tardigrada

Archived version

Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks are billionaires who have made their fortunes in the oil industry. Over the past decade, the pair have built the most powerful political machine in Texas — a network of think tanks, media organizations, political action committees and nonprofits that work in lock step to purge the Legislature of Republicans whose votes they can’t rely on.

Cycle after cycle, their relentless maneuvering has pushed the statehouse so far to the right that consultants like to joke that [Republican lobbyist] Karl Rove couldn’t win a local race these days. Brandon Darby, the editor of Breitbart Texas, is one of several conservatives who has compared Dunn and Wilks to Russian oligarchs. “They go into other communities and unseat people unwilling to do their bidding,” he says. “You kiss the ring or you’re out.”

[...]

The duo’s ambitions extend beyond Texas. They’ve poured millions into “dark money” groups, which do not have to disclose contributors; conservative-media juggernauts (Wilks provided $4.7 million in seed capital to The Daily Wire, which hosts “The Ben Shapiro Show”); and federal races. Dunn’s $5 million gift to the Make America Great Again super PAC in December made him one of Donald Trump’s top supporters this election season, and he has quietly begun to invest in efforts to influence a possible second Trump administration, including several linked to Project 2025.

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Dunn and Wilks are often described as Christian nationalists, supporters of a political movement that seeks to erode, if not eliminate, the distinction between church and state. Dunn and Wilks, however, do not describe themselves as such. (Dunn, for his part, has rejected the term as a “made-up label that conflicts with biblical teaching.”) Instead, like most Christian nationalists, the two men speak about protecting Judeo-Christian values and promoting a biblical worldview. These vague expressions often serve as a shorthand for the movement’s central mythology: that America, founded as a Christian nation, has lost touch with its religious heritage, which must now be reclaimed.

Archived version

Special counsel Jack Smith has built an airtight case against former President Donald Trump in his superseding indictment and in the new, massive filing released Wednesday, a retired Harvard Law professor argued.

Laurence Tribe told CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday that the case surmounts every obstacle the Supreme Court put in its way with the recent ruling that grants presidents a presumption of immunity for official acts.

"What stands out most clearly is that the Supreme Court, despite its effort to protect the former president and to erect a hurdle that was almost sky-high, made clear that it is possible to overcome that hurdle by specific proof that the former president, in his capacity as office-seeker, private capacity ... sought to overturn an election that he knew he had lost," said Tribe.

[...]

"The evidence is overwhelming and to the extent that there is any overlap between public and private, it occurs in the very limited context of communications between the president and the vice president," said Tribe. Even in that narrow slice of evidence, most of the communications were with Pence in his capacity as president of the Senate, making presidential immunity irrelevant, he argued.

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"I said, 'Wow' about 25 times in a quick reading of this document. I bet there are another 25 that I will encounter," said Tribe "There are lots of jaw-dropping things. You've named some of them. You know, 'So what' if the vice president is hung, it doesn't matter whether we won or lost. That's just a sampling. It's the tip of a horribly large and scary iceberg."

Archived version

Here is the report (pdf)

A new report shows how U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing disinformation about climate change.

Co-author Chuck Collins is co-founder of the Climate Accountability Research Project. He said people with ties to the fossil fuel industry are bankrolling groups trying to block action on climate change through tax-deductible donations.

“There are 137 organizations that are actively involved in promoting climate disinformation,” said Collins, “challenging the science, sowing doubt, blocking alternatives. Their goal is to run out the clock and keep extracting their profits.”

[...]

Many donors are now listed online at ClimateCriminals.org (archived version), which also features a countdown to a deadline set in Paris to cut fossil fuel emissions in order to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

Archived version

Here is the report (pdf)

A new report shows how U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing disinformation about climate change.

Co-author Chuck Collins is co-founder of the Climate Accountability Research Project. He said people with ties to the fossil fuel industry are bankrolling groups trying to block action on climate change through tax-deductible donations.

“There are 137 organizations that are actively involved in promoting climate disinformation,” said Collins, “challenging the science, sowing doubt, blocking alternatives. Their goal is to run out the clock and keep extracting their profits.”

[...]

Many donors are now listed online at ClimateCriminals.org (archived version), which also features a countdown to a deadline set in Paris to cut fossil fuel emissions in order to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

Over the past year, software developer turned security researcher Jason Parker has found and reported dozens of critical vulnerabilities in no fewer than 19 commercial platforms used by hundreds of courts, government agencies, and police departments across the U.S. Most of the vulnerabilities were critical.

[...]

"These platforms are supposed to ensure transparency and fairness, but are failing at the most fundamental level of cybersecurity,” Parker wrote recently in a post he penned in an attempt to raise awareness. “If a voter’s registration can be canceled with little effort and confidential legal filings can be accessed by unauthorized users, what does it mean for the integrity of these systems?”

Located on the western coast of Baja California Sur's peninsula, the Laguna San Ignacio is considered the last undisturbed breeding and calving lagoon of the Pacific gray whale. The protected whale sanctuary is also home to one of the world's most unusual wildlife encounters: here, curious whales regularly, and voluntarily, seek out contact with humans.

Every year from January to mid-April, thousands of gray whales arrive in the lagoon during a 19,300km journey from the icy waters of the Arctic to the warm waters of Baja California Sur to mate and give birth. While these are now safe waters for nursing and breeding, gray whales were once hunted here. Yet, the animals now seem to have learned to trust humans. In fact, during my recent whale-watching trip with Sanchez's eco-tourism company Pure Baja Travels, we witnessed mothers bringing their calves over to boats to present them like proud parents.

These unique encounters have influenced the conservation and protection of these gentle giants and spurred a thrilling – and responsible – whale-watching experience like nowhere else.

A cache of internal emails obtained by 404 Media using a public records request show the chaos caused by the unfounded racist conspiracy theory that Haitian immigrants are “eating the pets” of residents in Springfield, Ohio. The emails show city officials scrambling to deal with bomb threats, hateful and threatening emails and phone calls, a media bonanza, and confused residents in the immediate aftermath of the presidential debate, in which Donald Trump said “in Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

[...]

[Springfield] Mayor Rob Rue received the majority (but not all) of these types of emails. Here is a sample of them:

• One email titled “Haitian invaders” suggested that residents should buy large dogs that would attack Haitian people: “Since it’s obvious that you and the rest of the cowards on the city council are too afraid to handle this invasion citizens will apparently need to do so themselves. Purchase of Belgian Malinois and Cane Corsos should skyrocket along with protection training. If the dog goes in its yard and invaders are there, well, I guess lunch time it is.”
• Another said that Haitians “will NOT like the bitter cold” of winter and that Springfield should “have them quietly transferred to blue states.” Another email called Rue an “inauthentic gaslighting moron” and said that city officials “aid the DNC (Treason Party) Propaganda Media in attempting to rig any further Presidential Debates. Americand [sic] in Springfield have my sympathies because it is obviously cursed with some bureaucratic fucktards.”
• One email repeatedly called Haitians the n-word Another email titled “Invasion of Illegal Haitian Immigrants” reads “why you are not doing anything to protect your citizens and remove these haitians immigrants? How much money did you receive from Biden /Harris?”
• “Your lack of action on what is happening in Springfield and Ohio's leaders in other cities is outrageous and disgusting. You have immigrants harassing your citizens, going into parks and taking and killing animals, taking people's pets, skinning and eating them in public places, flipping over cars, taking over citizens yards, etc. Why in the world have you not called in the National Guard?”
• “I’m a lifelong resident of Ohio And I just want to email you in regards to the illegals walking the parks and destroying property of residence who pay taxes, slaughtering livestock creating chaos!! Ultimately, this is your responsibility top down or not! You will be held accountable for what you allow to happen in your city!”

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Archived version

[...]

Ruohui Yang is one of those students. He said he came to Canada in 2015 when he was 15 years old because his parents wanted him to study abroad.

In Canada, he said, he began learning things about his home country — such as details of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — that challenged the Chinese government's version of events.

[...]

"I do already receive lots of threatening [messages], lots of swearing words, insults on my different social media accounts," he said.

[...]

In May, Amnesty International released a report on the experiences of Chinese dissidents abroad. The report said many Chinese international students attending foreign universities are living in a climate of fear.

"They feel compelled to self-censor and curtail their social and academic activities and relationships or else risk repercussions from the Chinese state," the report says.

[...]

An organization called the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) is active on university campuses across the country.

A 2019 report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) quotes the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) describing the CSSA as "an important support mechanism for international students studying abroad [that provides] a social and professional network for students."

But the NSICOP report also reported growing public alarm over the relationship between the CSSA and the Chinese government's embassies and consulates.

[...]

Archived version

[...]

Ruohui Yang is one of those students. He said he came to Canada in 2015 when he was 15 years old because his parents wanted him to study abroad.

In Canada, he said, he began learning things about his home country — such as details of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — that challenged the Chinese government's version of events.

[...]

"I do already receive lots of threatening [messages], lots of swearing words, insults on my different social media accounts," he said.

[...]

In May, Amnesty International released a report on the experiences of Chinese dissidents abroad. The report said many Chinese international students attending foreign universities are living in a climate of fear.

"They feel compelled to self-censor and curtail their social and academic activities and relationships or else risk repercussions from the Chinese state," the report says.

[...]

An organization called the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) is active on university campuses across the country.

A 2019 report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) quotes the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) describing the CSSA as "an important support mechanism for international students studying abroad [that provides] a social and professional network for students."

But the NSICOP report also reported growing public alarm over the relationship between the CSSA and the Chinese government's embassies and consulates.

[...]

Archived version

Three investigators for the Heritage Foundation have deluged federal agencies with thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests over the past year, requesting a wide range of information on government employees, including communications that could be seen as a political liability by conservatives. Among the documents they’ve sought are lists of agency personnel and messages sent by individual government workers that mention, among other things, “climate equity,” “voting” or “SOGIE,” an acronym for sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.

The Heritage team filed these requests even as the think tank’s Project 2025 was promoting a controversial plan to remove job protections for tens of thousands of career civil servants so they could be identified and fired if Donald Trump wins the presidential election.

All three men who filed the requests — Mike Howell, Colin Aamot and Roman Jankowski — did so on behalf of the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, an arm of the conservative group that uses FOIA, lawsuits and undercover videos to investigate government activities. In recent months, the group has used information gleaned from the requests to call attention to efforts by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency to teach staff about gender diversity, which Fox News characterized as the “Biden administration’s ‘woke’ policies within the Department of Defense.” Heritage also used material gathered from a FOIA search to claim that a listening session the Justice Department held with voting rights activists constituted an attempt to “rig” the presidential election because no Republicans were present.

Archived version

[...]

Ruohui Yang is one of those students. He said he came to Canada in 2015 when he was 15 years old because his parents wanted him to study abroad.

In Canada, he said, he began learning things about his home country — such as details of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — that challenged the Chinese government's version of events.

[...]

"I do already receive lots of threatening [messages], lots of swearing words, insults on my different social media accounts," he said.

[...]

In May, Amnesty International released a report on the experiences of Chinese dissidents abroad. The report said many Chinese international students attending foreign universities are living in a climate of fear.

"They feel compelled to self-censor and curtail their social and academic activities and relationships or else risk repercussions from the Chinese state," the report says.

[...]

An organization called the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) is active on university campuses across the country.

A 2019 report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) quotes the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) describing the CSSA as "an important support mechanism for international students studying abroad [that provides] a social and professional network for students."

But the NSICOP report also reported growing public alarm over the relationship between the CSSA and the Chinese government's embassies and consulates.

[...]

Archived version

[...]

Ruohui Yang is one of those students. He said he came to Canada in 2015 when he was 15 years old because his parents wanted him to study abroad.

In Canada, he said, he began learning things about his home country — such as details of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — that challenged the Chinese government's version of events.

[...]

"I do already receive lots of threatening [messages], lots of swearing words, insults on my different social media accounts," he said.

[...]

In May, Amnesty International released a report on the experiences of Chinese dissidents abroad. The report said many Chinese international students attending foreign universities are living in a climate of fear.

"They feel compelled to self-censor and curtail their social and academic activities and relationships or else risk repercussions from the Chinese state," the report says.

[...]

An organization called the Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA) is active on university campuses across the country.

A 2019 report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) quotes the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) describing the CSSA as "an important support mechanism for international students studying abroad [that provides] a social and professional network for students."

But the NSICOP report also reported growing public alarm over the relationship between the CSSA and the Chinese government's embassies and consulates.

[...]