that actors engaged in unlawful activities do not distort the proper functioning of the competitive process or obtain an unfair advantage over competitors who follow the law. (u) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget, through the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, shall incorporate into its recommendations for modernizing and improving regulatory review required by my Memorandum of January 20, 2021 (Modernizing Regulatory Review), the policies set forth in section 1 of this order, including consideration of whether the effects on competition and the potential for creation of barriers to entry should be included in regulatory impact analyses. (v) The Secretary of the Treasury shall: (i) direct the Office of Economic Policy, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Labor, and the Chair of the FTC, to submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, not later than 180 days after the date of this order, on the effects of lack of competition on labor markets; and (ii) submit a report to the Chair of the White House Competition Council, not later than 270 days after the date of this order, assessing the effects on competition of large technology firms' and other non'bank companies' entry into consumer finance markets. Sec. 6. General Provisions .
- (a) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations. (b) Where not already specified, independent agencies are encouraged to comply with the requirements of this order. (c) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect: (i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals. (d) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
- THE WHITE HOUSE, July 9, 2021.
- FACT SHEET: Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy | The White House
- The economy is booming under President Biden's leadership. The economy has gained more than three million jobs since the President took office'--the most jobs created in the first five months of any presidency in modern history. Today, the President is building on this economic momentum by signing an Executive Order to promote competition in the American economy, which will lower prices for families, increase wages for workers, and promote innovation and even faster economic growth.
- For decades, corporate consolidation has been accelerating. In over 75% of U.S. industries, a smaller number of large companies now control more of the business than they did twenty years ago. This is true across healthcare, financial services, agriculture and more.
- That lack of competition drives up prices for consumers. As fewer large players have controlled more of the market, mark-ups (charges over cost) have tripled. Families are paying higher prices for necessities'--things like prescription drugs, hearing aids, and internet service.
- Barriers to competition are also driving down wages for workers. When there are only a few employers in town, workers have less opportunity to bargain for a higher wage and to demand dignity and respect in the workplace. In fact, research shows that industry consolidation is decreasing advertised wages by as much as 17%. Tens of millions of Americans'--including those working in construction and retail'--are required to sign non-compete agreements as a condition of getting a job, which makes it harder for them to switch to better-paying options.In total, higher prices and lower wages caused by lack of competition are now estimated to cost the median American household $5,000 per year.
- Inadequate competition holds back economic growth and innovation. The rate of new business formation has fallen by almost 50% since the 1970s as large businesses make it harder for Americans with good ideas to break into markets. There are fewer opportunities for existing small and independent businesses to access markets and earn a fair return. Economists find that as competition declines, productivity growth slows, business investment and innovation decline, and income, wealth, and racial inequality widen.
- When past presidents faced similar threats from growing corporate power, they took bold action. In the early 1900s, Teddy Roosevelt's Administration broke up the trusts controlling the economy'--Standard Oil, J.P. Morgan's railroads, and others'--giving the little guy a fighting chance. In the late 1930s, FDR's Administration supercharged antitrust enforcement, increasing more than eightfold the number of cases brought in just two years'--enforcement actions that saved consumers billions in today's dollars and helped unleash decades of sustained, inclusive economic growth.
- Today President Biden is taking decisive action to reduce the trend of corporate consolidation, increase competition, and deliver concrete benefits to America's consumers, workers, farmers, and small businesses. Today's historic Executive Order established a whole-of-government effort to promote competition in the American economy. The Order includes 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies to promptly tackle some of the most pressing competition problems across our economy. Once implemented, these initiatives will result in concrete improvements to people's lives.
- Among other things, they will:
- Make it easier to change jobs and help raise wages by banning or limiting non-compete agreements and unnecessary, cumbersome occupational licensing requirements that impede economic mobility.Lower prescription drug prices by supporting state and tribal programs that will import safe and cheaper drugs from Canada.Save Americans with hearing loss thousands of dollars by allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter at drug stores.Save Americans money on their internet bills by banning excessive early termination fees, requiring clear disclosure of plan costs to facilitate comparison shopping, and ending landlord exclusivity arrangements that stick tenants with only a single internet option.Make it easier for people to get refunds from airlines and to comparison shop for flights by requiring clear upfront disclosure of add-on fees.Make it easier and cheaper to repair items you own by limiting manufacturers from barring self-repairs or third-party repairs of their products.Make it easier and cheaper to switch banks by requiring banks to allow customers to take their financial transaction data with them to a competitor.Empower family farmers and increase their incomes by strengthening the Department of Agriculture's tools to stop the abusive practices of some meat processors.Increase opportunities for small businesses by directing all federal agencies to promote greater competition through their procurement and spending decisions.The Order also encourages the leading antitrust agencies to focus enforcement efforts on problems in key markets and coordinates other agencies' ongoing response to corporate consolidation. The Order:
- Calls on the leading antitrust agencies, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), to enforce the antitrust laws vigorously and recognizes that the law allows them to challenge prior bad mergers that past Administrations did not previously challenge.Announces a policy that enforcement should focus in particular on labor markets, agricultural markets, healthcare markets (which includes prescription drugs, hospital consolidation, and insurance), and the tech sector.Establishes a White House Competition Council, led by the Director of the National Economic Council, to monitor progress on finalizing the initiatives in the Order and to coordinate the federal government's response to the rising power of large corporations in the economy.A more detailed summary of the key actions in the Order is provided below:
- Competition in labor markets can empower workers to demand higher wages and greater dignity and respect in the workplace. One way companies stifle competition is with non-compete clauses. Roughly half of private-sector businesses require at least some employees to enter non-compete agreements, affecting some 36 to 60 million workers.
- Overly burdensome occupational licensing requirements also restrict competition. In certain occupations, such as skilled construction trades, licensing is critical to protecting public health and safety and increasing wages for workers who acquire in-demand skills and knowledge. In other occupations, however, it can impede worker mobility without countervailing benefits. Today, almost 30% of jobs in the United States require a license, up from less than 5% in the 1950s. Fewer than 5% of occupations that require licensing in at least one state are treated consistently across all 50 states. That locks some people out of jobs, and it makes it harder for people to move between states'--particularly burdening military spouses, 34% of whom work in a field requiring a license and are subject to military-directed moves every few years.
- Workers may also be harmed by existing guidance provided by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission to Human Resource personnel that allows third parties to make wage data available to employers'--and not to workers'--in certain circumstances without triggering antitrust scrutiny. This may be used to collaborate to suppress wages and benefits.
- In the Order, the President:
- Encourages the FTC to ban or limit non-compete agreements.Encourages the FTC to ban unnecessary occupational licensing restrictions that impede economic mobility.Encourages the FTC and DOJ to strengthen antitrust guidance to prevent employers from collaborating to suppress wages or reduce benefits by sharing wage and benefit information with one another.These actions complement the President's call for Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to ensure workers have a free and fair choice to join a union and to collectively bargain. Unions are critical to empowering workers to bargain with their employers for better jobs and to creating an economy that works for everyone.
- The proposed Order tackles four areas where lack of competition in healthcare increases prices and reduces access to quality care.
- Prescription Drugs: Americans pay more than 2.5 times as much for the same prescription drugs as peer countries, and sometimes much more. Price increases continue to far surpass inflation. As a result, nearly one in four Americans report difficulties paying for medication, and nearly one in three Americans report not taking their medications as prescribed.
- These high prices are in part the result of lack of competition among drug manufacturers. The largest pharmaceutical companies are able to wield their market power to reap average annual profits of 15-20%, as compared to average annual profits of 4-9% for the largest non-drug companies.
- One strategy that drug manufacturers have used to avoid competing is ''pay for delay'' agreements, in which brand-name drug manufacturers pay generic manufacturers to stay out of the market. That has raised drug prices by $3.5 billion per year, and research also shows that ''pay for delay'' and similar deals between generic and brand name manufacturers reduce innovation'--reducing new drug trials and R&D expenditures.
- In the Order, the President:
- Directs the Food and Drug Administration to work with states and tribes to safely import prescription drugs from Canada, pursuant to the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003.Directs the Health and Human Services Administration (HHS) to increase support for generic and biosimilar drugs, which provide low-cost options for patients.Directs HHS to issue a comprehensive plan within 45 days to combat high prescription drug prices and price gouging. Encourages the FTC to ban ''pay for delay'' and similar agreements by rule.Hearing Aids: Hearing aids are so expensive that only 14% of the approximately 48 million Americans with hearing loss use them. On average, they cost more than $5,000 per pair, and those costs are often not covered by health insurance. A major driver of the expense is that consumers must get them from a doctor or a specialist, even though experts agree that medical evaluation is not necessary. Rather, this requirement serves only as red tape and a barrier to more companies selling hearing aids. The four largest hearing aid manufacturers now control 84% of the market. In 2017, Congress passed a bipartisan proposal to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter. However, the Trump Administration Food and Drug Administration failed to issue the necessary rules that would actually allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter, leaving millions of Americans without low-cost options.
- In the Order, the President:
- Directs HHS to consider issuing proposed rules within 120 days for allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter. Hospitals: Hospital consolidation has left many areas, especially rural communities, without good options for convenient and affordable healthcare service. Thanks to unchecked mergers, the ten largest healthcare systems now control a quarter of the market. Since 2010, 138 rural hospitals have shuttered, including a high of 19 last year, in the middle of a healthcare crisis. Research shows that hospitals in consolidated markets charge far higher prices than hospitals in markets with several competitors.
- In the Order, the President:
- Underscores that hospital mergers can be harmful to patients and encourages the Justice Department and FTC to review and revise their merger guidelines to ensure patients are not harmed by such mergers.Directs HHS to support existing hospital price transparency rules and to finish implementing bipartisan federal legislation to address surprise hospital billing.Health Insurance: Consolidation in the health insurance industry has meant that many consumers have little choice when it comes to selecting insurers. And even when there is some choice, comparison shopping is hard because plans offered on the exchanges are complicated'--with different services covered or different deductibles.In the Order, the President:
- Directs HHS to standardize plan options in the National Health Insurance Marketplace so people can comparison shop more easily.Transportation
- In the transportation sector, multiple industries are now dominated by large corporations'--air travel, rail, and shipping.
- Airlines: The top four commercial airlines control nearly two-thirds of the domestic market. Reduced competition contributes to increasing fees like baggage and cancellation fees. These fees are often raised in lockstep, demonstrating a lack of meaningful competitive pressure, and are often hidden from consumers at the point of purchase. The top ten airlines collected $35.2 billion in ancillary fees in 2018, up from just $1.2 billion in 2007. Inadequate competition also reduces incentives to provide good service. For example, the Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates that airlines were late delivering at least 2.3 million checked bags in 2019.
- In the Order, the President:
- Directs the DOT to consider issuing clear rules requiring the refund of fees when baggage is delayed or when service isn't actually provided'--like when the plane's WiFi or in-flight entertainment system is broken.Directs the DOT to consider issuing rules that require baggage, change, and cancellation fees to be clearly disclosed to the customer.Rail: In 1980, there were 33 ''Class I'' freight railroads, compared to just seven today, and four major rail companies now dominate their respective geographic regions. Freight railroads that own the tracks can privilege their own freight traffic'--making it harder for passenger trains to have on-time service'--and can overcharge other companies' freight cars.
- In the Order, the President:
- Encourages the Surface Transportation Board to require railroad track owners to provide rights of way to passenger rail and to strengthen their obligations to treat other freight companies fairly.Shipping: In maritime shipping, the global marketplace has rapidly consolidated. In 2000, the largest 10 shipping companies controlled 12% of the market. Today, it is more than 80%, leaving domestic manufacturers who need to export goods at these large foreign companies' mercy. This has let powerful container shippers charge exporters exorbitant fees for time their freight was sitting waiting to be loaded or unloaded. These fees, called ''detention and demurrage charges,'' can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- In the Order, the President:
- Encourages the Federal Maritime Commission to ensure vigorous enforcement against shippers charging American exporters exorbitant charges. Agriculture
- Over the past few decades, key agricultural markets have become more concentrated and less competitive. The markets for seeds, equipment, feed, and fertilizer are now dominated by just a few large companies, meaning family farmers and ranchers now have to pay more for these inputs. For example, just four companies control most of the world's seeds, and corn seed prices have gone up as much as 30% annually.
- Consolidation also limits farmers' and ranchers' options for selling their products. That means they get less when they sell their produce and meat'--even as prices rise at the grocery store. For example, four large meat-packing companies dominate over 80% of the beef market and, over the last five years, farmers' share of the price of beef has dropped by more than a quarter'--from 51.5% to 37.3%'--while the price of beef has risen.
- Overall, farmers' and ranchers' share of each dollar spent on food has been declining for decades. In short, family farmers and ranchers are getting less, consumers are paying more, and the big conglomerates in the middle are taking the difference.
- Meanwhile, the law designed to combat these abuses'--the Packers and Stockyards Act'--was systematically weakened by the Trump Administration Department of Agriculture (USDA).
- American farmers and ranchers are also getting squeezed by foreign corporations importing meat from overseas with labels that mislead customers about its origin. Under current labeling rules, meat can be labeled ''Product of USA'' if it is only processed here'--including when meat is raised overseas and then merely processed into cuts of meat here. For example, most grass-fed beef labeled ''Product of USA'' is actually imported. That makes it hard or impossible for consumers to know where their food comes from and to choose to support American farmers and ranchers.
- Corporate consolidation even affects farmers' ability to repair their own equipment or to use independent repair shops. Powerful equipment manufacturers'--such as tractor manufacturers'--use proprietary repair tools, software, and diagnostics to prevent third-parties from performing repairs. For example, when certain tractors detect a failure, they cease to operate until a dealer unlocks them. That forcers farmers to pay dealer rates for repairs that they could have made themselves, or that an independent repair shop could have done more cheaply.
- In the Order, the President:
- Directs USDA to consider issuing new rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act making it easier for farmers to bring and win claims, stopping chicken processors from exploiting and underpaying chicken farmers, and adopting anti-retaliation protections for farmers who speak out about bad practices.Directs USDA to consider issuing new rules defining when meat can bear ''Product of USA'' labels, so that consumers have accurate, transparent labels that enable them to choose products made here.Directs USDA to develop a plan to increase opportunities for farmers to access markets and receive a fair return, including supporting alternative food distribution systems like farmers markets and developing standards and labels so that consumers can choose to buy products that treat farmers fairly.Encourages the FTC to limit powerful equipment manufacturers from restricting people's ability to use independent repair shops or do DIY repairs'--such as when tractor companies block farmers from repairing their own tractors.Internet Service
- The Order tackles four issues that limit competition, raise prices, and reduce choices for internet service.
- Lack of competition among broadband providers: More than200 million U.S. residents live in an area with only one or two reliable high-speed internet providers, leading to prices as much as five times higher in these markets than in markets with more options. A related problem is landlords and internet service providers entering exclusivity deals or collusive arrangements that leave tenants with only one option. This impacts low-income and marginalized neighborhoods, because landlord-ISP arrangements can effectively block out broadband infrastructure expansion by new providers.
- In the Order, the President encourages the FCC to:
- Prevent ISPs from making deals with landlords that limit tenants' choices.Lack of price transparency: Even where consumers have options, comparison shopping is hard. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), actual prices paid for broadband services can be 40% higher than advertised. During the Obama-Biden Administration, the FCC began developing a ''Broadband Nutrition Label'''--a simple label that provides basic information about the internet service offered so people can compare options. The Trump Administration FCC abandoned those plans.In the Order, the President encourages the FCC to:
- Revive the ''Broadband Nutrition Label'' and require providers to report prices and subscription rates to the FCC.High termination fees: If a consumer does find a better internet service deal, they may be unable to actually switch because of high early termination fees'--on average nearly $200'--charged by internet providers.In the Order, the President encourages the FCC to:
- Limit excessive early termination fees.Companies discriminatorily slowing down internet access: Big providers can use their power to discriminatorily block or slow down online services. The Obama-Biden Administration's FCC adopted ''Net Neutrality'' rules that required these companies to treat all internet services equally, but this was undone in 2017.
- In the Order, the President encourages the FCC to:
- Restore Net Neutrality rules undone by the prior administration.Technology
- The Order tackles three areas in which dominant tech firms are undermining competition and reducing innovation:
- Big Tech platforms purchasing would-be competitors: Over the past ten years, the largest tech platforms have acquired hundreds of companies'--including alleged ''killer acquisitions'' meant to shut down a potential competitive threat. Too often, federal agencies have not blocked, conditioned, or, in some cases, meaningfully examined these acquisitions.In the Order, the President:
- Announces an Administration policy of greater scrutiny of mergers, especially by dominant internet platforms, with particular attention to the acquisition of nascent competitors, serial mergers, the accumulation of data, competition by ''free'' products, and the effect on user privacy.Big Tech platforms gathering too much personal information: Many of the large platforms' business models have depended on the accumulation of extraordinary amounts of sensitive personal information and related data.In the Order, the President:
- Encourages the FTC to establish rules on surveillance and the accumulation of data.Big Tech platforms unfairly competing with small businesses: The large platforms' power gives them unfair opportunities to get a leg up on the small businesses that rely on them to reach customers. For example, companies that run dominant online retail marketplaces can see how small businesses' products sell and then use the data to launch their own competing products. Because they run the platform, they can also display their own copycat products more prominently than the small businesses' products.In the Order, the President:
- Encourages the FTC to establish rules barring unfair methods of competition on internet marketplaces.Cell phone manufacturers and others blocking out independent repair shops: Tech and other companies impose restrictions on self and third-party repairs, making repairs more costly and time-consuming, such as by restricting the distribution of parts, diagnostics, and repair tools.
- In the Order, the President:
- Encourages the FTC to issue rules against anticompetitive restrictions on using independent repair shops or doing DIY repairs of your own devices and equipment.Banking and Consumer Finance
- Over the past four decades, the United States has lost 70% of the banks it once had, with around 10,000 bank closures. Communities of color are disproportionately affected, with 25% of all rural closures in majority-minority census tracts. Many of these closures are the product of mergers and acquisitions. Though subject to federal review, federal agencies have not formally denied a bank merger application in more than 15 years.Excessive consolidation raises costs for consumers, restricts credit for small businesses, and harms low-income communities. Branch closures can reduce the amount of small business lending by about 10% and leads to higher interest rates. Even where a customer has multiple options, it is hard to switch banks partly because customers cannot easily take their financial transaction history data to a new bank. That increases the cost of the new bank extending you credit.
- In the Order, the President:
- Encourages DOJ and the agencies responsible for banking (the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to update guidelines on banking mergers to provide more robust scrutiny of mergers.Encourages the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to issue rules allowing customers to download their banking data and take it with them.###
- Biden Executive Order Seeks to Rein In Bank Mergers | ThinkAdvisor
- What You Need to KnowBiden's order urges an update to guidelines on banking mergers to provide more scrutiny.The curb of bank mergers is Democrats' attempt to clean up their own mess caused by Dodd-Frank, says Rep. McHenry.The SEC is urged to force the financial services industry to share data, Greg Valliere said. President Joe Biden signed an executive order Friday afternoon to promote ''open and fair'' economic competition in the United States which, among other measures, curbs bank mergers and urges the Securities and Exchange Commission to force the financial services industry to share data.
- The order '-- which includes 72 specific actions, Biden said Friday in televised remarks '-- ''commits the federal government to full and aggressive enforcement of our antitrust laws,'' Biden said. ''No more tolerance for abusive actions by monopolies. No more bad mergers that lead to mass layoffs, higher prices, fewer options for workers and consumers alike.''
- Added Biden: ''I expect the federal agencies, and they know this, to help restore competition so that we have lower prices, higher wages, more money, more options and more convenience for the American people.''
- Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, said Friday in a statement that Biden's ''misguided'' executive order would ''drive up regulatory costs on financial institutions, leading to further consolidation.''
- What Your Peers Are ReadingBiden's curb of bank mergers is ''nothing more than Democrats' attempt to clean up their own mess caused by Dodd-Frank,'' McHenry said.
- ''The law's maze of mandates and regulations drove consolidation within the banking sector. When you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to stop digging,'' McHenry continued. ''Democrats have instead decided to double down and want to impose even more regulation. This won't help institutions '-- especially small and community banks '-- better serve their customers or create more competition in financial services.''
- In the order, Biden encourages the Department of Justice and ''the agencies responsible for banking (the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency) to update guidelines on banking mergers to provide more robust scrutiny of mergers.''
- The Warren-Biden Bank Heist - WSJ
- A coup at the FDIC breaks norms and signals more political control of finance.
- Elizabeth Warren finally got her woman'--that is, the Senator and her many acolytes in the Biden Administration have succeeded in ousting Jelena McWilliams as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The coup deserves attention because of its norm-breaking precedent and what it signals for bank mergers and supposedly independent regulatory agencies.
- Ms. McWilliams resigned on Dec. 31, effective Feb. 4, to avoid more turmoil at the bank regulator. But as she wrote in these pages on Dec. 16, her resignation comes amid a concerted...
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- Elizabeth Warren finally got her woman'--that is, the Senator and her many acolytes in the Biden Administration have succeeded in ousting Jelena McWilliams as chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The coup deserves attention because of its norm-breaking precedent and what it signals for bank mergers and supposedly independent regulatory agencies.
- Ms. McWilliams resigned on Dec. 31, effective Feb. 4, to avoid more turmoil at the bank regulator. But as she wrote in these pages on Dec. 16, her resignation comes amid a concerted and unprecedented political effort to strip her of authority before her term as chair expires in June 2023.
- ***The coup has been led by Rohit Chopra, the Warren protege who now runs the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and is one of four current members of the FDIC board (one post is vacant). The FDIC's longstanding practice and bylaws, based on its interpretation of the law, is that the chair sets the board's agenda.
- Every administration for 88 years has honored that understanding, including the supposedly norm-breaking Trump Administration. Democrat Martin Gruenberg was allowed to continue as chair until June 2018 after President Trump took office, and no one attempted to oust him.
- Enter the Warren-Biden progressives in a hurry. The Senate confirmed Mr. Chopra on Sept. 30 on a 50-48 vote, and as soon as Oct. 31 he presented Ms. McWilliams with a request for information (RFI) on bank mergers. When she said the draft RFI would have to be vetted by FDIC staff, Mr. Chopra publicly released his own RFI without authority from his post at the CFPB, which the FDIC was obliged to contradict.
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- Mr. Chopra then moved to neuter Ms. McWilliams by other means. He has asked the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department for an opinion on whether Ms. McWilliams can set the agency's agenda. In a Dec. 14 statement, Mr. Chopra also threatened to ''take further steps to exercise independence from management'' of the FDIC.
- This distorts the meaning of agency ''independence,'' which is supposed to be from the executive branch. Mr. Chopra cites President Biden's July 9 executive order referring to bank mergers, but the FDIC has long held that it is not subject to executive orders on policy. Mr. Chopra wants to make the FDIC a de facto part of the Biden Administration. Who knew the left endorsed the originalist constitutional theory of the ''unitary executive''?
- Our sources say the plan was for Mr. Chopra and his allies on the board'--Mr. Gruenberg and acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu '--to change the FDIC bylaws and strip Ms. McWilliams of her power. Ms. McWilliams made the honorable decision to spare the agency more internal fighting, but her resignation means Mr. Chopra will now essentially run the show. Mr. Gruenberg will become acting chair. He will follow where Mr. Chopra wants to go, as he showed by signing a joint statement with Mr. Chopra on his draft RFI on Dec. 9.
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- The real power behind all this is Sen. Warren, who has planted her aides and camp followers throughout the Biden Administration. She may have lost the 2020 Democratic primaries to Mr. Biden, but she has colonized the government's financial regulatory offices.
- Her former staffer, Bharat Ramamurti, is deputy director of the White House National Economic Council. His fingerprints were all over the failed nomination of Saule Omarova to be Comptroller of the Currency. Wally Adeyemo, who helped Ms. Warren establish the CFPB, is now deputy Treasury secretary. Lina Khan runs the Federal Trade Commission. Graham Steele, a former aide to Warren Senate ally Sherrod Brown, is assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions. There are many others.
- One result is that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seems to have little influence over financial regulation. Ms. Omarova wasn't her choice for Comptroller. Ms. McWilliams sought her support for the FDIC's traditional independence, but Ms. Yellen refused. Her main job these days seems to be telling the public not to worry about inflation.
- ***What do these Warren cadres hope to accomplish? One clear goal is greater influence over the allocation of credit. Using regulation to squeeze financing for fossil fuels will be a priority. Bank mergers are a political target because regulatory approval can be exploited as a tolling station to coerce money for ''local communities,'' to use Mr. Chopra's euphemism for progressive political groups.
- Mr. Chopra also wants to reinterpret the law to make it easier to block bank mergers, notably those that have more than $100 billion in assets. This is a coordinated effort. His Dec. 9 RFI mentioned that figure. On Dec. 10
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- Maxine Waters sent a letter to federal officials urging a moratorium on bank mergers above $100 billion. On Dec. 17 the Justice Department's Antitrust Division issued a press release praising Mr. Chopra and promising heightened antitrust review of bank mergers.
- The irony is that regional banks are merging to gain economies of scale to compete with giant banks. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act increased compliance costs, which the biggest banks find easier to afford. Blocking mergers of regional banks will enhance the market power of JP Morgan and Bank of America.
- By undermining the independence of federal agencies, Democrats are also creating a precedent that the GOP will follow. The next Republican President will promptly fire the next FDIC chair, among other officials.
- The FDIC coup should also focus the Senate's attention on Mr. Biden's pending nominees for the Federal Reserve, another supposedly independent bank regulator. Anyone who endorses the FDIC coup shouldn't be confirmed.
- Democrats claim that Trump Republicans broke political norms, and sometimes they did. But one reason is that they see how progressives trample norms when they have power. Watch the Warren left in action.
- FAA ADs re 5G interference - PPRuNe Forums
- Apart from marking a major blow-up between US Federal government agencies and thereby providing a potentially entertaining ''pass the popcorn'' opportunity for those of us outside the USA, does this escalation in inter-agency hostilities have any collateral benefits for US airlines?
- For example, can an airline now sue the FCC because it will be able to demonstrate an actual loss (e.g. ''We can no longer schedule flights to XXX after dark or in bad weather'') whereas before they could only point out a potential detriment?
- I'd like to say I anticipated this question - though I didn't. So I'll start at the end, and work back toward the start.
- For an airline to file a lawsuit against the FCC, among the issues I'd want to hammer down is, to what extent is it realistic to anticipate that a federal district court (presumably where suit would be filed) would even have the competence to deal with the technical issues? While it is true that federal district courts do see litigation involving arcane and complex subject matters, these are subjects which get presented to the courts with some frequency, and do not present new technology just now entering service. (It's not perfect as a comparison, but consider what a hash Congress has made with regard to establishing regulatory frameworks for social media.) And in complex arcane matters before federal courts at present, I think most veteran litigators - and especially their clients - would concur with the assessment that the results of those cases leave a lot to be desired. It's one thing to get the statute of limitations analysis, where equitable tolling arguments are made, correct - quite another to resolve dueling expert witnesses with regard to proper statistical techniques for assessing results of Phase III clinical trial of a prostate cancer pharma product. So I would question whether the court, in perhaps a novel turn of a standard phrase, is a court of
- Of course an airline might go ahead and sue as part of a political effort by airlines. Or for some notion of public relations points. On the other hand, what actual claims could be made -- abuse of discretion under the
- Chevron deference-to-agency interpretation of statutory provisions? - I don't know. I mean, I don't know the answer already, plus I'm not planning on drilling into it (uh, absent an actual client, that is), plus there's more to respond to in your question.
- So this is a "blow-up" between federal agencies?, "escalating inter-agency hostilities"? Well, it's really not. Because as you know the FAA is "housed" within the Department of Transportation, which is headed by a political appointee. The current Secretary's background for his appointment and confirmation by the Senate - apart from some slick presidential primary campaigning which of course is utterly meaningless - is that he was Mayor of a small city the apparatus of which is dominated by a major private university (Notre Dame). So in refusing to let cellular providers take control, the FAA has stepped into the breach. And it was able to do so, in major part, precisely because the Department in which FAA is situated is headed by a Secretary who really does not have much knowledge whatsoever about, you know, how things work (and don't work) up front, that so-called pointy end of the airplane. Just my view, not an official or verifiable opinion, of course.
- But your post did more, for it reminded your loyal forum SLF/atty of how much I enjoyed popcorn during some several months when I held a volunteer gig (sort of) at Chicago O'Hare. And to return the favor, and since the first real blow-up was, of course, in 1966 and directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and produced by Carlo Ponti - for your enjoyment of a non-U.S.A. film to accompany that popcorn:
- AT&T and Verizon back down in standoff with FAA, agree to 5G delay [Updated] '' Ars Technica
- Getty Images | Marco Bottigelli
- Update at 11:20 pm ET: AT&T and Verizon reversed course on Monday night, announcing that they agreed to the request for a two-week delay of their 5G rollouts on C-Band frequencies, according to reports from several news organizations. "At Secretary [of Transportation Pete] Buttigieg's request, we have voluntarily agreed to one additional two-week delay of our deployment of C-Band 5G services," an AT&T spokesperson said, according to CNN. "We also remain committed to the six-month protection zone mitigations we outlined in our letter. We know aviation safety and 5G can co-exist and we are confident further collaboration and technical assessment will allay any issues."
- Verizon also confirmed to news organizations that it agreed to the delay, despite both carriers rejecting the request from Buttigieg and the Federal Aviation Administration yesterday. While the two-week delay applies nationwide, it isn't clear whether AT&T and Verizon will agree to the FAA's request for longer delays in areas surrounding airports.
- Original story as published on January 3, 2022 at 2:50 pm ET follows:
- AT&T and Verizon yesterday rejected a Federal Aviation Administration request to further delay a 5G rollout on C-Band frequencies but said they will adopt one of the world's "most conservative" power limits near airports for six months after the planned January 5 deployment. This is in addition to other voluntary limits the carriers recently announced even though it has been almost two years since the Federal Communications Commission determined that use of the spectrum should not interfere with properly designed airplane altimeters.
- "Specifically, for six months, until July 5, 2022, we will adopt the same C-Band radio exclusion zones that are already in use in France, with slight adaptation to reflect the modest technical differences in how C-Band is being deployed in the two countries," the carriers said in yesterday's letter. "That approach'--which is one of the most conservative in the world'--would include extensive exclusion zones around the runways at certain airports. The effect would be to further reduce C-Band signal levels by at least 10 times on the runway or during the last mile of final approach and the first mile after takeoff."
- The exclusion zones in France are 9102100 meters, the letter said. AT&T and Verizon said they will use bigger exclusion zones with "an additional 540m on all four sides to accommodate" the higher power levels permitted in the US.
- The carriers noted that "US aircraft currently fly in and out of France every day with thousands of US passengers and with the full approval of the FAA," and that the "laws of physics are the same in the United States and France. If US airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States."
- Meanwhile, a group representing major airlines sent a letter to the FCC threatening a lawsuit and claimed that "thousands of flights" could be diverted or canceled every day due to interference from 5G transmissions. But the spectrum is already being used for 5G in nearly 40 other countries, and the FAA admitted there are no "proven reports of harmful interference" to altimeters.
- Buttigieg on FAA's sideThe AT&T/Verizon letter was a response to a December 31 letter from FAA Administrator Steve Dickson and US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Dickson and Buttigieg asked AT&T and Verizon to delay all commercial C-Band service for another two weeks, until January 19, and to wait for the aviation industry to conduct further analysis before deploying 5G on the C-Band near airports.
- AT&T and Verizon previously agreed to a one-month delay of the deployment that was originally scheduled for December 5, 2021. In yesterday's letter, they objected that the new FAA/DOT request "asks that we agree to transfer oversight of our companies' multi-billion dollar investment in 50 unnamed metropolitan areas representing the lion's share of the US population to the FAA for an undetermined number of months or years."
- The FCC approved 5G transmissions in the C-Band in February 2020, while requiring power limits as well as a 220 MHz guard band that will remain unused to protect altimeters. AT&T and Verizon then spent a combined $69 billion to purchase C-Band spectrum licenses from 3.7-3.98 GHz. The radio altimeters used to determine airplane altitudes rely on spectrum from 4.2 GHz to 4.4 GHz.
- The guard band is effectively even bigger in 2022 because carriers have said they don't plan to deploy between 3.8 and 3.98 GHz until 2023.
- Airlines plan to sue if FCC doesn't actAirlines for America, a trade group that represents the major US airlines, filed an emergency petition on December 30 asking the FCC to stop C-Band deployment near airports. The group said if the FCC doesn't act by noon ET on January 3, the group "will be forced to seek judicial or other relief to avoid the immediate and unacceptable safety risks to its members' operations from interference to radio altimeters."
- The emergency petition claimed that interference from the C-Band "will cause irreparable harm and jeopardize the function of critical aircraft safety systems, which in turn threatens to divert or cancel thousands of flights every day, thus disrupting millions of passenger reservations, causing substantial disruptions for air crews, further interrupting the U.S. and global supply chains, and eroding the safety margin that the industry and the Federal Aviation Administration have worked so hard to achieve."
- "A4A is playing stupid games, because they waited until the FCC closed on Dec. 30 to file. Since the FCC was closed Dec. 31, and A4A says they will appeal today [Monday], this gives FCC no time to review or respond to stay petition," wrote Harold Feld, a telecom attorney who is senior VP of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge.
- Six former FCC chairs last month criticized the FAA's fight against C-Band deployment, saying that the "FAA position threatens to derail the reasoned conclusions reached by the FCC after years of technical analysis and study."
- Dickson/Buttigieg plan safety assessmentDickson and Buttigieg said the FAA would use the requested delay to "review information relating to the size of the buffer zone around critical airports and will seek to reduce the size when safely able based on data from aviation manufacturers."
- Dickson and Buttigieg said their proposal would let the carriers deploy near airports in March:
- Under this framework, commercial C-Band service would begin as planned in January with certain exceptions around priority airports. The FAA and the aviation industry will identify priority airports where a buffer zone would permit aviation operations to continue safely while the FAA completes its assessments of the interference potential around those airports. Our goal would then be to identify mitigations for all priority airports that will enable the majority of large commercial aircraft to operate safely in all conditions. This will allow for 5G C-Band to deploy around these priority airports on a rolling basis, such that C-Band planned locations will be activated by the end of March 2022, barring unforeseen technical challenges or new safety concerns.
- Aviation industry hasn't updated altimetersThe Dickson/Buttigieg letter to carriers didn't provide an update on replacing altimeters that can't filter out interference from other spectrum bands but said that "the FAA will safely expedite the approvals of Alternate Means of Compliance (AMOCs) for operators with high-performing radio altimeters to operate at those airports." Feld speculated that this means "the FAA will let airlines self-certify that their altimeters won't be impacted."
- "First, the DoT is now clearly saying that there are altimeters that will not be impacted in any way, shape or form by 5G in C-Band. The DoT calls these 'high-performing.' Alternatively, we could refer to the impacted altimeters as 'crap,'" Feld wrote.
- AT&T and Verizon said in yesterday's letter that they "were told for the first time" in late 2021 that the FAA and parts of the aviation community were concerned about the C-Band usage. They pointed out that the FCC's February 2020 order "encouraged the aviation community to use the nearly two years before C-Band deployment to upgrade any altimeters that might not be properly designed to filter out frequencies far removed from the 4.2-4.4 GHz altimeter band. Inexplicably, the FAA and the aviation industry apparently did nothing following the February 2020 order or even after the C-Band auction closed in January 2021. In fact, it was not until November 2, 2021 that the FAA even issued a notice to begin collecting data about altimeters from the aviation industry."
- The carriers said their new commitment for exclusion zones near airports "is over and above the protections we already committed to put in place around airports that were detailed in the letter to the FCC on November 24th, 2021'--protections that the FCC referred to as among 'the most comprehensive efforts in the world to safeguard aviation technologies.'" The carriers' November proposal said they would "minimize energy coming from 5G base stations''both nationwide and to an even greater degree around public airports and heliports" for six months.
- The FCC's February 2020 conclusion that C-Band transmissions and altimeters can co-exist safely came after "years of study" during which the FCC considered "submissions from hundreds of parties, including from the aviation industry," carriers wrote.
- "The FCC had compelling reasons for this conclusion," carriers wrote. "Spectrum interference disputes typically involve simultaneous transmissions on the same frequencies. But radio altimeters do not operate on, or anywhere near, the C-Band frequencies. Rather, they operate in a frequency band (4.2-4.4 GHz) that is separated by at least 400 megahertz from the C-Band frequencies (3.7-3.8 MHz) that AT&T and Verizon will begin using in 2022 and at least 220 megahertz from any C-Band frequency authorized for use in the future. This helps explain why C-Band 5G service and aviation operations already coexist in nearly 40 other countries where C-Band spectrum has been deployed without any negative impact on aviation."
- How Bitcoin Will Save Millennials | Bitcoin Magazine: Bitcoin News, Articles, Charts, and Guides
- The technology represents a future of hope for the most indebted generation in the history of the United States.
- All generations have rich nostalgia for the decade of their childhood. Our coming of age is our purest time. And for the millennials, it's probably best encapsulated by the 1990s.
- The 90s are milk and honey for us. We remain so fond of the music, the TV and cinematic treasures, our first AOL experiences and the quintessentially middle class comfort many of us experienced, whether we fit into the lower or upper levels of that sector.
- Despite not being born in the U.S. and immigrating here from Eastern Europe in the early 90s, I remember America feeling safe and my future feeling full of hope. America was the dominant force in the world. The 90s were the peak of American power and influence. Everyone felt proud to be an American.
- Millennials didn't understand it at the time, but the 90s ushered in the most important informational age in history, the birth of the internet and the digitization of the world. The first oligarchs were born out of the software and technology that would eventually touch every aspect of daily lives and businesses.
- But the age of innocence was suddenly shattered before our eyes.
- Many of us were in high school or early college when 9/11 happened, marking what I believe to be the breaking point between American dominance and security to the post-9/11 world of American vulnerability. America's romantic phase for millennials was over and our country moved into a perpetual security state to feel protected. It was the first of several federal crises we would come to face that got etched into our formation as adults.
- Our deepest vulnerabilities as a nation were soon laid bare in the financial system. There was a point in time where the idea of the U.S. financial system collapsing the way it did in 2008 seemed impossible. We learned we were no longer secure from national security threats, we also weren't secure from a massive bubble burst. And due to the lack of financial literacy in the U.S., my generation didn't understand that the government's response to that burst would rob our futures.
- The problems began long before we were born, but during our coming of age, America plunged further and further into excessive borrowing, regulations and taxes, all of which stunted economic growth rather than allowing it to flourish, and put an increasing tab on the millennial generation.
- America went from being the paradigm of economic freedom to the paradigm of government spending. Our generation bears the greatest burden of the decline of freedom and economic prosperity in the nation, and the glaring reason is our country's spiral of debt.
- The average millennial graduates college with significant debt, starting their professional lives five steps behind from an economic standpoint. If you study the history of fiat currency, it becomes clear why the costs of college have skyrocketed. Cheap loans guaranteed by easy government money printed out of oblivion increase the cost of your books, your tuition and your college dorms, rendering degrees worthless in comparison to the ballooning cost to attend most universities.
- He may be Bitcoin's staunchest critic, but at least Peter Schiff gets this.
- Currently our student loan debt stands at more than $1.7 trillion, which is more than both credit card debt and mortgage debt combined, by a long shot.
- Millennials are the most educated generation, yet hold the least amount of wealth. Millennials have a record number of members who are unemployed, underemployed, in debt and in a lower standard of living than their parents. It isn't surprising why they often share sad-but-true memes like these below on their social media pages, their technological vehicles for vocal rebellion.
- And sorry, boomers and Generation X, but we are in this position mainly because of the policies of those you elected. Thanks to the generations that came before us, we are responsible for the bills that financed costly entitlement programs and those which bailed out the banks during the last financial crisis. Previous generations mortgaged their children and grandchildren's futures by taking on more and more debt to pay for those benefits, some of which we surely won't be able to enjoy ourselves.
- Almost half of federal spending goes to Medicare and Social Security. Now add trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities at federal, state and local and the price tag for the future has become insurmountable. You certainly can't tax us for the money; we aren't making enough or getting paid enough. So the government has resorted to robbing Peter to pay Paul, printing money to pay off the debt and making it impossible for millennials to afford what their parents did. And somehow many of my college-educated peers seem to think the debt ceiling can keep going up forever.
- We've been stripped of our ability to save, to work just one job that doesn't require us to risk our money on meme coins and stocks, and some of my peers can no longer even see the possibility of having families because it's simply not affordable. How terribly sad for our once-great nation.
- We desperately need one thing and that is open access to an asset that appreciates in value and isn't manipulated by out-of-reach insiders. But as Tucker Carlson pointed out in a recent broadcast, after being orange-pilled by Michael Saylor, young people have been excluded from the traditional systems of wealth creation in our economy.
- When governments put together multitrillion dollar spending packages, the money must come from somewhere (despite some politicians around the world today taking no responsibility for explaining how to pay for their programs as evidenced here).
- Here in the U.S., our government has shown that no matter which color is in office, it will turn to inflation in order to finance debt with more debt and continue to dole out promises of free lunches with no opportunity costs.
- Yet out of all of this, rises a glowing orange light of hope.
- The future is being taken back by the resilient and expressive millennials and it is being taken back through Bitcoin. We are learning about economic theory, not just swallowing the Keynesian pill every university hands out. We are getting involved in the political process holding leaders accountable for racking up more debt and fighting to elect pro-Bitcoin candidates. In 2022 and beyond, we will not stand living through another economic crisis without a life raft.
- We are ushering in a brighter future filled with hope through monetary technology.
- Bitcoin is the free market expression of all the American ideologies we grew up enjoying: freedom, individualism, and purity. It has allowed us to once again think about the future without worrying so much about how we will pay for it.
- Those millennials who took their $1200 stimulus check and invested it instead of spending it on Amazon now have more than $10,000 because they took a risk in something a big chunk of Americans still view as a Ponzi scheme. Some of them turned a few thousand into deep six figures over the last few years. It's the epitome of free markets.
- Bitcoin is such a pure example of American ideology that the Chinese banned it. And now that we have it, Millennials can orange-pill their parents, grandparents and children to project our technological freedom to the whole world.
- Through absolute digital scarcity and decentralization, Bitcoin offers young people not just a savings technology, but also a vehicle for understanding and engaging with the economic system at large, and the ability to help bridge the gaping wealth gap that was created through fiat debt.
- It's our chance to fix not only the money but all the things money touches, from education and housing costs that have ballooned as the result of moral hazards like government-backed loans, all the way to our disastrous fiat food system.
- Even the Millennials who can't agree on other things, from wokeism to conservatism, will all come to the conclusion that Bitcoin is virtuous, purpose-driven, and extremely necessary.
- Software is not political, it's not capable of manipulation or fraud. It is what it is. It's math. It's authentic, and if there is one word that Millennials care about more than anything in their culture, it's authenticity.
- Bitcoin is the one thing that can save us from the debt we inherited, so that we can build a new world order on a foundation of freedom, value and security.
- This is a guest post by Natalie Brunell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC, Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
- Bank of Jamaica completes first CBDC pilot
- The Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) has successfully completed its f central bank digital currency (CBDC), targeting a national rollout in the first quarter of 2022.
- After proceeding with initial CBDC prototype testing in March 2021, Jamaica's central bank finished an eight-month-long pilot last Friday, the Jamaica Information Service reported.
- As part of the pilot, the BoJ minted 230 million Jamaican dollars (JMD) ($1.5 million) worth of the CBDC for issuance to deposit-taking institutions and authorized payment service providers on Aug. 9, 2021.
- The central bank then issued 1 million JMD ($6,500) worth of digital currency to the staff at BoJ's banking department. On Oct. 29, the bank also issued 5 million JMD ($32,000) worth of CBDC to the National Commercial Bank (NCB), one of the ''largest financial institutions in Jamaica.
- According to the report, the NCB was the first wallet provider in Jamaica's CBDC pilot, onboarding 57 customers, including four small merchants and 53 consumers. Customers were able to conduct person-to-person, cash-in and cash-out transactions at an NCB-sponsored event in December 2021.
- The BoJ now plans to proceed with a nationwide rollout in Q1 2022, expecting to add two new wallet providers. These providers have already been conducting virtual simulation testing and will be able to order CBDC from BoJ and then distribute it to their customers. The central bank also plans to focus on interoperability by testing transactions between customers of different wallet providers, the report notes.
- Related: Mexico confirms plans to roll out CBDCs in 2024
- As previously reported, the central bank of Jamaica selected the Irish cryptography security firm eCurrency Mint as the technology provider for its digital currency project in March 2021. The firm is known for being involved in the CBDC development in countries such as Senegal. The BoJ previously invited technology providers to submit applications for its CBDC project in July 2020.
- Exclusive: Secret Commandos with Shoot-to-Kill Authority Were at the Capitol
- In this daily series, Newsweek explores the steps that led to the January 6 Capitol Riot.On Sunday, January 3, the heads of a half-dozen elite government special operations teams met in Quantico, Virginia, to go over potential threats, contingencies, and plans for the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. The meeting, and the subsequent deployment of these shadowy commandos on January 6, has never before been revealed.
- Right after the New Year, Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting Attorney General on January 6, approved implementation of long-standing contingency plans dealing with the most extreme possibilities: an attack on President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, a terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, and a declaration of measures to implement continuity of government, requiring protection and movement of presidential successors.
- Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called "national" forces. There was no formal request from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the Metropolitan Police Department'--in fact, no external request from any agency. The leadership in Justice and the FBI anticipated the worst and decided to act independently, the special operations forces lurking behind the scenes.
- Best of Newsweek via email
- Secret commandos, authorized to shoot to kill, were at the Capitol. FBI and ATF law enforcement confront supporters of President Donald Trump as they protested inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. Brent Stirton/Getty Images"I believe that DOJ [Department of Justice] reasonably prepared for contingencies ahead of January 6, understanding that there was considerable uncertainty as to how many people would arrive, who those people would be, and precisely what purposes they would pursue," Rosen later told Congress. He stressed that his department "no frontline role with respect to crowd control," that they were focused on "high-risk" operations.
- The contingency units meeting on January 3 included the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, the FBI's national "Render Safe" team, an FBI SWAT team from the Baltimore Field Office, Special Response Teams from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group.
- All of these assets were "pre-deployed" and ready to go over the weekend of January 2-3, staging out of the FBI Academy complex in Quantico, 30 miles south of the Capitol building. If a WMD or terrorist attack occurred, the units were to move via helicopter to the site of the incident. The activation of the catastrophic response units, operating under plans already approved by President Trump, entailed an automatic green light allowing federal responders to take the initiative and spare no resources, including shoot-to-kill authority, to deal with this most extraordinary condition.
- The 350-strong Hostage Rescue Team was established in 1983 to be a national level counterterrorist unit, offering a "tactical" option'--a military option'--for the most extraordinary law enforcement situations within the United States. Prior to 9/11, HRT was primarily a domestic counter-terrorism unit; after the attack, the team took on additional missions, including working with the Joint Special Operations Command overseas in high-profile raids and the targeting of high-value targets.
- Jeffrey Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called "national" forces. Here, Rosen removes his face mask as he speaks at the Justice Department on October 21, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images)The FBI is the lead agency for what insiders call the "no-fail, 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-per-year response capability." In 1999, the Bureau was assigned the responsibility for the render safe mission, a euphemism for extraordinary and highly classified actions that are slated to take place in cases of a lost, stolen, or hidden nuclear or radiological weapon. The FBI had already been given primary responsibility for domestic counterterrorism, including quasi-military action against armed groups inside the United States. President Bill Clinton approved new rules that assigned "national response" to the FBI (it had previously resided in the Defense Department). The FBI would form the dedicated rapid response force, and technical response assets from various departments would be seconded to this so-called National Mission Force, operating under a National Asset Commander, an FBI officer appointed by and reporting to the Attorney General and ultimately the White House.
- In April 2005, the FBI consolidated its various extraordinary response teams under the National Asset Response Unit (NARU), responsible for the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The dedicated rapid response force, ready to deploy anywhere in the United States within two hours of notification, reached operational readiness during the Obama administration, with dedicated national response elements from the Department of Energy and augmentation from the military's Joint Special Operations Command.
- The overlap of counterterrorism and WMD forged this extraordinary force, operating under Top Secret and compartmentalized presidential directives. The National Mission Force, however, also had to plan for other crisis response contingencies, such as hostage rescue and continuity of government. Those latter functions could also fall under the operational control of the Secret Service (an element of the Department of Homeland Security) or to military commanders who were operating in response to immediate emergencies.
- Most of the literature mistakenly says that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC)'--including, famously, the units formerly known as Delta Force and SEAL Team 6'--is the primary national mission force. Although overseas, the National Mission Force often operates as a Joint Special Operations Task Force (with FBI augmentation), made up of dedicated teams assigned to JSOC, inside the United States, the FBI is in charge.
- On the morning of January 6, most of these forces staged closer to downtown Washington, particularly after intelligence was received indicating a possible threat to FBI headquarters building or the FBI's Washington Field Office. FBI tactical teams arrived on Capitol Hill early in the day to assist in the collection of evidence at sites'--including the Republican and Democratic party national headquarters'--where explosive devices were found. FBI SWAT teams and snipers were deployed to secure nearby congressional office buildings. Other FBI agents provided selective security around the U.S. Capitol and protection to congressional members and staff.
- A tactical team of the Hostage Rescue Team was one of the first external federal agencies to actually enter the Capitol after protestors breached the building. In addition to augmentation of emergency security assets, one team coordinated with the U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service to provide additional safeguarding of Vice President Pence, who had been moved to the underground parking structure beneath the Capitol, from where he was supposed to evacuate. But Pence refused to leave the building and stayed underground instead.
- The presence of these extraordinary forces under the control of the Attorney General'--and mostly operating under contingency plans that Congress and the U.S. Capitol Police were not privy to'--added an additional layer of highly armed responders. The role that the military played in this highly classified operation is still unknown, though FBI sources tell Newsweek that military operators seconded to the FBI, and those on alert as part of the National Mission Force, were present in the metropolitan area. The lingering question is: What was it that the Justice Department saw that provoked it to see January 6 as an extraordinary event, something that the other agencies evidently missed.
- CORRECTION (Jan. 3, 2022, 10:437 p.m.): This story originally stated the office of the 'Democrat' Party but has been corrected to note 'Democratic Party' office.
- There's a News Blackout on the Fed's Naming of the Banks that Got Its Emergency Repo Loans; Some Journalists Appear to Be Under Gag Orders
- By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: January 3, 2022 ~
- Four days ago, the Federal Reserve released the names of the banks that had received $4.5 trillion in cumulative loans in the last quarter of 2019 under its emergency repo loan operations for a liquidity crisis that has yet to be credibly explained. Among the largest borrowers were JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, three of the Wall Street banks that were at the center of the subprime and derivatives crisis in 2008 that brought down the U.S. economy. That's blockbuster news. But as of 7 a.m. this morning, not one major business media outlet has reported the details of the Fed's big reveal.
- On September 17, 2019, the Fed began making trillions of dollars a month in emergency repo loans to 24 trading houses on Wall Street. The Fed released on a daily basis the dollar amounts it was loaning, but withheld the names of the specific banks and how much they had borrowed. This made it impossible for the public to see which Wall Street firms were experiencing the most severe credit crisis.
- It was the first time the Fed had intervened in the repo market since the 2008 financial crash '' the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The COVID-19 crisis remained months away. The first reported case of COVID-19 in the U.S. was not reported by the CDC until January 20, 2020 and the World Health Organization did not declare a pandemic until March 11, 2020.
- The dollar amounts of the Fed's repo loans grew to staggering levels. On October 24, 2019, we reported the following:
- ''The New York Fed will now be lavishing up to $120 billion a day in cheap overnight loans to Wall Street securities trading firms, a daily increase of $45 billion from its previously announced $75 billion a day. In addition, it is increasing its 14-day term loans to Wall Street, a program which also came out of the blue in September, to $45 billion. Those term loans since September have been occurring twice a week, meaning another $90 billion a week will be offered, bringing the total weekly offering to an astounding $690 billion. It should be noted that if the same Wall Street firms are getting these loans continuously rolled over, they are effectively permanent loans. (That's exactly what happened during the 2007-2010 Wall Street collapse: some teetering Wall Street casinos received, individually, $2 trillion in cumulative loans that were rolled over for two and one-half years '' without the authorization or even awareness of Congress or the American people. One bank, Citigroup, received over $2.5 trillion in Fed loans, much of them at an interest rate below 1 percent, at a time when it was insolvent and couldn't have obtained loans in the open market at even high double-digit interest rates.)''
- Under the Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation of 2010, the Fed was legally required to release the names of the banks and the amounts they borrowed ''on the last day of the eighth calendar quarter following the calendar quarter in which the covered transaction was conducted.'' The New York Fed released the information for the third quarter of 2019 last Thursday, a day earlier than required. We reported on it the following day.
- Those Fed revelations, that had been withheld from the American people for two years, should have made front page headlines in newspapers and on the digital front pages of every major business news outlet. Instead, there was a universal news blackout of the story at the largest business news outlets, including: Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal, the business section of the New York Times, the Financial Times, Dow Jones' MarketWatch, and Reuters.
- Could this critically important story have simply slipped by all of the dozens of investigative reporters and Fed watchers at these news outlets? Absolutely not. The Fed was required to release its repo loan data and names of the banks for the span of September 17 through September 30, 2019 at the end of the third quarter of this year. We reported on what that information revealed on October 13. Because we were similarly stunned by the news blackout on that Fed release, out of courtesy we sent our story to the reporters covering the Fed for the major news outlets. Our article alerted each of these reporters that a much larger data release from the Fed, for the full fourth quarter of 2019, would be released on or about December 31. The data was posted at the New York Fed sometime before 1:23 p.m. ET last Thursday.
- The most puzzling part of this news blackout is that the majority of the reporters who covered this Fed story at the time it was happening in 2019, are still employed at the same news outlets. We emailed a number of them and asked why they were not covering this important story. Silence prevailed. We then emailed the media relations contacts for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times and the Washington Post, inquiring as to why there was a news blackout on this story. Again, silence.
- Next, we emailed a number of reporters who had covered this story in 2019 but were no longer employed at a major news outlet. We asked their opinion on what could explain this bizarre news blackout on such a major financial story. We received emails praising our reporting but advising that they ''can't comment.''
- The phrase ''can't comment'' as opposed to ''don't wish to comment'' raised a major alarm bell. Wall Street megabanks are notorious for demanding that their staff sign non-disclosure agreements and non-disparagement agreements in order to get severance pay and other benefits when they are terminated. Are the newsrooms covering Wall Street megabanks now demanding similar gag orders from journalists? If they are, we're looking at a form of corporate tyranny previously unseen in America.
- The history of Bloomberg News came to mind. That news outlet had previously come under fire for spiking stories that may have been counter to the business interests of its billionaire owner Michael Bloomberg, who derives his billions of wealth from leasing the Bloomberg data terminal to Wall Street's trading floors around the world.
- On March 11, 2016, Matt Winkler, Editor-in-Chief-Emeritus at Bloomberg, wrote a sycophantic piece titled ''Stop Bashing Wall Street. Times Have Changed.'' Winkler wrote a fantasy view of where things stood at the time:
- ''One of the reasons the American economy is performing better than any of the largest in Asia and Europe is that its regulators have repaired the damage of the financial crisis and the worst recession since the Great Depression. Led by the Federal Reserve, they replaced incentives for reckless speculation with catalysts for old-fashioned credit creation backed by levels of capital that are unprecedented in modern times.''
- Winkler's column was an egregious coverup of the ''reckless speculation'' that continued on steroids on Wall Street. The megabanks were trading their own stock in their own dark pools '' which continues to this day. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency would report that as of March 31, 2016, just four banks held 91 percent of $192.9 trillion in notional derivatives held by all banks and savings associations in the U.S. Those four banks were JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup's Citibank (which blew itself up with derivatives in 2008), Goldman Sachs Bank USA, and Bank of America '' the same banks that were taking giant sums from the Fed's emergency repo loan facility in 2019.
- Also in 2016, Michael Bloomberg showed very poor judgement in co-authoring an OpEd with Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, a man who should have been the target of investigative reporting by Bloomberg journalists for an unprecedented crime spree at his bank.
- In 2015 Politico's Luke O'Brien deeply reported the details of a Bloomberg News article that was critical on China and appeared to have been spiked to preserve business sales of the Bloomberg terminal in that country.
- And then there are those strange associations with felony counts or fines at Wall Street banks and those expensive Bloomberg terminals. The chat rooms that facilitated the rigging of the Libor interest rate benchmark and the criminal charges that came out of the rigging of foreign exchange trading were tied to chat rooms on the Bloomberg terminals. According to the late Bloomberg reporter, Mark Pittman, the Bloomberg terminal also had the capability of allowing hedge funds to find the worst subprime dreck in the market, making it possible for hedge funds like John Paulson's to short the market while getting banks like Goldman Sachs to sell the other side of the deal to its unwitting investors.
- On November 20, 2019, Brian Chappatta, who still works for Bloomberg News, wrote this about the Fed's emergency repo loans under the headline ''Fed Throws the Kitchen Sink at Short Rates and Still Struggles'':
- ''Consider all the steps the Fed has taken since Sept. 16 just for [Fed Chair] Powell to get to the point where he thinks funding markets are under control:
- ''Sept. 17: The New York Fed conducts its first overnight system repurchase agreement in a decade, taking in $53.2 billion of securities.
- ''Sept. 25: The New York Fed increases the size of its overnight system repurchase agreement operations to a $100 billion maximum, from $75 billion previously, and also raises the limit on its 14-day term repo operation to $60 billion from $30 billion.
- ''Oct. 11: The Fed announces it will purchase $60 billion of Treasury bills a month and will keep doing so 'at least into the second quarter of next year.'
- ''Oct. 23: The New York Fed boosts the size of its overnight repo offerings to at least $120 billion, a size it is set to maintain through at least Dec. 12.
- ''Nov. 14: The New York Fed says it will conduct two repo operations, each with terms of 42 days, on Nov. 25 and Dec. 2. With maximum sizes of at least $25 billion and $15 billion, these would carry past the end of the year. Taken together, it's readily apparent that Fed officials are throwing the kitchen sink at the short-term funding markets and hoping they'll settle down'....''
- Numerous other Bloomberg News reporters wrote about the Fed's emergency repo operations in 2019 and early 2020, including Liz McCormick, Adam Tempkin, and Alex Harris. And yet, today, not one of them has revealed to the American people that the very same megabanks that were drinking at the Fed's trough in 2008 were back again at the trough in 2019.
- One of the most inquisitive reporters in September 2019 when it came to what had led to the Fed's hasty interventions in the repo market was Francine McKenna, who at that time reported for the Dow Jones affiliate, MarketWatch. Less than two months later, according to her LinkedIn profile, McKenna no longer worked for MarketWatch. She had gone independent, publishing The Dig, a newsletter at Substack. On November 3, 2019, McKenna reported as follows at The Dig on the ongoing repo crisis:
- ''One of the opinion writers at Market Watch wrote late last week that the Fed is in 'stealth' intervention mode after the Fed injected $99.9 billion in temporary liquidity into the financial system and $7.5 billion in permanent reserves as part of a program to buy $60 billion a month in Treasury bills.
- ''But market demand for overnight repo operations far exceeded even the $75 billion the Fed allocated. So, on Wednesday, the Fed added $45 billion in addition to the $75 billion repo facility for a daily total of $120 billion.
- ''There's nothing stealth about continuing to pump billions into the repurchase market long after it said it would be needed.
- ''The Fed originally said it planned to conduct daily repo operations until October 10. That intervention has now gone on beyond the end of the month of October with no end in sight.
- ''Something is cooking but no one who knows what is telling the rest of us who is suddenly chronically illiquid.''
- Obviously, the banks that were borrowing the largest sums on a perpetual basis from the Fed were the ''chronically illiquid.'' JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup's Citibank are among the largest deposit-taking, federally-insured banks in the U.S. Americans have an urgent need to know why they needed to borrow from the Fed on an emergency basis in the fall of 2019.
- We've never before seen a total news blackout of a financial news story of this magnitude in our 35 years of monitoring Wall Street and the Fed. (We have, however, documented a pattern of corporate media censoring news about the crimes of Wall Street's megabanks.)
- Theories abound as to why this current story is off limits to the media. One theory goes like this: the Fed has made headlines around the world in recent months over its own trading scandal '' the worst in its history. Granular details of just how deep this Fed trading scandal goes have also been withheld from the public as well as members of Congress. If the media were now to focus on yet another scandal at the Fed '' such as it bailing out the banks in 2019 because of their own hubris once again '' there might be legislation introduced in Congress to strip the Fed of its supervisory role over the megabanks and a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act to separate the federally-insured commercial banks from the trading casinos on Wall Street.
- Why might such an outcome be a problem for media outlets in New York City? Three of the serially charged banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup) are actually owners of the New York Fed '' the regional Fed bank that played the major role in doling out the bailout money in 2008, and again in 2019. The New York Fed and its unlimited ability to electronically print money, are a boon to the New York City economy, which is a boon to advertising revenue at the big New York City-based media outlets.
- Historical Transaction Data - FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK
- This page provides detailed transaction information about domestic open market, securities lending, and foreign currency operations. These transaction data are provided in compliance with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, and begin after the date of its enactment (July 21, 2010). Transaction data are released quarterly, with an approximately two-year lag.
- Transaction data on discount window borrowings are available on the website of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve.
- U.S. TreasurySecuritiesAgency Mortgage-Backed SecuritiesRepo & ReverseRepoSecuritiesLendingForeignExchangeForeign SovereignDebtEuro Repo & Reverse RepoOutright Purchases and Sales of Treasury Securities
- Further information about U.S. Treasury operations is available here.Details on transactions since 2010 can be downloaded in EXCEL format below.
- Outright Purchases and Sales of Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities
- Repurchase & Reverse Repurchase Transactions
- Further information about repurchase & reverse repurchase operations is available here.Details on transactions since 2010 can be downloaded in EXCEL format below.
- Note: The New York Fed typically settles the repo and reverse repo transactions it conducts through a tri-party arrangement. In a tri-party arrangement, a third party (the tri-party bank) acts as custodian and agent for the buyer and seller. The tri-party agent is responsible for screening and approving eligible securities, as identified by type by the buyer and seller, from the seller's pool of available securities, determining the current market value of the eligible securities, and ensuring every day that a transaction is outstanding that the buyer receives, in its account at the tri-party bank, eligible securities having a market value (based on the market value and agreed-upon margins) at least equal to each outstanding repo trade amount.
- 1 In a repo transaction, the New York Fed purchases securities under an agreement to resell those securities in the future in order to temporarily add reserve balances to the banking system. In a reverse repo, the New York Fed sells securities under an agreement to repurchase those securities in the future in order to temporarily drain reserve balances from the system.2 For ''Treasury'' bid security types, counterparties may deliver only Treasury securities. For ''Agency'' bid security types, counterparties have the option to deliver federal agency debt, in addition to Treasury securities. For ''Agency MBS'' bid security types, counterparties have the option to deliver mortgage-backed securities issued or fully guaranteed by federal agencies, in addition to federal agency debt or Treasury securities. 3 Cash may occasionally be transferred in place of securities to fulfil a bid in a repo operation.
- Securities Lending Transactions
- Further information about securities lending operations is available here.Details on transactions since 2010 can be downloaded in EXCEL format below.
- Foreign Exchange Transactions
- Further information about foreign exchange operations is available here.Details on transactions since 2010 can be downloaded in EXCEL format below.
- 1 For customer transactions, data pertain to the New York Fed's transactions conducted with foreign exchange dealers in order to fulfill customer requests to buy or sell dollars against foreign currencies.2 When the New York Fed conducts an intervention for the U.S. monetary authorities (the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Department of the Treasury), the reported amounts reflect only that portion of the transaction conducted on behalf of the Federal Reserve.
- Outright Purchases and Sales of Foreign Sovereign Debt
- Further information about foreign reserves management operations is available here.Details on transactions since 2010 can be downloaded in EXCEL format below.
- Euro-denominated Repurchase & Reverse Repurchase Transactions
- Further information about foreign reserves management operations is available here.Details on transactions since 2010 can be downloaded in EXCEL format below.
- Note: The New York Fed typically settles the euro-denominated repo and reverse repo transactions it conducts through a tri-party arrangement. In a tri-party arrangement, a third party (the tri-party bank) acts as custodian and agent for the buyer and seller. The tri-party agent is responsible for screening and approving eligible securities, as identified by type by the buyer and seller, from the seller's pool of available securities, determining the current market value of the eligible securities, and ensuring, every day that a transaction is outstanding, that the buyer receives, in its account at the tri-party bank, eligible securities having a market value (based on the market value and agreed upon margins) at least equal to each outstanding repo trade amount.
- DARPA's Man in Wuhan
- Dr. Michael Callahan was given a leave of absence from his senior executive role at United Therapeutics (UTHR) in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China; sent there to assist colleagues handling mass infections of the novel coronavirus under his joint appointment at a Chinese sister hospital of the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he has maintained a faculty appointment since 2005.
- Soon, Callahan would be pouring through thousands of case studies emerging from the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan, examining patients in Singapore and briefing U.S. officials on the location of the next likely outbreak, according to NatGeo. The doctor marveled at the ''magnificent infectivity'' of the disease, which sits ''like a little silent smart bomb in your community''.
- The doctor's strange fascination with viral infections and morbid titillation might well be attributed to the fact that he has dedicated his life to studying these microscopic killers. ''Triple boarded'' in internal medicine, infectious diseases and tropical medicine, Callahan, nevertheless also has a strong entrepreneurial streak, that drove him to launch no less than 11 companies and develop 8 patents.
- Callahan's nose for business came into play early on in the pandemic. After studying data from over 6,000 patient records from Wuhan, he reportedly detected a pattern that could point to a possible treatment using a low-cost and widely available ingredient of an ''over-the-counter histamine-2 receptor antagonist called Famotidine'', more commonly known as the brand name Pepcid.
- Simultaneously in the U.S., it is claimed, an old colleague of Callahan's Dr. Robert Malone had been conducting a study with U.S. government-sponsored research teams. Specifically, Malone was working alongside U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) consultants to carry out supercomputer-based analyses to identify existing FDA-approved drugs that may be useful against the novel coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Per their analyses, famotidine turned out to be the ''most attractive combination of safety, cost and pharmaceutical characteristics''.
- Callahan, who by then had been recruited to be Special Adviser on COVID-19 to the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Robert Kadlec, was presented the joint findings of the U.S. DTRA and Dr. Malone. Both Dr. Callahan and Malone claimed to be unaware of each other's conclusions regarding the anti-acid, and despite agreeing to collaborate, each claims to have made the initial discovery. Malone offered a February post on LinkedIn as proof, where he asserts that he was ''the first to take the drug to treat my own case'' upon discovering the proper dose. Callahan, meanwhile, never provided any evidence of his ostensible breakthrough, though he claims to have told Dr. Malone himself about the discovery before the Virginia-based physician began running the sequences through DTRA computers.
- Quite a Resume, Mr. BondIn 1988, Michael Callahan started his first company called Rescue Medicine. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) bio describes the company as a charter organization that provides ''emergency air medical evacuation and refugee medical care in austere developing regions''. According to their website, Rescue Medicine supports ''federal government and U.S. corporations operating in remote international environments'', becoming a ''global leader in disaster medicine research''.
- The experience made him a shoe-in as the health director of USAID in Nigeria; a post he held for 4 years, carrying out research on pathogen infections in Africa, prospectively enrolling participants for cutaneous anthrax studies in Nigeria and monkey pox, as well as Ebola and Marburg virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola.
- As was the case for several individuals within a certain, tight-knit group within infectious disease and biological weapons circles, 9/11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks changed the course of Callahan's career, spurring his meteoric rise in both the public and the private sectors. Robert Danzig, Clinton's Secretary of the Navy, credited Callahan with being ''extremely good at connecting the military environment with mainstream public health''. Touted as one of Callahan's ''first high-level links to the military'', Danzig would only be one of many ''high level'' people the doctor would add to his rolodex over the next two decades.
- His time with USAID would overlap with the start of his faculty appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital '' appointments he maintains to this day '' and his participation in biological terrorism working groups at the National Academies of Sciences, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security.
- A year later, in 2002, Callahan would be tapped by the State Department's director for the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation to serve as ''clinical director for Cooperative Threat Reduction [CTR] programs'' at six former Soviet Union Biological Weapons facilities as part of the Bioindustry Initiative (BII) program, where he was officially tasked with carrying out the stated goals of the mission, which entailed the ''reconfiguration of former biological weapons production facilities'' in the former Soviet Union and the acceleration of ''drug and vaccine production''. More specifically, however, Callahan would be put in charge of gain-of-function programs for viral agents at these facilities.
- The CTR, better known as the Nunn-Lugar Act ''to secure and dismantle weapons of mass destruction in states of the former Soviet Union and beyond'' was co-authored and sponsored by Senator Sam Nunn, who was none other than the ''president'' in the bioterror attack simulation that preceded the 2001 anthrax attacks by a matter of months, Dark Winter, an exercise covered by Whitney Webb and this author in the investigative series, Engineering Contagion. A few months prior to the Dark Winter exercise, Nunn had co-founded the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) with conservative reactionary media mogul, Ted Turner, serving as its CEO until 2017. The NTI would play a critical role in the repurposing the former Soviet bioweapons labs into ''vaccine production facilities'', allocating millions of dollars to this end.
- A full year before Callahan's BII appointment, the Sam Nunn Policy Forum received a proposal from two Russian scientists working at the ''Vector Institute'' or State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in the Novosibirsk district of Siberia. The former Soviet bioweapons R&D center had been selected to serve as a model for the makeover of other former BW facilities into ''open and fully transparent'' laboratories after the collapse of the Soviet Union; a process that had been discussed ''at length'' with the U.S. Vector Evaluation Team that had visited the compound a few years earlier in 1998.
- The Russian scientists aimed to create a non-profit organization called the International Center for the Study of Emerging and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases (ICERID). ICERID was intended to perform research in areas related to diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics. The project was presented to the Sam Nunn Policy Forum in 2001. While ICERID, itself, fell through, Vector would nonetheless receive a $600,000 grant from Nunn and Turner's NTI soon thereafter.
- Callahan would follow shortly in tow, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department program, leading clinical research teams at Vector and several other important Soviet bioweapons labs to aid in their transformation into profitable ventures. Callahan was also given access to the infamous Institute of Highly Pure Biopreparations (IHPB) where Soviet microbiologist, Vladimir A. Pasechnik had worked before defecting to England in 1989 and kick-starting the dreams of the international bioweapons mafia detailed in the Engineering Contagion series.
- Both IHPB and Vector were part of the five principal institutes of the ''Biopreparat'' '' the broader Soviet BW program. The State Research Center for Applied Microbiology (SRCAM), The Kirov Institute, the Research Center of Molecular Diagnostics & Therapy (RCMDT), RIHOP and Berdsk round out the six labs where Callahan was formally leading clinical research teams; though in Congressional testimony, given together with another high profile Russian defector, Callahan claimed to have worked at ''14'' separate facilities.
- The Russian IP PartyThroughout Callahan's travels in the former Soviet Union, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) was sharing in the research and scientific innovation taking place in the former Soviet labs as part of the consortium of Massachusetts medical research institutions. In 2004, the ''number 1 research hospital in the U.S.'', Mass General was taking part in the Bioindustry Initiative (BII) program, making use of the Russian technology their faculty member, Michael Callahan was in the process of discovering.
- ''We took a Russian delivery system, a rocket as it were, and put an American warhead on it'', said Jeffrey A. Gelfand, a colleague of Callahan's and international director of MGH's Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology, referring to a drug delivery system taken from the RCMDT, one of the former Soviet facilities then under the clinical directorship of Callahan.
- The RCMDT is described as a ''small-molecule research facility that traditionally focused on entities the body generates, such as interferon and cytokines, to turn on or turn down the immune response system''. The former Soviet research center obtained a grant from the National Institutes of Health via BII ''for a collaborative project on new approaches to disease research''. Another facility Callahan was working at, Vector, also received funding for a novel HIV vaccine and helped file patents ''on the institute's approach to hepatitis C and influenza''. The same institution obtained grants from BII for RNA-based antiviral research.
- The task of transforming these former Soviet bioweapons labs into profitable ventures was hitting some cultural walls, according to the then director of the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and chairman of the board of BII precursor ISTC, Ronald F. Lehman II: ''They have no experience with a market economy'', he alleged and claimed that they had to ''work very hard'' to make the Russians understand that intellectual property (IP) was an ''economic good''.
- Soon enough, the Russian scientists would be ushered into brokered meetings with Eli Lilly and Dow Chemical, among other large Western pharmaceutical companies, to commercialize their discoveries. Much of the groundwork for this had been laid by a sort of precursor of the BII, the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) '' a Moscow-based ''intergovernmental'' organization established in 1992 to serve as ''clearinghouse for developing, approving, financing, and monitoring projects aimed at engaging weapons scientists, technicians, and engineers'' from the former Soviet Union and other states that were once behind the Iron Curtain.
- Lehman conceded that ''any kind of economic, political, or social turmoil'' would complicate the process or commercializing the scientific work being done in these Eastern bloc labs. But, in the meantime Callahan, along with ''BII and its partners'' was doing his best ''to push as much science as possible from Russian lab benches into production.''
- One of the main functions of the BII was ''scouting out sites and planning for business development''. At the time of Callahan's sojourn through Russia, one of the projects that resulted from this activity by the BII and its private NPO partner, the U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation (CRDF), had to do with a little-known vaccine plant in the former Soviet state of Georgia.
- According to James Wolfram, a senior scientist with the CRDF, the Georgia facility was ''antiquated'' and housed ''dangerous pathogens''. The ostensible goal of converting the vaccine plant into a ''feed mill'' turned into an agreement between the DoD and the government of the Republic of Georgia officially titled ''Cooperation in the field of prevention of the introduction of pathogenesis and experience related to biological weapons development''. That same year, construction began on the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research in Tbilisi, Georgia. The center was completed in 2011.
- In 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a $6.5 million contract to a company called EcoHealth Alliance, Inc to carry out research on ''the risk of bat-borne zoonotic disease emergence in Western Asia''. Journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva uncovered the Pentagon project, which focused on ''genetic studies on coronaviruses in 5,000 bats collected in Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Jordan''.
- Gaytandzhieva also detailed the multiple covert activities being carried out by the USG, such as American diplomats trafficking in blood and pathogens for a secret military program, as well as an instance in which a breakout of hemorrhagic fever in the area immediately surrounding the Center was traced back to experiments being carried out by Pentagon scientists on ''tropical mosquitos and ticks''.
- Not coincidentally, EcoHealth Alliance had previously received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2014 to study coronaviruses in bats in Asia. This particular study was carried out in partnership with scientists at none other than the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
- Master of the Dark SciencesAfter a few years bouncing from one former Soviet lab to another, Michael Callahan would return to the United States with a head full of new ideas and a brand new job at the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) where he could put it all to use as director of the agency's biodefense therapeutics portfolio.
- In the space of just seven years, from 2005 to 2012, Callahan would expand DARPA's biodefense portfolio from $61 million to $260 million per year and launch eight programs that would generate nine investigational new drugs (INDs) and three new drug applications with products in market, including the injectable fungal treatment, Ambisome (Gilead), which has generated over $6 billion since approval.
- Two programs in particular developed by Callahan while at DARPA would later play a critical role in his future involvement in the broader story of the SARS-CoV-2, a.k.a. COVID-19 and the vilification of China, IP and the advancement of a global vaccine regime.
- The Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals (AMP) program was created by Michael Callahan in 2006, barely a year after he first came on board as DARPA's portfolio manager. Its purpose was to find technologies that could ''radically accelerate the manufacturing of protein vaccines and protein-based therapeutics'', with the goal of ''revolutionizing protein therapeutics and vaccine manufacture'' through the private sector.
- The program's mandate dovetailed with concurrent efforts to fundamentally transform the U.S. government's approach to vaccine manufacture and (Medical Countermeasures) MCMs. Just as Callahan was soliciting proposals and handing millions of DARPA's money to private companies, the agency was entering into a cooperative agreement (HR0011-07-2-0003) with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) to look into the challenges of this endeavor.
- The seminal 180-page report that resulted from the 2-year deep dive (2007-2009) into USG procurement and manufacturing methods for MCMs, titled ''Ensuring Biologics Advanced Development and Manufacturing Capability for the United States Government: A Summary of Key Findings and Conclusions'' was led by Tara O'Toole and Thomas Inglesby, two key individuals in the Dark Winter exercise and perennial participants in the course of the policy and legislative changes, that have led to the establishment of an entrenched biotech mafia in the halls of government.
- The central question that this cooperative effort between DARPA and the UPMC wanted to answer was how to incentivize the private sector to manufacture products that only had one buyer, the U.S. government. To this end, the researchers probed different areas such as barriers to entry, cost analysis and several types of manufacturing options. They included one case study to demonstrate what they believed would be the most effective strategy to follow. That case study looked at a company headquartered in Rockville, MD called Novavax, which recently received a $1.6 billion grant (the largest so far) from Trump's Operation Warp Speed to manufacture a COVID-19 vaccine.
- The paper lauded the company's ''single-use [bioreactors and bags] equipment bioprocessing facility for the development of their influenza virus-like particle vaccine'' and concluded that, although not all biopharma companies would be willing to transition to single-use facilities, it was nonetheless in the government's best interest to patronize single-use manufacturing processes for MCMs, as these would lower costs and cut down production time by two years.
- Several USG incentive programs were cited as successfully removing barriers to entry for private sector participants. Among these were the Orphan Products Program (OPP), tax cuts for Big Pharma, subsidies and, significantly, the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PAHPA) legislation, created by ASPR Robert Kadlec and which established BARDA, clearing the unique ''governance'' barrier faced by global pharmaceutical firms.
- In 2005, just as he was getting ready to decorate his new office at DARPA, Michael Callahan testified before Congress together with Ken Alibek '' former deputy director of the Soviet Biopreparat, who defected to the U.S. and became the darling of the bioterror alarmists in and out of government. In his prepared statement, Callahan concluded with a chilling statement that summarizes the general sentiment shared by many in his circle:
- ''The dark science of biological weapon design and manufacture parallels that of the health sciences and the cross mixed disciplines of modern technology. Potential advances in biological weapon lethality will in part be the byproduct of peaceful scientific progress. So, until the time when there are no more terrorists, the U.S. Government and the American people will depend on the scientific leaders of their field to identify any potential dark side aspect to every achievement'...''
- Michael CallahanCallahan would receive DARPA's highest commendation, the DARPA Achievement Award, for his success with the Accelerated Manufacture of Pharmaceuticals (AMP) program. But, it would be another program of his creation that would prove prophetic.
- Self-fulfilling ProphecyProphecy was another program created by Callahan at DARPA. It sought to ''transform the vaccine and drug development enterprise from observational and reactive to predictive and preemptive'' through algorithmic programming techniques. In layman's terms, the program proposed that ''viral mutations and outbreaks'' could be predicted in advance to more rapidly counter the unknown disease with preemptive drug and vaccine development.
- Among the grantees of Callahan's program were at least two institutions where he himself held faculty positions. Harvard University, where he holds a clinical appointment, received a $19.6 million contract for a joint project with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Pittsburg and others. Another institution with close ties to Callahan obtaining generous funding through the DARPA Prophecy program was the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, which houses the King Chulalongkorn Medical University where Callahan is a visiting professor.
- In 2009, Callahan's old employer USAID launched PREDICT, an early warning system for new and emerging diseases in 21 countries. Thailand, known for being a ''hotbed of undiagnosed illnesses and viruses'' among medical experts, was among those 21 nation and a doctor described as a ''giant in the field of virus discovery worldwide'' was tapped by the CIA cutout to lead the PREDICT program in that country.
- Dr. Supaporn ''Chu'' Wacharapluesadee, from the King Chulalongkorn Memorial and faculty of Medicine at Chulalongkorn University had been conducting research on viruses in bats for years and is considered one of the world's leading experts on bat pathogens. '' We need more Dr. Supaporns of the world'', exclaimed Callahan in a 2016 interviewwith Vice. The doctor praised his Chulalongkorn University colleague, noting that ''Chu'' was ''at the very top of [his] list'' when it came to whom he chose to work with on ''virologic expeditions''.
- Indeed, Callahan and DARPA had identified Wacharapluesadee as an asset in 2004 when she discovered the Nipah virus in bats, which can affect humans and pigs. Callahan and the Thai doctor worked together on several studies. One of these, funded by the USAID PREDICT project, titled ''Diversity of coronavirus in bats from Eastern Thailand'' was published in 2015 and carried out between 2008 and 2013, as well as a 2013 study on encephalitis funded by DARPA and the Thai government.
- Callahan is not shy about crediting Dr. Wacharapluesadee with allowing the U.S. government to work on ''critically important global virology projects''. His compliments could be more than simple admiration, however. It was Dr. Wacharapluesadee, after all, who would find herself at the center of the narrative built around the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China; namely that the People's Republic of China (PRC) purposely withheld critical genomic information from the world at the outset of the pandemic in January, 2020.
- According to a PBS.org story, on January 8, a Thai woman returning from Wuhan was ''pulled aside'' at the airport over symptoms of a runny nose, sore throat and high temperature. ''Supaporn Wacharapluesadee's team'', as claimed, discovered that the woman was infected with a ''new coronavirus''. Dr. Wacharapluesadee herself had allegedly succeeded in ''partially'' decoding the genetic sequence of the virus by the following day and reported it to the Thai government.
- That same day, a 61-year-old man became the first death in Wuhan after succumbing to a disease with a reportedly similar pathology. However, the Chinese government didn't report it until two days later on January 11 along with the virus sequences from the Wuhan Institute of Virology and its own CDC, sparking accusations against the PRC that it was delaying information about the outbreak. Dr. Wacharapluesadee compared her sequence with the one later published by the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and ''found it was a 100% match'', making it the first officially recorded case outside of China and effectively dropping the first domino, which would eventually lead to the WHO declaring a global pandemic two months later.
- Callahan, himself, had been stoking the fires about China's caginess regarding its lack of enthusiasm for scientific collaboration with the West as far back as 2018: ''Jeopardizing U.S. access to foreign pathogens and therapies to counter them'', declared Callahan over reports that Chinese officials had ''concealed'' lab samples of H7N9 (type of bird flu), which he argued ''undermines our nation's ability to protect against infections which can spread globally within days''.
- A Close-Knit Cluster of InstitutionsMichael Callahan would leave DARPA's payroll and his official title of Program Manager for Biodefense and Mass-Casualty Care in 2012 and return to Massachusetts General Hospital to run a disease surveillance and antiviral clinical trials program in Africa. But, a man with Callahan's background never quite leaves government, as he himself admitted in a UAB alumni profile: ''I still have federal responsibilities to the White House for pandemic preparedness and exotic disease outbreaks,'' said Callahan in 2013, ''which will continue for the near future''.
- Dennis Carroll, a former USAID director of emerging threats division who had led the U.S.' response to Avian influenza (H5N1) in 2005, would go on to create PREDICT, which partnered with a non-profit called EcoHealth Alliance to carry out its 9-year effort to catalog hundreds of thousands of biological samples, ''including over 10,000 bats''. The aforementioned PREDICT-funded 2015 study on ''diversity of coronavirus in bats'' by Wacharapluesadee and Callahan also included Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, among its participants.
- Daszak, a regular advisor to WHO on pathogen prioritization for R&D, Carroll and Joana Mazet '' former global director for USAID's PREDICT '' all joined together in 2016 to form the Global Virome Project; a ''10-year collaborative scientific initiative to discover unknown zoonotic viral threats and stop future pandemics''. Mazet was also co-director of UC Davis' One Health program, which recruited Dr. Wacharapluesadee and her team in Thailand to conduct a multi-year research project on bats. They are joined by Edward Rubin of Metabiota Inc, a recipient of Callahan's PROPHECY funds at DARPA and, notably, an $18.4 million DTRA contract award for scientific research and consulting work in Ukraine and the Lugar Center in the Republic of Georgia. Metabiota was accused by the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium in 2014 of violating their contract and engaging in dangerous blood culturing work at a lab in Africa, as well as misdiagnosing patients.
- EcoHealth's Executive Vice President, William Karesh, links directly back to the very top of the U.S. biodefense establishment, as a member of ASPR Robert Kadlec's original Blue Ribbon Panel on Biodefense along with Hudson Institute senior fellows Tevi Troy, Jonah Alexander and Scooter Libby, whose pivotal roles has been detailed in the Engineering Contagion series. EcoHealth Alliance is listed as a partner of the Wuhan Institute of Virology on archived pages of its website and was mentioned as a one of the institute's ''strategic partners'' by the WIV's Deputy Director General, Prof Yanyi Wang, in remarks during the visit of an official U.S. delegation to the institute in 2018.
- The relationship between the WIV and the American Biodefense establishment was advanced by EcoHealth Alliance policy advisor, David R. Franz, former commander at U.S. bioweapons lab at Fort Detrick (USAMRIID). Franz was chief inspector on the three UN Special Commission biological warfare inspection tours in Iraq, which included a young Robert Kadlec as a member of the team on the ground, and currently advises Robert Kadlec as a member of HHS' National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity.
- Significantly, Franz was also part of the first ''U.S.-U.K.'' teams that visited the former Soviet Union's BW facilities in the early 90's, which led to the creation of the ISCT and subsequent BII program in which Michael Callahan served as clinical director for multiple BW facilities prior to joining DARPA in 2005.
- During a visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017 as part of the ''Second China-U.S. Workshop on the Challenges of Emerging Infections, Laboratory Safety and Global Health Security'', Franz outlined ''possible joint project ideas'', which included carrying out joint ''table top exercises'' or simulations of outbreaks (e.g. exercises similar to Dark Winter), decision-making surrounding ''gain-of-function'' research and ''overcoming barriers to sharing strain collections and transport of pathogens''. The last point would play a crucial role in the narrative emerging about the ostensible origins of the virus, which has been claimed to be the WIV, itself.
- A ''renowned'' bat coronavirus researcher at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Shi Zhengli a.k,a ''Batwoman'', was not only the first scientist to associate the novel coronavirus with bats, but is also the original source of the claim that the virus had escaped from the WIV, when she mused in a Scientific American article published in March that the thought had crossed her mind and hadn't ''slept a wink'' in days worrying about it until the lab tests results came back showing that ''none of the sequences matched those of the viruses her team had sampled from bat caves''. Zhengli has been at the center of a whirlwind of rumors, including that she had smuggled ''hundreds of confidential documents'' out of the country and was seeking asylum with her family in France. These rumors have since been denied by Zhengli herself.
- Like Thailand's Dr. Wacharapluesadee, Dr. Zhengli has also worked with EcoHealth Alliance's Peter Daszak on bat-related studies. As far back as 2005, Daszak and Zhengli were conducting research on SARS-like coronaviruses in bats. Several PREDICT-funded studies on SARS-like coronaviruses and Swine Flu count with both Zhengli's and Daszak's contributions. Perhaps the most noteworthy of these is a 2015 PREDICT and NIH-funded study she co-authored entitled: ''A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence''.
- Predictable OutcomesWhile Michael Callahan was roaming across Africa for the DoD-funded disease surveillance program at MGH in 2012, United Therapeutics came calling for his services. He joined the publicly-traded company to execute a $45 million NIH contract to develop ''next-generation'' antivirals and currently holds the position of President of their division of Cellular Therapeutics. True to his word, Callahan didn't let his day job interfere with any mission the federal government might send him on.
- In March 2020, Callahan was on board the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Pike on his way to a cruise ship off the coast of California to separate the sick from the healthy among the 3,500 passengers of the Grand Princess. In a few days, the WHO would officially declare the coronavirus to be a global pandemic and spur the lurch into a ''new normal'' where quarantines, masks and hand sanitizer would be peddled as unquestionable realities.
- Days earlier, NIAID director, Anthony S. Fauci, had come on Face the Nation, in one of his first televised appearances to announce, among other things, the implementation of the 14-day quarantine for all Americans as news of infected U.S. citizens on board cruise ships was making the rounds on all mainstream media outlets. The State Department would issue a travel warning specifically for cruise ship passengers on March 8, barely three days before the WHO's official pandemic declaration.
- Callahan, ever the disaster entrepreneur, had struck while the iron was still hot in February and put on his Rescue Medicine hat '' the company he had founded in the 80's '' to assist ''Japanese and U.S. health authorities'' tend to the sick aboard the Diamond Princess, which was being held in the Japanese port of Yokohama, near Tokyo. ''There was no way this wasn't going to show up on a cruise ship first,'' Callahan told the Miami Herald. ''Cruise ships are the canary for disease outbreak that reveals these diseases on a grand scale''.
- DR. SUPAPORN IN HER OFFICE (PHOTO BY ADRIANA CARGILL/MEDILL)But, it appears that Dr. Callahan did not need the cruise ships to alert him about the nature or scale of the problem. Already by January 4, 2020, four days before his esteemed colleague in Thailand, Dr. Wacharapluesadee, had run the genomic data and come up with a ''partial'' sequence and a full match had been determined after China and the WIV had released their sequences, Callahan had phoned his old friend Dr. Malone in New York with news of a new emerging disease out of Wuhan, China.
- In March, ASPR Robert Kadlec, wrote to Northwell's executive vice president of research encouraging him to draw up a contract proposal and a budget for the ''Pepcid trial'' with Callahan. The proposal that came back was about $20.75 million-short of what Dr. Malone, whose Alchem Laboratories Corporation would be getting the actual contract, apparently wanted.
- ''We stepped in to do it on behalf of Northwell (which) knows nothing about federal contracting'', Malone told AP. But, it seems that Callahan's Pepcid brainstorm ruffled a few feathers at HHS. Former BARDA director, Rick Bright, cited the Pepcid fiasco as the prime example of how Kadlec ''was inviting violations of federal procurement law'' in his March 5th complaint.
- For the moment, the Pepcid trials are on hold as Malone and Callahan work out who gets the credit for the ''idea''. Robert Kadlec, meanwhile, remains the ASPR and '' as far as we know '' Michael Callahan is still advising him on matters pertaining to COVID-19.
- Acknowledgements: Whitney Webb contributed with research for this article
- Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Dr. Callahan had called Dr. Malone on January 4, 2020 to suggest the possible use of Famotidine as a treatment. Dr. Robert Malone clarified to Unlimited Hangout that Callahan had only alerted him about an outbreak of the virus on that date. We have revised this article accordingly and regret the error.
- Whistleblower warns baffling illness affects growing number of young adults in Canadian province | Canada | The Guardian
- A whistleblower in the Canadian province of New Brunswick has warned that a progressive neurological illness that has baffled experts for more than two years appears to be affecting a growing number of young people and causing swift cognitive decline among some of the afflicted.
- Speaking to the Guardian, an employee with Vitalit(C) Health Network, one of the province's two health authorities, said that suspected cases are growing in number and that young adults with no prior health triggers are developing a catalog of troubling symptoms, including rapid weight loss, insomnia, hallucinations, difficulty thinking and limited mobility.
- The official number of cases under investigation, 48, remains unchanged since it was first announced in early spring 2021. But multiple sources say the cluster could now be as many as 150 people, with a backlog of cases involving young people still requiring further assessment.
- ''I'm truly concerned about these cases because they seem to evolve so fast,'' said the source. ''I'm worried for them and we owe them some kind of explanation.''
- At the same time, at least nine cases have been recorded in which two people in close contact '' but without genetic links '' have developed symptoms, suggesting that environmental factors may be involved.
- One suspected case involved a man who was developing symptoms of dementia and ataxia. His wife, who was his caregiver, suddenly began losing sleep and experiencing muscle wasting, dementia and hallucinations. Now her condition is worse than his.
- A woman in her 30s was described as non-verbal, is feeding with a tube and drools excessively. Her caregiver, a nursing student in her 20s, also recently started showing symptoms of neurological decline.
- In another case, a young mother quickly lost nearly 60 pounds, developed insomnia and began hallucinating. Brain imaging showed advanced signs of atrophy.
- The Vitalit(C) employee, who asked not to be named because they were unauthorized to speak publicly and feared repercussions for speaking out, said they decided to come forward because of growing concerns over the speed with which young people have deteriorated.
- ''This is not a New Brunswick disease,'' said the employee. ''We're probably the area that is raising the flag because we're mostly rural and in an area where people might have more exposure to environmental factors.''
- But in January, the province of New Brunswick is widely expected to announce that the cluster of cases, first made public last year after a memo was leaked to the media, is the result of misdiagnoses, which have mistakenly grouped unrelated illnesses together.
- The Special Neurodegenerative Disorder Clinic, also called the Mind Clinic, in the city of Moncton is the clearing house for cases referred from within the region as well as neighbouring provinces. Prospective cases have typically stumped doctors and resisted a battery of standardized neurological tests used to rule out certain conditions.
- Using a case description guideline developed by a team of neurologists and epidemiologists, the clinic decides if the patients warrant further investigation or if they may have a known illness or disease. Determining who becomes part of the cluster is subjective, largely because the brain is notoriously difficult to study. Certainty is often only obtained after the patient dies and the cerebral tissue can be fully tested.
- Despite the striking details surrounding the newer cases, the province has worked to tamp down fears. In October, officials suggested that the eight fatal cases were the result of misdiagnosis, arguing that instead of suffering from a shared neurological illness, the victims had died of known and unrelated pathologies.
- But experts familiar with the cluster are alarmed, largely because of the age of the patients. Neurological illnesses are rare in young people.
- ''The fact that we have a younger spectrum of patients here argues very strongly against what appears to be the preferred position of the government of New Brunswick '' that the cases in this cluster are being mistakenly lumped together,'' said a scientist at the Canada's public health agency, who specializes in neurodegenerative illnesses but was unauthorized to speak.
- In October the province also said an epidemiological report suggested there was no significant evidence of any known food, behaviour or environmental exposure that could explain the illness.
- Tim Beatty's father Laurie, a retired hardware employee, died in 2019 after the onset of mental confusion around Christmas marked the beginning of his rapid deterioration.
- Beatty says the family was ''gobsmacked'' when he learned his father was one of eight people a pathologist controversially declared was improperly diagnosed and had instead died of Alzheimer's.
- Beatty and his sister have pleaded to have their father's remains tested for neurotoxins, including β-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), which some have suggested could be the culprit behind the illness.
- In one study, high concentrations of BMAA were found in lobster, an industry that drives the economies of many of New Brunswick's coastal communities. The province's apparent resistance to testing for suspected environmental factors has led to speculation among families that the efforts to rule out the existence of a cluster could be motivated by political decision making.
- ''If a group of people wanted to breed conspiracy theorists, then our government has done a wonderful job at promoting it,'' said Beatty. ''Are they just trying to create a narrative for the public that they hope we'll absorb and walk away from? I just don't understand it.''
- Documents obtained through freedom of information requests and seen by the Guardian showed scientists at the country's public health agency were considering BMAA as a possible cause, but needed the province to order the testing.
- ''I don't know why the province wouldn't just simply do the science and look. They have my dad's remains. We've given them full permission to do toxicology and do what needs to be done,'' said Beatty. ''Yet, nothing has been looked at.''
- But experts nonetheless warn that testing itself is also more difficult than the public realizes.
- While some medical tests can provide quick and definite results other types of investigation require far more work.
- ''What people are talking about really amounts to a full research investigation, because then we know what we're looking for precisely,'' said the federal scientist who was familiar with both the cluster and the testing process. ''Right now we don't have a way to interpret simple data that you might get when testing a person's brain tissue for a particular toxin. For example, how much are 'elevated' levels of a neurotoxin compared to the rest of the public? And when does that become a cause for concern?''
- The scientist said teams are ready to begin the research, but ''New Brunswick has specifically told us not to go forward with that work''.
- Those familiar with the cluster are bracing for a January report, written by the province's oversight committee, which will determine if the 48 cases are genuinely suffering from a neurological illness or the result of misdiagnosis by neurologists.
- Amid mounting tension between specialists and the provincial government, a source familiar with the Mind Clinic say the postings for several jobs at the clinic '' a social worker, an administrator and a neuropsychologist '' were recently made temporary, the budget would no longer be recurrent and the clinic would be converted into a Alzheimer's and geriatric clinic. Health minister Dorothy Shephard told reporters on 1 December that speculation the clinic would be shut down was untrue.
- ''We keep telling the patients that the country is behind them, and that the tests will be done so that we can figure this out. We tell them we will get to the bottom of this so that we can help them,'' said the Vitalit(C) employee. ''And so far, that hasn't happened. But they need us.''
- EU drafts plan to label gas and nuclear investments as green | Reuters
- Steam rises from cooling towers of the Electricite de France (EDF) nuclear power plant in Belleville-sur-Loire, France October 12, 2021. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
- Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comEuropean Commission drawing up green investment rulesDraft proposal labels nuclear, some gas plants as greenCountries disagree on the fuels' green credentialsEU advisors said gas not compatible with climate goalsJan 1 (Reuters) - The European Union has drawn up plans to label some natural gas and nuclear energy projects as "green" investments after a year-long battle between governments over which investments are truly climate-friendly.
- The European Commission is expected to propose rules in January deciding whether gas and nuclear projects will be included in the EU "sustainable finance taxonomy".
- This is a list of economic activities and the environmental criteria they must meet to be labelled as green investments.
- Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comBy restricting the "green" label to truly climate-friendly projects, the system aims to make those investments more attractive to private capital, and stop "greenwashing", where companies or investors overstate their eco-friendly credentials.
- Brussels has also made moves to apply the system to some EU funding, meaning the rules could decide which projects are eligible for certain public finance.
- A draft of the Commission's proposal, seen by Reuters, would label nuclear power plant investments as green if the project has a plan, funds and a site to safely dispose of radioactive waste. To be deemed green, new nuclear plants must receive construction permits before 2045.
- Investments in natural gas power plants would also be deemed green if they produce emissions below 270g of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (kWh), replace a more polluting fossil fuel plant, receive a construction permit by Dec. 31 2030 and plan to switch to low-carbon gases by the end of 2035.
- Gas and nuclear power generation would be labelled green on the grounds that they are "transitional" activities - defined as those that are not fully sustainable, but which have emissions below industry average and do not lock in polluting assets.
- "Taking account of scientific advice and current technological progress as well as varying transition challenges across member states, the Commission considers there is a role for natural gas and nuclear as a means to facilitate the transition towards a predominantly renewable-based future," the European Commission said in a statement.
- To help states with varying energy backgrounds to transition, "under certain conditions, solutions can make sense that do not look exactly 'green' at first glance," a Commission source told Reuters, adding that gas and nuclear investments would face "strict conditions".
- EU countries and a panel of experts will scrutinise the draft proposal, which could change before it is due to be published later in January. Once published, it could be vetoed by a majority of EU countries or the European Parliament.
- The policy has been mired in lobbying from governments for more than a year and EU countries disagree on which fuels are truly sustainable.
- Natural gas emits roughly half the CO2 emissions of coal when burned in power plants, but gas infrastructure is also associated with leaks of methane, a potent planet-warming gas.
- The EU's advisers had recommended that gas plants not be labelled as green investments unless they met a lower 100g CO2e/kWh emissions limit, based on the deep emissions cuts scientists say are needed to avoid disastrous climate change.
- Nuclear power produces very low CO2 emissions but the Commission sought expert advice this year on whether the fuel should be deemed green given the potential environmental impact of radioactive waste disposal.
- Some environmental campaigners and Green EU lawmakers criticised the leaked proposal on gas and nuclear.
- "By including them... the Commission risks jeopardising the credibility of the EU's role as a leading marketplace for sustainable finance," Greens president Philippe Lamberts said.
- Austria opposes nuclear power, alongside countries including Germany and Luxembourg. EU states including the Czech Republic, Finland and France, which gets around 70% of its power from the fuel, see nuclear as crucial to phasing out CO2-emitting coal fuel power.
- Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Kate Abnett; Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Frances Kerry and Louise Heavens
- Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
- "His Skin Was Burning": Melbourne Man Sets Himself On Fire Screaming About Vaccine Mandates | ZeroHedge
- In what may be a repeat of events that sparked 2011's Arab Spring when a Tunisian fruit vendor self-immolated, protesting soaring food prices and sparking a revolutionary wave across Northern African and Middle Eastern nations, a Melbourne man set himself and his car on fire in front of horrified diners on the first day of the new year while screaming about Covid-19 vaccine mandates in Australia's Victoria state.
- A man has set himself and his MG3 hatch on fire in Richmond while screaming about Victoria's Covid-19 mandates on SaturdayThe man emerged from a silver MG3 hatchback engulfed in flames near Church St in Richmond about 8pm on Saturday, where police officers and firefighters doused the man with water to extinguish the blaze with the help of about five witnesses according to the Daily Mail.
- Victoria police and about five witnesses restrained the man who appeared 'off his face' while screaming about vaccine mandates.The bystanders helped restrain the man before police officers pinned him to the ground. He was then taken into an ambulance and rushed to hospital. Police said he had suffered life-threatening injuries. One witness who helped restrain the man said his flesh was burning before the flames were put out with water.
- Victoria Police said it was called to the intersection after reports of a man self-harming. The man was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
- Police cordoned off the area near the intersection of Church and Swan Street while customers at surrounding businesses were told to stay indoors. Bystanders said they initially saw black smoke coming from the vehicle, which was left with a charred driver's side door.
- ' ¸ WARNING DISTRESSING FOOTAGE: Witnesses have told of a man setting himself on fire in Melbourne while crying out about Victoria's vaccine mandates.Full story: https://t.co/h4jzuYH9N5 pic.twitter.com/dJnPjoJQC2
- '-- Avi Yemini (@OzraeliAvi) January 1, 2022Lydia O'Connor was having dinner at a nearby restaurant when she heard the man screaming.
- "His skin was burning. He was on fire. His skin is stuck to [my] shirt," she told The Herald Sun. "He was off his face screaming about the mandates."
- "He poured gas on himself and on his car. It was on purpose,' O'Connor told the publication. He was screaming about mandates. He was screaming "no vax ID" and throwing books."
- Forensic police were then seen examining the area.
- The incident caused disruptions to trams which run along Route 70 and Route 78 while the investigation continues.
- Turkey's inflation hits 36% amid financial turmoil - BBC News
- Image caption, President Erdogan told business leaders on Monday Turkey was reaping the rewards of his policies.
- Turkey's annual inflation rate has soared to a 19-year high, underlining the country's financial turmoil and alarm over its president's policies.
- Prices hit more than 36% December as the cost of transport, food and other staples ate into household budgets.
- Most central banks raise interest rates to help cool inflation but Turkey has gone the other way.
- It has meant a collapse in the value of the lira, as Tayyip Erdogan prioritises exports over currency stability.
- The lira shed 44% of its value against the dollar last year, and fell another 4% on Monday.
- Mr Erdogan has described interest rates as "the mother and father of all evil," and has used more unorthodox policy to try to dampen prices including intervening in foreign exchange markets.
- In a speech on Monday he said Turkey was "going through a transformation in economy and rising to the next league".
- He said the nation is "reaping the fruits especially in exports of our country's efforts and hard work in the past 20 years to bolster our foreign trade".
- One economist forecast that inflation could reach as high as 50% by the spring unless the direction of monetary policy was reversed.
- "Rates should be immediately and aggressively hiked because this is urgent," said Ozlem Derici Sengul, founding partner at Spinn Consulting, in Istanbul. But she accepted the central bank was unlikely to act.
- Mr Erdogan overhauled the central bank's leadership last year. The bank has slashed rates to 14% from 19% since September.
- The subsequent accelerating surge in prices and drop in the lira have upended household and company budgets.
- Image source, Getty Images
- There were pictures last month of people queuing for subsidised bread in Istanbul, where local officials have said the cost of living was up 50% in a year.
- The central bank has argued that temporary factors have been driving prices, and had forecast in October it would end the year at 18.4%.
- To curb the lira's weakness, Mr Erdogan unveiled a scheme three weeks ago in which the state protects converted local deposits from losses versus hard currencies. That sparked a sharp 50% rally in the lira with support from the central bank.
- But the lira then sank again last week, prompting a call on Friday from the president for people to keep all their savings in lira and shift gold into banks.
- The economic turmoil has hit President Erdogan's opinion poll ratings ahead of planned elections scheduled for no later than mid-2023.
- French presidential contender asks Macron to take down EU flag '-- RT World News
- Veteran right-wing politician Marine Le Pen asked for the EU flag to be removed from the Arc de Triomphe
- Marine Le Pen, a right-wing contender in the 2022 French presidential election, said the government has attacked the country's identity and broken the law by hanging an EU flag on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
- ''To adorn the Arc de Triomphe with the sole colors of the European Union, without the presence of a national flag, is a real attack on our nation's identity, because this monument honors our military glories and houses the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,'' Le Pen, the former leader of the National Rally party, said in a statement on Saturday.
- The conservative politician accused her rival, President Emmanuel Macron, of ''betraying the duties of his office and displaying arrogant contempt for our history for the sake of personal ambition.''
- Le Pen promised to appeal to the French Council of State, stating that the decision to replace the national flag with that of the EU violates several articles of the French Constitution.
- In a tweet on New Year's Eve, Le Pen asked Macron to return the French tricolor to the Arc de Triomphe.
- The blue EU flag with 12 golden stars was placed on the monument to mark the start of France's six-month presidency at the Council of the European Union, one of the bloc's decision-making bodies. Government buildings and cultural landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower, the Notre-Dame Cathedral, and the Louvre, were illuminated in blue on the occasion. France last took over the EU presidency in 2008.
- Government sources told BFM TV on Saturday that the French flag is not displayed permanently on the Arc de Triomphe, and that the EU flag will be removed in a few days.
- Secretary of State for European Affairs Clement Beaune claimed that ''the French flag has not been replaced.''
- ''The election campaign is not a free pass for petty lies and controversies,'' he tweeted.
- The French are set to vote in the presidential election in April, followed by the parliamentary election in June.
- Coca-Cola paid scientists to downplay how sugary beverages fueled the obesity crisis between 2013-2015
- Coca-Cola's work with scientists to downplay the role sugar plays in contributing to obesity has been called a 'low point in this history of public health.'
- The beverage company donated millions of dollars to a team of researchers at a non-profit claiming to look into causes of excess weight gain in the US.
- However, the team ended up being a 'front group' for Coca-Cola and promoted the idea that it was a lack of exercise, not a bad diet, that was the primary driver of the US obesity epidemic.
- Researchers now say the non-profit GEBN was 'front group' for Coca-Cola to promote that a lack of exercise, not a bad diet or sugar, is driving the US obesity epidemic (file image)
- For the analysis, published in Public Health Nutrition, researchers from the University of Oxford; the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; the University of Bocconi in Milan, Italy; and US Right to Know teamed up.
- They looked at more than 18,000 pages of emails between the Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta, West Virginia University, and the University of Colorado.
- Both universities were part of Global Energy Balance Network (GEBN), claiming to be a non-profit organization studying obesity, which ran from 2014 to 2015.
- But academics now say the group was created by Coke to minimize links between obesity and sugary drinks.
- Coca-Cola directly funded GEBN, contributing at least $1.5 million by 2015, and distributed millions more to GEBN-affiliated academics to conduct research.
- 'Coke used public health academics to carry out classic tobacco tactics to protect its profits,' said Gary Ruskin, the executive director of US Right to Know
- 'It's a low point in the history of public health and a warning about the perils of accepting corporate funding for public health work.'
- There were two main strategies, with the first being information and messaging.
- Chinese Police Hunt Overseas Critics With Advanced Tech - The New York Times
- Authorities in China have turned to sophisticated investigative software to track and silence obscure critics on overseas social media. Their targets include college students and non-Chinese nationals.
- The Chinese police have turned to intimidation to silence even obscure critics. Credit... Alex Plavevski/EPA, via Shutterstock Published Dec. 31, 2021 Updated Jan. 1, 2022
- When Jennifer Chen traveled back to her hometown in central China last winter for Lunar New Year, she thought little about Twitter. She had around 100 followers on an account she believed to be anonymous.
- While living in China, she retweeted news and videos, and occasionally made comments censored on Chinese platforms, like voicing her support for Hong Kong's protesters and her solidarity with minorities who have been interned.
- It wasn't much, but it was enough for the authorities to go after her. The police knocked on her parents' door when she was visiting. She said they had summoned her to the station, questioned her and then commanded her to delete her Twitter posts and account. They continued to track her when she went overseas to study, calling her and her mother to ask if Ms. Chen had recently visited any human rights websites.
- The Chinese government, which has built an extensive digital infrastructure and security apparatus to control dissent on its own platforms, is going to even greater lengths to extend its internet dragnet to unmask and silence those who criticize the country on Twitter, Facebook and other international social media.
- These new investigations, targeting sites blocked inside China, are relying on sophisticated technological methods to expand the reach of Chinese authorities and the list of targets, according to a New York Times examination of government procurement documents and legal records, as well as interviews with one government contractor and six people pressured by the police.
- To hunt people, security forces use advanced investigation software, public records and databases to find all their personal information and international social media presence. The operations sometimes target those living beyond China's borders. Police officers are pursuing dissidents and minor critics like Ms. Chen, as well as Chinese people living overseas and even citizens of other nations.
- The digital manhunt represents the punitive side of the government's vast campaign to counter negative portrayals of China. In recent years, the Communist Party has raised bot armies, deployed diplomats and marshaled influencers to push its narratives and drown out criticism. The police have taken it a step further, hounding and silencing those who dare to talk back.
- With growing frequency, the authorities are harassing critics both inside and outside China, as well as threatening relatives, in an effort to get them to delete content deemed criminal. One video recording, provided by a Chinese student living in Australia, showed how the police in her hometown had summoned her father, called her with his phone and pushed her to remove her Twitter account.
- Video In a May 2020 video call, the police questioned a Chinese woman living in Australia about a parody Twitter account she had created to mock China's leader, Xi Jinping. Scared, she denied the allegation.The new tactics raise questions about the spread of powerful investigative software and bustling data markets that can make it easy to track even the most cautious social media user on international platforms. U.S. regulators have repeatedly blocked Chinese deals to acquire American technology companies over the access they provide to personal data. They have done much less to control the widespread availability of online services that offer location data, social media records and personal information.
- For Chinese security forces, the effort is a daring expansion of a remit that previously focused on Chinese platforms and the best-known overseas dissidents. Now, violations as simple as a post of a critical article on Twitter '-- or in the case of 23-year-old Ms. Chen, quoting, ''I stand with Hong Kong'' '-- can bring swift repercussions.
- Actions against people for speaking out on Twitter and Facebook have increased in China since 2019, according to an online database aggregating them. The database, compiled by an anonymous activist, records cases based on publicly available verdicts, police notices and news reports, although information is limited in China.
- ''The net has definitely been cast wider overseas during the past year or so,'' said Yaxue Cao, editor of ChinaChange.org, a website that covers civil society and human rights. The goal is to encourage already widespread self-censorship among Chinese people on global social media, she said, likening the purging of critics to an overactive lawn mower.
- ''They cut down the things that look spindly and tall '-- the most outspoken,'' she said. ''Then they look around, the taller pieces of grass no longer cover the lower ones. They say, 'Oh these are problematic too, let's mow them down again.'''
- Chinese security authorities are bringing new technical expertise and funding to the process, according to publicly available procurement documents, police manuals and the government contractor, who is working on overseas internet investigations.
- In 2020, when the police in the western province of Gansu sought companies to help monitor international social media, they laid out a grading system. One criterion included a company's ability to analyze Twitter accounts, including tweets and lists of followers. The police in Shanghai offered $1,500 to a technology firm for each investigation into an overseas account, according to a May procurement document.
- Such work often begins with a single tweet or Facebook post that has attracted official attention, according to the contractor, who declined to be named because he was not approved to speak publicly about the work. A specialist in tracking people living in the United States, he said he used voter registries, driver's license records and hacked databases on the dark web to pinpoint the people behind the posts. Personal photos posted online can be used to infer addresses and friends.
- Image Mr. Xi in March. The police summoned the father of a Chinese student, Jennifer Chen, over a parody account she had created to mock Mr. Xi. Credit... Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press A Chinese police manual and examination for online security professionals detailed and ranked the types of speech crimes that investigators seek out, labeling them with a one, two or three depending on the severity of the violation. One denotes criticism of top leadership or plans to politically organize or protest; two includes the promotion of liberal ideology and attacks on the government; and three, the least urgent, refers to content ranging from libel to pornography. The manual specifically called for monitoring activity on foreign websites.
- The contractor said he used the rankings to classify infractions on dossiers he submitted to his bosses in China's security apparatus. In a sample document reviewed by The Times, he listed key details about each person he looked into, including personal and career information and professional and family connections to China, as well as a statistical analysis of the reach of the person's account. His approach was corroborated by procurement documents and guides for online security workers.
- Over the past year, he said, he had been assigned to investigate a mix of Chinese undergraduates studying in the United States, a Chinese American policy analyst who is a U.S. citizen and journalists who previously worked in China.
- Those caught up in the dragnet are often baffled at how the authorities linked them to anonymous social media accounts on international platforms.
- The Chinese student in Australia, who provided the video recording from her police questioning, recalled the terror she had felt when she first received a call from her father in China in spring 2020. The police told him to go to a local station over a parody account she had created to mock China's leader, Xi Jinping. She declined to be named over concerns about reprisals.
- In an audio recording she also provided, the police told her via her father's phone that they knew her account was being used from Australia. Her distraught father instructed her to listen to the police.
- Three weeks later, they summoned him again. This time, calling her via video chat, they told her to report to the station when she returned to China and asked how much longer her Australian visa was valid. Fearful, she denied owning the Twitter account but filmed the call and kept the account up. A few months later, Twitter suspended it.
- After an inquiry from The Times, Twitter restored the account. A Twitter spokeswoman said it had been taken down in error.
- Image A pro-democracy protest in Hong Kong in October. Ms. Chen's post, ''I stand with Hong Kong,'' brought swift repercussions. Credit... Isaac Lawrence/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images Consequences can be steep. When a Chinese student living in Taiwan criticized China this year, he said, both of his parents disappeared for 10 days. His social media accounts within China were also immediately shut down.
- The student, who declined to be named out of fear of further reprisals, said he still did not know what had happened to his parents. He doesn't dare to ask because they told him that local security forces were monitoring them.
- ''Those who live abroad are also very scared,'' said Eric Liu, a censorship analyst at China Digital Times, a website that monitors Chinese internet controls. He said that Chinese users on Twitter were becoming increasingly careful, and that many set their accounts to private mode out of fear. Mr. Liu's account is public, but he screens new followers, looking for Chinese security officials who might be watching him.
- For Ms. Chen, the police harassment has continued even after she moved to Europe this fall for graduate school. She has struggled with feelings of shame and powerlessness as she has weighed the importance of expressing her political views against the risks that now entails. It has driven a rift in her relationship with her mother, who was adamant that she change her ways.
- Ms. Chen said that as long as she held a Chinese passport she would worry about her safety. As a young person with little work experience and less influence, she said it was frustrating to have her voice taken away: ''I feel weak, like there's no way for me to show my strength, no way to do something for others.''
- Even so, she said she would continue to post, albeit with more caution.
- ''Even though it is still dangerous, I have to move forward step by step,'' she said. ''I can't just keep censoring myself. I have to stop cowering.''
- Ang Li contributed production. John Liu contributed research.
- Public Domain Day 2022 | Duke University School of Law
- By Jennifer Jenkins, Director of Duke's Center for the Study of the Public Domain
- January 1, 2022, is Public Domain Day: Works from 1926 are open to all, as is a cornucopia of recorded music: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923!
- On January 1, 2022, copyrighted works from 1926 will enter the US public domain,'1' where they will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The line-up this year is stunning. It includes books such as A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, Felix Salten's Bambi, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, Langston Hughes' The Weary Blues, and Dorothy Parker's Enough Rope. There are scores of silent films'--including titles featuring Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Greta Garbo, famous Broadway songs, and well-known jazz standards. But that's not all. In 2022 we get a bonus: an estimated 400,000 sound recordings from before 1923'2' will be entering the public domain too! (Please note that this site is only about US law; the copyright terms in other countries are different.)
- In 2022, the public domain will welcome a lot of ''firsts'': the first Winnie-the-Pooh book from A. A. Milne, the first published novels from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner, the first books of poems from Langston Hughes and Dorothy Parker. What's more, for the first time ever, thanks to a 2018 law called the Music Modernization Act, a special category of works'--sound recordings'--will finally begin to join other works in the public domain. On January 1 2022, the gates will open for all of the recordings that have been waiting in the wings. Decades of recordings made from the advent of sound recording technology through the end of 1922'--estimated at some 400,000 works'--will be open for legal reuse.
- Why celebrate the public domain? When works go into the public domain, they can legally be shared, without permission or fee. That is something Winnie-the-Pooh would appreciate. Community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can perform the music publicly, without paying licensing fees. Online repositories such as the Internet Archive, HathiTrust, and Google Books can make works fully available online. This helps enable access to cultural materials that might otherwise be lost to history. 1926 was a long time ago. The vast majority of works from 1926 are out of circulation. When they enter the public domain in 2022, anyone can rescue them from obscurity and make them available, where we can all discover, enjoy, and breathe new life into them.
- The public domain is also a wellspring for creativity. The whole point of copyright is to promote creativity, and the public domain plays a central role in doing so. Copyright law gives authors important rights that encourage creativity and distribution'--this is a very good thing. But it also ensures that those rights last for a ''limited time,'' so that when they expire, works go into the public domain, where future authors can legally build on the past'--reimagining the books, making them into films, adapting the songs and movies. That's a good thing too! As explained in a New York Times editorial:
- When a work enters the public domain it means the public can afford to use it freely, to give it new currency . . . [public domain works] are an essential part of every artist's sustenance, of every person's sustenance.'3'Just as Shakespeare's works have given us everything from 10 Things I Hate About You and Kiss Me Kate (from The Taming of the Shrew) to West Side Story (from Romeo and Juliet), who knows what the works entering the public domain in 2022 might inspire? As with Shakespeare, the ability to freely reimagine these works may spur a range of creativity, from the serious to the whimsical, and in doing so allow the original artists' legacies to endure.
- Here is a more detailed snapshot of just a few of the books, sound recordings, movies, and musical compositions that will be in the public domain in 2022.'4' They were supposed to go into the public domain in 2002, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years. Now the wait is over. (To find more material from 1926, you can visit the Catalogue of Copyright Entries.)'5' You can click on some of the titles below to get the newly public domain works.
- Every piece of recorded music is covered by two distinct copyrights, one over the original composition'--the words and music'--and the second over the actual recording of the song. Earlier we listed sound recordings from before 1923 entering the public domain. Here are some of the compositions from 1926 that will be joining them.
- Bye Bye Black Bird (Ray Henderson, Mort Dixon) Snag It (Joseph 'King' Oliver) Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Irving Berlin) Black Bottom Stomp (Ferd 'Jelly Roll' Morton) Someone To Watch Over Me (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) Nessun Dorma from Turandot (Giacomo Puccini, Franco Alfano, Giusseppe Adami, Renato Simoni) Are You Lonesome To-Night (Roy Turk, Lou Handman) When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along (Harry Woods) Ke Kali Nei Au (''Waiting For Thee'') (Charles E. King), in 1958 renamed Hawaiian Wedding Song with new lyrics (English) by Hoffman & Manning Cossack Love Song (Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, George Gershwin, Herbert Stothart)The Tip of the (Melting) Iceberg
- Many of the works featured above are famous; that is why we included them. Their copyright holders benefitted from 20 more years of copyright because the works had enduring popularity and were still earning royalties. But when Congress extended the copyright term for works like The Sun Also Rises, it also did so for all of the works whose commercial viability had long subsided. For the vast majority'--probably 99%'--of works from 1926, no copyright holder financially benefited from continued copyright. Yet they remained off limits, for no good reason. (A Congressional Research Service report indicated that only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain commercial value. After 75 years, that percentage is even lower. Most older works are ''orphan works,'' where the copyright owner cannot be found at all.)
- Now that these works are in the public domain, anyone can make them available to the public. This enables access to our cultural heritage'--access to materials that might otherwise be forgotten. As mentioned earlier, 1926 was a long time ago and the majority of works from that year are out of circulation. When they enter the public domain in 2022, anyone can republish or post them online. (Empirical studies have shown that public domain books are less expensive, available in more editions and formats, and more likely to be in print'--see here, here, and here.) The works listed above are just the tip of the iceberg. Many more works are waiting to be rediscovered.
- Unfortunately, part of this iceberg has already melted. The fact that works from 1926 are legally available does not mean they are actually available. After 95 years, many of these works are already lost or literally disintegrating (as with old films and recordings'13'), evidence of what long copyright terms do to the conservation of cultural artifacts. One of the films from 1926 we considered featuring was The Great Gatsby, an adaptation of the 1925 novel. But that film has reportedly been lost to history.'14' For the material that has survived, however, the long-awaited entry into the public domain is still something to celebrate.
- Another part of the iceberg includes works from 1926 and later that may already be in the public domain because the copyright owners did not comply with the ''formalities'' that used to be necessary for copyright protection.'15' Back then, your work went into the public domain if you did not include a copyright notice'--e.g. ''Copyright 1926 Ernest Hemingway'''--when publishing it, or if you did not renew the copyright after 28 years. Current copyright law no longer has these requirements. But, even though those works might technically be in the public domain, as a practical matter the public often has to assume they're still copyrighted (or risk a lawsuit) because the relevant copyright information is difficult to find'--older records can be fragmentary, confused, or lost. That's why Public Domain Day is so significant. On January 1, 2022, the public will know that works published in 1926 are free for use without tedious or inconclusive research.
- In an abundance of caution, our lists of works form 1926 include only works where we were able to track down the renewal data indicating that they are still in-copyright through the end of 2021, and affirmatively entering the public domain in 2022. However, there were many exciting works from 1926 for which we could not locate renewals. They will also be in the public domain in 2022 but may have entered the public domain decades ago due to lack of renewal.
- So . . . No One Would Be Silly Enough to Keep Extending Copyright, Right?Wrong! Despite overwhelming evidence that term extension does more harm than good, countries are still extending their copyrights. The public domain remains under threat. This makes an understanding of its vital contributions'--to creativity, access, education, history'--all the more important.
- The verdict is in: adding an extra 20 years to the US copyright term was a ''big mistake.'' This is not a quote from someone who is equivocal about copyright; it is a quote from the former head of our Copyright Office. Indeed, there is a consensus among policymakers, economists, and academics that lengthy copyright extensions impose costs that far outweigh their benefits. Why? The benefits are minuscule'--economists (including five Nobel laureates) have shown that term extension does not spur additional creativity. At the same time, it causes enormous harm, locking away millions of older works that are no longer generating any revenue for the copyright holders. Films are literally disintegrating because preservationists can't digitize them. The works of historians and journalists are incomplete. Artists find their cultural heritage off limits. (See studies like the Hargreaves Review commissioned by the UK government, empirical comparisons of the availability of copyrighted works and public domain works and economic studies of the effects of copyright (other articles are here and here).)
- Yet, incredibly, countries are lengthening their copyright terms'--not as a result of reasoned debate, but to comply with trade deals that require harmonization of copyright terms. With harmonization, there is a catch: countries are always made to harmonize with the longer term, never the shorter term, even if the shorter term is a better choice for both economic and policy reasons. At the moment, because of such trade agreements, Canada and New Zealand have both agreed to extend their copyright terms from an already long life-plus-50 to a longer life-plus-70 years, even though the Canadian term extension would ''cost Canadian education millions of dollars and would delay works entering the public domain for an entire generation'' and the New Zealand extension ''would cost around $55m [NZ dollars] annually'' without ''any compelling evidence that it would provide a public benefit.'''16' This is irrational. It would be more efficient to simply levy a new tax on the public and give the proceeds to the small percentage of copyright holders whose works are still making money after a life-plus-50 term. The term extensions not only transfer wealth to a tiny subset of rights owners, but also threaten to lock away the remaining works from future creators and the public.
- What Could Have BeenWorks from 1926 are finally entering the public domain, after a 95-year copyright term. However, under the laws that were in effect until 1978, thousands of works from 1965 would be entering the public domain this year. In fact, since copyright used to come in renewable terms of 28 years, and 85% of authors did not renew, 85% of the works from 1993 might be entering the public domain! Imagine what the great libraries of the world'--or just internet hobbyists'--could do: digitizing those holdings, making them available for education and research, for pleasure and for creative reuse. Under current copyright terms we will have to wait until 2061.
- Want to learn more about the public domain? Here is the legal background on how we got our current copyright terms (including summaries of recent court cases), why the public domain matters, and answers to Frequently Asked Questions. You can also read James Boyle's book The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind (Yale University Press, 2008)'--naturally, you can read the full text of The Public Domain online at no cost and you are free to copy and redistribute it for non-commercial purposes. You can also read ''In Ambiguous Battle: The Promise (and Pathos) of Public Domain Day,'' an article by Center Director Jennifer Jenkins revealing the promise and the limits of various attempts to reverse the erosion of the public domain, and a short article in the Huffington Post, both referring to a previous Public Domain Day.
- 1 Only works from 1926 that were published with the authorization of the author are entering the public domain. Copyright law used to treat "published" and "unpublished" works differently. In 2019, published works entered the US public domain for the first time since 1998. However, in the interim, a small subset of works'--unpublished works that were not registered with the Copyright Office before 1978'--had been entering the public domain after a life plus 70 copyright term, while other unpublished works whose authors died more recently have remained under copyright. In 2022, unpublished works from authors who died in 1951 will go into the public domain. But, because these works were never published, potential users are much less likely to encounter them. In addition, it is difficult to determine whether works were ''published'' for copyright purposes. Therefore, this site focuses on the thousands of published works that are finally entering the public domain. Please note that unpublished works that were properly registered with the Copyright Office in 1926 are also entering the public domain after a 20 year wait'--for those works, copyright was secured on the date of registration.''The copyright term for older works is different in other countries. In the EU, works from authors who died in 1951'--including Mohammad-Taqi Bahar, Jorgen Bentzon, Johanna C.H. ''Nelly'' Bodenheim, Mikhail Markovich Borodin, James Bridie, Amy Carmichael, John Alden Carpenter, Rafael Altamira Crevea, Dorothy Dix, Eddy Duchin, John Erskine, Max Ettinger, Robert Flaherty, Andre Gide, Cecil Gray ,Maria Grever, Ren(C) Gu(C)non, Jacinto Guerrero, James Norman Hall, Fumiko Hayashi, William Randolph Hearst, Sadiq Hidajat, Josef H¼ttel, Jens Jansen, Robert Kahn, Vclav Klik, AlfrÄ'ds KalniÅÅ, Serge Koussevitzky, Harry Sinclair Lewis, J. C. Leyendecker, Tom MacInnes, Kathleen Lockhart Manning, Resurreccion Maria de Azkue, Nellie McClung, Ivor Novello, Athos Palma, Selim Palmgren, Andrei P. Platonov, Paula von PreradoviÄ, Sigmund Romberg, Harold Ross, Artur Schnabel, Arnold Schoenberg, Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze, John French Sloan, Raden Mas Noto Soeroto, Rabanindranath Tagore, Vsevolod Vishnevsky, and Ludwig Wittgenstein'--will go into the public domain in 2022 after a life-plus-70 year term. In Canada, works of authors who died in 1971'--including Diane Arbus, Louis Armstrong, Leah Baird, Josef Berg, Hugo Black, Margaret Bourke-White, Emma Lucy Braun, E. Simms Campbell, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, Munier Choudhury, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, King Curtis (stage name of Curtis Ousley), August Derleth, Marcel Dupr(C), Lloyd Hall, John Marshall Harlan II, Raoul Hausmann, Ub Iwerks, Rockwell Kent, Marian Viktorovich Koval, George Lukcs, Guru Prasad Mainali, Jim Morrison, Ogden Nash, Reinhold Niebuhr, Bola de Nieve (stage name of Ignacio Jacinto Villa Fernndez), Jalkishan Dayabhal Pancal, Irene Rice Pereira, Ellery Queen (pseud. of Manfred Bonnington), John Charles Walsham Reith, William David Ross, Naoya Shiga, Stevie Smith, Max Steiner, Igor Stravinsky, Shunryu Suzuki, and Bill W. (AA co-founder)'--will enter the public domain after a life-plus-50 year term because they have not yet lengthened their term.
- 2 This estimate comes from experts on early recordings at the Association for Recorded Sound Collections: Tim Brooks, David Seubert and Sam Brylawski, ''based in part on an analysis of the pre-1923 contents of the Discography of American Historical Recordings.'' Their website on pre-1923 sound recordings is here.
- 3 See Keeping Copyright in Balance, (February 21, 1998).
- 4 There are also other creative works entering the public domain, including drawings, paintings, and photography. We have not listed them here because it was more difficult to track down complete copyright information for them.
- 5 The 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act gave works published from 1923 through 1977 a 95-year term. They enter the public domain on January 1 after the conclusion of the 95th year, so as of 2022, works from 1926 and before are in the public domain. Works published through 1977 had to meet certain requirements to be eligible for the 95-year term'--they all had to be published with a copyright notice, and works from before 1964 also had to have their copyrights renewed after the initial 28-year term. Foreign works from 1926 were still copyrighted in the US until 2022 if 1) they complied with US notice and renewal formalities, 2) they were published in the US within 30 days of publication abroad, or 3) if neither of these are true, they were still copyrighted in their home country as of 1/1/96.
- 6 In 2022, the public domain will welcome the first Winnie-the-Pooh book, including the great original illustrations by E. H. Shepard. Not all of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories or films will be in the public domain, just the 1926 book'--for later Pooh stories to enter the public domain, you will have to wait a few more years. The 1926 book features the original iterations of Winnie-the-Pooh and some of his friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, including Piglet, Eeyore, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, and Christopher Robin. However, Tigger was not introduced until 1928 in The House at Pooh Corner and that book does not enter the public domain until 2024.
- 7 Sometimes a composition or song is in the public domain but the sound recording is still copyrighted'--even though the song Yes, We Have No Bananas is in the public domain, a later recording of that song could still be copyrighted. You are free to copy, perform, record, or adapt the underlying song, but may need permission to use a specific recording of it. Sound recording rights are more limited than composition rights'--you can legally imitate a sound recording, even if your imitation sounds exactly the same, you just cannot copy from the actual recording.
- 8 A series of lawsuits confirmed that these state laws were of indefinite duration, scope, and validity.
- 9 Here is the timeline for recordings entering the public domain:'''''Recordings first published before 1923 ''> January 1, 2022''''''''''[One-year pause in 2023]'''''Recordings first published between 1923''1946 ''> January 2024''2047 (after a 100-year term)''''''''''[Ten-year pause from 2048''2058]'''''Recordings first published between 1947''1956 ''> January 2058''2067 (after a 110-year term)'''''All remaining recordings first fixed from 1957 until February 15, 1972 ''> the term for all of these ''shall end on February 15, 2067''Note that many sites say that sound recordings from 1923 enter the public domain in 2023'--adding 100 years to the date of publication'--but they actually go into the public domain on January 1 of the subsequent year, so that's why sound recordings from 1923 are public domain in 2024. In addition, note that the term of protection for sound recordings in other countries is different from the one in the US: in the EU it is 70 years, and elsewhere it is 50 years.
- 10 Beginning in the 1920s there was also a market-based segregation that took the form of so-called ''race records'''--subsidiary imprints that isolated Black music from mainstream popular music.
- 11 To learn more about the unequal treatment of Black artists, you can read the excellent scholarship of Professor Kevin J. Greene, including Copyright, Culture & (and) Black Music: A Legacy of Unequal Protection and ''Copynorms,'' Black Cultural Production, and the Debate over African-American Reparations; Professor Olufunmilayo Arewa, including From J.C. Bach to Hip Hop: Musical Borrowing, Copyright and Cultural Context, Blues Lives: Promise and Perils of Musical Copyright and Writing Rights: Copyright's Visual Bias and African American Music; and Professor Lateef Mtima, including Intellectual Property, Entrepreneurship and Social Justice: From Swords to Ploughshares.
- 12 Another famous Buster Keaton film from 1926, The General, is not on this list because its copyright apparently was not renewed after the first 28-year term, meaning it entered the public domain in 1954.
- 13 Many silent films were intentionally destroyed by the studios because they no longer had apparent value. Other older films have disintegrated while preservationists waited for them to enter the public domain, so that they could legally digitize them. (There is a narrow provision allowing some restorations, but it is extremely limited.) The Librarian of Congress estimates that more than 80% of films from the 1920s has already decayed beyond repair. Endangered film footage includes not only studio productions, but also works of historical value, such as newsreels, anthropological and regional films, rare footage documenting daily life for ethnic minorities, and advertising and corporate shorts. (For more information see here.) Like old films, old sound recordings also deteriorate. This makes their entry into the public domain an extra cause for celebration because it will allow anyone to preserve them.
- 14 See Wheeler Winston Dixon, ''The Three Film Versions of The Great Gatsby: A Vision Deferred,'' Literature Film Quarterly (2003). Sadly, however, one of the filmic versions of the novel has been lost to us forever; and in many respects, it seems that this first version, made in 1926, might have been the most authentic adaptation the novel received.
- 15 Millions of books published from 1926''1963 are actually in the public domain because the copyright owners did not renew the rights. Efforts have been underway to unlock this ''secret'' public domain, but compiling a definitive list of those titles is a daunting task. The relevant registration and renewal information is in the 450,000-page Catalog of Copyright Entries (''CCE''). Currently there is no way to reliably search the entire CCE, but thankfully, the New York Public Library is in the midst of converting the CCE into a machine-searchable format. Even after this is complete, however, confirming that works without apparent renewals are in the public domain involves additional complexities. As of September 2019, the HathiTrust Copyright Review Program had completed this process with 506,989 US publications, and determined that 302,915 (59.7%) are in the public domain, and can therefore be made available online. The work of the New York Public Library, HathiTrust, and other groups continues, with the goal of opening these public domain books to the public.
- 16 These quotes are from Professor Michael Geist and Michael Wolfe, respectively. At the time of writing, the Canadian term extension is poised to go forward as part of the United States''Mexico''Canada Agreement unless it gets stopped by an unrelated trade dispute. New Zealand's term extension is a concession to the UK in a newer trade agreement.
- Written by Jennifer Jenkins. Special thanks to our tireless and talented research maven and website guru Balfour Smith for building this site and compiling the list of works from 1926.
- Public Domain Day 2022 by Duke Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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- Sign up for our special edition newsletter to get a daily update on the coronavirus pandemic.She recovered from COVID-19 '' with help from the little blue pill, according to a report.
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- Fox News' Brooke Singman and Keith Koffler contributed to this report.
- VIDEO - Omicron in the Tri-State: Everything You Need to Know for Jan. 5 - NBC New York
- Facebook Twitter Instagram Submit Tri-State News TipsContact WNBCConnect With NBC NetworkArchives / LicensingNewslettersCommunityTerms of ServiceFCC ApplicationsPrivacy PolicyDo Not Sell My Personal InformationSend Feedback to WNBCWNBC Employment InformationWNBC Public Inspection FileCA NoticeAdChoices Copyright (C) 2022 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All rights reserved
- VIDEO - 'Flurona': NYC Experts Warn of Covid and Flu Amid Omicron Surge '' NBC New York
- Facebook Twitter Instagram Submit Tri-State News TipsContact WNBCConnect With NBC NetworkArchives / LicensingNewslettersCommunityTerms of ServiceFCC ApplicationsPrivacy PolicyDo Not Sell My Personal InformationSend Feedback to WNBCWNBC Employment InformationWNBC Public Inspection FileCA NoticeAdChoices Copyright (C) 2022 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All rights reserved
- VIDEO - USA TODAY on Twitter: "You can get COVID-19 and the flu at the same time. Here's what to know about "flurona." https://t.co/Wf34f0CETc https://t.co/EUGQUwIELg" / Twitter
- USA TODAY : You can get COVID-19 and the flu at the same time. Here's what to know about "flurona." https://t.co/Wf34f0CETc https://t.co/EUGQUwIELg
- Wed Jan 05 14:34:49 +0000 2022
- VIDEO - Moe Factz Christmas Special 2021 - YouTube
- VIDEO - Institutions That Will Crumble or Survive - YouTube
- VIDEO - MRNA Inventor Faces Tough Questions as Jab Deaths Explode
- Dr. Malone is the man who started our great vaccine war. Three decades ago his work was critical to the creation of modern mRNA vaccines. Today, he's possibly the single-most influential voice criticizing the forced use of the vaccines he helped invent. Malone went onto Joe Rogan's show. He asked a very relevant question: ''If I'm not qualified to talk about this, then who is?'' But you know how it really is. He got silenced for going against ''the experts,'' even though he's one of the world's premier experts on mRNA vaccines himself. Because, of course, the ''experts'' are fake. It's just a label for whatever cabal of people repeats what those who hold power want to hear. Dr. Robert Malone joins us to discuss.
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- VIDEO - The political roots of the anti-vax movement - YouTube
- VIDEO - George Webb - Investigative Journalist on Twitter: "Vaping Down Tobacco Road With Dr. Robert Malone (and his wife). #JoeRogan https://t.co/fXi3zj2Blv" / Twitter
- George Webb - Investigative Journalist : Vaping Down Tobacco Road With Dr. Robert Malone (and his wife). #JoeRogan https://t.co/fXi3zj2Blv
- Wed Jan 05 00:22:51 +0000 2022
- Iste Lee : @RealGeorgeWebb1 It's hard to imagine clandestine motivations for hijacking people's lungs.
- Wed Jan 05 03:02:21 +0000 2022
- Iste Lee : @RealGeorgeWebb1 It's somewhat clear, watching the interview, that he's not merely tied to the intelligence communi'... https://t.co/2YGalsT0Ym
- Wed Jan 05 03:01:44 +0000 2022
- Zachary Carter : @RealGeorgeWebb1 Been following you for a while but ever so often you go on these particularly whacky credibility-s'... https://t.co/Hxiu5MnLzm
- Wed Jan 05 02:48:42 +0000 2022
- Melchizedek : @RealGeorgeWebb1 If the Malones can't make you get a Transfection mRNA to forever damage your immune system, they'l'... https://t.co/Vzte6f0gHf
- Wed Jan 05 01:17:00 +0000 2022
- VIDEO - Mass Hypnotic Psychosis - Dr. Robert Malone / Dr. Mattias Desmet - YouTube
- VIDEO - The_Real_Fly on Twitter: "CEO OF ONEAMERICA INSURANCE SAYS DEATHS AMONGST YOUNG ADULTS +40% https://t.co/8haBnFm66B" / Twitter
- The_Real_Fly : CEO OF ONEAMERICA INSURANCE SAYS DEATHS AMONGST YOUNG ADULTS +40% https://t.co/8haBnFm66B
- Tue Jan 04 04:21:33 +0000 2022
- Josh | joshmanmode.eth : @The_Real_Fly Seems like that would be outside the normal parameters https://t.co/5phpA5Ke5c
- Tue Jan 04 12:09:44 +0000 2022
- Joel : @The_Real_Fly ''CEO of an insurance company claims deaths are rising'' I wonder if he has some kinda agenda? ð¤£
- Tue Jan 04 11:56:21 +0000 2022
- PolyDegen : @The_Real_Fly @CryptoParadyme Here's an article about it https://t.co/ti9eu0zAIA
- Tue Jan 04 07:51:08 +0000 2022
- Brock : @The_Real_Fly Follow the science....
- Tue Jan 04 07:07:04 +0000 2022
- Dyme : @The_Real_Fly 18-64 is a young adult?
- Tue Jan 04 07:03:19 +0000 2022
- Jim "Mandatory Vaccination" Collins ð¹ : @The_Real_Fly @F4DE2BL4CK https://t.co/sfrHG8PVXZ
- Tue Jan 04 07:00:17 +0000 2022
- Jim "Mandatory Vaccination" Collins ð¹ : @The_Real_Fly @F4DE2BL4CK yeah, pandemics suck.
- Tue Jan 04 06:59:19 +0000 2022
- VIDEO - Apple Watch Series 7 | 911 | Apple - YouTube
- VIDEO - The EU humiliates Joe Biden as it officially embraces nuclear and natural gas resources - YouTube
