El Salvador Continues Its Risky Venture into Bitcoin

The International Monetary Fund has had enough of El Salvador's experiment as the first and only country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal currency.  The IMF's board of directors is telling the Central American country that cryptocurrency poses "large risks" to the financial stability of the nation and its citizens.

In response, El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele tweeted an internet meme that compared the IMF to Homer Simpson.  A power-hungry populist who brands himself the "CEO of El Salvador," Bukele has become one of the world's foremost Bitcoin evangelists since pushing a law through Congress that requires businesses to accept the cryptocurrency for goods and services.

His grand plan has so far produced tepid results.  El Salvador is believed to have lost as much as $22 million in reserves thanks to dramatic plunges in the cryptocurrency's value.  Many users of the country's official Bitcoin wallet (known as "Chivo") have been targeted by fraud, with at least 1,000 people reporting that their identities were stolen through the app.

And despite Bukele's promise that Bitcoin would make life easier for the millions of Salvadorans who don't have bank accounts as well as those sending remittances from abroad, few appear to be using it in their daily lives. None of that has deterred Bukele, a former marketing executive known for his irreverent, internet-friendly antics. He keeps acquiring more bitcoins with the country's cash, bragging on Twitter about "buying the dip" on his phone while "naked."

Next month, in what experts say is its riskiest move yet, El Salvador will issue a first-of-its-kind $1-billion "Bitcoin bond."  Half of the money raised from the bond offering will be used to build a tax-free "Bitcoin City" powered by an extinct volcano whose geothermal energy will be harnessed to mine new bitcoins, according to the government. The other $500 million will be used to purchase more bitcoins.  The nation's traditional bonds have already been classified in the "junk" category.

Bukele insists the plan will help drive growth in a poor nation that has long struggled to ignite its economy. Experts are skeptical.  They have questioned whether people may buy in for the novelty without considering the country's precarious financial situation.   Although El Salvador's economy grew at a steep 10% in 2021, it remains in deep debt.  El Salvador asked the IMF for a $1.3-billion loan to help cover those bills, but a deal looks unlikely given the nation's refusal to drop Bitcoin or make other financial adjustments. 

Bukele, who frequently complains that the U.S. is too involved in his nation's affairs and who has cozied up to China, has embraced Bitcoin as part of his larger plan to remake El Salvador.  He has shown increasingly authoritarian tendencies, sending soldiers to Congress to help push through a crime bill and purging the nation's courts to pave the way for his reelection, even though the constitution bans it.

His government has been accused of using the Pegasus software to spy on journalists, human rights defenders and even members of his political party, Nuevas Ideas. Several of his aides have been blacklisted by the United States for paying El Salvador's gangs to reduce homicides and provide political support. 

Polls show a majority of Salvadorans distrust Bitcoin.Jose Garcia, 52, who sells phone chargers on a crowded plaza in downtown San Salvador, said he sees no use for the cryptocurrency, which his pastor calls "the devil's money."  He said he downloaded the Chivo application when the government deposited $30 in every user's account to try to spark adoption. He went to an ATM to convert it to dollars and never opened the app again.  “Most people took the $30 out and that’s it," he said.

Byron Sandoval, a 32-year-old tattoo artist who works at a stand nearby, views Bitcoin as too risky. He is paid mostly in cash, but when a customer wants to give him a digital payment using Chivo, he asks them to covert bitcoins into dollars first. Sandoval holds all his money on the app in dollars, because it doesn't fluctuate.  "If they pay me in bitcoin, I can lose money," he said.

Some locals question whom Bukele's Bitcoin revolution is really for. He seems intent on luring the global cryptocurrency community to his country, promising to fast-track residency to those who invest large amounts of money here. Nelson Rauda, investigative journalist for El Faro, has raised a number of serious concerns about Bukele's Bitcoin rollout.The biggest ones revolve around the question of what it means for the nation when the president apparently has access to treasury funds on his smartphone.

Rauda's inquiries into who runs the Chivo wallet have been hampered by the government, along with queries about the details of Bukele's bitcoin purchases. The whole point of Bitcoin transactions is that they aren't transparent, he said.  "It seems like a super-smart way to hide what you're really doing," he said. "There are a lot more questions than answers."

 

On the Other Side of the World

Ukrainian soldier Vitaly Shakun-- who blew himself up in order to destroy the Henichesk bridge (at the Crimean crossing) and halt advancing Russian troops-- was made a "Hero of Ukraine" - the country's highest honor.

People in Russia and across the world have been protesting against the invasion.  Russian authorities arrested about 1,800 protesters and broke up demonstrations in more than 50 cities

Over 160,000 Ukrainians (mostly women and children) have fled Kyiv, with many others walking across the borders to Poland and Hungary.

52-year-old kindergarten teacher Olena Kurilo lived near a military base. The Russians blitzkrieged her block and she was almost killed. Olena still had glass embedded in her skin and eyes, and may eventually lose her sight since there is no medical help available due to the Russian attack.  She told the photographer, "Never, under any conditions will I submit to Putin.  It is better to die."

A kindergarten in Stanytsia Luhanska suffered severe damage in the initial onslaught from Russian missiles.

Graffiti comparing Putin to Hitler scrawled in a Saint Petersburg metro station

1,000-year-old Moorish Irrigation System Still Operating in Valencia

The centerpiece of Valencia's 183-year-old Mercado Central are its fruits and vegetables – plump, richly colored and all grown in La Huerta (L'Horta in Valencian), a patchwork of neat market gardens that fan out for 10 square miles around the city.  Valencia's incredible bounty of produce is grown in La Huerta each year, despite the fact that its fields enclose Spain's third-largest city. The secret is an ingenious maze of channels, ditches, weirs and floodgates invented by the region's Moorish rulers 1,200 years ago.

Eight main irrigation channels, or acequías, funnel water from the River Turia, which is then carried – by gravity – along a series of smaller branches, which distribute the water to thousands of tiny plots across the fields. The amount of water each plot receives isn't measured in terms of volume but rather on how well the river is flowing. The unit, known as a fila (from the Arabic word meaning "thread"), represents an individual's right to a proportion of the water over a period of time; the irrigation cycle usually lasts a week, but when the river's level is low, the cycle is extended.

It's an incredibly efficient system. Each plot receives the same access to water for the same amount of time, no matter where they are in the mosaic, and there are no water shortages, even in periods of drought. And the result is an incredibly diverse crop yield. Centuries-old local rice varieties grow in the fields around Lake Albufera, south of the city, while unique species like chufa, or tiger nuts (which are used to make the ice-cold milky Valencian drink of horchata), are sown in the north.

The whole process is held together by a unique social organization that has been governing La Huerta for more than 1,000 years. The Tribunal de las Aguas de la Vega de la València, or Water Court of the Plains of Valencia, was established around 960 CE and as such is officially the world's oldest judicial body. The tribunal is made up of eight farmers, elected representatives of the communities that work off each of the main irrigation channels, who meet to settle disputes outside the doorway of Valencia Cathedral every Thursday at noon.

It's quite a sight, with the men – they are all men – dressed in black smocks and seated in a semi-circle of leather-topped wooden chairs, where they enforce the rules of distribution. Water is the only issue up for debate, and according to María José Olmos Rodrigo, the Tribunal's secretary, the defendants are usually hauled before the court because "they've flooded a neighbor's field, taken water out of turn or haven't maintained their section of irrigation ditch correctly". Proceedings are in Valencian and are ruthlessly quick; all decisions are final.

"Production in La Huerta is basically intended for self-consumption and the local market," said Vicente Domingo, director of CEMAS. "Thanks to its unique structure, it has managed to survive over the centuries with the efforts of generation upon generation of farmers that have preserved this land despite the pressure of urbanization."

 

Ukraine's Zelensky: We Are Here to Stay

Early Reports on Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

Despite dire predictions in advance of the Russian invasion, Ukraine appears to be digging in for a long fight. Civilians are being instructed on how to make Molotov cocktails, and weapons are being handed out on the streets. If Kyiv falls, it is not going to go down without a fight.

Even as Russian forces move in along the west and north sides of Kyiv, there are still reports that Russian armored units have been held up between Kyiv and the border with Belarus. Some of this delay comes from bridges that Ukraine deliberately took out along the Russian route, but there continue to be reports of active military engagements north of Kyiv, pinning down portions of the Russian advance.  Over 120,00 Ukrainians have left the country in the last 24 hours, and pictures have been tweeted of a Kyiv apartment building that was hit by a Russian rocket overnight-- reports are that at least six have been injured in that attack.

In the south, reports of large amphibious assaults are coming from areas west of Mariupol in the east, as air attacks have been made on Odessa in the west. Some reports are suggesting that increased use of amphibious assaults may be a Russian attempt to bypass defensive positions where Ukrainian troops have halted columns moving in from Russia.  

The Interior Ministry of Ukraine published photos of Russian saboteurs detained in Kyiv who disguised themselves in the uniform of the Ukrainian military.  Midday Friday, Russian troops fired at the center of Kharkov--they hit a blood Center and a school.  A Russian military attack on the Kyiv thermal plant resulted in five explosions, but the plant is still operating-- Kyiv still has power.  Ukraine's ground forces managed to stop Russian occupying forces near Konotop, destroying forty enemy vehicles in the process.  Multiple sources later confirmed the Ukrainian victory at Konotop, and indications are that Russian forces outran their supply lies and found themselves short on both ammo and fuel.   A Russian military convoy was ambushed close to Hlukhiv in the Sumy region-- Ukrainian soldiers targeted the vehicles with javelin missiles, inflicting some heavy damage.  Amnesty International is cataloging the war crimes that Russia is committing in Ukraine, as reports come in that Russia intends to threaten the families of Ukrainian soldiers. 

And now the internet is humming with news of a viral moment when a brave Ukrainian woman confronted heavily-armed Russian soldiers hours after they invaded, demanding to know what they were doing in her country.  The furious woman shouted: "What the fuck are you doing in our land?" and told them they would "die" if they remained in Ukraine.  Twitter users across the globe hailed her courage after footage of the confrontation went viral:

One thing that has absolutely died in the last 24 hours: any perception that Russia is holding back, or trying to avoid civilian targets. Russia is attacking indiscriminately--  and Ukraine is simply putting up a helluva fight.  It is becoming clearer that the invasion is not going the way Putin expected-- Ukraine is a nation the size of Texas with a population as large as California.  Russia may have surrounded it with 190,000 troops, tanks, and planes, but that’s not enough to defeat and subdue Ukraine. Not when Ukraine is willing to stand and fight.

 

John Mellencamp & Bruce Springsteen - Did You Say Such a Thing

Mexico's Tulum Going Down the Tubes

Back in December, I posted about the slow-motion disaster in Tulum, Mexico-- and it continues to spiral out of control.  Since that time, four people have been killed and others injured in three major shooting incidents since that time.

On January 13, 2022, a man was shot to death at the southern entrance to the Archaeological Zone of Tulum. Another person, a minor, was injured in the attack.  The victim, an adult male, was near the southern access point when he was approached around 2:00 p.m. by two men who shot him several times before fleeing. While those shots were being fired, a boy of around 11 or 12 years old was wounded.

On February 12, 2022, a taxi driver and two passengers were shot at when a car carrying the attacker pulled up beside the taxi and opened fire.  The taxi driver turned away from the shooter and was shot in the back-- she later died.  The two passengers were able to escape from the other side of the vehicle-- it is not known if they were injured.  

Two men have been shot dead and a third injured on February 20 after a group of gunmen opened fire at the Art Beach restaurant, which sits at the entrance to the hotel zone in the Mayan Riviera resort of Tulum.  The incident is believed to be linked to an ongoing feud between organised crime gangs operating in the area and diners at the upmarket eatery reported hearing at least 20 gunshots.

The place is getting ridiculously expensive too.  Passengers are reporting prices starting around 500 pesos ($24.35 USD) for a 5 kilometer ride. This is the best case scenario if you speak Spanish, know how to negotiate and have exact change in pesos. In comparison, the price of the same ride in New York City would cost $12.34 USD according to the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. This means the cost of a taxi in Tulum is double the price of a Taxi in Manhattan. Same thing goes for drinks at a beach bar.  Tourists are paying around 300 pesos a drink in Tulum, but the same drink will cost only about 80 pesos in Playa del Carmen.

Maybe celebrities like Dua Lipa, Jennifer Aniston, Howard Stern, Jimmy Kimmel, Gigi Hadid, Diplo and Pink should stop instagramming to their fans about vacationing in such a crime-ridden dump.

Another Episode of the Omicronicles

Nigerians Benefit From the Disastrous Legacy of Wisconsin's GOP Governor

The Governor of Lagos, Nigeria has bought 28 trains built by the Spanish company Talgo that were originally meant for a high-speed railway in Wisconsin initially planned to connect Milwaukee and Madison. Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu was in Milwaukee last month for the purchase of the Series 8 trains, which will instead be used as part of Lagos’ Red Line, considered the first operational metro system in West Africa, according to a press release.  Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told Wisconsin Public Radio that the moment was “bittersweet.” “I'm sending my congratulations to the governor in Lagos State in Nigeria, but also a little disappointed that we missed out on the opportunity to have those trainsets operating here in Milwaukee and in Wisconsin.”

The saga to build a high-speed rail in Wisconsin spans a decade and spawned an acclaimed Wisconsin Public Radio podcast series titled “Derailed.” The podcast follows former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle’s announcement in 2009 to buy two 14-car Talgo trains for $47 million in order to use them on Amtrak’s Hiawatha Service that provides daily service to Chicago, Illinois, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The high-speed rail hopes between Madison and Milwaukee were part of a multi-million dollar deal that included making improvements to the longer Chicago-Milwaukee route. After Doyle left office, then-GOP Governor Scott Walker returned $810 million of federal funds meant for the project in 2010, which not only put the railway plan on ice but hurt workers at the Talgo plant in Milwaukee who built the trains in the first place. A series of lawsuits followed and the planned $810 million went elsewhere.

Proponents of the high-speed railway project, like Milwaukee Alder Robert Bauman, were resigned about where the 28 trains will ultimately end up. “It's kind of an absurd ending to an absurd tale,” Bauman told Wisconsin Public Radio. In recounting the decade-long saga, Bauman wondered, “Who buys a set of train cars, refuses to complete the contract, ends up getting sued, settles, pays out another $50-some million in damages, and then you don't even get the cars?”  Current Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, who narrowly beat Walker in the 2018 election, has been relatively quiet about the high-speed rail snafu and has yet to issue a statement about the Talgo trains ultimately being used in Nigeria.

Cheater Olympics is Over

The fake Olympics are now behind us.   That's right-- the Beijing games didn't have any of the real stuff and was the first to use 100% artificial snow.  And the cheating started even before the games began.  Russia wasn't even supposed to be there, after they were caught blatantly using performance enhancing drugs in a government sponsored doping program. In the last 15 years alone, Russia has been stripped of over 50 Olympic medals due to drug testing.  But China is a friend to Putin, so naturally they would figure out a way to have Russia present-- going so far as to highlight Putin at the opening ceremony.

During the games, Russia continued its cheating ways, resulting in U.S. figure skaters being cheated out of their medal ceremony.  Russia's Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance, but was allowed to compete anyway.  As a result, the Chinese Olympic authorities refused to conduct a medal ceremony in team figure skating, which meant the U.S. figure skating team went home empty-handed.

During the games, Finnish skier Katri Lylynpera posted a number of photos and videos from the athletes village showing water pouring down from the ceiling and through lighting fixtures, creating puddles on the floor.  She was ordered by Chinese officials to delete the posts.

It was widely reported that the Uyghur athlete that China used for propaganda purposes to carry the Chinese flag was quickly shunted out of view after the opening ceremony.  20-year-old Dilnigar Ilhamjan was later given a perfunctory chance to compete in the skiathlon, but was then excluded from the women’s 4 x 5 km relay team. The athlete who replaced her actually had worse results earlier in the week. China ended up finishing 10th in the 18-team race.

At a press conference during the games, Chinese women’s hockey goalie Kim Newell was prevented from speaking English.  Newell, who was born in Canada and lives in Vancouver, was asked if she could answer a few questions in English. And according to Reuters, an aide next to Newell interrupted and said, “She’s not allowed to speak English."

In the Men's 1000 meter speed skating semi-final, South Korea's Hwang Dae-Heon was disqualified for an “illegal late pass causing contact” after winning his race which gave Ren Ziwei of China the ultimate win. Then in the final, Hungary's Liu Shaolin was also disqualified after winning-- giving the gold to (you guessed it) China's Ren Ziwei.  Many observers commented that Ziwei probably should have been disqualified as well due to grabbing his opponent. 

Nils van der Poel, a 25-year-old Swedish speedskater who won two gold medals, summed things up appropriately after he returned home  to Sweden.  "The Olympics is a fantastic sporting event where you unite the world and nations meet," he said.  "But so did Hitler before invading Poland, and so did Russia before invading Ukraine.  I think it is extremely irresponsible to give it to a country that violates human rights as blatantly as the Chinese regime is doing."

Right-Wing Activist Ginni Thomas Represents a Conflict of Interest for Her Husband on the Supreme Court

When Donald Trump appealed to the Supreme Court to prevent the White House from releasing vital documents to the January 6^th Committee, Clarence Thomas was the only Supreme Court Justice who voted in favor of Trump.  Many people have been wondering why Thomas voted the way he did.  Was it because he was trying to protect his wife, Ginny Thomas, from being implicated in the insurrection? Facts on the infamous attack on our democracy are still continuing to come out-- but it's already no secret that Ginni Thomas was an active supporter of the insurrection, as she was in contact and closely associated with John Eastman shortly prior to the insurrection.

And who is John Eastman? For starters, he was Clarence Thomas’ law clerk on the Supreme Court. Eastman is very close friends with Clarence Thomas and Ginny Thomas. They socialize together very frequently.  It has also known that John Eastman was the lawyer behind the memo on how Trump could stay in office even though trump lost the election.  According to the New York Times, John Eastman was a little-known but respected conservative lawyer. Then he became influential with Donald Trump — and counseled him on how to retain power after losing the election.  According to the NYT, within two months of Eastman appearing on Mark Levin's Fox News talk show, Eastman was sitting in the Oval Office for an hour-long meeting with Trump. Then, after the November election, Eastman wrote the infamous memo on how the former fuck could stay in power.  It was the blueprint for a coup.

As Trump continues to hint at another run in 2024, the NYT reports that Eastman remains a bridge between the former president and the continuing efforts by some of his supporters to promote specious allegations of widespread election fraud in 2020 and to undercut faith in the electoral system. He has Trump’s ear, but he also has Clarence Thomas’ ear, which one would think would be grounds for Thomas to recuse himself from any cases involving Trump.

But it's not Clarence that is the primary problem here- it's his vocal right-wing activist wife, Ginni. Ginni Thomas has declared that America is in existential danger because of the “deep state” and the “fascist left,” which includes “transsexual fascists.” Thomas, a lawyer who runs a small political-lobbying firm, Liberty Consulting, has become a prominent member of various hard-line groups. Her political activism has caused controversy for years. For the most part, it has been dismissed as the harmless action of an independent spouse. But now the Court appears likely to secure victories for her allies in a number of highly polarizing cases—on abortion, affirmative action, and gun rights.  

After the Mrs. Thomas deleted her Facebook posts praising the January 6 insurrectionists, it was reported that she had also been agitating about Trump’s loss on a private listserv, Thomas Clerk World, which includes former law clerks of Justice Thomas’s. The online discussion had been contentious. John Eastman, a former Thomas clerk and a key instigator of the lie that Trump actually won in 2020, was on the same side as Ginni Thomas, and he drew many strong rebukes. According to Wapo, Thomas eventually apologized to the group for causing internal rancor. Artemus Ward, a political scientist at Northern Illinois University and a co-author of “Sorcerers’ Apprentices,” a history of Supreme Court clerks, believes that the incident confirmed Ginni Thomas' outsized role. “Virginia Thomas has direct access to Thomas’s clerks,” Ward said. Clarence Thomas is now the Court’s senior member, having served for thirty years, and Ward estimates that there are “something like a hundred and twenty people on that Listserv.” In Ward’s view, they comprise “an élite right-wing commando movement.” Justice Thomas, he says, doesn’t post on the Listserv, but his wife “is advocating for things directly.” Ward added, “It’s unprecedented. I have never seen a Justice’s wife as involved.”

Supreme Court judges are required to recuse themselves from any case in which their spouse is “a party to the proceeding” or is “an officer, director, or trustee” of an organization that is a party to a case. Ginni Thomas has not been a named party in any case on the Court’s docket; nor is she litigating in any such case. But she has held leadership positions at conservative pressure groups that have either been involved in cases before the Court or have had members engaged in such cases.

Ginni Thomas has been one of the directors of C.N.P. Action, a dark-money wing of the conservative pressure group the Council for National Policy. C.N.P. Action, behind closed doors, connects wealthy donors with some of the most radical right-wing figures in America. Ginni Thomas has also been on the advisory board of Turning Point USA, a pro-Trump student group, whose founder, Charlie Kirk, boasted of sending busloads of protesters to Washington on January 6. Stephen Gillers, a law professor at N.Y.U. and a prominent judicial ethicist, told me, “I think Ginni Thomas is behaving horribly, and she’s hurt the Supreme Court and the administration of justice. It’s reprehensible. If you could take a secret poll of the other eight Justices, I have no doubt that they are appalled by Virginia Thomas’s behavior."

Thomas also currently serves on the advisory board of the National Association of Scholars, a group promoting conservative values in academia, which has filed an amicus brief before the Court in a potentially groundbreaking affirmative-action lawsuit against Harvard. And, though nobody knew it at the time, Ginni Thomas was an undisclosed paid consultant at the conservative pressure group the Center for Security Policy, when its founder, Frank Gaffney, submitted an amicus brief to the Court supporting Trump’s Muslim travel ban.

Ginni Thomas has recently been an active voice denouncing the very legitimacy of the January 6 congressional committee. On December 15th, she and sixty-two other prominent conservatives signed an open letter to Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, demanding that the House Republican Conference excommunicate Representatives Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for their “egregious” willingness to serve on the committee. The statement was issued by an advocacy group called the Conservative Action Project, of which Ginni Thomas has described herself as an “active” member.

According to Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who, between 2009 and 2011, served as the special counsel and special assistant to the President for ethics and government reform, “It is hard to understand how Justice Thomas can be impartial when hearing cases related to the upheaval on January 6th, in light of his wife’s documented affiliation with January 6th instigators and Stop the Steal organizers.” He argues that “Justice Thomas should recuse himself, given his wife’s interests in the outcome of these cases.”

In January 2019, Ginni Thomas also used her connections to get her political associate Frank Gaffney a meeting with Trump at the White House.  White House staff had not been informed that Gaffney’s non-profit group had been paying Ginni Thomas' consulting firm several hundred thousand dollars in fees for the previous two years. A participant in the meeting told the New Yorker that Trump considered Ginni Thomas “a wacko,” adding, “She never would have been there if not for Clarence. She had access because her last name was Thomas.”

The White House meeting was held in the Roosevelt Room, and by all accounts it was uncomfortable. Thomas opened by saying that she didn’t trust everyone in the room, then pressed Trump to purge his Administration of disloyal members of the “deep state,” handing him an enemies list that she and Groundswell had compiled. Some of the participants prayed, warning that gay marriage, which the Supreme Court legalized in 2015, was undermining morals in America.

In October, 2018, Ginni Thomas led a panel discussion during a confidential session of the Council for National Policy.  She was secretly filmed telling the group, “The deep state is serious, and it’s resisting President Trump.” She declared twice that her adversaries were trying “to kill people,” and drew applause by saying, “May we all have guns and concealed carry to handle what’s coming!”

Ginni Thomas has held so many leadership or advisory positions at conservative pressure groups that it’s hard to keep track of them. And many, if not all, of these groups have been involved in cases that have come before her husband. Ginni Thomas' web site lists the National Association of Scholars—the group that has filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit against Harvard—among her “endorsed charities.” The group’s brief claims that the affirmative-action policies used by the Harvard admissions department are discriminatory. Though the plaintiffs have already lost in two lower courts, they are counting on the Supreme Court’s new conservative super-majority to side with them, even though doing so would reverse decades of precedent. 

Hacker Group Tied to India Framing People for Crimes They Didn't Commit

For at least a decade, a shadowy hacker group has been targeting people throughout India, sometimes using its digital powers to plant fabricated evidence of criminal activity on their devices. That phony evidence has, in turn, often provided a pretext for the victims’ arrest.

A report published this week by cybersecurity firm Sentinel One reveals additional details about the group, illuminating the way in which its digital dirty tricks have been used to surveil and target “human rights activists, human rights defenders, academics, and lawyers” throughout India.

The group, which researchers have dubbed “ModifiedElephant,” is largely preoccupied with spying, but sometimes it intervenes to apparently frame its targets for crimes. Researchers says the objective of ModifiedElephant is long-term surveillance that at times concludes with the delivery of ‘evidence’—files that incriminate the target in specific crimes—prior to conveniently coordinated arrests. 

The most prominent case involving Elephant centers around Maoist activist Rona Wilson and a group of his associates who, in 2018, were arrested by India security services and accused of plotting to overthrow the government. Evidence for the supposed plot—including a word document detailing plans to assassinate the nation’s prime minister, Narendra Modi—was found on Wilson’s laptop. However, later forensic analysis of the device showed that the documents were actually fake and had been planted using malware. According to Sentinel researchers, it was Elephant that put them there.

This case, which gained greater exposure after being covered by the Washington Post, was blown open after the aforementioned laptop was analyzed by a digital forensics firm, Boston-based Arsenal Consulting. Arsenal ultimately concluded that Wilson and all of his so-called co-conspirators, as well as many other activists, had been targeted with digital manipulation. 

In a report, the company explained how extensive the intrusion was, saying that Arsenal had connected the same attacker to a significant malware infrastructure which has been deployed over the course of approximately four years to not only attack and compromise Mr. Wilson’s computer for 22 months, but to attack his co-defendants in the Bhima Koregaon case and defendants in other high-profile Indian cases as well.

How did the hackers get the documents onto the computer in the first place?  According to Sentinel One’s report, Elephant uses common hacking tools and techniques to gain a foothold in victims’ computers. Phishing emails, typically tailored to the victim’s interests, are loaded with malicious documents that contain commercially available remote access tools (RATs)—easy-to-use programs available on the dark web that can hijack computers. Specifically, Elephant has been shown to use DarkComet and Netwire, two well-known brands. Once a victim is successfully phished and the hackers’ malware is downloaded, the RAT allows Elephant comprehensive control over the victim’s device; they can quietly conduct surveillance or, as in Wilson’s case, deploy phony, incriminating documents, researchers write.

It’s all pretty nefarious. As with anything in the hacker world, it’s difficult to know definitively who “Elephant” actually is. However, obvious contextual evidence suggests that the group has the Indian government’s “interests” in mind, with the researchers noting that ModifiedElephant activity aligns sharply with Indian state interests and that there is an observable correlation between ModifiedElephant attacks and the arrests of individuals in controversial, politically-charged cases.  

Unfortunately, ModifiedElephant isn’t the only group out there that has been doing this sort of thing. An entirely different group is believed to have conducted similar operations against Baris Pehlivan, a journalist in Turkey who was incarcerated for 19 months in 2016 after the Turkish government accused him of terrorism. Digital forensics later revealed that the documents used to justify Pehlivan’s charges had been planted, much like those on Wilson’s laptop.

All in all, it’s pretty disturbing stuff. “Many questions about this threat actor and their operations remain,” Sentinel One researchers write, of Elephant. “However, one thing is clear: Critics of authoritarian governments around the world must carefully understand the technical capabilities of those who would seek to silence them.”

 

Portugal. The Man - What, Me Worry?

The Continuing Saga of the Omichronicles

Otters on the Attack in Texas

A Texas aquarium is being sued for the second time in less than a year after one of its giant otters attacked a child.  Samantha Jorgensen of Fort Worth filed the suit, published in full by NBC DFW, against the Dallas World Aquarium on behalf of her young daughter this week. Jorgensen alleges that when her family visited the aquarium, a giant otter reached over a glass barrier and bit her then-2-year-old daughter’s hand. The plexiglass barrier around the enclosure was about 5 and a half feet tall, but the toddler was sitting on the shoulders of her father, who is 6 feet, 3 inches.

To clarify, a giant otter doesn’t just mean a big otter. Giant otters are their own species, native to South America.  In the wild, the species does not have any natural predators and it is know to eat snakes and caimans.

 

The lawsuit, which includes a photo of the bloody injury, states that the otter bite pulled one of the toddler’s fingernails “clean off.” The suit also alleges that the incident caused “permanent scarring.”

The aquarium currently has a warning reading, “BE AWARE: GIANT OTTERS ARE ACTIVE ANIMALS AND CAN INJURE YOU,” but the suit alleges this warning was not present during the family’s visit and that they had no idea the otters were able to get over the top of the enclosure.  The suit is seeking damages of $1 million.

The allegations echo those from a lawsuit filed four months ago, according to The Dallas Morning News. In that suit, a woman said a giant otter reached over the top of the enclosure and scratched her 18-month-old son. The wound became infected and ultimately caused what the family said was permanent scarring on his arm. It was not clear whether the same otter was involved.

 

Dutch to Dismantle Historic Bridge to Placate Billionaire Asshole

Jeff Bezos is building a $500 million mega-yacht with masts are so tall that a historic steel Rotterdam bridge may have to be partially dismantled so the superyacht can sail from its shipyard to the open sea.  Rotterdam residents are so riled up that more than 4,000 people have already signed up on a Facebook event page to throw rotten eggs at Bezos’ superyacht when it’s finished, most likely in early June.

Rotterdam's beloved Koningshaven Bridge (popularly known as De Hef) was decommissioned as a railway bridge in 1994 after being replaced by a tunnel. The vertical lift bridge was later declared a national monument. De Hef underwent a major restoration from 2014 to 2017, and afterwards the city said it would not be dismantled again, according to Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond.

De Hef has a boat clearance of 130 feet, which is not enough to accommodate the three 229-foot masts of Bezos’ yacht.   The city of Rotterdam told news media a week ago that it had agreed to temporarily dismantle part of the Koningshaven Bridge, but local officials quickly backtracked in the face of a public backlash, issuing a statement saying that the plan had not yet been approved. 

"From an economic perspective and maintaining employment, the municipality considers this a very important project," Walravens told Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond. "Rotterdam has also been declared the maritime capital of Europe. Shipbuilding and activity within that sector are therefore an important pillar for the municipality." 

But many residents and some local lawmakers are not impressed by such economic arguments, saying Bezos is benefiting from a double-standard that favors billionaires.  “This man has earned his money by structurally cutting staff, evading taxes, avoiding regulations and now we have to tear down our beautiful national monument?” Rotterdam GroenLinks (Green Left) councillor Stephan Leewis wrote on Twitter. “That is really going a bridge too far.”

Protest organizer Pablo Strormann told NL Times that the egg throwing event “started more as a joke among friends” after they heard the news about the possible dismantling of the historical bridge. But what he said was originally  intended to be a satirical message is “now getting way out of hand” after thousands of people responded to the event invite.  Strormann said, "Normally it’s the other way around: If your ship doesn’t fit under a bridge, you make it smaller. But when you happen to be the richest person on Earth you just ask a municipality to dismantle a monument. That’s ridiculous."

Bezos now has more money than he knows what to do with after seeing his fortune rise by 70% during the pandemic — from $113 billion in March 2020 to $192.2 billion in October 2021.

The Amazon founder provided $5.5 billion in funds for his space company, Blue Origin, to build a rocket and spacecraft that took him and three others on a suborbital flight 66.5 miles above the earth last July to experience four minutes of weightlessness. An October mission took “Star Trek” star William Shatner to the edge of the final frontier.

Bezos could have spent that windfall on giving every Amazon employee a hefty bonus for putting their lives and health at risk to fulfill the orders that flooded in during the pandemic. But he didn’t.

The global charity Oxfam issued a report in January 2021 that said Bezos’ wealth had increased so much between March and September 2020 that he could have paid all 876,000 Amazon employees a $105,000 bonus and still be as wealthy as he was before the pandemic. Amazon did give full-time, front-line workers a $500 bonus in June 2020.  As if that didn't make Bezos look like a complete asshole, he went ahead and spent additional millions on a union-busting campaign to thwart an organizing drive at the Amazon “fulfillment center” warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

 

Free to Be A Supremist

The New York Times' Elisabeth Anker wrote last week on the centrality of the concept of “freedom” to white racial identity.

Indeed, there is a long history of ugly freedoms in this country. From the start of the American experiment the language of freedom applied only to a privileged few. At the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, only 2 percent of the city’s population were qualified to vote. Slave codes allowed white property owners to possess Black humans — creating what the historian Tyler Stovall called “white freedom,” the “belief (and practice) that freedom is central to white racial identity, and that only white people can or should be free.” This freedom for the white master extended to torture, rape and lifelong control over the humans he (or she) owned.

In early American history, claims for men’s freedom permitted domestic violence against women, and a husband’s prerogative and privacy allowed him to beat his wife. In 1827 the jurist and legal scholar James Kent argued on behalf of husbands: “The law has given him a reasonable superiority and control over” the person of his wife, he wrote. “He may even put gentle restraints upon her liberty, if her conduct be such as to require it.” In other words: a woman’s freedom was at the discretion of her husband.

In the 20th century, racial segregation was justified as the freedom of white people to control public space and make their own business choices. In his infamous 1963 inaugural speech on segregation, Gov. George Wallace of Alabama couched his stance against integration as “our fight for freedom,” and justified it as “the ideology of our free fathers.” We can call that ideology white supremacy.

These are but a few examples of how claims for “freedom” have long suppressed the rights of nonwhites, women and workers. It is true the language of freedom was central to emancipation, suffrage and democratic movements of all kinds, but it has also justified violence and discrimination.

And now-- after years of being branded a racist for his inflammatory comments and actions-- Trump and some of his allies are brandishing their their own definition of racism, one that disregards the country’s history of racial exclusion that gives white people a monopoly on power and wealth. To make America more equitable, they argue, everyone must be treated equally — and, therefore, white men must not in any way be disadvantaged.   But this is really just a cheap political tactic whose goal is to anger and animate voters.  This strategy is unfortunately finding some success, because it taps into the belief among some voters that attempts at equity have gone too far and are punishing people who happen to have been born white. 

 

Lesson on Where Disconnection Can Lead Us

 Aljazeera's Craig Stone wrote eloquently about the tragic death of Swiss photographer René Robert:

When I was 22, I flew to Berlin for a weekend. I sat in a café, watching the world stomp by. I noted an old man, hunched, unstable, hobbling slowly on the other side of the road. He fell. I watched the old man on the cold floor, from the warm comfort of the café, and considered crossing the road to help.  I watched four young men walk over him, a lady walk around him, and one family cross the road to avoid him. The old man had become invisible. I left the café, crossed the road and helped him to his feet. But as he stood up tall, the man pushed me away, angry to be helped. I sloped back across the road to the café, confused.

Some eight years later, at the age of 30, I was working in the city and living in Willesden Green, North London. I was a minimum-wage receptionist, dreaming of becoming an author. My landlord raised my rent and, long story short, I quit my job to live in the local park and write my first novel. When I was homeless, just like that old man I tried to help in Berlin, I was invisible. My existence spread fear. People walked over me. They walked around me. They crossed the street to avoid me. It was as if I had taken a fall, and I was no longer a part of society.

Today, I’m about to finish my fourth novel. I’m a freelance journalist. From being single, skint and living under a tree, I’m now a married father of two and people pay me for my words.  But I still remember what it feels like to be invisible. Which is why Swiss photographer René Robert’s recent death in Paris hit me hard.

Eighty-four-year-old René died from hypothermia in the middle of a busy street after he fell and was ignored by passersby for more than nine hours. René Robert did have a home. But for those nine hours, he appeared homeless, so he was invisible.

Today, in society, disconnection is rife. It is much worse than it was 20 years ago. Disconnection is an epidemic. And born from that disconnection comes a need for justification. In order to sustain disconnection, our minds fill the gaps in our knowledge with thoughts that explain our instinct for separation.

And this is never more evident than when those within society walk past, over, or around a homeless person. An everyday person will look up from their phone, see a homeless person, and immediately their thoughts will turn to whatever justifies their indifference. “He must be a drunk.”  “She must have a drug problem.”  “I bet he’s not even homeless.”  Blame, blame, blame.

But if indifference was the gun that fired at René Robert, then the bullet was fear. Fear allows us to turn our indifference to homelessness into a form of deluded self-protection. Society is afraid of itself, but especially afraid of what lurks beyond its control. Society fears strangers. Society fears the homeless. And so, like all fears, the homeless become invisible.

It was fear that led Parisians to step over René’s body. For nine tragic hours, René appeared to be homeless – someone invisible, someone who must have done something wrong, someone dangerous. That was his crime. And society punished him for it. For those nine hours, René was not only homeless, he was, tragically and simply, “less”.

In the end, it wasn’t a person with a house, a job, or a family who reached down to offer help to René. The hand that reached down to touch René, to ask if he was okay, was the hand of a homeless man. A man with no possessions was the only human who possessed the compassion and absence of indifference, to call emergency services.

And when later found, this man didn’t want to give his name. Because the one thing a homeless person owns is their name. Why should he offer his name to a society so indifferent that the people who live within that abundant society couldn’t spare a moment to check on one of their own?

Because indifference can be ignorance, it can be judgement, self-protection or even disdain. But to René Robert, on the night of January 18, our collective indifference was exposed for what it’s always been – an act of violence.

 

Anitta - Boys Don't Cry

Boar and Babies Bear Brunt of Berlin Bureaucracy Because of Bare Buttocks

A wild boar that became a frequent visitor at a lakeside bathing resort in Berlin last summer has attracted a growing band of supporters following authorities’ suggestion that it could have to be killed.

The animal, nicknamed Elsa, earned something akin to celebrity status after a series of photos of it and its piglets stealing a nude bather’s laptop at Teufelssee lake in west Berlin went viral.  The owner of the laptop was captured in bare-bottomed pursuit of the boar, which later abandoned its booty, presumably having discovered it was not edible.

Subsequent sightings of the creatures rifling through bathers’ picnic baskets and rucksacks and apparently showing no timidity have prompted Berlin foresters to label them a danger to humans.  “This wild sow and her two young is a frequent visitor at Teufelssee,” Katja Kammer, the head of the forestry office in the district of Grunewald said. “They phlegmatically forage in broad daylight over the grass looking for food wherever there are bathers. They have lost all sense of shyness.”  As a result, she said, they would have to be “withdrawn as a matter of priority” – a bureaucratic euphemism for killing them.

Kammer’s remarks prompted the campaign group Action Fair Play to call a demonstration to save the beast.   “A few days ago pictures appeared in the media of a man in the nudist section of Teufelssee chasing a female wild boar which had run off with his laptop in a bag,” the organizers said in a statement. “These pictures delighted people around the world. Only the forestry office appeared to get no pleasure from them, deciding instead to shoot the sow and her young.”

The group said the animals had done no harm “and the owner even got his laptop back.”  It said there was no need to kill the wild boar.  A petition on Change.org calling for the rescue of the “cheeky but peaceful sow from Teufelssee” collected more than 5,300 signatures.  Its organizers said that in contrast to other wild boar, which can pose considerable danger to humans and dogs, this female had built a reputation “over years” of being friendly towards bathers.

“There has been absolutely no account taken for the fact that this sow has peacefully shared her living space with bathers for years,” they said, adding that the creature’s very friendliness was in danger of leading to its downfall. “This wild boar has earned the right to live,” they said.

Marc Franusch, a spokesman for Berlin’s forestry commission, said it remained uncertain whether and when the wild boar would be shot. “It is the wrong time of year,” he told local media. “Due to the age of [its] young, it is forbidden to shoot them right now.”

The Latest Chaper in the Omichronicles

Trump's Obsession With Paper-Ripping Results in Violations of Federal Law

The National Archives and Records Administration have seized 15 boxes of documents and other items from former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence because the material should have been turned over to the agency when he left the White House, Archives officials have admitted.

The recovery of the boxes from Trump’s Florida resort raises new concerns about his adherence to the Presidential Records Act, which requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties. 

Trump advisers deny any nefarious intent and said the boxes contained mementos, gifts, letters from world leaders and other correspondence. The items included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as “love letters,” as well as a letter left for his successor by President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the contents.

The National Archives and Records Administration said in a statement that “these records should have been transferred to NARA from the White House at the end of the Trump Administration in January 2021,” and that Trump representatives are “continuing to search” for additional records.  “The Presidential Records Act is critical to our democracy, in which the government is held accountable by the people,” Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero said.

The Archives has struggled to cope with a president who flouted document retention requirements and frequently ripped up official documents, leaving hundreds of pages taped back together — or some that arrived at the Archives still in pieces. Some damaged documents were among those turned over to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob.

“It is against the law, but the problem is that the Presidential Records Act, as written, does not have any real enforcement mechanism,” said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association.  Trump himself was unconcerned about the records act, according to former advisers-- and during his entire term he exhibited an obsession with ripping up briefings and schedules, articles and letters, memos both sensitive and mundane.   He ripped paper into quarters with two big, clean strokes - or occasionally more vigorously, into smaller scraps.

He left the detritus on his desk in the Oval Office, in the trash can of his private West Wing study and on the floor aboard Air Force One, among many other places.  And he did it all in violation of the Presidential Records Act, despite being urged by at least two chiefs of staff and the White House counsel to follow the law on preserving documents.  Interviews with 11 former Trump staffers, associates and others familiar with the habit reveal that Trump’s shredding of paper was far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known and - despite multiple admonishments - extended throughout his presidency, resulting in special practices to deal with the torn fragments.

The habit dates back to the former president’s time as a businessman, when he used email extremely rarely. Cohen said that Trump seemed to enjoy the actual process of ripping paper, especially if he did not like the contents of the memo.  “When something irritated him, he would tear the document,” Cohen said. “The physical act of ripping the paper for Donald was cathartic, and it provided him a relief, as if the issue was no longer relevant. Basically, you rip the piece of paper and you’re done - that’s how Donald’s brain works.”

Trump’s chaotic approach to handling physical documents leaves gaping holes in the historical record, not to mention being disrespectful to the archivists and general public.  “We don’t know how much of it was or was not successfully taped back together,” Grossman said. “Also, how much did the taxpayers pay to have a bunch of highly qualified archivists sit at a desk and tape things back together?”

Some experts also said Trump hurt his own legacy with his document destruction practices - leaving less behind for historians to examine.  It is unclear how many records were lost or permanently destroyed through Trump’s ripping routine, as well as what consequences, if any, he might face. 

Greetings From Grogu

LGBTQ Fear and Hate Driving Book Bans

Nowadays, it seems that many books are in the cross hairs of red state censors—around 850 on one list in Texas alone—that we can’t talk about all of them. But there are many others that haven’t made individual headlines when they were banned.  These books are also being pulled from the shelves in Granbury Independent School District, in Texas; being scrutinized in Polk County, Florida; and being targeted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Those books are also heavily LGBTQ.

All Boys Aren't Blue, an essay collection by journalist and LGBTQ activist George Johnson that was included on best books of 2020 lists from Kirkus Reviews, the New York Public Library, and others.

Echo Brown’s Black Girl Unlimited, described as “just brilliant” by Kirkus.

Susan Campbell Bertoletti’s They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of An American Terrorist Group, which won the American Library Association’s 2011 award for excellence in nonfiction for young adults.

Adam Rapp’s 33 Snowfish, one of the Young Adult Library Services Association's top 10 books for young adults in 2004.

Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House is an award-winning memoir about an abusive lesbian relationship.

Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation, by Duncan Tonatiuh.

Ordinary Hazards, by Nikki Grimes, is a memoir that got starred reviews in six major trade journals, among other honors.

Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer is a memoir in graphic novel form. It was an ALA Alex Award winner that got a starred review from the School Library Journal.

Drama, by Raina Telgemeier, is an LGBTQ-themed graphic novel that won multiple awards and made multiple year’s best lists, but was also the seventh-most-banned book between 2010 and 2019, according to the American Library Association.

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces, by Isabel Quintero, made the best books lists at both Kirkus and the School Library Journal in 2014.

Ash, by Malinda Lo, was on the Kirkus best young adult books list in 2009.

More Happy Than Not, by Adam Silvera, got starred reviews at Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist, as well as making many best-of lists in 2015 and thereafter.

Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan, has made repeated appearances on the ALA's most banned books list. It was also on the National Book Awards longlist for young people’s literature.

The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, was a well-reviewed, massive young adult bestseller, with Kirkus Reviews calling it “necessary” and “important” in a starred review. The School Library Journal also gave it a starred review. It was a Coretta Scott King Honor book.

The list goes on. And on and on and on.

 

Chinese "Squid Games" Mired in Controversy From the Start

People are incredulous and outraged about the controversial $3.4 billion Olympic games that begin today. The first unbelievable thing is the absence of the one element central to any Winter Olympics:  snow. 

Olympic organizers should have known this would be a problem.  Between January and March of last year, the competition venue at the National Alpine Ski Centre in Yanqing (50 miles NW of Beijing) had less than one inch of snow cm of snow-- less than London or Madrid.

And pictures of the venues tell their own story. The new national ski-jumping center is certainly impressive – but sits incongruously in a barren landscape of dirty brown hills. It's hardly alpine.  As for the snowboarding slope, it has been built in the heart of the city's concrete-clad industrial area, overlooked by the massive former cooling towers of an old steel mill.

Dubious decisions by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in awarding the Games are nothing new.  For the 2014 Games in the subtropical Russian resort of Sochi, 80 per cent of the snow was fake.  But Yanqing, which hosts the alpine skiing, bobsleigh, luge and skeleton, will take the phony white stuff to new extremes. Using 49 million gallons of water, 300 snow guns will blanket the competition surfaces – despite the regular water shortages that China's parched capital suffers.

Chinese authorities have detained two prominent human-rights activists in the lead up to the games-- quietly intensifying a crackdown on dissent weeks before the country hosts the most politicized Winter Olympics in recent memory.  Free speech advocate Yang Maodong was formally detained in the southern city of Guangzhou on suspicion of inciting subversion, just two days after his wife died of cancer in the U.S.  Yang, who writes under the pen name Guo Feixiong, has been blocked from leaving China for the past year.  Authorities rejected his pleas (and entreaties from friends and family) that he be allowed to be with his wife in her final months.  Friends said they had lost contact with the 55-year-old Yang in early December, though it was only until January 12 that police officially confirmed his detention by the state.  According to Yang's sister, the police have been vague about the reason for his detention. 

Xie Yang, a 49-year-old lawyer who has taken up politically sensitive cases related to religion and land rights, was detained on January 11 also on subversion charges, and is being held in the southern city of Changsha, according to his family. Yang has been in police custody on and off since 2013. While in detention five years ago, he gave an explosive account of being tortured, beaten and threatened by interrogators.   "You can imagine authorities all over the country are tightening control preemptively to strike out an potential dissent and criticism," said Renee Xia, a senior researcher with Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a Washaington, DC-based group.

Chinese authorities also pressured dissidents and activists ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics.  Under President Xi Jinping, China has grown less tolerant of dissent, tightening controls over the media and the internet while pursuing a campaign of forced assimilation against ethnic minorities in remote regions of the country.  And of course, all of this is happening during the slow-motion erosion of civil liberties in Hong Kong.

Human Rights Watch says China wants to 'sportswash' its human-rights record.  A spokesman said: "These Winter Games reflect President Xi Jinping's efforts to burnish China's image on the world stage and distract attention from the Chinese government's assault on human rights, targeting independent civil society, erasing press freedom and expanding high- tech surveillance."

Beijing Olympics are being operated in closed, heavily censored environment. Those outside can’t enter. Those inside can’t leave, and can only catch glimpses of the country from bus windows.  Chinese staff working the Games wear white hazmat suits that make it difficult to see the person inside, lending to dystopian atmosphere that many are comparing to the Korean TV show Squid Game. The ill-fated games were plagued by controversy from the very start, however . . . 

Elvis Costello & the Imposters - A Boy Named If

NFL Hypocrisy Exposed in Racial Discrimination Lawsuit

Former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores has filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL, the New York Giants, the Dener Broncos,  and the Dolphins claiming racial discrimination in the league's hiring process for coaches and executives. 

The lawsuit showed text messages of Patriot coach Bill Belichick sending congratulations to Flores for landing the Giants job on January 24. That text was sent two days prior to Flores actually interviewing for the job.  After Flores initially appeared confused by the text message, he asked Belichick, “Coach, are you talking to Brian Flores or Brian Daboll. Just making sure.”  Belichick replied: “Sorry – I fucked this up. I double checked & I misread the text. I think they are naming Daboll. I’m sorry about that. BB”

The lawsuit alleges that Flores was then “forced to sit through a dinner with Joe Schoen, the Giant’s new General Manager, knowing that the Giants had already selected Mr. Daboll. Much worse, on Thursday, January 27, 2022, Mr. Flores had to [sit for] an extensive interview for a job that he already knew he would not get — an interview that was held for no reason other than for the Giants to demonstrate falsely to the League Commissioner Roger Goodell and the public at large that it was in compliance with the Rooney rule.”  Flores was a Patriots assistant coach for eleven years before he  departed to take over as the Dolphins’ head coach. Daboll (also a former Patriots assistant) was officially introduced as the Giants’ newest head coach on Monday.

“Having discovered what the Giants and the rest of the NFL had hoped to keep in the dark, Mr. Flores now brings this Class Action Complaint to shine a light on the racial injustices that take place inside the NFL and to effectuate real change for the future,” the lawsuit stated.  The lawsuit also explores the history of Black coaches having a more difficult time getting and keeping head coaching jobs, using Flores’ interview as an example of a Black coach who did not have a real chance to earn the job.   The lawsuit detailed the history of Black coaches getting overlooked for jobs or fired prematurely, including Jim Caldwell, Steve Wilks, David Culley, Kris Richard, Teryl Austin, Eric Bieniemy, and Flores himself.

The lawsuit also alleges that Flores underwent a “sham interview” with the Broncos in 2019, before they hired Vic Fangio.  In that instance, then-GM John Elway and CEO Joe Ellis “showed up an hour late to the interview. They looked completely disheveled, and it was obvious that they had been drinking heavily the night before. It was clear from the substance of the interview that Mr. Flores was interviewed only because of the Rooney Rule, and that the Broncos never had any intention to consider him as a legitimate candidate for the job.”

Flores was fired by the Dolphins, despite leading the team to winning seasons the past two years. He alleges that Dolphins owner Stephen Ross offered him an extra $100,000 in 2019 for every game lost, so that Miami would get a better draft pick.  “The team’s General Manager, Chris Grier, told Mr. Flores that [Ross] was ‘mad’ that Mr. Flores’ success in winning games that year was ‘compromising [the team’s] draft position,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also alleges that after the end of the 2019 season, Ross pressured Flores to recruit “a prominent quarterback,” which would have violated the league’s tampering rules. Flores said he “repeatedly refused to comply with these improper directives.” The suit also claims that Ross invited Flores onto his yacht for lunch, only for that same prominent quarterback to also be arriving at the marina at the same time.“After the inc  ident, Mr. Flores was treated with disdain and held out as someone who was non-compliant and difficult to work with,” the suit said.

Flores released a statement after filing the lawsuit, saying that he understands the suit may negatively impact his chances to land another NFL head coaching job but nevertheless felt compelled to go public with the accusations.  “God has gifted me with a special talent to coach the game of football, but the need for change is bigger than my personal goals. In making the decision to file the class action complaint today, I understand that I may be risking coaching the game I love and has done so much for my family and me,” Flores said. “My sincere hope is that by standing up against systemic racism in the NFL, others will join me to ensure that positive change is made for generations to come.”