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Notes on a Friday night

Matt Taibbi
taibbi.substack.com
Sat, 24 Dec 2022 00:00 UTC
Bridge
© UnknownSan Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge
Sitting in a hotel bar in San Francisco, going through what's become a nightly "remembering to eat" ritual. As readers here know, this has been a crazy month, during which time I lost track of a lot of things. I've been an absentee father during the holidays, which is contemptible, and also remiss when it comes to responsibilities to subscribers to this site, omitting to even take time to explain basic things, which I'll try to do now.

Once again today we did not publish the written America This Week, which frankly will have to stay on hold for at least a little while longer. Also once again, I've abused the patience of podcast partner Walter Kirn, who's been a great friend during this time and deserves better. We will do another makeup episode early next week, and I'll announce the details as soon as I can.

The reason for all this of course is the Twitter Files story. This last week saw the FBI describe Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger and me as "conspiracy theorists" whose "sole aim" is to discredit the agency. That statement will look ironic soon, as we spent much of this week learning about other agencies and organizations that can now also be discredited thanks to these files. Selfishly I may release some of that information in the morning, to be done with it so I can be fully-present Dad on the actual holiday.
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Pistol

CDC funding decisions based largely on politics, not science

John R. Lott, Jr.
RealClear Politics
Wed, 21 Dec 2022 00:00 UTC
CDC building
© Associated Press
For the second year in a row, the Centers for Disease Control has been caught ignoring science and letting liberal interest groups set its policies.

In 2021, the American Pediatric Academy and the Children's Hospital Association tracked COVID-19 statistics in children and the data show no relationship between mask mandates and the rate at which children caught the disease. In the face of this evidence - and other data showing that masks harm children's development, the CDC supported masking students after being pressured by the National Education Association (the nation's largest teachers' union).

Now comes word that CDC is again allowing partisan politics to influence its policies. This time, gun control activists got the CDC to remove research fromits website. Yet, the CDC is trusted to impartially dole out millions of dollars for public health research on firearms: From 2020 to 2022, the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) each spent about $50 million on such research.
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Stop

IRS halts controversial new rule requiring reporting of $600 payments


TruthPress
Sat, 24 Dec 2022 00:00 UTC
IRS bldg
© Unknown
The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced Friday a one year delay to new tax reporting requirements for digital transactions over a $600 threshold.

The delay prevents e-commerce platforms from having to send 1099-K tax forms to users and the IRS starting in 2023. It also gives more time for oppositional lawmakers to raise the revenue threshold, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O'Donnell told the WSJ:
"The additional time will help reduce confusion during the coming 2023 tax filing season and provide more time for taxpayers to prepare and understand the new reporting requirements."

Comment: Who benefits the most from tax collection? The agencies that collect.

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Arrow Up

A Gift of Words

Edward Curtin
Off-Guardian
Sat, 24 Dec 2022 19:16 UTC
Xmas Gifts
© Off-Guardian
"The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood."
Karl Kraus, Half-Truths & One-and-a-Half Truths
Things, possessions, life on the installment plan or credit card. This is the season to buy, to accumulate more folderols, to give things to one's children and each other, which, we like to believe, will bring joy.

It's make-believe, of course, an adult lie conjured up out of guilt and fear that our lives, the stories we live, the stories we dream, and those that dream us, are insufficiently meaningful to bring our children and ourselves the joy we say we seek.

Driven by a pure sense of guilt devoid of any sense of redemption in a capitalist materialist culture, we buy and buy, accumulate and accumulate, in the vain hope that such tangible "gifts" will bring a magic that we can possess. Our exchange of gifts is a consumer culture's parody of the true meaning of a gift: that gifts are given to be given away, to be passed around, like the peace pipe of native American Indian tribes.

As Lewis Hyde writes in his extraordinary book, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property:
...a gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is its constant donation."
What we are given, in the inner and outer world, must be shared, allowed to circulate. But we like to own, to stop the flow. As a result, we have become stuck, selfie people who can't understand that to possess is to be possessed.

Stop, pose, click. Got it!
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Handcuffs

FBI's most-wanted porn fugitive arrested in Spain


RT
Sat, 24 Dec 2022 15:32 UTC
Michael James Pratt
© FBI
A man on the FBI's list of ten most-wanted fugitives was arrested in Spain earlier this week, the US agency has revealed. New Zealand citizen Michael James Pratt had fled the US after being sentenced to life behind bars, on charges of sexual exploitation, production of child pornography and sexual assault.

In a statement released on Friday, the FBI revealed that Pratt, who had been on the run since 2019, was apprehended on Wednesday in Madrid. The arrest was based on an Interpol Red Notice - a worldwide request to law enforcement to detain a person, pending extradition or similar legal action.

Pratt is currently awaiting extradition in Spanish custody.

Commenting on the arrest, FBI agent Stacey Moy of the San Diego Field Office said: "The capture of Michael Pratt is an example of how the FBI will pursue justice beyond US borders - you can run but you can't hide."

Comment: Good one, FBI. Now do the one where you catch Epstein's clients.

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Fire

Nine killed in fuel tanker explosion near Johannesburg, South Africa


TRT World
Sun, 25 Dec 2022 14:18 UTC
Videos on social media showed a huge fireball under the bridge, which the tanker appeared to have been too high to go under
© AAA SECURITY GROUP / ReutersVideos on social media showed a huge fireball under the bridge, which the tanker appeared to have been too high to go under
Nine people died and 40 others were injured in Boksburg, a city east of Johannesburg, when a fuel tanker exploded, emergency services said.

The tanker, transporting liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), "got stuck under a bridge" close to a hospital and houses on Saturday morning.

"We received a call towards 7:50 am (0550 GMT) telling us a gas tanker was stuck under a bridge. Firefighters were called to extinguish the flames. Unfortunately, the tanker exploded," William Ntladi, spokesman for the emergency services in the region, told AFP news agency.

One of those injured was the driver who has been taken to hospital, he added.

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USA

Everyone is ditching the dollar - Bloomberg

Michelle Jamrisko
Bloomberg
Thu, 22 Dec 2022 22:16 UTC
dollar juan
© STR/AFP via Getty ImagesFILE PHOTO: The US dollar may be losing its dominance in the Middle East to the yuan.
Tired of a too-strong and newly weaponized greenback, some of the world's biggest economies are exploring ways to circumvent the US currency.

Smaller nations, including at least a dozen in Asia, are also experimenting with de-dollarization. And corporates around the world are selling an unprecedented portion of their debt in local currencies, wary of further dollar strength.

No one is saying the greenback will be dethroned anytime soon from its reign as the principal medium of exchange. Calls for "peak dollar" have many times proven premature. But not too long ago it was almost unthinkable for countries to explore payment mechanisms that bypassed the US currency or the SWIFT network that underpins the global financial system.

Now, the sheer strength of the dollar, its use under President Joe Biden to enforce sanctions on Russia this year and new technological innovations are together encouraging nations to start chipping away at its hegemony. Treasury officials declined to comment on these developments.
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Heart - Black

Shameful: National Guard informs troops last paycheck before Christmas will be late as Biden admin sends billions to Ukraine

Jack Posobiec and Hannah Nightingale
The Post Millennial
Fri, 23 Dec 2022 22:18 UTC
national guard blizzard zelensky biden
(L) New York Army National Guard Soldiers from the 42nd Combat Aviation Brigade based in Latham prepare their Humvees for missions as a massive snow storm hits New York March 14, 2017.
(R) Biden and Zelensky meet before Zelensky's congressional address demanding more aid for Ukraine
The National Guard Bureau "is currently working the issue with DFAS time now," the letter read, "we would hope the issue is rectified today or tomorrow."

On Friday it was revealed that the Biden administration failed to pay numerous National Guard troops their final year end pay on time during the week of Christmas. The failure came after approving a contoversial additional $45 billion aid package to Ukraine, and the House passing a $1.7 trillion spending plan.

"Hello gents," began a letter sent to members of the National Guard, obtained by The Post Millennial, "if you have been tracking, the pay issue that has been plaguing the unit and the division as well." Reports came in from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and South Carolina from troops angered and upset that their pay hadn't yet come through.

Comment: American citizens last . . . . . .

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Footprints

With rifles and razor wire, National Guard and state troopers are blocking migrants at the border in El Paso

Uriel J. Garcia, Alex Nguyen
The Texas Tribune
Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00 UTC
migrants
© Ivan Pierre Aguirre/The Texas TribuneMigrants on bank of the Rio Grande, El Paso
As cities on the Texas-Mexico border continue preparing for a possible influx of migrants and Title 42 remains in limbo, a shallow spot in the Rio Grande where thousands have recently crossed became the scene of a standoff Monday.

National Guard members and state troopers formed a line on the banks of the Rio Grande on Tuesday and blocked dozens of migrants who had already crossed the river from surrendering to nearby Border Patrol agents.

About 75 men, women and children stood on a narrow strip of concrete between the river and the guard members, facing coils of razor wire, seven National Guard members holding rifles and two state troopers as a National Guard member holding a bullhorn told them in Spanish that they would not be able to enter the country here and directed them to a port of entry.

Border Patrol agents positioned behind the National Guard and state troopers watched the standoff. A Border Patrol spokesperson on site said Border Patrol agents would not process the migrants.

Under Title 42, the pandemic-era emergency health order that immigration officials have used to immediately expel migrants, ports of entry are closed to migrants seeking asylum.
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No Entry

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers order NGOs to prevent women from working at their jobs as protests spread


RFE/RL
Sat, 24 Dec 2022 19:01 UTC
women
© EPA/EFEAfghani Women
In the latest assault on women's rights, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers ordered all domestic and international NGOs to prevent female employees from working at their jobs, claiming that many were not observing dress codes in the conservative Muslim nation.

"There have been serious complaints regarding the nonobservance of the Islamic hijab and other rules and regulations pertaining to the work of females in national and international organizations," the Islamist group's economy ministry said on December 24 in a note sent to NGOs and seen by AFP and other Western news agencies.

AP reported that the note said that any organization which did not comply with the order would have its license to operate in the country revoked.

Full details of the order were not immediately available, and it was not clear how it would affect the various United Nations agencies operating in Afghanistan.
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