Waitresses of the Hofbräu tent pose with 1 liter beer mugs on the opening day of the 2023 Munich Oktoberfest on September 16, 2023 in Munich, Germany (Getty Images)
Waitresses of the Hofbräu tent pose with 1-liter beer mugs on the opening day of the 2023 Munich Oktoberfest on September 16, 2023 in Munich, Germany (Getty Images)
Cockburn wouldn’t be so skeptical of the radical left nearly as much if they didn’t have an insatiable need to suck the joy out of holidays. First they replaced the Christmas tree with the Kwanzaa bush. Then they told us that tofurkey tastes just as good as the real thing. Now, they are attempting to crush Oktoberfest too.
The two-century-old German tradition, which kicked-off in Munich on September 16, is under attack for its skimpy costumes and environmental impact. The man leading the charge: Luitpold Rupprecht Heinrich, the seventy-two-year-old Prince of Bavaria whose great-grandfather was the last Bavarian king.
“When I see Chinese-made folk costumes made of plastic, pseudo-costumes with tight dirndls, then the whole thing becomes a carnival. We all talk about cultural appropriation today,” Heinrich said. “Here it’s happening to us Bavarians!”
Heinrich added that wearing a costume to get drunk in degrades the festival’s tradition. Cockburn, who has stumbled out of many beer tents, would apologize for cultural appropriation, but feels his ambiguous European heritage protects him. And while he isn’t one to question royal authority, he feels he must correct Heinrich’s account of the festival. The first Oktoberfest celebrated the wedding of a 19th-century Bavarian prince. And what is a wedding if not an excuse to dress up and drink?
As if the removal of busty women weren’t enough, environmentalists are driving up the cost of festivities. Traditionally, revelers have enjoyed whole rotisserie chickens sold by vendors lining the streets. But this year, the Paulaner festival tent, a historic Oktoberfest tent in Munich, serves organic chicken only, costing 20.50 euros ($22). Paulaner’s chickens are 50 percent more expensive than non-organic ones, meaning many a reveler will go chickenless. An Oktoberfest official and a Green Party member told the Wall Street Journal that the changes are part of the city’s goal of becoming climate neutral by 2035 — and also zero fun, apparently.
Despite activists’ attempts to institute food mandates at the festival, Munich officials have yet to impose them. The spirit of Oktoberfest is protected by a coalition of innkeepers opposing the measures. “I don’t think anyone really wants a planned economy in which a small group decides what is good for the people and what is not,” said Thomas Geppert, head of the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association.
Dr. Bhattacharya (from right) co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration with Oxford researcher Sunreta Gupta and Harvard professor Martin Kulldorff.
Bhattacharya is a professor of medicine, economics and health research policy at Stanford University, where he serves as director of the Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging.
Exerting a pressure campaign on social media companies to censor COVID-19 skeptics
A federal appeals court ruled that the White House, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, and the surgeon general violated a Stanford doctor’s First Amendment rights by using social media to silence him by exerting a pressure campaign on social media companies to censor COVID-19 skeptics — including Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
“I think this ruling is akin to the second Enlightenment,” Bhattacharya told The Post. “It’s a ruling that says there’s a democracy of ideas. The issue is not whether the ideas are wrong or right. The question is who gets to control what ideas are expressed in the public square?”
The court ordered that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly” to coerce social media companies “to remove, delete, suppress or reduce” free speech.
Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in the fall of 2020 with professors from Harvard and Oxford.
The epidemiologists advocated for “focused protection” — safeguarding the most vulnerable Americans while cautiously allowing others to function as normally as possible — rather than broad pandemic lockdowns.
The court ordered that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly” to coerce social media companies “to remove, delete, suppress or reduce” free speech.
The court ordered that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly” to coerce social media companies “to remove, delete, suppress or reduce” free speech.
Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine, economics, and health research policy at Stanford University, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in the fall of 2020 with professors from Harvard and Oxford.
The epidemiologists advocated for “focused protection” — safeguarding the most vulnerable Americans while cautiously allowing others to function as normally as possible — rather than broad pandemic lockdowns.
“The government had a vast censorship enterprise,” Bhattacharya said. “It was systematically used to threaten and coerce and jawbone and tell all these social media companies, ‘You better listen to us: Censor these people, censor these ideas, or else.’”
It was later revealed that then-NIH director Dr. Francis Collins called for a “swift and devastating takedown” of Bhattacharya and his co-authors — whom Collins dubbed “fringe epidemiologists” — in an email to Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Subsequent reporting from Elon Musk’s so-called Twitter Files — internal documents and communications released by Musk, after he bought the platform, to expose Twitter’s inner workings — revealed that Bhattachrya’s profile was being suppressed on the platform.
A landmark case in curbing the influence the government has over social media
“It’s akin to the efforts by governments to suppress the printing press when it first was invented, when books represented an enormous threat to power,” Bhattacharya said, referring to efforts by King Henry VIII and the Catholic Church to curb use of the printing press in the 16th century.
“There’s an analogous fight that’s currently going on with social media, which makes it vastly easier for anybody to express their ideas, and very powerful people find that incredibly threatening.”
The September 8 ruling affirmed but narrowed a lower court order, issued on July 4 by US District Judge Terry Doughty, which found that the Biden administration and other federal agencies “engaged in a years-long pressure campaign [on social media outlets] designed to ensure that the censorship aligned with the government’s preferred viewpoints” and that “the platforms, in capitulation to state-sponsored pressure, changed their moderation policies.
Bhattacharya says the first victory, although in a lower court, was the most exciting to him.
“I was just absolutely thrilled, especially to have it on July 4th,” he said. “I think that judge was sending a message by issuing this ruling on July 4th that we’re going to restore free speech in this country.”
But he believes it’s “unlikely” the Supreme Court will overturn the Fifth Circuit’s decision.
He feels his is a landmark case in curbing the influence the government has over social media — on matters that extend far beyond just COVID-19 and lockdowns.
“This new technology has created enormous opportunities for people to participate in debate in the public square,” Bhattacharya said. “And I hope that this is the beginning of a legal infrastructure that enables that to happen— rather than the opposite, which is a dark age where the government gets to decide what’s true and what’s allowed to be said.”
Geter-Pataky dropped stacks of ‘illegal’ ballots into an absentee ballot box
On Monday, Democrat Mayoral candidate John Gomes filed a lawsuit challenging the results of his party’s primary in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and requesting a new Democratic primary.
This comes after a video surfaced showing a Democrat clerk inserting illegal ballots into a drop box, which prompted an investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department for “possible misconduct.”
The Gateway Pundit reported that Gomes’ campaign released a damning video on Saturday showing evidence of election fraud in the recent Bridgeport Democratic primary.
The video posted on Gomes campaign’s Facebook page shows a woman dropping stacks of ‘illegal’ ballots into an absentee ballot box outside the Bridgeport government center, where the city’s Registrar of Voters office is located, CT Mirror reported.
The Gomes campaign was able to identify the woman in the footage as Wanda Geter-Pataky, the Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic Town Clerk and a vocal supporter of incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim, who is seeking reelection.
Geter-Pataky sent one of her employees to make the fourth ballot drop while she watched
Gomes’ campaign claims that the video shows Geter-Pataky dropping off stacks of absentee ballots ahead of the September 12th primary.
“Video surveillance proving that the mayoral election was unequivocally stolen through corruption within City Hall by tampering with absentee ballots,” John Gomes said in a statement.
“This is an undeniable act of voter suppression and a huge civil rights violation. It’s time to restore lasting credibility to our city’s democracy. Once and for ALL. Enough is enough!” he added.
Gomes lost to incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim in the Democratic primary by a narrow margin of 251 votes, according to the most recent preliminary count posted on the Secretary of the State’s website. Ganim won the absentee vote tally 1,545 to 779, while Gomes led on the voting machines.
The Bridgeport Police Department confirmed that they are actively investigating the actions shown in the video.
“The Bridgeport Police Department are actively investigating information regarding possible misconduct based upon a video that has surfaced on social media,” the department told CT Mirror.
The police department is investigating how the video was obtained and released to the public.
“The Bridgeport Police Department immediately initiated an investigation to determine if any criminal wrongdoing has occurred. In addition, an internal investigation is being conducted to determine if any possible breach to our security video management system has occurred,” it added.
Bridgeport Police Chief Roderick Porter said the department takes “these actions seriously and we will pursue possible criminal prosecution and/or administrative discipline as it relates to any such security violations.”
In a press conference held on Monday, Christine Bartlett-Jose, the campaign manager for Democrat Mayoral candidate John Gomes, laid out a compelling case for why the recent Democratic primary election results in Bridgeport should be scrutinized and possibly invalidated.
“In this primary alone, the city of Bridgeport received over 4,000 absentee ballot applications, an unprecedented number in the city and possibly the state,” said Bartlett-Jose. She pointed out that the city had a lead of 470 votes based on incoming results on primary night. However, as absentee ballots were tabulated, their lead dramatically eroded, resulting in a two-to-one loss margin with an ultimate election difference of 251 votes.
Bartlett-Jose stated that the campaign has gathered evidence indicating voter suppression and absentee ballot fraud. “Multiple complaints have been filed with the State Election Enforcement Commission, including the most recent and irrefutable piece of evidence—an incriminating video from City Hall security footage showing Wanda Gita Pasky, the vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, depositing absentee ballots,” she said.
Gita Pasky’s involvement in this election is deeply concerning, according to Bartlett-Jose.
“She has been named in various complaints across many districts related to harassment, bullying, promises of Section Eight, rent rebate, groceries, just to name a few,” she added.
Gita Pasky was recommended by the State Election Enforcement Commission to the State’s Attorney’s Office for criminal investigation regarding the alleged misuse of absentee ballots in the 2019 primary election.
The campaign will be petitioning the court to file an injunction against the primary election results, which have yet to be certified by the Secretary of State.
“This step is essential to prevent potential tainted results from being finalized,” Bartlett-Jose emphasized. They will also be seeking a restraining order against the distribution of any additional absentee ballot applications from the Town Clerk’s Office.
John Gomes, the Democratic challenger, said, “Right now there is a black cloud over Bridgeport, there is no trust. We walk around and I don’t know what to tell the people.”
He added that the evidence is overwhelming and speaks for itself, especially the video footage. Gomes and his campaign are filing a lawsuit, not only seeking a judge to prevent last week’s election results from being certified but also asking for a new Democratic primary.
So, if they (Conn State Election Enforcement Commission) recommended a prosecution regarding absentee ballots for an election in 2019, doesn’t that suggest that Trump was correct about the 2020 election? — TPR
I expect to be kicked off of ‘Breaking News’ soon.
Pud is supposed to be a mod there, but his name doesn’t appear as a mod there. I asked Finn, a gold star with a closed profile, about it. That will probably get me kicked off. Anyone still displaying a gold star in their screen name is likely not to be trusted. Several of our lurkers still display their gold star and brag about their “All Star” status.
Disqus is the AI bot. Fate is a gold star with a closed profile, and then there’s Finn:
So, where is Pud’s name in that list????
He’s already stated although he was made a moderator on Breaking News and Chit Chat, he can’t override the Disqus Bot “decisions.” Numerous users have complained about innocuous posts getting deleted over there. (I can attest to that!)
But Leftists have free reign to insult every other poster on a thread. Why is that? Disqus is up to its old tricks.
Finally, they are also auto-censoring OP’s with no REAL reason given. Seriously? (You may need to enlarge the screencap below, even though it is full-size and easily readable IRL.)
Auto refused—no way to appeal.
The only POSSIBLE “rule” I am breaking there is #1: “Targeted Harassment”….hmm.
So, who am I targeting? Mod bots? Or maybe it’s the trolls showing up who call those who disagree with them MAGAts, Trumpers, commies, and assorted personal insults? As I say in the screencap, they are following the same tactics Media Mattress-trained trolls did eight years ago.
It’s strange how all those OP’s and comments attacking Trump (and conservatives in general) are fine and dandy with the Gods of Disqus.
Pud, aka The Coconut Whisperer, seems to be window-dressing to fool conservatives. He doesn’t seem to have any real power that Disqus can’t override without reason or explanation.
Remember when the original (and promotedby Disqus) NEWS VIEWS was the #1 channel — despite banning hundreds of unwary newbieswho posted the wrong opinion there?
I do. I was one of them. This raises the specter of the same censorship starting all over again.
If you need any further proof that America is the freest country in the world, look no further than the type of idiocy this country tolerates.
A brazen incident at a Jason Aldean concert was crystal clear proof of that fact.
Aldean was performing in Tinley Park, Illinois, just outside Chicago, on Saturday night when a group calling themselves “Revolutionary Communists” (yes, they have a website, and yes, it looks like it’s been built with pre-Soviet Union era computers) showed up to make some sort of statement.
The statement? Oh, just your typical communist nonsense whilst burning the American flag.
Reporter Ford Fischer took to X, formerly Twitter, and shared some video of the “revolutionaries” burning the flag, and the police response to it.
In the first video Fischer shared, the small group of communists set fire to the American flag while chanting a variety of nonsense.
“F*** the U.S. and all its lies!” you can hear in the video. You can barely make out whatever other perceived grievances this group claims it has.
Eventually, you can hear the police declaring this group’s antics constituted “unlawful assembly.”
But this is where some wildly unintentional comedy rears its funny head.
This band of “revolutionaries” … packed up and left, with nary a fuss.
Could you imagine if these ingrates had been around during the American Revolution? This country would still be eating crumpets and drinking (unfairly taxed) tea.
A second video from Fischer shows that instead of taking up their arms and fighting back against this perceived fascism, these “revolutionaries” opted for cute little chants and phrases — perhaps the most emblematic microcosm imaginable for the current state of the country.
You can hear the communists declare “We did it in a small town,” which is a clear reference to Aldean’s wildly popular and equally controversial song, “Try That in a Small Town.”
If by “we did it,” they meant that they stood around and burned the U.S. flag before meekly kowtowing to the police, then sure. They absolutely “did it.”
But if they’re trying to affect any actual change?
They honestly probably could’ve gotten more done with a “one, two, three, four, I declare a thumb war” chant.
Adding to the unintentional comedy of this all, the “RevComs” took to their 1994 GeoCities-inspired web site to — gloat?
“In the weeks leading up to the Jason Aldean concert in the Chicago suburb of Tinley Park, the Revcoms pledged that we would CALL OUT fascist country singer Jason Aldean and burn an American flag at his concert in defiance of his Lynch mob anthem, ‘Try That in a Small Town.’ And that is exactly what we did this past Saturday,” the group bragged on Monday.
From their website which, incidentally, calls for the overthrow of the government. BUT THEY’LL TAKE YOUR FILTHY CAPITALIST MONEY! — TPR
Couple of quick points here:
For the love of vocabulary, can someone please buy leftists dictionaries and thesauruses? Fascism does not mean people you disagree with. To quote the great fictional philosopher Iñigo Montoya, “You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Color this writer skeptical, but a demonstration is typically more effective when it’s actually presented in front of the alleged “fascist,” no? Bragging you got to stand out in the streets before bending the knee to the police isn’t exactly a “revolution.”
At the end of the day, this incident does capture so much of what’s wrong with this country: It’s filled with idiotic ingrates.
Is America perfect? Heck no. Should America constantly seek to improve itself? Heck yes.
America is still the best and freest country in the world (perhaps to a fault, but that’s a different story for a different time). The fact that these buffoons get to share their idiocy with the world in such a public manner, while burning the flag of this country, is a testament to that.
But just as they have the right to show their rears to the world, so too does the rest of the country have the right to point at laugh at them.
And between their horrid website, spineless rhetoric and utter lack of vocabulary, you’d be hard pressed not to guffaw at these “revolutionaries.”
They sure made a good impression, didn’t they?
Having trouble getting ‘X’ links to open on the page. –TPR
Research physicist John F. Clauser poses for a photo at his home in Walnut Creek, Calif., on Oct. 4, 2022. John F. Clauser jointly won a Nobel Prize in physics with two other scientists, Alain Aspect of France, and Anton Zeilinger of Austria, for their work on quantum information science. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Image
By Jan Jekielek and Mimi Nguyen Ly 9/9/2023
Nobel Prize laureate John Clauser has recently been in the spotlight for challenging prevailing climate models, which he says have ignored a key variable.
Mr. Clauser, who recently became a recipient of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to quantum mechanics, holds degrees from Caltech and Columbia University. He served in roles at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2010, he was honored with a portion of the Wolf Prize in Physics.
Recently, Mr. Clauser joined another Nobel laureate and over 1,600 professionals in signing the World Climate Declaration (WCD) organized by Climate Intelligence (CLINTEL). This declaration asserts that there is no “climate emergency,” that climate change science is not conclusive, and that the earth’s history over thousands of years shows a consistently changing climate.
The WCD highlights the limitations of current climate models, stating they overemphasize the impact of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2). “In addition, [climate models] ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial,” the WCD reads, in part.
The declaration further notes that both natural and human activities contribute to climate change, and the actual warming observed is less than as predicted by the climate models, revealing our incomplete understanding of climate change.
In an interview with The Epoch Times’s “American Thought Leaders,” Mr. Clauser voiced his reservations about current climate research quality and contends that U.S. climate policies are misguided.
Clouds
Prominent climate reports, such as those by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), National Academy of Sciences, and the Royal Society, emphasize the role of CO2 but miss the mark on the critical role of clouds in the climate system, according to Mr. Clauser.
The only thing “boiling” are the fweelings of these so-called “experts” and the leftist billionaires paying them. see link above.
His curiosity about clouds began as a sailboat racer. He recalled, “I raced across the Pacific Ocean at least a dozen times. I had set up the boat with solar panels to charge the batteries. … I had an ammeter on the power output from the solar panels, and I noticed every time we sailed under a cloud, the output from the solar panels dropped by 50 percent to half of its value that it was, and then we came out from behind the cloud and boom, their power went back up. And I thought, ‘I wonder why it’s just about a factor of two.'”
“This is how I became very curious as to how clouds work. When the climate issues came along, I very quickly realized that cloud cover has a profound effect on the earth’s heat input that the clouds are reflecting a massive amount of light back out into space.
“And so I read all of the various IPCC reports, National Academy reports on this,” he continued. “As a physicist, I’d worked at some excellent institutions— Caltech, Columbia, Cal Berkeley—where very careful science needed to be done. And reading these reports, I was appalled at how sloppy the work was. And in particular, it was very obvious, even in the earliest reports, and all carried on through to the present, that clouds were not at all understood. … It’s just simply bad science.”
Mr. Clauser highlighted insights from former President Barack Obama’s science adviser, Steve Koonin. In Mr. Koonin’s book, “Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters,” the author noted the inconsistency of the IPCC’s 40 computer models, emphasizing their inability to explain the past century’s climate and suggesting that th
‘The Missing Piece’
Mr. Clauser said he believes he has identified a significant oversight in prevailing climate models.
“I believe I have the missing piece of the puzzle that has been left out in virtually all of these computer programs,” he stated. “And that is the effect of clouds.”
While many theories of anthropogenic climate change focus primarily on the impact of human-produced CO2, Mr. Clauser argues that these models overlook the significance of cloud dynamics.
He referenced the 2003 National Academy report, which, he said, “totally admitted” its lack of understanding about clouds, and made “a whole series of mistaken statements regarding the effects of clouds.”
Drawing attention to Al Gore’s film, “The Inconvenient Truth,” Mr. Clauser noted, “[Mr. Gore] insists on talking about a cloud-free earth … That’s a totally artificial Earth.” According to Mr. Clauser, this cloudless portrayal of the earth reflects the approach taken by many in the climate science community.
“That’s a totally artificial Earth. It is a totally artificial case for using a model, and this is pretty much what the IPCC and others use—a cloud free earth.”
Mr. Clauser pointed out that satellite images consistently show wide variances in cloud cover, which can span anywhere from five to 95 percent of the Earth’s surface.
“The cloud cover fraction fluctuates quite dramatically on daily weekly timescales. We call this weather. You can’t have weather without having clouds,” he said.
Effect of Clouds Compared to CO2
Clouds play a paramount role in regulating the Earth’s temperature, serving as a “cloud-sunlight-reflectivity thermostat” that “controls the climate, controls the temperature of the earth, and stabilizes it very powerfully and very dramatically,” asserts Mr. Clauser.
With two-thirds of the Earth being oceanic, the ocean becomes instrumental in cloud formation, he said.
Minimal clouds result in heightened sunlight exposure to the ocean, triggering increased evaporation and subsequent cloud formation, resulting in more clouds. On the contrary, abundant clouds reduce this sunlight, thus curbing evaporation rates and cloud formation, resulting in fewer clouds, Mr. Clauser explains.
This balance acts like a natural thermostat for the earth’s temperature, he said.
Mr. Clauser contends that this “thermostat” mechanism has a vastly greater influence on Earth’s temperature than the effect of CO2 or methane. He presented to The Epoch Times preliminary calculations that suggest that the impact of this cloud-reflectivity mechanism might overshadow CO2’s influence by more than 100 or even 200 times.
All clouds, irrespective of their altitude or type, appear bright white when viewed from the direction of the sun, according to Mr. Clauser. They typically reflect almost 90 percent of incoming sunlight, he said. The reflectivity fraction is referred to as albedo.The albedo has been inaccurately kept constant in various climate models, Mr. Clauser argues.
He finds it baffling how these significant variations, ranging from five to 95 percent cloud cover, have been overlooked.
Mr. Clauser further underscores that clouds are integral to weather dynamics, and yet, current climate models, whose authors “admit upfront that their models cannot predict weather,” have been wielded to foretell drastic climatic shifts, including “climate crisis apocalypse.”
The term “climate” refers to long-term, typically 30 years or more, weather condition averages. While reliable weather forecasts are limited to about a week with standard weather prediction models, which take into account the role of clouds, Mr. Clauser points out a contradiction noted in Mr. Koonin’s book: just a 5 percent rise in cloud cover can largely counterbalance the temperature effect of doubling atmospheric CO2. Despite such nuances, according to Mr. Clauser, the IPCC’s models persistently assume constant albedo, and ignore the vast cloud cover variations.
‘Very Dishonest Disinformation’
Mr. Clauser observed that the drive to address human-induced climate change is increasingly shaping political agendas and influencing the strategic direction of entire nations.
“The whole world is doing all of this. A lot of the pressure is actually coming from Europe, all of these various world conferences” he said, speculating much of this push might have its roots in Mr. Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth,” which he feels has incorporated inaccurate science.
Mr. Gore’s film claims that humanity is triggering a dire climate crisis that necessitates global action. But Mr. Clauser contends: “‘Climate change’ is actually very dishonest disinformation that has been presented by various politicians.”
He pinpoints a 2013 Physics Today article (pdf) by Jane Lubchenco and Thomas Karl as pivotal in shaping the narrative, especially during the period when “global warming” was being rebranded as “climate change.”
“The reason that was given was ‘well, because it’s really more than just warming,'” he said. The article champions a “U.S. Climate Extremes Index,” claiming that anthropogenic climate change led to a significant increase in extreme weather events over the past three decades, ending in 2012.
The index leaves out the frequency of EF3+ tornadoes
The index is supposedly backed by a century’s worth of data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) and is said to combine various metrics including floods, hurricanes, and droughts.
Curiously, Mr. Clauser noted, the index leaves out the frequency of EF3+ tornadoes—perhaps because, as highlighted by Mr. Koonin in his book, those were on a noticeable decline. “This, in my opinion, is a rather egregious breach of honesty by the U.S. government by NOAA,” Mr. Clauser said.
He used data from the article and plotted it chronologically and also in reverse. From this, Mr. Clauser observed that the two plots were virtually indistinguishable, challenging the assertion of an obvious rise in the index.
“Are you really willing to bet trillions of dollars that you know which [plot] is right? … Is it really increasing? It is clearly not,” he said.
“Not only, as I understand it, are these extreme weather events not increasing, but our ability to mitigate them has increased. So they’re just not as much of an issue,” Mr. Clauser said, adding later, “This worry about CO2, the worry about methane, the worry about global warming, is all a total fabrication by shocked journalists and or dishonest politicians.”
On the contrary, Mr. Clauser agrees with the CO2 Coalition, which argues that CO2 is a beneficial gas.
“Historically, for example, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the CO2 levels were 10 times bigger than what we are experiencing right now,” he said. “Dinosaurs couldn’t have survived on this earth with this low CO2 level [today], because you don’t grow trees fast enough and foliage fast enough to feed them.”
“Promoting CO2 as being actually a beneficial gas, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing wrong with [that],” he said. “And in particular, as I have just mentioned earlier, it is not at all significant in controlling the earth’s climate.”
A total waste of money, time, and effort.
Mr. Clauser criticized U.S. government efforts to reduce CO2 and methane as a colossal misuse of resources better allocated for humanitarian endeavors. Such initiatives, he argues, “should be stopped immediately.”
“[It’s] a total waste of money and time and effort. It is strangling industry,” he said.
But Mr. Clauser is not holding his breath.
“My suspicion is what I am saying here will be totally ignored because people don’t like being told that they’ve made big mistakes of this magnitude,” he said.
In the months since the coup d’etat that ousted James O’Keefe from Project Veritas earlier this year, the conservative group has spiraled out of control as it weathers mass layoffs and board member resignations under the leadership of Hannah Giles, who took the helm in June, Mediaite reported.
“Her actual journalism experience is murky.”
Mediaite (no doubt chortling about it) obtained audio from an August 22 meeting between Giles, Project Veritas board president Joe Barton, and several staffers. At the meeting, held just days after 23 staffers were fired and two resigned, Giles can be heard explaining that the organization is in financial ruin.
“It’s devastating,” Giles said. “I’ve got to get back into the bank accounts to see what’s real and what’s not real because I have been getting presented with things that were not making sense and then when I’m presented with okay there’s only a thousand dollars left in the 501(c) (3) and I thought we had until October. We did a half a million dollar transfer and that was this period. But, like, we’re bankrupt.”
Giles continued to paint a bleak financial portrait of the well-known conservative nonprofit that raked in $22 million of donor cash in one recent year.
“The bills that are owed and everything, and there’s lawyers threatening to like, to force us into bankruptcy, and come take all this stuff,” Giles said. “So, I do not want us, I do not want to declare bankruptcy or go into bankruptcy, but we have to imagine that’s where we’re at so how do we get to the point where we’re clawing our way out of that situation?”
“So, we’re under water?” one staffer asked. Giles responded: “Yeah.”
A recently departed Project Veritas staffer told Mediaite they believed Giles had mismanaged the organization since taking over in June. They said former CFO Tom O’Hara made clear that Project Veritas faced a grim outlook – which was ignored by Giles. The former staffer said O’Hara was “upfront about the dire state” the company is in, and cautioned Giles of the strong possibility that they were on the brink of bankruptcy.
“Since July, he was trying to convince the board to start considering a wind-down period in order to give employees enough notice — this was ignored,” the source said.
Another ex-staffer told Mediaite that Giles “lacked leadership skills” and suggested the board “did not do their due diligence” when they appointed her. “Her actual journalism experience is murky,” they said.
After O’Keefe’s exit in February of this year, Project Veritas launched an investigation into his use of funds. The Washington Post reported this week on an audit conducted by a law firm hired by the group which accused O’Keefe of using company cash for personal expenses – including $12,000 to charter a helicopter for a trip to Maine for a sailing trip, hundreds of thousands of dollars on high-end car service, and thousands on DJ equipment among other luxury items.
O’Keefe’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, told Mediaite that when O’Keefe was “forced out of Project Veritas in February of this year, they had between $6-8 million in their bank accounts. James had access to none of it. Six months later it’s apparently all gone. Instead of nameless sources blaming James for spending that money and bankrupting Project Veritas, perhaps their CEO and board of directors can let us all know how they blew through it all.”
Note: Mediaite is still trying to tar O’Keefe as a thief in their original article. He has since created a successful new investigative outlet: https://okeefemediagroup.com/ — TPR
Does anyone remember ModBod, whose sole purpose was to ban users?
The new Mod is a damn bot.
As you know, Disqus recently started a new version of Channels.
Unfortunately, it’s still Same Shit, Different Day.
Every comment Pud made there has been deleted on the Chit Chat Channel. EVEN ON THE THREAD HE STARTED! In three different threads, all his comments are now listed as deleted.
Curious, I looked up the profile for “DISQUS” (@disqusPM). No comments but several hundred followers. Who would be following an account that doesn’t post? I recognized one Troll account, and several “business” accounts are in its followers list. And some are instantly recognizable as — uhm — ‘questionable.’
The Channels Moderator is a damn bot.
So the question becomes who programmed it — Or (more likely) who is logging into that account and deleting comments from posters they presumably don’t like?
Disqus has changed ownership, but it appears that the same low-level delicate snowflake employees are still there.
Test post on “new,improved” Disqus channel.
Well, at least I didn’t immediately get the red banner of death. (You’re banned here!)
But, within six minutes — during which time my comment was invisible to everyone but me — It was deleted without comment or explanation.
Within SIX MINUTES my post was gone.
Now, everyone who owns a website with a comment section and active moderation has seen this kind of post where the poster is trying to find out if they can post there, so “Off Topic” removal should not apply.
I AM A WEBSITE OWNER WHO CAN’T USE OFFICIAL DISQUS CHANNELS TO CONTACT THEM.
Why? Because said snowflakes banned me and others for guilt by association with a brilliant system programming whiz known as Dr. Thomas. He proved their claims of “It can’t be done!” were wrong several times. Notably: “You can’t pre-ban someone who’s never posted on your site/channel” and “You can’t find out how many downvotes a comment has — it’s private for a reason.” This latter one, after being shown it COULD be determined — along with who made them — Disqus finally gave access to that info. But the nematodes got their petty revenge by banning him and those associated with him from official channels, then went further and placed unjust universal bans on out accounts, forcing us to create new ones.
This was in keeping with Disqus’ TOS but as soon as the new accounts were noticed, the NEW accounts were banned from Disqus official channels.
The Disqus API has also been changed multiple times to break enhancements created by Dr. Thomas. so they wouldn’t work. This was usually done on weekends when nobody else was in the office.
We’ll have to see. At the moment, I’m not banned on the Breaking News channel — yet.
Wife of Trump Ally Indicted in Georgia Receives Letter in Mail: ‘This Is Not Going to End Well’
The individual who mailed this to my wife almost certainly has “Be Kind” in their Twitter profile and “Coexist” on their car bumper. pic.twitter.com/uxmWKRueWo
One of the Georgia residents indicted along with former President Donald Trump last week says his wife received a troubling letter by mail.
In a social media post, David Shafer, a former chair of the Georgia Republican Party, showed an image of a letter that contained a photo of Phillips State Prison in Buford, Georgia.
The letter bears the hand-written legend, “David’s Retirement Home.”
Underneath the photo is written, “Lee, Get Out Now And RunAs Fast As You Can. This Is Not Going To End Well for David.”
This from an acolyte of the “tolerant” “inclusive” Diversity Championing Leftist Democrats — TPR (Disclosure. I was a registered Democrat — like my parents and grandparents — for 30+ years. I didn’t leave the party; the party left me. It has leaned more and more toward totalitarian elitism, demanding that everyone think their way ONLY and allow Big Brother to take care of them. The days of JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you…” attitude are long gone.)
“Grateful to everyone who has reached out to encourage me. I have never once felt alone,” he posted in response to a posting that said a fundraising account had been set up to help him.
Many on social media supported Shafer, who made his mug shot after his arrest into his profile photo on X. “Democrats are out of control,” one poster wrote.
Shafer faces eight counts against him, including impersonating a public officer, forgery, false statements, and attempting to file false documents.
He was accused of helping organize a meeting at which he and 15 other people signed documents saying they were the true electors who should represent the state.
“Mr. Shafer and the other Republican Electors in the 2020 election acted at the direction of the incumbent President and other federal officials,” the filing said.
Other X/Twitter posters had various comments, including: “Democrats out of control” and “This is disgusting. Prayers my friend.”
