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Trump Organization found guilty on multiple counts of criminal tax fraud

Trump Organization found guilty on multiple counts of criminal tax fraud

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/06/polit...ict/index.html

Im shocked, shocked that there was fraud going on.

"Cash grab": Knives out in TrumpWorld

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...e3a74b3f5acb87

Quote:

Former President Donald Trump's "major announcement" that ended up being $99 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has frustrated even his closest supporters, making him the target of ridicule online.

Donald Trump; Steve BannonMANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump; Steve BannonMANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
© Provided by Salon
The cash grab had many of his opponents and supporters rolling their eyes, with some criticizing Trump for not focusing on his 2024 reelection campaign, and calling on him to fire the person who thought of the NFT idea.

"I can't watch it again, make it stop," conservative host Steve Bannon said of the video of Trump promoting the NFTs on his podcast. "Anybody on the comms team and anybody at Mar-a-Lago — and I love the folks down there — but we're at war. They oughta be fired today."

Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.

Trump supporter John Cardillo took to Twitter to complain about the former president's "weird" announcement. "I supported Trump for years but this is ridiculous," he wrote on Thursday. "Pushing a worthless NFT for $99 a week before Christmas on the heels of the #FTX collapse is beyond wrong. Who advised him to do this?" Cardillo called the announcement "ridiculously tacky" on Twitter, adding that Trump "can't help himself in making these unforced errors."

Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said on the conservative video hosting platform Rumble that he would fire whoever advised Trump "immediately."

"I can't believe I'm going to jail for an NFT salesman," tweeted far-right media personality Baked Alaska, who pleaded guilty to unlawfully protesting on Jan. 6.

Related video: Trump launches NFTs with bizarre claim he was better president than Lincoln and Washington (Dailymotion)

Related

Capitol rioter cringes at Trump's stunt: "I can't believe I'm going to jail for an NFT salesman"
Trump announced the cards on Truth Social, writing "AMERICA NEEDS A SUPERHERO." The sold-out NFTs featured images of Trump in a variety of muscular costumes posing in front of various backgrounds with MAGA iconography. Some cards feature the former president ripping off his shirt, or surrounded by raining gold bricks that read TRUMP.

Former Trump advisers Sebastian Gorka and Steve Cortes joined Bannon on his "War Room" podcast and agreed that the president should have stayed far away from this stunt.

"The president should not be involved with this," said Gorka. "Whoever wrote that pitch should be fired and should never be involved" in Trump's 2024 reelection campaign.

Far-right talk show host Ben Shapiro sarcastically mocked Trump's move, tweeting "Thank God, the digital trading cards are here. It was indeed a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT."

Some also took the NFTs as a sign of Trump's political decline, including conservative streamer Tim Pool who tweeted that the former president is "basically retired."

"Demand improvement. Put the pom poms down," tweeted talk show host Jesse Kelly. "We need a better Trump."

Even QAnon supporters had enough of Trump's antics, calling his announcement a "foolish NFT cash grab," according to a report from Vice. "QAnon John," a conspiracy theory influencer, called the NFTs "tone deaf to a VAST MAJORITY of Trump's base."

Despite the widespread criticism and mockery, Trump's die-hard fans still rushed to get their trading cards. The 45,000 NFTs that were initially available are now sold out, with some being traded for more than $8,000.

A sucker born every minute

Trump sells out of his NFT 'trading cards' depicting him as a hero, raking in over $1 million: report

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...61573f91b40854

Quote:

Business Insider

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Trump sells out of his NFT 'trading cards' depicting him as a hero, raking in over $1 million: report
Story by kgallagher@insider.com (Kayla Gallagher) • 2h ago
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Former President Donald Trump blows a kiss to the crowd during a rally at the Florence Regional Airport on March 12, 2022 in Florence, South Carolina. Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump blows a kiss to the crowd during a rally at the Florence Regional Airport on March 12, 2022 in Florence, South Carolina. Sean Rayford/Getty Images
© Sean Rayford/Getty Images
Donald Trump's recent "major" announcement was that he was selling NFT 'trading cards' of himself.
The NFTs were originally priced at $99 each, but some sold for thousands of dollars.
The cards sold out early Friday and some buyers were entered to win a "priceless" meeting at Mar-a-Lago.
5 controversial World Cup VAR decisions explained: Japan's controversial keep-in, Uruguay's phantom handball

Full screen
1 of 3 Photos in Gallery©Getty/ Giuseppe Cacace
5 controversial World Cup VAR decisions explained: Japan's controversial keep-in, Uruguay's phantom handball
There have a number of controversial decisions involving Video Assistant Referees at the World Cup.
The most recent came on Thursday as Japan beat Spain 2-1.
Below, we take a look at biggest incidents involving the technology at the tournament.
Japan pulled off a brilliant comeback to beat Spain 2-1 and book its place in the knockout rounds of the World Cup in Qatar on Thursday, but the victory wasn't without a bit of controversy.

Spain had taken the lead early in the first half through Alvaro Morata, before being pegged back just after the break by Japan substitute Ritsu Doan.

Moments after Doan's equalizer, Ao Tanaka then bundled the ball into the net to give Japan the lead, but the referee initially ruled no goal, as the ball had appeared to go out of play before Kaoru Mitoma cut the ball back to Tanaka.

After a short consultation with the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), however, the goal was deemed good.

Though from the angles provided by television cameras, the ball looked completely out, the VAR, Fernando Guerrero of Mexico, concluded that the curvature of the ball was still overhanging the line, meaning, by the letter of the law, the ball was still in play when Mitoma touched it.

After the match, Spain head coach Luis Enrique made the astonishing claim that the photo picturing the ball in play "must have been tampered."

"It cannot be that this photo is real," he said. "It has to be manipulated."

Japan head coach Hajime Moriyasu disagreed. "There is great technology nowadays," he said. "If it were really out it would have been a goal-kick."

This isn't the only VAR decision to have caused controversy at this year's World Cup.

Below, we take a look at biggest incidents involving the technology at the tournament and explain the resulting decisions.

See More
Donald Trump's latest campaign stunt was selling non-fungible token (NFT) "trading cards" of himself. Prices of the cards rose from $99 into the thousands of dollars before selling out completely early Friday morning as supporters flocked to the site.

"Don't Wait. They will be gone, I believe, very quickly!" Trump posted on Truth Social at the time of the release.

Trump's "major" announcement came on Thursday when he released limited edition virtual trading cards, which he likened to baseball cards.

Related video: Trump launches NFTs with bizarre claim he was better president than Lincoln and Washington (Dailymotion)

The trading cards, which were licensed and owned by NFT INT LLC, not Trump or the Trump Organization, featured images Trump says pertain to his own life, showing him as a racecar driver, astronaut, boxer, sheriff, and elephant rider.

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One card featuring Trump holding the Statue of Liberty's torch, was selling for nearly $24,000, according to Open Sea. The entire collection has brought in over $1 million, according to reporting by Coin Desk, which will go directly to Trump, rather than his presidential campaign.

There were 45,000 digital cards created and prepped for sale on their website. Buyers were entered into a sweepstakes at the time of purchase where they could win "priceless" prizes, including a dinner with Trump in Miami, a group cocktail hour at Mar-A-Lago, a one-on-one meeting with the 45th president, a game of golf with Trump and friends, Zoom sessions, and signed memorabilia.

Winners of the prizes are responsible for covering their own traveling and lodging costs, according to the project's website. The fine print also states that there is no purchase necessary to enter.

The cards were criticized even by some of Trump's fiercest defenders. Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who featured right-wing commentators Sebastian Gorka and Steve Cotes on his "War Room" show Thursday, said Trump may be "one of the greatest presidents ever," but the person who came up with the idea "ought to be fired today."

"The president should not be involved with this," Gorka said agreeing with Bannon. "Whoever wrote that pitch should be fired and should never be involved."

Michael Flynn, a former national security advisor to Trump, also said on the "Prophets and Patriots" radio show Thursday, that Trump should fire whoever advised him on this "immediately."

The original profit estimate for the creators of the NFTs was around $4.5 million and it is still unclear as to whether Trump will be receiving any sales profits.

$4.5 million in 24 hours? I ain't even mad. lol. Shit, I would sale some of mine for fifty nine cents. lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lov2fish (Post 254211)

$4.5 million in 24 hours? I ain't even mad. lol. Shit, I would sale some of mine for fifty nine cents. lol

how many trump cards did you buy

Quote:

Originally Posted by omahacolt (Post 254217)

how many trump cards did you buy

Now that is funny.

Inside the War Between Trump and His Generals

REVEALED: Further Evidence Shows Ex-Prez Donald Trump STOLE Copyrighted Images For Ne

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...c7ac100a636876

Newly surfaced evidence suggests Donald Trump stole copyrighted images to create his recently launched “digital trading card” NFT collection, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Mega
Mega
© Radar Online
The sudden development comes just days after the former president was accused of photoshopping stolen images from small-scale clothing brands from across the country to form the basis of his NFT venture.

Mega
Mega
© Radar Online
According to Daily Mail, the majority of 4,500 digital trading cards already sold by Trump “appear to be based on unlicensed, copyrighted photos.”

Even more shocking are the allegations many images were taken straight from high-profile companies such as Men’s Warehouse, Amazon, and Walmart.

One NFT already sold by Trump, featuring the embattled businessman-turned-politician dressed as a fighter pilot, was allegedly taken straight from a Shutterstock image.

Another digital trading card, featuring Trump dressed as an astronaut, was allegedly taken directly from NASA.

Mega
Mega
© Radar Online
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, former President Trump was already accused of stealing images to form the basis for his newly launched NFT collection from small companies with an online presence across the nation.

US lawmakers vote to release Trump tax returns

A committee in the US House of Representatives has voted to make public six years of Donald Trump's tax returns.

US lawmakers vote to release Trump tax returns
US lawmakers vote to release Trump tax returns
© Reuters
The move caps a nearly four-year legal battle by Democrats to obtain the documents, that was ultimately decided by the US Supreme Court last month.

US presidents are not required by law to release their tax returns, but for decades they have done so voluntarily.

The former president has fought hard to shield his tax returns.

The returns could offer a first-hand look into Mr Trump's finances, including his assets, sources of income, charitable contributions and liabilities, including the possibility of loans owed to foreign entities.

In 2016, Mr Trump became the first major-party presidential nominee since Richard Nixon in 1972 to decline to publicly release his tax returns while campaigning for office. At the time, he said he would do so after an Internal Revenue Service audit had concluded.

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The House Ways and Means Committee had first sought the returns when Democrats took over the lower chamber of Congress in 2019. The committee, citing a federal law allowing it to request special access to individual tax returns, said the information was necessary as a part of a review of federal tax law.

Republican critics, however, have countered that such explanations were merely an excuse to access Mr Trump's financial documents.

Publicly releasing those returns would lead to the weaponisation of the tax information of political opponents, including private citizens, for partisan advantage, they have argued.

The Trump administration refused to co-operate with the committee's request, prompting a drawn-out legal battle that ended when the US Supreme Court, in an unsigned opinion, upheld an appellate court ruling that the Democrats were entitled to the returns.

In 2020, the New York Times obtained leaked copies of 18 years of Mr Trump's tax returns. In a series of articles on the topic, the newspaper reported that the president paid no federal taxes in 10 of those 18 years and only $750 (£615) in each of his first two years in the White House. It also disclosed that the then-president was in a fight with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9m (£59.8m) tax refund he had claimed and owed more than $400m (£328m) in debt due by 2024.

A representative of Mr Trump's business empire denied the accuracy of the report at the time. Official copies of the former president's tax returns, which are now expected to be released before Republicans take control of Congress on 3 January, should settle the matter.[/QUOTE]

No honor amongst thieves

Largest political money laundering scheme in a long time. Fuck them all.

Ginni Thomas admits to January 6 committee she did not know of any evidence proving v

Ginni Thomas admits to January 6 committee she did not know of any evidence proving voter fraud

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...445ea1167d60e7

Quote:

.
Ginni Thomas, a conservative political activist and wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, told the January 6 panel that she regretted the 'tone and context' of numerous emails and texts sent in the aftermath of the 2020 election in the latest round of transcripts released by the Congressional committee on Friday.

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The panel wanted to speak with Thomas following revelations of email correspondence between Thomas and then-President Donald Trump's election attorney John Eastman - who supported the legal theory that claimed then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to overturn states' election results

Congressional investigators also had text messages between the 65-year-old and Mark Meadows, who at the time of the exchange of messages, was Chief of Staff to Trump. These messages showed Thomas urging Meadows to continue the fight to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

'Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!!...You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.'

'I regret all of these texts,' Thomas voluntarily told the panel during a closed-door deposition on Capitol Hill on September 29.

Virgina (Ginni) Thomas, left and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, right
Virgina (Ginni) Thomas, left and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, right
© Provided by Daily Mail
In her testimony, she expressed her embarrassment about personal text messages being made public but was concerned about allegations of voter discrepancies while texting with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

'It was an emotional time, and people were scared that there had been enough fraud happened that they weren't going to get to the bottom of it,' Thomas said.

When asked about evidence of voter fraud by January 6th committee member, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Thomas said, 'I can't say that I was familiar at that time with any specific evidence I was just hearing it from news reporters and friends on the ground, grassroots activist who were inside of various polling places that found things suspicious.'

Subsequent evidence emerged that Thomas encouraged state lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin to overturn the presidential election results.

Thomas told the committee that she 'hoped that state legislators could identify fraud and irregularities in a timely manner before it was too late.'

When investigators and members of the committee of the attack on the U.S. Capitol asked about her conversations at home, Thomas said she stays in the “political” lane at home and her husband stays in a “legal” lane.

“He’s uninterested in politics,” she said. “I did not speak with him at all about the details of my post-election activities, which were minimal.”

She later added, “He had no idea I was texting Mark Meadows about the election,” though she conceded that a “best friend” she had talked to in one text to Meadows was likely her husband.

Yeah, right.

Key takeaways from six years of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns

https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/30/polit...sed/index.html

Im going to just post some highlites so there will be limited scrolling.

The Joint Committee on Taxation, which reviewed the returns, flagged that Trump claimed a large number of questionable items on his tax returns, including eyebrow-raising amounts of interest he claims to have received from loans to his children that the bipartisan committee said could indicate Trump was disguising gifts.

The JCT argued that an auditor should investigate the loan agreements Trump made with his children, including the interest rates. If the interest Trump claims to have charged his children was not at market rate, for example, it could be considered a gift for tax purposes, requiring him to pay a higher tax rate on the money.

In each year of his presidency, for example, Trump claimed he received exactly $18,000 in interest on a loan he said he gave his daughter Ivanka Trump and $8,715 in interest from his son Donald Trump, Jr.. In 2017 to 2019, Trump said he received exactly $24,000 from his son Eric Trump, and Eric paid him $19,605 in interest in 2020.

That raises the question of whether “the loans were bona fide arm’s length transactions, or whether the transfers were disguised gifts that could trigger gift tax and a disallowance of interest deductions by the related borrowers,” the JCT said in its report.

There are also questions about Trump’s returns listing an identical amount of company expenses and income.

For example, in 2017, Trump claimed his business DJT Aerospace LLC, which operates Trump’s personal helicopter, claimed $42,965 in income. It also claimed the exact same amount – $42,965 – in expenses. In other words, every single dollar – to the dollar – that the company earned was negated by the company’s expenses, such as payroll, fuel and other items. That left the company with zero income – and nothing to tax.

Total expenses equaling total income is a statistical impossibility,” said Shiel, who added that the figures are not evidence something illegal was done. “It just doesn’t happen.”

The JCT in its report raised several similar questions. For example, it noted IRS auditors were investigating multiple so-called large unusual questionable items on Trump’s tax returns for which the regulator wanted Trump to provide supporting evidence to back up his claims.

Trump reported having foreign bank accounts between 2015 and 2020, including a bank account in China between 2015 and 2017, his tax returns show.

Trump was required to report the accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The filings show that the former president maintained foreign bank accounts in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and China.

The China bank account, which was reported by The New York Times in 2020, was tied to Trump International Hotels Management’s business push in the country, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said at the time.

The 2020 disclosure of business dealings in China came as the Trump campaign sought to portray Biden as a “puppet” of China. Biden’s income tax returns and financial disclosures showed no business dealings or income from China.

The returns also show that Trump paid more in foreign taxes than in US federal income taxes in 2017, the first year of his presidency.

In 2017, Trump paid just $750 in US federal income taxes because of large carry-forward losses that he claimed in prior years, negating virtually all of his American tax liability. Yet Trump paid nearly $1 million in taxes to foreign countries that year.

Trump was required to report the accounts to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). The filings show that the former president maintained foreign bank accounts in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland and China.

The China bank account, which was reported by The New York Times in 2020, was tied to Trump International Hotels Management’s business push in the country, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten said at the time.

The 2020 disclosure of business dealings in China came as the Trump campaign sought to portray Biden as a “puppet” of China. Biden’s income tax returns and financial disclosures showed no business dealings or income from China.

The returns also show that Trump paid more in foreign taxes than in US federal income taxes in 2017, the first year of his presidency.

In 2017, Trump paid just $750 in US federal income taxes because of large carry-forward losses that he claimed in prior years, negating virtually all of his American tax liability. Yet Trump paid nearly $1 million in taxes to foreign countries that year.

The fact that Trump paid foreign taxes isn’t in itself surprising, but it shows how Trump’s companies and businesses interests span the globe, and how those businesses are subject to local tax laws and regulations.

During his presidency, Trump pledged he would donate the entirety of his $400,000 salary to charity each year. He frequently boasted about donating parts of his quarterly paycheck to various government agencies.

“While the press doesn’t like writing about it, nor do I need them to, I donate my yearly Presidential salary of $400,000.00 to different agencies throughout the year,” Trump tweeted in March 2019.

If he donated his 2020 salary, he didn’t claim it on his taxes. Among the six years of tax returns the House Ways and Means Committee released, 2020 was the sole year in which Trump listed no donations to charity.

I dont know if Trump broke the law, but his lies about his financial ties to China are a problem. From a different article a wall street banker suggested trump should stop all the wild trading just put his money in an index fund, he would make more money

House GOP at an impasse as tensions grow

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-ne...023/index.html

Republican shitshow. Democrats sitting around eating popcorn, watch the fun

Day two.

No change. Republican train wreck gains momentum. Led by Matt Gaetz.

Reap what you sow.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-ne...-23/index.html

Donald Trump's Lost Control of the Monster He Created

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...e24b92aef915d0

Quote:

. The gold leaf accents on Donald Trump's political brand look to have lost their luster.

At the height of his influence entering the 2022 GOP primaries, Trump sought to shape the Republican Party in his image, his endorsement in competitive races ultimately coming to define who conservative voters supported and who they didn't.

One of those he endorsed was Kevin McCarthy, the ambitious California congressman who, shortly after the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, traveled to Mar-a-Lago to extend an olive branch after previously criticizing Trump.

The following summer, Trump responded with his endorsement of McCarthy, calling him a "strong and fearless" leader for the GOP of the future.

After McCarthy suffered three consecutive defeats in a ballot of his peers to start the 118th Congress on January 3, Trump—it seemed—was no longer sure: In an interview Tuesday with NBC News' Garrett Haake, Trump declined to respond to a specific question about whether he supported McCarthy, saying only "we'll see what happens" when pressed.

By Wednesday morning, Trump was sticking with McCarthy. In a post on Truth Social, Trump urged Republicans to "NOT TURN A GREAT TRIUMPH INTO A GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT."

Within hours, the dynamics were already out of his hands.

In the fourth round of voting, 21 of the House's 223 Republican members declined to support McCarthy, with many saying he was too moderate, too entrenched in the Washington establishment, and too willing to capitulate to Democrats as he seeks to govern against a Democratic-led Senate and a Democratic White House.

Some of Trump's most ardent supporters in Congress—longtime anti-establishment figures like Matt Gaetz, Byron Donalds, Chip Roy, Ralph Norman and Lauren Boebert—were no longer listening to him, slamming Trump's pick on the floor of the House as a figure of the Washington, D.C., swamp Trump once swore to destroy.

"Even having my favorite president call us and tell us we need to knock this off," Boebert said on the House floor Wednesday ahead of the fifth round of voting. "I think it actually needs to be reversed. The president needs to tell Kevin McCarthy that, sir, you do not have the votes, and it's time to withdraw."

Trump's office has been contacted for comment.

Though his success as a candidate has long relied on the support of those outside the Beltway, his personal brand outside of D.C. hasn't fared much better—particularly as others have succeeded in rattling cages more than he had.

Where an invitation to Mar-a-Lago was once the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket, the Florida mansion has—in the months since the Republican primaries—become something of a circus of far-right fringe figures, with recent guest lists featuring defeated Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, onetime North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn and white nationalist Nick Fuentes alongside longtime Trump sycophants like Rudy Giuliani, the disgraced former mayor of New York City.

During the announcement of his third campaign for president, reporters wrote of attendees they saw heading for the exits who were not allowed to leave, while the campaign itself has seemed void of energy, marked by poorly designed digital trading cards and an absence of the types of rallies that came to define the closing months of the 2022 midterms.

Even some of his children, whose names are inextricably connected to their father's, have largely sought to distance themselves from the Trump brand for other ventures, as the company he founded has been mired in a number of criminal cases in New York.

"While I will always love and support my father, going forward I will do so outside the political arena," his daughter Ivanka said in a statement after his announcement.

How is Gaetz even a thing?

dude is a garbage person

Quote:

Originally Posted by omahacolt (Post 256709)

How is Gaetz even a thing?

dude is a garbage person

Welcome to the republican party, clown car head to the edge of a cliff

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/05/tech/...thy/index.html

Quote:

It’s Tucker Carlson versus Sean Hannity in the Republican Party.

The divisions inside the GOP, being laid bare on national television via the dramatic fight between Kevin McCarthy and a faction of rebels over the House speakership, mirror the rift that has been forming for some time in right-wing media and which is strikingly clear in Fox News primetime.

Some corners of the right-wing media universe, represented by the Carlsons of the world, revel in the chaos. Carlson has made that clear on his broadcasts this week, effectively cheering on the Never Kevin camp in the House and arguing that what we are seeing on television — a paralyzed GOP unable after six votes to elect a House speaker — is healthy.

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“If you prefer democracy to oligarchy, if you prefer real debates about issues that actually matter, it’s pretty refreshing to see it,” Carlson said of the public infighting taking place in the House, which is set to go back into session at noon on Thursday.

Then there are the personalities and outlets that more closely align with Hannity, who has gone on record against the mutiny facing McCarthy and argued on the California congressman’s behalf.

To be clear, Hannity hasn’t outright bashed the Republicans staging the rebellion against McCarthy. He’s mostly played polite. And he’s tried downplaying the friction, insisting it’s not a crisis. But Hannity has represented the wing of right-wing media — and the larger GOP — that would like to see Republicans unite and not be consumed by disorder.

“Should Republicans have worked this all out in private, long before yesterday? Yeah, absolutely. And behind the scenes I spoke to many of them, and I urged them to work it out,” Hannity said Wednesday night. “They apparently did not listen to my advice.”

After those comments, Hannity invited on Rep. Lauren Boebert for an interview which turned quite combative. The Fox News host repeatedly pressed the far-right congresswoman on what the rebel group plans to do, given that they are clearly a small minority of the GOP. Hannity at times noted that Boebert was evading and not answering his simple questions.

“I asked you a simple question congresswoman. I feel like I’m getting an answer from a liberal,” an exasperated Hannity said toward the conclusion of the interview, in which Boebert repeatedly kept speaking over him.

Of course, while Hannity, McCarthy, and others might be frustrated with the rebels now, they all played roles in bolstering their power in recent years. Which is the irony that cuts straight to the heart of the matter.

Much like the Republican Party laid the groundwork over the years for the rise of Donald Trump, people like Hannity have laid the groundwork for the rise of people like Carlson. They’ve catered to their views, refused to call out their nonsense, and chosen to attack entities like the media instead of dealing with the own mess in their backyard.

Now they’re reaping what they sowed: a party comprised of a growing number of erratic figures who don’t mind — and even perhaps prefer — watching the world burn.

Jan 6 rembrrance on the steps of the capitol

https://thehill.com/homenews/3802324...-jan-6-attack/

Quote:

. House Democrats, one GOP lawmaker mark Jan. 6 attack
BY REBECCA BEITSCH - 01/06/23 11:06 AM ET

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House Democrats — and one Republican — paused for a brief but emotional ceremony to mark the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Gathering on the House steps with the families of officers who lost their lives in connection with the riot, lawmakers honored the fallen officers as well as those injured in the lengthy battle with those who stormed the Capitol.

“The Jan. 6 insurrection shook our republic to the core. For many in the Congress and across our country, the physical, psychological, and emotional scars are still raw. Yet, from the unspeakable horror sprang extraordinary heroism. Law enforcement heroes confronted the insurrectionists to protect the Capitol, the Congress and our Constitution, and it’s with great respect and admiration that we are joined by the families this morning,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.
“Thank you to the families for considering us worthy to share your grief, to honor your loss.”
Family members or representatives read the names of each officer who died in connection with the riot: Capitol Police Officers Brian Sicknick and Howard Liebengood, and Metropolitan Police Officers Jeffrey Smith, Gunther Hashida, and Kyle DeFreytag.
The family of Billy Evans, a Capitol Police officer who was killed after a man rammed into Capitol barricades and drew a knife on officers, were also present, his name read aloud by his two young sons.
The remembrance was held as the majority of the GOP gathered for a call to discuss a pending twelfth vote to determine who will serve as speaker of the House.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) appeared to be the only Republican in attendance for the Jan. 6 remembrance.

Lawmakers held a 140-second moment of silence, one second for each officer injured during the attack, the pause leaving audible tears and sniffling from elected officials as well as those in the crowd.
Photos of the Week: Speaker drama, Damar Hamlin and a light festival
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“We stand here today with our democracy intact because of those officers. The violent insurrectionists stormed the Capitol and attempted to halt the peaceful transfer of power, a cornerstone of our republic. They failed. They failed because of the bravery and valor of the United States Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police Department officers who fought heroically to defend our democracy,” incoming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said.
“We will never forget their sacrifice and we will never forget this day.”

Analysis: Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own

Analysis: Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own audience

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fo...20e16fb3f28269

From texts between Fox anchors and personalities

McCarthy gives Tucker Carlson access to January 6 Capitol security footage, sources s

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/20/polit...age/index.html

Quote:

CNN
—
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has granted Fox News host Tucker Carlson access to all of the US Capitol security footage from January 6, multiple sources told CNN.

The highly unusual move – a House speaker handing over a massive trove of internal government materials to a friendly media outlet – comes after the California Republican faced significant pressure from his right flank to relitigate the work of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

During his bid for the speakership, McCarthy vowed to hold hearings on the security failures that led to the Capitol getting overrun, and he told the select committee to preserve all of its records for potential future review by the newly empowered GOP majority.

Carlson has been one of the most prominent promoters of January 6 conspiracy theories. Most notably, he has devoted significant airtime to the false claim that liberal “deep state” partisans within the FBI orchestrated the insurrection as a way to undermine former President Donald Trump. He has conducted sympathetic interviews with some of the rioters who were subsequently charged by the Justice Department.

Several GOP lawmakers within McCarthy’s ranks had hoped to review the material themselves, likely to hunt for footage that supports their controversial claims about the January 6 insurrection. By giving the videos to Carlson, McCarthy is essentially outsourcing the task to right-wing media, at least for the moment.

Axios was first to report McCarthy’s arrangement with Carlson.

A Fox News spokesperson told CNN that the Axios report was accurate, but declined further comment. Carlson told Axios, “there was never any legitimate reason for this footage to remain secret” and that the videos will shed light on “what actually happened on January 6.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the chamber’s top Democrat, was not consulted about the release of the security footage, a source familiar told CNN. Another source told CNN that McCarthy didn’t consult with his GOP leadership team before making the decision.

The now-defunct January 6 committee got access to all the security footage from US Capitol Police during its investigation, but did not release certain clips for security reasons. A source familiar with the panel’s work told CNN that the unreleased footage was considered especially sensitive because it showed the movements of top officials while they evacuated to safety.

Tim Mulvey, a former January 6 committee spokesman, blasted McCarthy’s move in a statement to CNN, saying “It’s hard to overstate the potential security risks if this material were used irresponsibly” by Carlson or others.

“When the January 6th Select Committee obtained access to US Capitol Police video footage, it was treated with great sensitivity given concerns about the security of lawmakers, staff, and the Capitol complex,” Mulvey said. “Access was limited to members and a small handful of investigators and senior staff, and the public use of any footage was coordinated in advance with Capitol Police.”

CNN has reached out to US Capitol Police for comment.

When asked at a press conference last month about how some Republicans previously urged former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to publicly release the full January 6 security footage, McCarthy signaled his support, saying, “yeah, I think the public should see what happened.”

In the courtroom, federal prosecutors have long tried to keep certain CCTV clips from the Capitol complex hidden from the public, saying in court that their release poses a national security risk and could give vital insight to bad actors who may be planning a future attack. US Capitol Police share the same concerns.

January 6 defendants have access to thousands of hours of unreleased footage from the attack, as well from an online database, but the videos are tightly controlled by a protective order and defendants are not allowed to publicly release the clips.

“Once the capabilities of a U.S. Capitol interior surveillance camera, including its position and whether it pans, tilts or zooms, is disclosed to the public via the release of a single video from that camera, the cat is out of the bag,” Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a July 2021 court filing.

After more than a dozen news outlets, including CNN, sued for access to the videos in 2021, the chief judge of DC federal court ruled that the public has a strong interest in seeing some security footage from the attack. However, these video releases haven’t been automatic or guaranteed. News outlets can request the public release of videos after they are played in open court, on a case-by-case basis.

Biden travels to the Ukraine

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/20/europ...ntl/index.html

Trump met with Putin, in private and no one knows what was discussed

David Benner passes StarNews

https://www.indystar.com/story/sport...s/69959012007/

Its for those who are in Indiana and follow Pacers

Quote:

GREENWOOD – David Benner wouldn’t say he was dying. Not his style. And this was a man of style – and substance. He worked for the IndyStar from 1979-1994, worked his way up from copy boy to the biggest beats in sports before shifting gears and working for the Pacers in media relations. An unusual career switch, something only the strongest of souls could do, but that was Benner. One of the strongest souls around.

Benner left us Wednesday morning at age 67, dying of the cancer that had been coming for him for a decade, nibbling around the edges, trying to get close but running into the same wall most of us ran into, eventually: Benner would decide how close you’d get. You, me, cancer … none of us chose. Benner chose.

Toward the end, when the cancer stopped nibbling and started taking large bites, Benner knew the decision was no longer his. A proud Southsider, he spent a week in intensive care at St. Francis Hospital before moving into the nearby Franciscan Hospice House. That was three weeks ago.

By then he’d done the chemo, over and over, and he’d come to grips with what was happening to him, and what would be happening to him soon enough. He’d been going to Columbus for chemotherapy, where he’d seen people much younger battling the same disease.

“He felt bad for them,” says Mike Wells, who covered the Pacers for the IndyStar from 2005-13, becoming close with Benner then, and becoming much closer after Wells left the Pacers beat to cover the Colts for ESPN. “He told me, ‘I’ve lived a hell of a life. I’ve traveled the world and had an incredible life.’ He felt bad for the 20-somethings who hadn’t had the chance to do that.”

David Benner had a heart, but he kept that part of himself under wraps as best he could, unless you were on the inner circle. Very few people got inside there. Lucky me, he let me inside about six months ago before putting up the wall again. He was dying, see, but that was his story. And he wasn’t going to open his book for just anyone.

More:David Benner, the stoic, unflappable Pacers PR guy retires: 'He never sugarcoated anything'

David Benner is retiring at the end of the week as the longtime Director of Media Relations for the Indiana Pacers, Monday, April 4, 2022.
A curmudgeon's curmudgeon, David Benner

Benner had things he enjoyed. That will come as a surprise to those who knew him just a very little bit, and here I’m referring mainly to the media members he kept at arm’s length – like me, until six months ago – because to us, this is the only thing he seemed to enjoy:

Keeping us at arm’s length.

He was protective of his team, David Benner. He grew up on the Pacers, cheering for them from his home in Center Grove, going to the occasional game, and then crossing over into this strange world of writing for the local paper about the team of your childhood. He wrote about the Pacers for the IndyStar – same job Mike Wells would have, years later – from 1983-91, then covered Notre Dame football in the fall and IU basketball in the winter. That was his work life until 1994, when Pacers media director Dale Ratermann left that role and the franchise offered the job to Benner.

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For the next 28 years he protected the Pacers like it was his job, because it was.

Former Pacers coach Frank Vogel was texting with me Wednesday, after the news broke of Benner’s death, and wrote: “He could not have been more supportive of me as a young, first-time head coach. He always kept me laughing with his quick wit … and I leaned on his experience with the media and with the organization heavily.

“He was a dear friend and a Pacers icon!”

From April 2022: David Benner, the stoic, unflappable Pacers PR guy retires

Benner was a wall, stiff and unyielding in his fitted suits. Write something he deemed unfair, and he’d let you know. Ask to speak with someone for an interview he felt was unnecessary, he’d let you know. Understand, I’m not complaining. Not now. Back when I first got here in 2014? It’s possible I complained to people at the Star.

What’s up with Benner?

That’s just Benner, they’d say. And it was. But there was so much more there, if you were lucky enough to get past the exterior. “A curmudgeon’s curmudgeon,” I called him in January 2020, when I wrote a story about attending five games in five gyms in five days, choosing a single anecdote from each arena. The anecdote I chose from the Pacers game? David Benner.

He was in the middle of another cancer fight, and I’d seen something pretty remarkable – well, actually, I’d not seen it – a few weeks earlier when I’d been at a Pacers game and Benner was there, same ol’ Benner: curmudgeonly. And then he was gone, leaving the arena before the game started. Nobody said why. I didn’t know. Turns out, he’d undergone chemo earlier that day. Didn’t tell anyone. Well, he didn’t tell me. I was on the outside.

The anecdote I wrote about Benner in 2020, it showed him a different side of me. Hey, he’s not the only person who can put up a wall. To me he was Benner, writer-turned-PR guy, and that’s how I treated him: Respectful, but keeping him at the same arm’s length he kept me. His arms are a little longer, probably.

But he saw that story, saw in the words I wrote how much I really liked him – something I’d never told him, because he’s Benner, and you don’t tell Benner that – and that’s how I broke through. All the way inside? No, wouldn’t say that. But every time I came back for a Pacers game, Benner and I were different, better, warmer.

He retired in April 2022, choosing to spend more time enjoying the things he enjoyed. Turns out, he enjoyed the Dave Matthews Band. And NASCAR. His dog Baxter. The golf at Hickory Stick in Greenwood; he could see the fourth hole from his house. And the coffee at Strange Brew on Smith Valley Road.

At some point he sent me a text message. I still have it. It’s dated Nov. 10, 2022:

Sir: now I’m retired, plenty of time on my hands, unlike yourself recently. Want to know if you would like to have lunch sometime. No intent, just good conversation. At least from your end.

Imagine getting that note from David Benner. And imagine seeing the way he signed off: With a smiling emoji.

Indiana's Reggie Miller and media relations David Benner take part in their pre-game ritual, where Reggie screams at Benner nose-to-nose for about 3-4 minutes. The Indiana Pacers host the Detroit Pistons at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, IN for the sixth game of the eastern conference semifinals of the NBA Playoffs on Thursday, May 19, 2005. The Pacers lose the game 88-79, for Reggie Miller's last game of his career.
I'm not crying, you are

Benner liked the Cherry Limeade from Sonic. Mike Wells brought him one last week. Benner was about to start his third week in hospice, so obviously the end was coming, but Wells had an idea just how close it was when he saw Benner take two sips and put down his favorite drink.

Wells had another inkling when he left his friend for the final time, and Benner gave him a fist bump and told him, for the first time, “I love you.”

I’m not crying. You are.

Benner hated that I’d do that, by the way. He didn’t like the way I’d put words like “I” and “me” in my stories. He was an old-school journalist, and in the 1970s and 80s, you didn’t write in the first person. Things have changed over the years, as social media has broken down what wall existed between journalists and readers. We’re all in this together, is my feeling, so I’ll chat with you directly, and take you with me to show you the sights.

Benner wasn’t crazy about it, and I’m not sure how to feel about this, but apparently he and Wells discussed me, for a moment, during one of Wells’ near-daily visits to hospice.

“You know,” Benner told Wells, “I’m not a big proponent of the ‘I’ and ‘me’ in his columns, but Gregg away from his columns is a guy I like a lot.”

I’m not crying harder. You are.

Benner and I had coffee on Nov. 14, by the way. He knew I lived near the Greenwood Mall, so he suggested The Mocha Nut Coffee Shop near Southport and Madison. He said we’d go to his home turf next time, to Strange Brew on Smith Valley, but it never happened. And I tried. Well, a little.

For weeks after that coffee he’d send me the occasional note, saying hello or asking about my recently adopted dog. On Jan. 4 I sent him something blunt, because Benner liked it blunt:

We eating lunch tomorrow?

He said no. Suggested we try in a couple weeks. Said his hip was bothering him, that he was using a cane, that the pain killer wasn’t doing much. I said to him, and I quote because these are the last words I ever wrote David Benner:

I’m sure you have lots of people who want to get together with you, but I’ll pester you again here in a few weeks.

That was Jan. 5. Seven weeks ago. Never did pester him again. Think that hurts?

Along the way, I’m learning now, he was in the ICU for a week, then in hospice for three weeks, and then came Wednesday morning and a text from Mike Wells, telling me David Benner was gone. So I’m calling Wells, wanting to know more – for me, and for this story – and he’s telling me about their final get-together before Benner went into ICU.

They met at Strange Brew. It was Jan. 6, one day after Benner had kept me at arm’s length, telling me he needed a few weeks. He was dying, see, and he wasn’t going to share that with me. Only a few people were inside that circle, and that included Wells. They’d bonded back in 2010 when Wells’ mother was dying – from cancer – and Benner was being supportive, reaching out, checking on Wells not as a beat writer, but as a friend.

Benner and Wells became ever closer over the years, and in recent months, when the weather cooperated, Benner would ride along in the golf cart as Wells played Hickory Stick. Sometimes Benner would join him on the green to putt, if he was feeling up to it. But on Jan. 6 in the parking lot of Strange Brew, Benner did something he’d never do: He asked Wells to help him into the car.

Wells picked up Benner’s legs and slid them into the driver’s seat, and begged him: Let me drive you.

“Nope,” Benner told him, “I want to drive myself. I want to enjoy life.”

To me, Wells says: “I think he knew.”

One thing Benner doesn’t know, will never know: From a distance, Mike Wells followed him in his car Jan. 6. Just to make sure he got home OK.

Benner’s home now.

Murdoch admits there was election tampering

i have no idea how anyone can watch fox "news" and not understand they are being lied to and brainwashed.

probably because anyone that watches fox is a moron. but still

Ex-Trump attorney admits statements about 2020 election were false

Presidential mullets.

Legal scholars say Fox has “absolutely no First Amendment defense”

Don't Believe Anybody Who Says They Know How COVID-19 Started. Here's Why

o

I don't believe anybody who says that they know for a fact precisely how and when COVID-19 started any more than I believe anybody who says that they know for a fact what happens after we die.

o

Works out, cause I don't believe a damn thing out of Washington, or any media outlets. One will lie and the other will swear to it. Want to read some shit, read all the crap Elon Musk released on Twitter.

The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/th...d98f10ea&ei=12

Quote:

For three years now, the debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has ping-ponged between two big ideas: that SARS-CoV-2 spilled into human populations directly from a wild-animal source, and that the pathogen leaked from a lab. Through a swirl of data obfuscation by Chinese authorities and politicalization within the United States, and rampant speculation from all corners of the world, many scientists have stood by the notion that this outbreak—like most others—had purely natural roots. But that hypothesis has been missing a key piece of proof: genetic evidence from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China, showing that the virus had infected creatures for sale there.

The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic
The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic
© Alphotographic / Getty

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This week, an international team of virologists, genomicists, and evolutionary biologists may have finally found crucial data to help fill that knowledge gap. A new analysis of genetic sequences collected from the market shows that raccoon dogs being illegally sold at the venue could have been carrying and possibly shedding the virus at the end of 2019. It’s some of the strongest support yet, experts told me, that the pandemic began when SARS-CoV-2 hopped from animals into humans, rather than in an accident among scientists experimenting with viruses.

“This really strengthens the case for a natural origin,” says Seema Lakdawala, a virologist at Emory University who wasn’t involved in the research. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist involved in the research, told me, “This is a really strong indication that animals at the market were infected. There’s really no other explanation that makes any sense.”

The findings won’t fully silence the entrenched voices on either side of the origins debate. But the new analysis may offer some of the clearest and most compelling evidence that the world will ever get in support of an animal origin for the virus that, in just over three years, has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide.

[Read: The lab leak will haunt us forever]

The genetic sequences were pulled out of swabs taken in and near market stalls around the pandemic’s start. They represent the first bits of raw data that researchers outside of China’s academic institutions and their direct collaborators have had access to. Late last week, the data were quietly posted by researchers affiliated with the country’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, on an open-access genomic database called GISAID. By almost pure happenstance, scientists in Europe, North America, and Australia spotted the sequences, downloaded them, and began an analysis.

The samples were already known to be positive for the coronavirus, and had been scrutinized before by the same group of Chinese researchers who uploaded the data to GISAID. But that prior analysis, released as a preprint publication in February 2022, asserted that “no animal host of SARS-CoV-2 can be deduced.” Any motes of coronavirus at the market, the study suggested, had most likely been chauffeured in by infected humans, rather than wild creatures for sale.

The new analysis, led by Kristian Andersen, Edward Holmes, and Michael Worobey—three prominent researchers who have been looking into the virus’s roots—shows that that may not be the case. Within about half a day of downloading the data from GISAID, the trio and their collaborators discovered that several market samples that tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were also coming back chock-full of animal genetic material—much of which was a match for the common raccoon dog. Because of how the samples were gathered, and because viruses can’t persist by themselves in the environment, the scientists think that their findings could indicate the presence of a coronavirus-infected raccoon dog in the spots where the swabs were taken. Unlike many of the other points of discussion that have been volleyed about in the origins debate, the genetic data are “tangible,” Alex Crits-Christoph, a computational biologist and one of the scientists who worked on the new analysis, told me. “And this is the species that everyone has been talking about.”

Finding the genetic material of virus and mammal so closely co-mingled—enough to be extracted out of a single swab—isn’t perfect proof, Lakdawala told me. “It’s an important step; I’m not going to diminish that,” she said. Still, the evidence falls short of, say, isolating SARS-CoV-2 from a free-ranging raccoon dog or, even better, uncovering a viral sample swabbed from a mammal for sale at Huanan from the time of the outbreak’s onset. That would be the virological equivalent of catching a culprit red-handed. But “you can never go back in time and capture those animals,” says Gigi Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. And to researchers’ knowledge, “raccoon dogs were not tested at the market and had likely been removed prior to the authorities coming in,” Andersen wrote to me in an email. He underscored that the findings, although an important addition, are not “direct evidence of infected raccoon dogs at the market.”

Related video: Return of the Dodo | How Science Is Bringing Ancient Animals Back To Life | Unveiled (Dailymotion)

Still, the findings don’t stand alone. “Do I believe there were infected animals at the market? Yes, I do,” Andersen told me. “Does this new data add to that evidence base? Yes.” The new analysis builds on extensive previous research that points to the market as the source of the earliest major outbreak of SARS-CoV-2: Many of the earliest known COVID-19 cases of the pandemic were clustered roughly in the market’s vicinity. And the virus’s genetic material was found in many samples swabbed from carts and animal-processing equipment at the venue, as well as parts of nearby infrastructure, such as storehouses, sewage wells, and water drains. Raccoon dogs, creatures commonly bred for sale in China, are also already known to be one of many mammal species that can easily catch and spread the coronavirus. All of this left one main hole in the puzzle to fill: clear-cut evidence that raccoon dogs and the virus were in the exact same spot at the market, close enough that the creatures might have been infected and, possibly, infectious. That’s what the new analysis provides. Think of it as finding the DNA of an investigation’s main suspect at the scene of the crime.

The findings don’t rule out the possibility that other animals may have been carrying SARS-CoV-2 at Huanan. Raccoon dogs, if they were infected, may not even be the creatures who passed the pathogen on to us. Which means the search for the virus’s many wild hosts will need to plod on. “Do we know the intermediate host was raccoon dogs? No,” Andersen wrote to me, using the term for an animal that can ferry a pathogen between other species. “Is it high up on my list of potential hosts? Yes, but it’s definitely not the only one.”

On Tuesday, the researchers presented their findings at a hastily scheduled meeting of the World Health Organization’s Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens, which was also attended by several of the Chinese researchers responsible for the original analysis, according to multiple researchers who were not present but were briefed about it before and after by multiple people who were there. Shortly after the meeting, the Chinese team’s preprint went into review at a Nature Research journal—suggesting that a new version was being prepared for publication. (I reached out to the WHO for comment and will update this story when I have more information.)

At this point, it’s still unclear why the sequences were posted to GISAID last week. They also vanished from the database shortly after appearing, without explanation. When I emailed George Gao, the former China CDC director-general and the lead author on the original Chinese analysis, asking for his team’s rationale, I didn’t immediately receive a response. Given what was in the GISAID data, it does seem that raccoon dogs could have been introduced into and clarified the origins narrative far sooner—at least a year ago, and likely more.

China has, for years, been keen on pushing the narrative that the pandemic didn’t start within its borders. In early 2020, a Chinese official suggested that the novel coronavirus may have emerged from a U.S. Army lab in Maryland. The notion that a dangerous virus sprang out from wet-market mammals echoed the beginnings of the SARS-CoV-1 epidemic two decades ago—and this time, officials immediately shut down the Huanan market, and vehemently pushed back against assertions that live animals being sold illegally in the country were to blame; a WHO investigation in March 2021 took the same line. “No verified reports of live mammals being sold around 2019 were found,” the report stated. But just three months later, in June 2021, a team of researchers published a study documenting tens of thousands of mammals for sale in wet markets in Wuhan between 2017 and late 2019, including at Huanan. The animals were kept in largely illegal, cramped, and unhygienic settings—conditions conducive to viral transmission—and among them were more than 1,000 raccoon dogs. Holmes himself had been at the market in 2014 and snapped a photo at Stall 29, clearly showing a raccoon dog in a cage; another set of images from the venue, captured by a local in December 2019 and later shared on Weibo, caught the animals on film as well—right around the time that the first recorded SARS-CoV-2 infections in humans occurred.

And yet, Chinese researchers maintained their stance. As Jon Cohen reported for Science magazine last year, scientists from several of China’s largest academic institutions posted a preprint in September 2021 concluding that a massive nationwide survey of bats—the likeliest original source of the coronavirus before it jumped into an intermediate host, such as raccoon dogs, and then into us—had turned up no relatives of SARS-CoV-2. The implication, the team behind the paper asserted, was that relatives of the coronavirus were “extremely rare” in the region, making it unlikely that the pandemic had started there. The findings directly contradicted others showing that cousins of SARS-CoV-2 were indeed circulating in China’s bats. (Local bats have also been found to harbor viruses related to SARS-CoV-1.)

The original Chinese analysis of the Huanan market swabs, from February 2022, also stuck with China’s party line on the pandemic. One of the report’s graphs suggested that viral material at the market had been mixed up with genetic material of multiple animal species—a data trail that should have led to further inquiry or conclusions, but that the Chinese researchers appear to have ignored. Their report noted only humans as being linked to SARS-CoV-2, stating that its findings “highly” suggested that any viral material at the market came from people (at least one of whom, presumably, picked it up elsewhere and ferried it into the venue). The Huanan market, the study’s authors wrote, “might have acted as an amplifier” for the epidemic. But “more work involving international coordination” would be needed to suss out the “real origins of SARS-CoV-2.”

The wording of that report baffled many scientists in Europe, North America, and Australia, several of whom had, almost exactly 24 hours after the release of the China CDC preprint, published early versions of their own studies, concluding that the Huanan market was the pandemic’s probable epicenter—and that SARS-CoV-2 might have made its hop into humans from the venue twice at the end of 2019. Itching to get their hands on China CDC’s raw data, some of the researchers took to regularly trawling GISAID, occasionally at odd hours—the only reason that Florence Débarre, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, spotted the sequences pinging onto the server late last Thursday night with no warning or fanfare.

Within hours of downloading the data and starting their own analysis, the researchers found their suspicions confirmed. Several surfaces in and around one stall at the market, including a cart and a defeathering machine, produced virus-positive samples that also contained genetic material from raccoon dogs—in a couple of cases, at higher concentrations than of human genomes. It was Stall 29—the same spot where Holmes had snapped the photo of the raccoon dog, nearly a decade before.

Slam-dunk evidence for a raccoon-dog host—or another animal—could still emerge. In the hunt for the wild source of MERS, another coronavirus that caused a deadly outbreak in 2012, researchers were eventually able to identify the pathogen in camels, which are thought to have caught their initial infection from bats—and which still harbor the virus today; a similar story has played out for Nipah virus, which hopscotched from bats to pigs to us.

[Read: Bird flu leaves the world with an existential choice]

Proof of that caliber, though, may never turn up for SARS-CoV-2. (Nailing wild origins is rarely simple: Despite a years-long search, the wild host for Ebola still has not been definitively pinpointed.) Which leaves just enough ambiguity to keep debate about the pandemic’s origins running, potentially indefinitely. Skeptics will likely be eager to poke holes in the team’s new findings—pointing out, for instance, that it’s technically possible for genetic material from viruses and animals to end up sloshed together in the environment even if an infection didn’t take place. Maybe an infected human visited the market and inadvertently deposited viral RNA near an animal’s crate.

But an infected animal, with no third-party contamination, still seems by far the most plausible explanation for the samples’ genetic contents, several experts told me; other scenarios require contortions of logic and, more important, additional proof. Even prior to the reveal of the new data, Gronvall told me, “I think the evidence is actually more sturdy for COVID than it is for many others.” The strength of the data might even, in at least one way, best what’s available for SARS-CoV-1: Although scientists have isolated SARS-CoV-1-like viruses from a wet-market-traded mammal host, the palm civet, those samples were taken months after the outbreak began—and the viral variants found weren’t exactly identical to the ones in human patients. The versions of SARS-CoV-2 tugged out of several Huanan-market samples, meanwhile, are a dead ringer for the ones that sickened humans with COVID early on.

The debate over SARS-CoV-2’s origins has raged for nearly as long as the pandemic itself—outlasting lockdowns, widespread masking, even the first version of the COVID vaccines. And as long as there is murkiness to cling to, it may never fully resolve. While evidence for an animal spillover has mounted over time, so too have questions about the possibility that the virus escaped from a laboratory. When President Joe Biden asked the U.S. intelligence community to review the matter, four government agencies and the National Intelligence Council pointed to a natural origin, while two others guessed that it was a lab leak. (None of these assessments were made with high confidence; a bill passed in both the House and the Senate would, 90 days after it becomes a law, require the Biden administration to declassify underlying intelligence.)

If this new level of scientific evidence does conclusively tip the origins debate toward the animal route, it will be, in one way, a major letdown. It will mean that SARS-CoV-2 breached our borders because we once again mismanaged our relationship with wildlife—that we failed to prevent this epidemic for the same reason we failed, and could fail again, to prevent so many of the rest.

Depends on which lying government agency you believe. I choose to believe none of them. Could have come from a lab, or an animal. What I do know. It was never the ferocious killer tiger they made it out to be. It was a declawed alley cat with a broken tooth.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lov2fish (Post 262004)

I dont believe it was manufactured by the Chinese.

1. They werent able to manufacture a working vaccine untill more than a year passed after the rest of the world had 3 different vaccines. If they “knew” the genetic code, they would have been starting making a vaccine for their own use.

2. SARS, MERS, bubonic plague, and others occurred when a virus jumped species. Shit happens.

3. These strong arm governments cant admit when they are wrong and always blame some one else is at fault.

Florida GOP bill would ban girls from talking about their periods in school

I have a wife and 4 daughters, and nothing stops them from talking about their periods

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fl...01dc6708&ei=28

florida is a fucked up place

seems like most red states are waging wars against women. lets see how that turns out for them

Quote:

Originally Posted by omahacolt (Post 262062)

florida is a fucked up place

seems like most red states are waging wars against women. lets see how that turns out for them

I’m better on my wife and daughters