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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | It's Great That Athletes Are Speaking Out. But Some of Them Are Spouting Nonsense
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Los Angeles Times
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "Unfortunately, along with these informed and articulate voices, we've also heard some downright silly opinions that threaten to reduce athlete's voices to the old dumb-jock stereotype - as well as undermine progress toward social equality."
fter years of being told to “shut up and play,” athletes have finally fought their way out of the locker room and begun publicly voicing their opinions. Some people would prefer we had remained silent sentinels. But that would be like asking clergy who had become aware of sexual abuse to “shut up and pray” rather than speak out.Athletes have worked hard and sacrificed a lot to be taken seriously as more than stereotypical dumb jocks. Professional sports organizations and owners have threatened athletes with fines and even with the loss of their careers to silence their voices. But this last year saw athletes across a broad spectrum of sports — from basketball’s LeBron James to baseball’s Clayton Kershaw to tennis’ Naomi Osaka — forming a chorus for humanity.
Earlier this month, former NFL player Herschel Walker released a video declaring his rejection of Black Lives Matter because two of the organizers claimed they were Marxists: “Is this who you are supporting? A trained Marxist tells you they are anti-government, anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-everything.”
Everything about this statement is misleading, illogical, or simply wrong (anti-everything?). Walker shows a clear lack of understanding of what BLM is or who supports it. There are some organizations that use the name Black Lives Matter, but they are only a small part of a larger movement that encompasses many loosely affiliated groups and individuals. Civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson describes the movement as including “all who publicly declare that black lives matter and devote their time and energy accordingly.” How a Black person like Walker doesn’t know this is astounding and irresponsible.
If he had done any reading on the subject, he’d have learned that four different polls have suggested the BLM protests were the largest movement in America’s history, with anywhere from 15 million to 26 million people participating. These many millions of Americans aren’t espousing “Marxist” ideology, they are protesting anti-American racism.
Walker’s hasty generalization, which uses a tiny sample to reach a conclusion about a far larger group, is the bedrock of most racist claims. The same kind of flawed reasoning has been used to lump protesters, rioters and looters together in a single group because they were in the same location. President Trump has openly admitted to lying to the public about the seriousness of the pandemic, to grabbing women’s crotches, to deliberately walking in on semi-naked teenagers during pageants, and to cheating on his wife. Should we conclude from his behavior that all Republicans are lying sexual predators and adulterers? Of course not, and, like Black Lives Matter supporters, they shouldn’t be lumped together as a single monolith.
And then there’s beach volleyball gold-medal Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings, one of the most amazing athletes I’ve ever seen. On Sept. 6, Jennings posted on Instagram a lengthy justification for going shopping without a mask, which she called “a little exercise in being brave.” Faced with a lot of backlash, Jennings posted more rambling mish-mosh about how “we have to stay mindful of the FACT that our freedoms have slowly been taken from us with our consent.”
Though Jennings said she was “advocating critical thinking,” there was none in either of her explanations. Which freedoms are we giving up? The freedom to potentially transmit a deadly disease to other shoppers? Mask refuseniks tend to see themselves as brave freedom-lovers rather than what they really are: the modern-day versions of the doubters who, when it was discovered that microscopic organisms caused deadly diseases, laughed and said, “If you can’t see them, they don’t exist.”
While it’s true that everyone has the freedom to be ignorant, the ignorance of mask resisters threatens the health and lives of others, making them a major public health hazard. Their kind of “bravery” has contributed to 200,000 American deaths.
Novak Djokovic, the world’s No. 1-ranked men’s tennis player, is another athlete who has abused his megaphone. He organized a tennis tournament at the height of the COVID pandemic in June at which players and fans participated without masks or social distancing. He and his wife contracted the virus, as did other participants, yet Djokovic argued that “if I had the chance to do the Adria Tour again, I would.” Fellow tennis star Dominic Thiem, who played in the tournament, defended Djokovic, saying, “He didn’t break any laws.”
Being responsible role models during a worldwide pandemic that has killed nearly a million people isn’t about laws; it’s about concern and respect for the lives of others, especially the others who can’t afford to miss work or don’t have access to good healthcare.
When I think of the personal sacrifices of athletes like Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Colin Kaepernick, and the harsh price they all paid for using their voices to advocate for a more equitable and safer world for everyone, it’s distressing to see other athletes tarnish that legacy. Yes, they have a right to speak out, but they also have a responsibility to use their voices to improve the world rather than harm it.
Amy Coney Barrett. (photo: Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images)
Amy Coney Barrett: Spotlight Falls on Secretive Catholic Group People of Praise
Stephanie Kirchgaessner, Guardian UK
Kirchgaessner writes: "Donald Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has drawn attention to a secretive Catholic 'covenant community' called People of Praise that counts Barrett as a member and faces claims of adhering to a 'highly authoritarian' structure."
Trump’s pick is a member of a ‘covenant community’ that faces claims of a ‘highly authoritarian’ structure
The 48-year-old appellate court judge has said she is a “faithful Catholic” but that her religious beliefs would not “bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge”.
At the same time, the Louisiana native and Notre Dame Law graduate, a favorite among Trump’s evangelical Christian base, has said legal careers ought not to be seen as means of gaining satisfaction, prestige or money, but rather “as a means to the end of serving God”.
Interviews with experts who have studied charismatic Christian groups such as People of Praise, and with former members of the group, plus a review of the group’s own literature, reveal an organization that appears to dominate some members’ everyday lives, in which so-called “heads” – or spiritual advisers – make big life decisions, and in which members are expected to financially support one another.
Married women – such as Barrett – count their husbands as their “heads” and all members are expected to donate 5% of their income to the organization.
/us-news/2017/feb/22/us-politics-minute-sign-up-email-newsletter-app-notification
Some conservative and progressive activists have said any discussion of Barrett’s faith is inappropriate in the context of a Senate confirmation to assess her judicial qualifications, and potentially reflects anti-Catholic bigotry.
Other Catholic writers have said it is fair to scrutinize People of Praise because the group falls far outside mainstream Catholicism.
Barrett has not publicly discussed her affiliation but her connection was reported in multiple media accounts at the time of her confirmation to an appellate court in 2017.
Her picture appears in a May 2006 edition of People of Praise’s magazine, which documents her participation in a Leaders’ Conference for Women. Her father and her husband, Jesse Barrett, are also known members.
The group emerged out of the Catholic charismatic movement of the late 1960s, which blended Catholicism and Protestant Pentecostalism – Catholics and Protestants are both members – and adopted practices like speaking in tongues. The group’s literature shows communal living is also encouraged, at least among unmarried members, as is the sharing of finances between households.
A July 2007 “our money our selves” edition of People of Praise’s Vine & Branch magazine included an article about a 17-member group of women described as “single for the Lord” and living together in South Bend, Indiana. The women shared a “sisterhood budget”, which involved them pooling their paychecks while a “head of the sisterhood” determined, with the sisters’ input, how the money was spent.
“If one of us has a need, we’ll pay for it,” one woman named Debbie was quoted as saying. “But we also work hard to distinguish between our needs and our wants.”
The “sisterhood” is described as living “simply, frugally, and generously”, with about $36 put aside per week per person for food and dry goods and $10 for pocket money to buy “Slurpees and movie tickets”. They buy clothes at thrift stores and garage sales and 10% of their income is directed to People of Praise.
The article quotes a head sister named Nano as saying: “If each of us had her own money, it would change everything. Just as we would have our own shelf in the refrigerator, so we would probably partition off other parts of our lives and be more guarded in certain areas. Having money in common moves you to put everything in common.”
Adrian Reimers, a former member turned critic of the group, described in a book available online called Not Reliable Guides his “grave concern” about how the life of People of Praise members were “not his or her own” and how “all one’s decisions and dealings become the concern of one’s head, and in turn potentially become known to the leadership”.
Reached by the Guardian, Reimers said he did not want to discuss the matter further.
Writing for Politico, Massimo Faggioli, a historian and theologian at Villanova University, said there were “tensions” between serving as a supreme court justice, one of the final interpreters of the US constitution, and swearing an oath to an organization he said “lacks transparency and visible structures of authority that are accountable to their members, to the Roman Catholic church, and to the wider public”.
“A lot of what goes on in People of Praise is not that different than what goes on in a lot of rightwing or conservative Catholic circles,” said Heidi Schlumpf, executive editor for National Catholic Reporter, which reports on the church.
“Whether People of Praise rises to the level of cult, I am not in a position to make that judgment. But there is a level of secrecy that was concerning, and there was a level of reports by people who left the organization of authoritarianism that [is] concerning as well.”
‘Neither an oath nor a vow’
People of Praise is headed by an all-male board of governors described as its “highest authority”.
On its website, the group, which was founded in South Bend in 1971 and has 1,700 members, describes itself as a community that “shares our lives together” and “support each other financially and materially and spiritually”.
“Our covenant is neither an oath nor a vow, but it is an important personal commitment,” the website says. “We teach that People of Praise members should always follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, and by the experience and the teachings of their churches.”
A spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment about allegations of authoritarian structure or why the group has been described as a cult by some former followers. The spokesman directed the Guardian to the website and said he was being inundated with media requests from all over the world.
Financial records previously submitted to Congress show Barrett served as a trustee for the Trinity School at Greenlawn, a private Catholic school affiliated with People of Praise, from 2015 to 2017. A parent handbook describes the school’s commitment to the establishment of “Christian relationships” that adhere to “scripture and Christian tradition”.
“We understand marriage to be a legal and committed relationship between a man and a woman and believe that the only proper place for sexual activity is within these bounds of conjugal love,” the handbook says, emphasizing that any sex outside of marriage – whether gay or straight – is not in keeping with “God’s plan for human sexuality”.
Students who experience same-sex attraction, the handbook says, ought not to “prematurely interpret any emotional experience as identity-defining”.
“We believe that such self-identification at a young age can lead to students being labeled based solely upon sexuality, generate distraction, create confusion, and prevent students from experiencing true freedom within the culture of the school,” the handbook says.
While the school’s objection to gay marriage and attraction is in line with mainstream Catholic teaching, the handbook also actively discourages teenage students from forming “exclusive relationships”, and asks them not to “be exclusive or give evidence of their dating relationships while at school”.
While the handbook does not describe its objection to such relationships, one expert who asked not to be named, because they had already received online abuse for speaking critically about People of Praise, said it revealed the importance the group put on the concept of community, rather than individual relationships.
“It’s typical of these charismatic communities that friendship is seen as a danger to the community,” the person said. “That’s normal.”
Teachers who apply for jobs at any schools affiliated with People of Praise are told, according to an online application, that they need to adhere to a “basic code of Christian conduct”.
‘A grave violation of religious freedom’
Democrats will likely be most concerned about Barrett’s views on abortion and the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era law that extended health insurance to millions of Americans.
In 2012, as a professor at Notre Dame, Barrett signed a letter attacking a provision of the ACA that forced insurance companies to offer coverage for contraception, a facet of the law later modified for religious institutions. The adjustment forced insurance companies – not employers – to alert employees to contraception and abortion drugs that were available under the insurance plan.
The letter Barrett signed said: “The simple fact is that the Obama administration is compelling religious people and institutions who are employers to purchase a health insurance contract that provides abortion-inducing drugs, contraception and sterilization. This is a grave violation of religious freedom and cannot stand.”
If she is confirmed before the November election, one of Barrett’s first cases could determine the fate of the Affordable Care Act.
'I Voted' stickers on a table. (photo: Nam Y Huh/AP)
Pennsylvania's 'Naked Ballot' Ruling Will 'Cause Electoral Chaos,' Philly Commissioner Warns
Michael Tanenbaum, PhillyVoice
Tanenbaum writes: "When Pennsylvania residents return their mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election, they are required to enclose their completed ballots within a 'secrecy envelope' that removes identifying information when votes are counted."
Letter to lawmakers says state could face legal crisis similar to Florida in 2000
The two-envelope system, employed by only 16 states, was originally designed to maintain anonymity when Pennsylvania counted absentee ballots at polling places. The outer envelope requires a signature to verify the validity of the ballot, allowing the secrecy envelope to be separated and the ballot later counted.
Ballots that are submitted without the secrecy envelope are considered "naked ballots," and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that such votes must be thrown away.
While most of the attention last week centered on the court's decision to extend the deadline for mail-in and absentee ballots to be received and counted by county election boards, the naked ballot ruling could potentially have serious ramifications.
The 2020 election will see an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots compared to previous elections. The scale of potential voter error increases dramatically, raising the likelihood that a significant number of votes could be invalidated as a result of a technicality.
Pennsylvania is considered perhaps the most decisive battleground state in the 2020 presidential race, with a thin margin expected to separate President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
In a letter to Pennsylvania lawmakers on Monday, Philadelphia City Commissioners chair Lisa Deeley forcefully warned of the damage the naked ballot ruling could do if left alone.
"Recent actions by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court have set Pennsylvania up to be the subject of significant post-election legal controversy, the likes of which we have not seen since Florida in 2000," Deeley wrote.
Further complicating matters is that the state doesn't have an official tally of the number of naked ballots that were received in the June 2020 primary election, which was considered a test-run for the general election.
Approximately 1.5 million mail-in and absentee ballots were submitted in the June primary, accounting for a little more than half the total received.
To generate an estimate of the potential number of "naked ballots" at stake, Deeley looked at Philadelphia's transcripts from the 2019 general election. The Philadelphia Board of Elections received 3,086 absentee ballots, including 197 "naked ballots" that were counted in accordance with the board's precedent of doing so, barring objections that began surfacing at that time.
That means about 6.4% of the absentee ballots Philadelphia received in 2019 would have to be thrown out, based on the Supreme Court's ruling last week.
"If you carry that percentage over, we would have received 11,211 naked ballots in the 2020 Primary," Deeley wrote. "Under the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's recent ruling, that would amount to 11,211 votes that would not have been counted."
Deeley expressed further concern that the estimate above reflects error from voters who likely would have been more accustomed to mail-in ballots from previous elections. In 2020, driven by the coronavirus pandemic, the number of first-time mail-in voters is expected to surge.
If naked ballots rise even somewhat proportionately under the circumstances in 2020, the outcome could be decisive.
"That number could rise to more than 100,000 votes statewide — votes that will not be counted, all because of a minor technicality," Deeley wrote. "When you consider that the 2016 Presidential Election in Pennsylvania was decided by just over 44,000 votes, you can see why I am concerned."
That estimate would not even include thousands votes that may be canceled for other reasons, such as problems with signatures, mail delivery or those returned too late. About 20,000 mail-in votes were tossed from the June primary for a combination of these reasons.
Surveys have shown that Democrats are more than twice as likely as Republicans to vote by mail in 2020, leading to a greater chance that votes for Biden would be tossed in Pennsylvania.
"This is not a partisan issue," Deeley continued. "We are talking about the voting rights of our constituents, whether they be Democrats, Republicans, or independents, whose ballots will be needlessly set aside. As public servants, we owe it to all citizens to avoid this situation, and the likely chaos that would come with it."
Arguing that secrecy envelopes be scrapped altogether, Deeley pointed to the industrialized process in which votes are now counted centrally. The Philadelphia Board of Elections, for instance, has purchased 22 extraction desks that operate at high speeds, practically eliminating concerns about anonymity.
"This equipment will allow us to remove about 12,000 ballots an hour," Deeley wrote. "Without a secrecy envelope, we could remove 24,000 an hour, and we could scan 32,000 ballots an hour. At these speeds, there is no opportunity to stop, or even slow down, and identify how an individual voted — anonymity is maintained."
In 2020, Deeley argues the secrecy ballot exists only to "disenfranchise well-intentioned Pennsylvania voters."
Last week's court decision, written by Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer, a Democrat, stated that the state legislature believed the two-envelope process was necessary to ensure an orderly canvas of mail-in ballots without revealing critical identifying information.
"Whatever the wisdom of the requirement, the command that the mail-in elector utilize the secrecy envelope and leave it unblemished by identifying information is neither ambiguous nor unreasonable," Baer wrote.
Deeley's letter, countering the ruling on grounds of the unprecedented scale of 2020 mail-in ballots, urges the state legislature to eliminate the secrecy envelope requirement. Doing so as soon as possible would be crucial to ensuring that voters can be properly informed.
In the absence of any legislative change, the proper procedure for returning mail-in ballots with both envelopes — "an extremely odd and unusual way to mail something," Deeley wrote — will need to be a critical objective of voter outreach and education in the weeks ahead.
Read Deeley's entire letter below:
Commissioner Deeley Secrecy Envelope Letter by PhillyVoice.com on Scribd
Steve Bannon. (image: Daily Beast/Getty Images)
Steve Bannon's Dodgy Nonprofit Teamed Up With Company Linked to Accused Gold Scammers
William Bredderman, The Daily Beast
Bredderman writes: "When former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's nonprofit sought to restore an American golden age, it turned to a company with connections to a consortium that allegedly strip-mined the retirement accounts of elderly conservatives."
Platinum Advertising, which worked for Bannon’s Citizens of the American Republic, tied to firm accused of defrauding seniors of $185 million.
hen former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s nonprofit sought to restore an American golden age, it turned to a company with connections to a consortium that allegedly strip-mined the retirement accounts of elderly conservatives, The Daily Beast has discovered.
Bannon’s “economic nationalist” group Citizens of the American Republic hired the Wyoming-based firm Platinum Advertising Corporation in 2018 to handle its “websites/social media,” Internal Revenue Service records show. A tangle of corporate and legal documents ties Platinum Advertising to TMTE Inc.—a precious metal dealer accused on Friday of fraudulently extracting $185 million from senior citizens by selling them overpriced bullion.
The massive joint action the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission and 30 states announced against TMTE alleged that the Los Angeles-based company had suckered 1,600 mostly silver-haired victims into sinking their life savings into precious metals sold at up to 300 percent of their market value. The charges are familiar to anybody who has followed the long trail of news reports and regulatory actions describing how TMTE—which has variously used the monikers Access Unlimited, TEM, Chase Metals, and Metals.com—cashed in on the right-wing paranoia of the Trump era.
Even prior to the CFTC-led case on Friday, a dozen states, including Alabama and Kentucky, had accused TMTE of posing as an investment adviser and bilking senior citizens of their assets. Articles in Quartz last year detailed how the company used a combination of politically themed Facebook ads, talk radio spots, misleading websites, and high-pressure telephone sales tactics to target right-leaning, Fox News-viewing retirees and convince them to purchase gold and silver at hugely inflated rates. These efforts often involved overt biblical appeals, or echoed the rhetoric of President Donald Trump and Republican pundits by invoking the threat “liberals” and the “Deep State” supposedly posed to the economy and to the victims’ personal finances.
“Metals[.com] reached potential investors through advertisements on Facebook, conservative talk radio show, and conservative-leaning financial newsletters,” Colorado Securities Commissioner Tung Chan told The Daily Beast. “They targeted these ads at potential investors at or near retirement age with conservative political leanings.”
These echo findings in Missouri, Arkansas, and Nevada that TMTE relied on ominous advertising, “scare tactics,” and “misstatements and omitted information” to sell marked-up coins to vulnerable people aged 60 and up. Despite signing multiple cease-and-desist deals and disgorging millions of dollars, TMTE has publicly denied ever committing fraud.
Citizens of the American Republic’s bank-shot association with TMTE, which has never before been revealed, is just the latest problematic partnership for Bannon, who was caught up in a two-count federal indictment alleging fraud at a separate nonprofit, We Build the Wall, Inc. But the ties between the former Breitbart chairman and TMTE are less direct and more complex than his relationship to the alleged private border wall grifting operation.
The most recent tax forms Citizens of the American Republic filed with the Internal Revenue Service show it paid Platinum Advertising Corporation $143,655 in 2018 to shape its web presence. Platinum Advertising’s filings in Wyoming reveal little, beyond that the company registered in that jurisdiction in 2018. Gerald Pitts was listed as its secretary and director. Pitts runs Wyoming Corporate Services, which has filed paperwork in the notoriously opaque state for dozens of clients, including TMTE.
But Platinum Advertising—named for one of the priciest precious metals on Earth—also registered an affiliate in March of this year in California, where TMTE operates. And the registration statement bears the name and distinctive signature of Conor O’Reilly, whose LinkedIn profile shows he was employed full-time during that period as in-house counsel and compliance officer to Metals.com. Among his listed responsibilities were “reviewing, revising, and approving any legal work done on behalf of the company” and “the formation of various entities.”
O’Reilly’s signature also marks the cease-and-desist and rescission agreements that TMTE and its affiliates agreed to in Colorado and Texas in 2019. In May 2020, two months after registering Platinum Advertising in the Golden State, he Docusigned a consent order with the Missouri secretary of state, again identifying himself as TMTE’s counsel and compliance officer.
TMTE’s attorney, Charles Harder—who has also recently represented Trump and his family—initially denied any link between TMTE and Platinum Advertising, even going so far as to suggest the latter company may not be real.
“Today is the first day that TMTE has ever heard of the existence of ‘Platinum Advertising Corp.’ (assuming that it exists),” he wrote in an email. “TMTE knows nothing about it and, again, is not in any way affiliated with it.”
Confronted with the evidence of O’Reilly’s involvement in Platinum, Harder asserted that the lawyer “was not exclusive to TMTE—he also did legal work separate from, and completely unaffiliated with, TMTE.”
This claim contradicts all publicly available evidence regarding O’Reilly, who did not reply to calls or emails from The Daily Beast. His LinkedIn profile characterizes his employment arrangement with Metals.com as “full-time” and “in-house,” and does not list any other work as an attorney. O’Reilly was admitted to the bar in December 2018, just one month before he began his job at Metals.com, and he is the only person by that name licensed to practice law in California.
During negotiations with the Texas State Securities Board in 2019, O’Reilly presented himself as an important official at TMTE.
“He represented that he had the authority to contractually bind the company,” said Enforcement Division Director Joseph Rotunda. “We are not talking about a low-level employee.”
Rotunda told The Daily Beast he was familiar with Platinum Advertising, but could not say whether it was involved in any criminal scheme, due to the ongoing legal actions.
Further, all other legal documents bearing O’Reilly’s name or signature are traceable to TMTE or one or more of its principals. The only corporate entity besides Platinum Advertising he has registered at the state level is USA Marketing Inc., another California affiliate of a Wyoming company originally incorporated by Pitts. USA Marketing uses the same Golden State address, inside Los Angeles’s Century Plaza Towers complex, as Platinum Advertising.
Wyoming filings from late 2019 list Graham Norris, a Utah-based lawyer, as USA Marketing’s “director.” Norris, who frequently works with Pitts, was listed as TMTE’s CEO, CFO, and secretary in a 2018 filing in California. A 2019 lawsuit brought by former executive vice president of sales at Chase Metals identified Norris as one of that company’s three principals.
In May this year O’Reilly applied for a trademark on behalf of another Wyoming-based precious metals-slinging company called Capital Today, Inc.
Capital Today’s state-level corporate filings are highly similar to Platinum Advertising’s. In Wyoming, both initially used Gerald Pitts as their registration agent, then switched to the Cloud Peak Law Group. In California, both firms used the exact same Wyoming address, the exact same California address, and the exact same agent for service of process—an Ethan D. Kirschner of Culver City, who did not respond to requests for comment.
Finally, the trademark application O’Reilly filed for Capital Today, which operates USAMint.com, used the address 8383 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 700, in Beverly Hills. Metals.com identified this location as one of its two in its correspondence with the Missouri secretary of state’s Securities Division, and the aforementioned lawsuit brought by the ex-sales executive described the Wilshire Boulevard suite as Chase Metals’ “principal business location.”
This also happens to be the address of Tower Equity—the investment firm founded by Norris’s fellow TMTE principals Lucas Asher and Simon Batashvili, which was also named and seized in the joint federal-state action on TMTE on Friday. All of this strongly indicates a nexus between Platinum Inc. and firms tied to TMTE—strongly enough that, when confronted with this evidence, a representative for TMTE walked back part of Harder’s statement in part.
The representative admitted that O’Reilly in fact had registered Platinum Advertising on the metal dealer’s behalf. However, they insisted that TMTE had only acquired the company as a “shelf entity” for future use in 2020, and that it was unaware of Platinum Advertising’s work for Bannon before and that the firm has not done any work with him since. Platinum Advertising, they maintained, currently has no assets, no employees, and has never had any business dealings during the time TMTE owned it. In fact, they asserted that the principals of TMTE had never even heard of Platinum Advertising before The Daily Beast inquired about it.
The TMTE representative declined to provide any documentation or on-the-record statements to substantiate these claims, and even suggested that Bannon might have hired another Platinum Advertising based in Wyoming. However, the state’s business records show only one entity of that name—the same one O’Reilly signed for in California.
In the TMTE representative’s version of events—at least, the version that lines up with the available documentary evidence—Bannon contracted Platinum Advertising to handle web and social media outreach for his conservative nonprofit. Then, sometime afterward, TMTE—which sells precious metals, including platinum, by targeting conservative voters on the web and through social media—happened to purchase the same company completely unaware of its history. Despite being completely empty and inactive, Platinum was somehow known to the Texas State Securities Board even when it was unknown to TMTE’s principals.
A representative for Bannon, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, did not answer repeated requests for comment.
Bannon has picked up a number of unsavory associates since his unceremonious exit from the White House in 2017. The Daily Beast revealed in June that the distributor of his podcast War Room is a longtime white-collar criminal. The former Goldman Sachs banker and Hollywood producer also launched several ventures with Guo Wengui, a billionaire Chinese national accused of an array of crimes in his home country, all of which he denies. Two of these entities have recently funded and promoted a dubious study asserting COVID-19 originated in a government lab in Wuhan.
It was on Wengui’s yacht that federal authorities arrested Bannon on fraud charges related to We Build the Wall Inc., itself a joint project with disabled war veteran, conservative activist, and serial entrepreneur Brian Kolfage—who has also been accused of misappropriating funds.
As the pandemic continues, some employers are increasing their efforts to monitor those working from home. (photo: borchee/Getty Images)
Shirking From Home? Staff Feel the Heat as Bosses Ramp Up Remote Surveillance
Alex Hern, Guardian UK
Hern writes: "For many, one of the silver linings of lockdown was the shift to remote working: a chance to avoid the crushing commute, supermarket meal deals and an overbearing boss breathing down your neck."
READ MORE
Awa Indigenous Community protests over the rising murders of their leaders, Nariño, Colombia, Aug. 18, 2020. (photo: Twitter/DianaDefensora)
Colombia: Five Indigenous People Killed, 40 Kidnapped in Nariño
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Illegal armed groups Saturday killed five members of the Awa Indigenous community and kidnapped another 40 members after it broke into the Awa people's Inda Sabaleta reservation, in the Narino Department."
llegal armed groups Saturday killed five members of the Awa Indigenous community and kidnapped another 40 members after it broke into the Awa people's Inda Sabaleta reservation, in the Narino Department.
Colombia's National Indigenous Organization (ONIC) warned of the grave situation in the Inda Sabaleta Indigenous Reservation of the Awa People.
"The five dead people have not yet been investigated by forensic doctors, while the wounded have not been transferred to any hospital," the organization stated.
Since the early hours of Saturday morning, the town has recorded clashes between the armed group 'Los Contadores' and the 'Oliver Sinisterra front', who were trying to take over the territory completely.
The Oliver Sinisterra front held at least 40 indigenous people, including two or three minors, youth, women, and adults.
"The people held by the armed group were defenseless, they were civilians from the reservation, and their whereabouts remain unknown," ONIC reported.
The organization asked Colombia's President Ivan Duque and the Ombudsman's Office to "adopt urgent measures to protect this community's human rights."
Protesters in Madrid participated in the Global Day of Action Climate on September 25, 2020. (photo: Oscar J. Barroso/AFP/Getty Images)
Despite COVID-19, Young People Resume Global Climate Strikes
Fiona Harvey, Guardian UK
Harvey writes: "School pupils, youth activists, and communities around the world have turned out for a day of climate strikes, intended to underscore the urgency of the climate crisis even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic."
Social distancing and other COVID-19 control measures dampened the protests, but thousands of activists posted on social media and took to the streets to protest against the lack of climate action from world leaders. Strikes were scheduled in at least 3,500 locations around the globe.
Friday’s strikes — some in the form of mostly socially distanced physical marches on the streets, and some purely online meetings — were on a smaller scale and far more subdued than last year’s September week of action, in which at least 6 million people around the world were estimated to have taken part.
Greta Thunberg led a strike in Sweden, which was limited to 50 people by the country’s lockdown laws — “so we adapt,” she tweeted, with a picture showing strikers more than 6 feet apart. The day of action also marked the 110th week of her own school strike, which began in August 2018.
“Fridays For Future and the youth climate movement are striking again around the world, in a safe way and following COVID-19 guidelines, to demand those in power treat this like the urgent crisis it is,” she said.
One innovation brought on by COVID restrictions was a 24-hour Zoom call, featuring people from across the world speaking about the issues in their region, interspersed with activism-related activities for callers.
Fridays for Future, the global youth movement that coalesced after Thunberg’s pioneering strike, said demonstrations were planned in at least 150 countries.
Protesters gathered on the lawns of Australia’s parliament in Canberra, with posters calling on politicians to “fund our future — not gas,” and recalling the catastrophic bushfires that raged through the region earlier this year.
In the Philippines, marchers and banners linked the strike to concerns over terror laws being used to outlaw protests, and to the plight of developing countries ignored by the rich world. Mitzi Jonelle Tan, an activist, said: “We Filipinos are among the most impacted, ranking second in the latest global climate risk index, yet our contributions to greenhouse gas emissions are so little. The least affected are often those who have contributed the most to the climate crisis — and what are they doing now? Nothing. It is time for world leaders to wake up to the truth of the climate crisis.”
There were strikes and protests in major cities in India, with placards complaining that “it’s getting hot in here,” reflecting predictions that hundreds of thousands of people could die each year from heat waves in India in coming decades, if global heating continues to rise at current rates.
“Countries like India are already experiencing a climate crisis,” said the activist Disha A Ravi. “We are not just fighting for our future, we are fighting for our present. We, the people from the most affected are going to change the conversation in climate negotiations and lead a just recovery plan that benefits people and not the pockets of our government.”
Strikes in Bangladesh drew attention to the threat to the country from rising sea levels, as tens of thousands of people are already refugees after their homes were inundated.
Hundreds of people marched through Pretoria, in South Africa, calling for the government to declare a climate emergency. Across Africa, protesters gathered in the streets and on the steps of public buildings to call for political action. Hilda Flavia Nakabuye, a Fridays for Future activist in Uganda, contrasted the action taken to control the coronavirus with the far weaker progress on the climate.
“In order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, governments have taken strong and bold measures, pulling on the brakes, deciding on a long lockdown. We’ve stopped striking temporarily — but we know that the only way we can contain climate change is by our actions. That’s why we are striking again today, and will keep on mobilizing in the future,” she said.
The most northerly strike was at the edge of the Arctic ice, north of the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where Mya-Rose Craig, an 18-year-old ornithologist known as Birdgirl, was with the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise.
“I’m here because I want to see for myself what’s at stake as this crucial protector of the planet, the Arctic Ocean, melts away at a terrifying rate,” she said. “Fridays for Future activists from all over the world are standing up to call for urgent action against climate breakdown.”
Earlier this week, scientists confirmed that this year’s Arctic sea ice minimum was the second smallest in the last 40 years of continuous records.
World leaders have been meeting online this week, and a few in person in New York, at the U.N. general assembly, which has for the first time taken the form of a virtual event.
China surprised the rest of the world by announcing a new goal to become carbon neutral by 2060, and to cause its greenhouse gas emissions to peak and then decline before 2030. The Climate Action Tracker think tank estimated that the commitments, if followed through, would reduce global temperature rises by between 0.2 and 0.3 degrees Celsius (0.32 to 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit).
If borne out, that would go a long way to keeping within reach the Paris Agreement target of holding temperature rises to well below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), with an aspiration of a 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) limit.
Ahead of the assembly meeting, the E.U. also announced a strengthened target, of cutting greenhouse gases by 55 percent compared with 1990 levels by 2030. That would be the strongest commitment of any major economy, though green campaigners pointed out that the new target was looser than the old as it takes into account the impact of increasing carbon sinks such as forests.
The United States, the world’s second biggest emitter, is scheduled to withdraw from the Paris Agreement this year, and under a second term with Donald Trump as president would hold to that timetable. The Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, has pledged to rejoin.
The U.K., which is to host the next U.N. climate summit — called COP26 — in November 2021, has also stepped up its diplomatic push. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, will convene an interim summit of the world leaders from major economies this December, on the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement.
At that interim meeting, all countries will be expected to come forward with their national plans — called nationally determined contributions, or NDCs, in the U.N. jargon — to strengthen their carbon-cutting efforts, as required under the 2015 accord. Current commitments would result in temperature rises of 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), which would wreak devastation and extreme weather over swathes of the globe.
Youth activists in the Fridays for Future movement are planning their own mock COP26 conference this November, when COP26 was originally scheduled before its delay owing to coronavirus. School strikers from around the world want to contrast the urgency they feel with the slow progress in international forums.
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