It Doesn't Take Brains to Figure This One Out!

Admit It

Indiana's War on Teachers

An alliance of Indiana teachers unions is demanding that state Attorney General Todd Rokita take down a portal he set up earlier this month to essentially spy on educators. Citizens can use the “Eyes on Education” portal to report on so-called “woke” educators and expose “examples of socialist indoctrination” in classrooms across the state.  Rokita was even more explicit in an interview for Fort Wayne television station WTPA in which he said the portal would help combat what he called “left wing nonsense” and “trans-sanity.”

Leaders of six teachers unions representing more than 4,000 educators posted a letter on social media on Feb. 11 expressing concern about the accuracy of documents posted on the portal, the IndyStar reported. The letter from the Hamilton Southeastern Education Association said the portal also compromises teachers’ privacy and safety by posting their personal information.  “Furthermore, the Attorney General is weaponizing a government website for his personal benefit. This further breeds misplaced mistrust in Indiana teachers, pitting teachers against the communities they willingly serve,” the letter added.

The portal reflects a nationwide drive by conservative politicians and right-wing organizations like Moms for Liberty to restrict what students learn about race and gender. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin set up a similar concept as a tip line in 2022 for parents to report “divisive” content in schools. It was shut down within months after a poor response and defeat for his administration in a public records lawsuit filed by media organizations.

In Arizona, the state’s Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne set up an “empower hotline” last year to take reports of “inappropriate” school content, particularly regarding race and gender ideology, but it received about 30,000 prank calls and emails, and only a handful of genuine complaints, the Arizona Mirror reported.

 

Another Cholera Outbreak in Southern Africa-- This Time on a Cruise Ship

Mauritius has denied a Norwegian cruise ship permission to dock at the capital Port Louis over fears of a potential cholera outbreak on board.  At least 15 people on the Norwegian Dawn have been in isolation over suspected illness.

The passengers developed mild symptoms of a stomach illness during a trip to South Africa, a representative of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings said.  69-year-old passenger Mary Francovilla Dees told reporters that despite the delay the atmosphere on the ship has been fairly calm.  "The passengers on this ship have appeared to take this in their stride," she said. Francovilla said passengers have entertained themselves by sitting by the pool, attending shows and going to the bar.  A Dutch passenger on board told BN DeStem they were told there could be a cholera outbreak on board by the captain.

There have been cholera outbreaks in southern Africa over the last few months, with Zambia being hardest hit.  Since January 2023, at least 188,000 people have been infected with cholera across seven countries in southern Africa, according to the UN. More than 3,000 people have died.

"The health and safety of passengers as well as that of the country as a whole are of the utmost to the authorities," the Mauritius Ports Authority said.  The ship arrived in Mauritius on Saturday evening after arriving a day early because it did not stop in Réunion Island.  There are 2,184 passengers and 1,026 crew members on the ship. About 2,000 planned to disembark in Port Louis, with another 2,000 expected to board at the same time.  Those who were disembarking or joining the cruise will now do so on February 27, the Norwegian Cruise Line spokesperson said.

Jesus Saves

Russian Invasion of Ukraine: Two Years On

 It’s been two years since Russian dictator Vladimir Putin sent tanks rolling across the borders from Russia and Belarus, and began this long, nightmarish war. It’s safe to say that very few people on that first day of the invasion could have foreseen the situation that Ukraine is in today. 

One day before that illegal, unprovoked invasion was launched, Daily Kos predicted that this war could be as damaging to Russia as the invasion of Afghanistan had been to the USSR four decades ago. That prediction was badly off base. The Soviets lost 14,500 soldiers over the 10 years of the Soviet-Afghan war. Russia lost 16,000 men before capturing the small city of Adviivka this past Saturday. 

Only it won’t be that way in Russian history books. Because the Russian defense minister has now declared that Avdiivka was a textbook operation achieved with minimal losses. So please ignore the videos you’ve seen, and don’t worry about the Russian military blogger who reported the truth about Russian losses. According to Russian Telegram channels, he committed suicide. Which may be the same thing as “sudden death syndrome.”

Victors get to write the history. And if everyone isn’t very careful, the next history of Europe will be written in Russian.

Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well

Georgia GOP Wants to Criminalize Libraries

A proposal that would require school libraries to notify parents of every book their child checks out was advanced by Georgia state  senators, while a proposal to subject school librarians to criminal charges for distributing material containing obscenity waits in the wings.

The measures are part of a broad and continuing push by Republicans in many states to root out what they see as inappropriate material from schools and libraries, saying books and electronic materials are corrupting children.  Opponents say it's a campaign of censorship meant to block children's freedom to learn, while scaring teachers and librarians into silence for fear of losing their jobs or worse.

Georgia senators are also considering bills to force all public and school libraries in the state to cut ties with the American Library Association and to restrict school libraries' ability to hold or acquire any works that depict sexual intercourse or sexual arousal. Neither measure has advanced out of committee ahead of a deadline next week for bills to pass out of their originating chamber.

"This is part of a larger national and Georgia trend to try to limit access," said Nora Benavidez, a board member of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation and lawyer for Free Press, a group that seeks to democratize the media. "The logical endpoint of where this bill, as well as others, are taking us is for children to have less exposure to ideas."

 

This Could be Heaven or This Could be Hell

Handwritten pages inscribed with the first known iterations of legendary rock song Hotel California are at the center of an upcoming at a criminal trial.

Glenn Horowitz, Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski have been charged with conspiring to sell pages from the yellow lined pad, along with other Eagles lyrics, without the rights.  The three men have pleaded not guilty.  The Manhattan district attorney's office is expected to call Eagles member Don Henley as its star witness.  The non-jury trial will include more than 80 pages of draft lyrics from the 1976 Hotel California album, including famous lines from the eponymous hit like: "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."

Horowitz, Inciardi and Kosinki are facing charges with conspiracy to possess stolen property and other offenses, not with stealing the documents themselves. The pages of lyrics were allegedly stolen by somebody else before the trio procured them, prosecutors said.    After the men attempted to sell some of those lyrics through Kosinski’s company, Henley caught wind of the scheme and bought them himself for $8,500. He soon got the Manhattan district attorney’s office involved, filing a stolen-goods report.  Inciardi and Kosinski continued to try to sell other pages, even listing the “Hotel California” lyrics at Sotheby’s in 2016, per the Associated Press.  The auction house later withdrew them, and police raided the men’s homes in 2019, taking 84 pages of lyrics along with 1,300 pages of paperwork and multiple electronic devices.

Prosecutors still will have to prove the documents were stolen, for the charges to stick. However, defense laywers have said the documents were not stolen.  The dispute dates back to the late 1970s, when writer Ed Sanders was working on a biography for the Eagles. The band had reportedly allowed Sanders to access their archives, which included the lyrics-filled notepads.  It is believed that he sold them to Horowitz, a rare-books dealer, for $50,000 in 2005.  Horowitz then sold the lyrics to Inciardi and Kosinski, a memorabilia company owner.  Sanders was not charged in the case.

Don Henley previously told a grand jury he never gave Sanders the lyrics, according to court filings.  Defense lawyers have suggested otherwise, casting doubt on Henley's memory.  "We believe that Mr Henley voluntarily provided the lyrics to Mr Sanders," attorney Scott Edelman said in court last week.

 

Advertising for Masses

Happy Presidents Day

Navalny is Just the Latest in a String of Putin Casualties

Alexei Navalny's body has now been found and it shows signs of being held down while suffering convulsions. Navalny's body was reportedly found with signs of bruising, as he was allegedly held down while suffering a seizure.  There is no evidence or apparent cause of any seizures. however.  His body is currently being held at a hospital morgue, and being withheld from his family.

Navalny is just the latest in a long line of mysterious murders and deaths in Russia. Many of the critics  of the Russian regime investigated crimes of Russia's intelligence services, while others criticized Putin's wars in Chechnya, Georgia and Ukraine.  The methods employed ranged from poisoning and shooting to plane crashes.

One of the first to die was Sergei Yushenkov, a liberal politician and ally of exiled tycoon Boris Berezovsky. He was shot dead in 2003. Yushenkov, a critic of the Kremlin, investigated the Federal Security Service's (FSB) alleged involvement in staging the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis.

Yushenkov was also a member of an independent commission that investigated allegations of the FSB's involvement in the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, which killed 307 people.

Another member of the commission, Novaya Gazeta journalist Yury Shchekochikhin, died after being poisoned in 2003. According to an analysis by London specialists, Shchekochikhin was poisoned with thallium.

Investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was also a vehement critic of the FSB, Putin's regime and his war in Chechnya. She survived a poisoning attempt in 2004.  But two years later, Politkovskaya was shot dead in her building's elevator on Putin's birthday.

Meanwhile, former Russian intelligence officer Litvinenko, who accused Putin of orchestrating the 1999 Moscow apartment bombings, was poisoned in the U.K. in 2006 with polonium-210, a radioactive element.  The British police charged Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB officer and current pro-Kremlin lawmaker, and businessman Dmitry Kovtun with murdering Litvinenko. In 2016, a British court concluded that Putin and Nikolai Patrushev, the former head of the FSB, “probably” ordered Litvinenko’s assassination.

Another opponent of the Kremlin, Sergei Magnitsky, was arrested on trumped-up charges in 2008 after exposing corruption by Russian government officials. He died in prison in 2009 after being beaten up and developing multiple diseases.  Magnitsky's death was not investigated, and Russian authorities convicted him in a posthumous trial on tax evasion charges.

A similar fate befell Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch who had helped Putin to come to power but had later fallen out with him. He was found hanged in his bathroom in the U.K. in 2013.

One of the most prominent enemies of Putin was Boris Nemtsov. He co-led the opposition to Russia's aggression against Ukraine, which began in 2014.   Nemtsov was shot dead in front of the Kremlin in 2015.

Yet another critic of the Russian dictator, Denis Voronenkov, was shot dead in Kyiv in 2017.   Voronenkov had been a Russian pro-Putin lawmaker who had switched sides and fled to Ukraine.

Ravil Maganov, the chairman of the board of Russia’s second largest oil producer Lukoil, met a tragic end six months after he openly criticized the war in Ukraine. In September 2022, 67-year-old Maganov died after falling from a sixth-floor window at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow.  Russian state news agency Tass claimed his death was a suicide. 

Leonid Shulman, the head of transport at Gazprom Invest was found dead in his cottage in the village of Leninsky near Leningrad in January 2022.  Russian state media reported that a suicide note was found at the scene and that the investigators were investigating the death as a suicide.  Just a month after that, another top executive at Gazprom, Alexander Tyulakov, was found dead from suicide in the same village.  Less than a month later, another Russian businessman, Vasily Melnikov, was found stabbed to death alongside his family in Nizhny Novgoro. The following month, Vladislav Avayev, the former vice-president of Gazprombank, was found dead with his wife and daughter in his Moscow apartment.  Russian authorities report that it was a case of murder-suicide.  And just days after that incident, Sergey Protosenya, former executive at the gas producer Novatek (which is partially owned by Gazprom) was found dead (along with his wife and daughter) at his home north of Barcelona. 

That's right-- those fleeing Russia are not safe either. 

Another Putin Critic Found Dead

Long-time Putin critic and political rival Alexei Navalny was found dead under mysterious circumstances yesterday-- yet another in a long line of Putin critics murdered or killed unexpectedly (more on that tomorrow). 

Navalny was being held in one of Russia's harshest prisons on a 19-year jail term, which was widely viewed as politically motivated.  In an unexpected move, Navalny was moved to the arctic penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets district in December.

Just a few days before his untimely killing, Navalny posted on social media: "The Yamal colony decided to break the Vladimir record of fawning and pleasing the Moscow authorities. They just gave me 15 days in a punishment cell. That is, this is the 4th punishment cell in less than 2 months that I have been with them."

Navalny’s spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh said on social media that his death had occurred shortly after 2 p.m. local time on Friday, citing an official statement given to his mother by the authorities.  Russian authorities said Navalny collapsed after a walk at the prison colony on Friday, lost consciousness and couldn’t be revived. They said the cause of death is still being established. The consensus of the international community is that Putin had him murdered.

Navalny’s lawyer and his mother, Lyudmila, were told at the prison on Saturday that the activist had died of “sudden death syndrome,” according to a post on X by Ivan Zhdanov, a close aide to Navalny.  “We are convinced that Alexei was killed yesterday and the order to do this was given personally by Putin,” Yarmysh wrote.

Beyoncé - Texas Hold 'Em

Kazakhstan University Tracks Which Students are Virgins and Then Leaks the Info Online

A European university collected and – then leaked – the ‘virginity status’ of 190 female students.  A scandal has now engulfed the Al-Farabi National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the confidential data was published on social media.

The leaked information includes the names, ages, phone numbers, and even tax ID's of the victims.  Within minutes of going live, it was disseminated in multiple social media groups connected to the university.

While it has already been deleted from some sites, men are asking "Who has the list?" on social media. Another responded: "I don’t know, but if you find it, share it here."

It remains unclear why doctors collected the information in the first place, or if the gynecological examinations at the university’s medical center were compulsory.  Women have been complaining about the incident and the repercussions they are suffering.

One woman wrote: "Our personal data is hanging on every lamp post."  Another hit out: "In Kazakhstan, there is no concept of personal space and privacy at all."  The release has been blasted as ‘a violation’.  Sayasat Nurbek, Kazakhstan’s minister of science and higher education, who has been forced to intervene, said: "The transfer of personal information, especially of a medical nature, is a violation.  I have taken control of this issue, because there is a direct violation here.  Those responsible will face punishment under our current legislation."

Initial reports say the ‘virginity status’ of at least 190 students has been leaked and can be viewed by their teachers and other students.  The leaked data includes the results of an examination with a gynecologist, noting whether the patient was a virgin’, it was reported.   "The documents were instantly distributed across all university chats," said one news outlet.  An alarm was raised only when the data reached officials at the head office of the university.

 

Happy V-Day!

6 Year-Old Girl Missing in Gaza Found Dead Along with Paramedics Sent to Save Her

A six-year-old girl who went missing in Gaza City  has been found dead, along with several of her relatives and two paramedics who tried to save her.  Hind Rajab was fleeing the city with her aunt, uncle and three cousins when the car they were traveling in came face to face with Israeli tanks, and come under fire.

Audio recordings of calls between Hind and emergency call operators suggest that the six-year-old was the only one left alive in the car, hiding from Israeli forces among the bodies of her relatives.  Her pleas for someone to rescue her ended when the phone line was cut amid the sound of more gunfire.

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) managed to reach the area yesterday, which had previously been closed off as an active combat zone.  They found the black Kia car Hind had been traveling in - its windscreen and dashboard smashed to pieces, bullet holes scattered across the side.

One paramedic told journalists that Hind was among the six bodies found inside the car, all of which showed signs of gunfire and shelling.  A few meters away were the remains of another vehicle - completely burnt out, its engine spilling onto the ground. This, the Red Crescent says, is the ambulance sent to fetch Hind.  Its crew - Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun - were killed when the ambulance was bombed by Israeli forces.   In a statement, the PRCS accused Israel of deliberately targeting the ambulance, as soon as it arrived at the scene on January 29.  "The [Israeli] occupation deliberately targeted the Red Crescent crew despite obtaining prior coordination to allow the ambulance to arrive at the scene to rescue the child Hind," it said.

The PRCS told the BBC that it had taken several hours to coordinate access with the Israeli army, in order to send paramedics to Hind.   "We got the coordination, we got the green light," PRCS spokeswoman, Nibal Farsakh, told me earlier this week. "On arrival, [the crew] confirmed that they could see the car where Hind was trapped, and they could see her. The last thing we heard is continuous gunfire."

Recordings of Hind's conversations with call operators sparked a campaign to find out what had happened to her.   Before the little girl's body was discovered, Hind's mother said that she was waiting for her daughter "any moment, any second".   Now she is demanding that someone be held accountable.  "For every person who heard my voice and my daughter's pleading voice, yet did not rescue her, I will question them before God on the Day of Judgement," she told the BBC. "Netanyahu, Biden, and all those who collaborated against us, against Gaza and its people, I pray against them from the depths of my heart."

At the hospital where she waited for news of her daughter, Hind's mother, Wissam, still holds the little pink bag she was keeping for her. Inside it, a notebook where Hind had been practicing her handwriting.   "How many more mothers are you waiting to feel this pain? How many more children do

The rules of war say medical personnel must be protected and not targeted in a conflict, and that injured people must be given the medical care they need - to the fullest practical extent and with the least possible delay.

 

This is What the GOP Is Reduced To

 

Are There Any Sports Fans Out There Anymore?

Putin Interview a Complete Embarrassment for Tucker Carlson

Vladimir Putin emerged "dominant" and "at ease" in the face of a "fawning and gullible" Tucker Carlson during their much-hyped interview, a body language expert said.  Professor Patrick Stewart said that "unprepared" schoolboy-like TV host Carlson failed to put up any fight as the Russian tyrant waged a "mental battle of attrition".

The controversial TV pundit trumpeted the interview as a means for the American public to see the “truth” of the Ukraine war after two years of what he blasted as "one-sided" narratives fed by Western media.  But in reality, Putin sat down to weave yet another baseless web of lies, launching a lengthy tirade about Russian history, before laying into NATO and threatening to propel the world towards global catastrophe. Putin spent more than 50 minutes delivering a rambling, inaccurate history lesson that started with the Vikings and included dragging up documents from the 17th century. During this segment, Carlson was left slack-jawed, staring at Putin while he was unable to get in a single question.

Putin even blamed Poland for Hitler’s invasion of the country, without any push back from Tucker.  If anyone was wondering about that part where Carlson confronted Putin over Russia’s role in dividing Poland with the Nazis or how Russia slaughtered the Polish resistance … that never happened.  At one point, Putin paused in the middle of his droning lesson on history-that-never-happened to mock Tucker for applying to the CIA when he was younger and getting rejected.

Billy Joel - Turn the Lights Back On

Calling Out the Taylor Haters

Fox Sport's Colin Cowherd has called out the "insecure men" complaining about Taylor Swift being shown in NFL coverage as she attends games to support her boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce.

“There’s a lot of really weird, lonely, insecure men out there,” Cowherd said on his show The Herd. “The fact that a pop star — the world’s biggest pop star — is dating a star tight end who had one of his greatest games ever, and the network puts them on the air briefly, then it bothers you, what does that say about your life?"

Cowherd noted Swift’s average screen time is just 25 seconds throughout the entire broadcast, and pointed out the misogyny given how other celebrity sightings such as Matthew McConaughey and Drake at games aren't an issue.

 

Trump and the GOP are Three-Time Losers

A federal appellate court has unanimously rejected Trump's argument that his attempts to overturn the 2020 election were covered by presidential immunity.  The appellate court decided that “for the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant.”

In a thorough, 57-page opinion, a three-judge panel of the appeals court systematically knocked down each of Trump’s ridiculous arguments for immunity.  The said that Trump had misinterpreted Alexander Hamilton and that he had misread the Constitution regarding the "impeachment clause", writing that impeachment was a political act, not a criminal one.  Finally, the court stated the obvious:  the idea of a president being completely immune from prosecution for actions taken while in office had no precedent in U.S. history or law, they concluded.

In a stunning blow to Republican leaders, the House rejected an effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday after a number of Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it. The final vote was 214 to 216. Republicans were counting on one Democrat to be absent in order to squeak through the vote: Rep. Al Green of Texas. He had been out following surgery. But he unexpectedly showed up for the vote.

The whole effort was a political stunt, with one goal: helping Donald Trump look tough on border issues ahead of November’s presidential election. The GOP’s two articles of impeachment accused Mayorkas of “willful” refusal to comply with immigration laws, and of breaching public trust.  But they never produced any evidence that Mayorkas had committed crimes ― let alone crimes that meet the threshold for impeachable offenses. The Constitution spells out that impeachment is reserved for rare instances of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” like bribery or treason.

And in another setback for GOP speaker Johnson, the bill to provide Israel with more military aid went down to defeat, spoiling Johnson’s attempt to separate Israel from other national security priorities, including helping Ukraine defend itself from Russia’s military invasion and deterring crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border.The vote gave individual lawmakers another chance to show voters their support for Israel and could be used on the campaign trail to criticize those who voted against it. 

“The time has come for House Republicans to end the political stunts and come together in support of a comprehensive approach to our national security priorities,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and other members of leadership  said in a statement.

If You Can't Remember the Names of Your CoWorkers

 

The Real Dangers of Fake Currencies

Cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, have no intrinsic value. They exist only as numbers in a blockchain, and they’re worth whatever the wildly swinging market says they are worth at a given moment. But even if crypto has no real-world value, it absolutely has a real-world cost. Because calculating the numbers required to crypto transactions involves solving mathematical equations that are purposely difficult to execute. Completing those calculations requires more and more dedicated computing hardware over time—and more and more energy.

As a new report from the Energy Information Administration warns, “mining” for cryptocurrency now consumes up to 2.3% of electricity produced in the U.S. What’s more, that power includes some of the dirtiest electricity in the nation. It’s also directly affecting the cost of electricity for consumers while putting money in the pockets of the companies mining for “digital gold.”

According to the EIA, the 2022 amount of electricity consumed by cryptocurrencies was “similar to all home computers or residential lighting in the United States.” Now crypto is consuming still more, and the new report notes there have been incidents in which “electricity prices spiked due to a sudden surge in cryptocurrency mining.” 

As The Texas Tribune reported in January, one Bitcoin mining company made millions by taking advantage of Texas’ managed energy market during last summer’s heat waves. As Texans were suffering through record-breaking heat and being asked to cut back on their use of electricity,  crypto mining company Riot Platforms sold off $32 million in power credits it had purchased when the market was low. 

But consumers aren’t able to play this game. Instead, they pay inflated rates for the electricity that companies are selling back to the grid at a profit. In the case of cryptocurrency miners, companies can take a big payday precisely because the miners are such large consumers of power.  “I think that the rewards for their behavior are so lucrative and unfair,” said Mandy DeRoche, deputy managing attorney at Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental group. “It’s like we’re bending over backwards to give money to the (crypto) miner for putting the strain on the grid and the system in the first place.”

But dipping into people’s pockets for a discount may be one of these crypto mining companies’ more benign activities. Across the country, crypto mining has bolstered failing coal and gas power plants and kept them running. According to Sierra, the magazine of the Sierra Club, some of these plants are using waste coal left over from previous mining specifically because it contains high levels of sulfur, mercury, lead, and other pollutants. Now it’s being burned for Bitcoin.

During the Trump administration, EPA restrictions were relaxed, allowing miners to use tremendous amounts of power with very little oversight because their power stays “behind the meter” rather than being sent out to consumers. Because they are not regulated as power producers, most crypto mining companies can avoid reporting their emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Cryptocurrency is imaginary. But the consequences of producing crypto are real. They affect real consumers’ pocketbooks and, thanks to lax regulation, they affect the whole world by turning out more greenhouse gasses as well as other pollutants.

 

New Hope for the Last Two Northern White Rhinos on Earth

Last November, Curra-- a southern white rhinoceros at Kenya's Ol Pejeta Conservancy died.   Heavy rains had flooded the animal’s enclosure and it was discovered she had been infected by free dormant bacteria spores which eventually resulted in her death.  But amid the tragedy comes a beacon of hope — one that might save an entire subspecies from extinction.

 During the postmortem, a 70-day-old male fetus was found in Curra’s womb. She had been pregnant.  A couple of months earlier, scientists with the BioRescue consortium implanted Curra with two southern white rhino embryos, hoping that she would become a surrogate mother. Never before had a rhino been impregnated via in vitro fertilization.  “We knew that if it was from the embryo transfer, it would be a huge breakthrough,” said  JanStejskal, BioRescue's project coordinator.  Weeks later, DNA analysis confirmed that the pregnancy was the result of the embryo transfer. It was the world’s first IVF rhino pregnancy.

Scientists and conservationists are now hoping that IVF can be used to save another rhino subspecies: the northern white rhino, which is critically endangered because of poachers who have relentlessly hunted them for their horns. 

Texas Border Convoy Seemingly Filled with Antisemitic Jerks

A video is being widely circulated on social media of an antisemitic conspiracy theory being promoted at a Texas border rally.  The video shows Michael Yon making false claims regarding so-called "terrorists coming across the border being funded by Jewish money." Yon was speaking at a "Take Back Our Border" convoy in Texas.

In the video posted on X, the man can be heard claiming that HIAS, a global Jewish nonprofit that works to protect refugees, is responsible for funding terrorists coming to America.  The claims are untrue and tap into wider false conspiracy theories from right-wingers regarding Jewish links to terrorism schemes.  Yon re-posted the video with the caption: "And now imagine actually shutting the border. Imagine that. I've supported Israel for years...until the jab-pushing and other genocidal spectacles."

In a separate video of the same event posted by Ryan Matta, he also claims that Hamas and Hezbollah "are coming across" the U.S. border. "Venezuela is filled with Hezbollah," he said. "Our borders are wide open, it's our government that's doing it." Yon re-posted the video with the caption "Allahu Akbar!"   The phrase"Allahu Akbar" has significant meaning for Muslims and is often used as a call to prayer. The usually peaceful phrase has been associated with extremists because some militants have used the phrase when conducting terrorist attacks.

 

Jennifer Lopez-Can't Get Enough

More From Rotten Cotten

The Senate held a hearing this week on child safety in social media. Executives from Meta, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Discord, and other sites took questions from senators about what their sites were doing to protect children from scams, predators, and exposure to material intended for adults.

But when Republican Sen. Tom Cotton got his opportunity to ask questions, he totally forgot about the part where this hearing was supposed to be about vulnerable children. Instead, he went straight after TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew with a series of odd questions about Chew’s personal connections to “the Chinese Communist Party.” 

When Chew tried repeatedly to make it clear that he was not from China, but Singapore, a small nation off the coast of Malaysia (and nearly 1,200 miles from the nearest point in China) Cotton was not having it:

Cotton: You said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen?

Chew: Singapore.

Cotton: Are you a citizen of any other nation?

Chew: No, senator.

Cotton: Have you ever applied for Chinese citizenship?

Chew: Senator, I served my nation of Singapore. No. I did not.

Cotton: Do you have a Singaporean passport?

Chew: Yes, and I served my military for two and a half years.

Cotton: Do you have any other passports?

Chew: No, senator. 

[…] 

Cotton: Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?

Chew: Senator, I’m Singaporean. No.

Cotton: Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?

Chew: No, senator. Again, I’m Singaporean.

Cotton later went on to make himself an idiot on Fox News, claiming that “Singapore, unfortunately, is one of the places in the world that has the highest degree of infiltration and influence by the Chinese Communist Party. So, Mr. Chew has a lot to answer for."  What Chew has to answer for is that he’s from Singapore. Unfortunately, Tom Cotton has to answer for being a moron.