© Ramin Talaie/Corbis via Getty ImagesPierre Omidyar, Founder of eBay, and Publisher of the Intercept looks on during the final session of the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York, on Thursday, September 23, 2010.
It is completely unsurprising to learn, as Politico
reported last Wednesday, that the major financial
supporter of Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen's sprawling P.R. and legal network coordinating her public campaign is the billionaire founder of EBay, Pierre Omidyar. The Haugen Show continues today as a consortium of carefully cultivated news outlets (including those who have been most devoted to
agitating for online censorship: the
New York Times' "tech" unit and NBC News's "disinformation" team) began publishing the
trove of archives she took from Facebook under the self-important title "The Facebook Papers," while the star herself has traveled to London to
testify today to British lawmakers considering
a bill to
criminally punish tech companies that allow "foul content" or "extremism" — whatever that means — to be published.
On Sunday, Haugen
told The New York Times that her own personal Bitcoin wealth means she is relying on "help from nonprofit groups backed by Mr. Omidyar only for travel and similar expenses." But the paper also confirmed that the firm masterminding Haugen's public campaign roll-out and complex media strategy, a group "founded by the former Barack Obama aide Bill Burton," is "being paid by donors, including the nonprofit groups backed by Mr. Omidyar." He is also a major donor to a
shady new group calling itself "Whistleblower Aid" — bizarrely led by anti-Trump lawyer and social media #Resistance star Mark Zaid, who has been one of the most vocal critics of
actual whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, both of whose imprisonment he has long demanded — that is now featuring Haugen as its star client.
Comment: It's a shame to see the research trend of 15-20 years ago veer off course away from comets as the likely cause of sudden catastrophic climate change. However, it's good to see that at least some climate science acknowledges that the only climate change worth really worrying about is the sudden, NATURALLY-CAUSED kind.
We get it though. Comets are just too much for people. It's scary to contemplate, and disturbs too many beliefs.