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Russia and China warn against 'cycle of retaliation' as Biden threatens to target their ally Iran after drone attack killed three US soldiers
Russia and China have rushed to the defence of their ally Iran and urged the United States to show restraint in its response to the killing of three American soldiers.
The United States has vowed to respond to a drone attack on a base in Jordan that claimed the lives of three American soldiers, raising fears of an escalating Middle East conflict.
Iran-backed militants have been blamed for the strike on the Tower 22 base, leading to calls at home for US president Joe Biden to respond robustly and with force.
But in an apparent bid to temper America's expected retaliation against their Iranian ally, both Russia and China have today called for a de-escalation in the region.
The Kremlin, asked on Tuesday about potential US strikes on Iranian interests, said tensions in the Middle East were high and that steps were needed to de-escalate rather than destabilise the wider region, where fighting is currently raging in Gaza.
China on Tuesday also warned against a 'cycle of retaliation' in the volatile region.
Russia and China have rushed to the defence of their ally Iran and urged the United States to show restraint in its response to the killing of three American soldiers as a US base in Jordan.
The United States has vowed to respond to a drone attack on a base in Jordan - Tower 22 (shown on map) - that resulted in the first US military deaths in an attack in the region since the Israel-Hamas war began, raising fears of an escalating Middle East conflict.
From left to right: Spc. Kennedy Sanders, Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett. The three US Army Reserve soldiers from Georgia were killed by a drone strike on Sunday at the Tower 22 base in Jordan.
The comments came after US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday vowed the US would take 'all necessary actions' to defend its troops.
His statement followed a similar one from Biden and the White House, which vowed a 'very consequential response' even as the administration stressed that it is not seeking war with Iran over the strike.
Amid concerns over an escalation, Beijing said Tuesday it had 'noted reports of casualties caused by the attack on a US military base'.
'We have also noted that Iran stated that it had nothing to do with the attack,' foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said, pointing to the fact that Tehran has denied it was behind the deadly strike over the weekend.
That is despite the fact that a group calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella term for a number of Iran-backed militias, has claimed responsibility.
'We hope that all relevant parties will remain calm and restrained... in order to avoid falling into a vicious cycle of retaliation and prevent further escalation,' Wang added.
'The situation in the Middle East is currently highly complex and sensitive.'
-Chris Jewers, The Daily Mail
BROKEN UKRAINE: Russia, Poland, Romania, and Hungary Reportedly Have Territorial Ambitions in the War-Torn Country
All of a sudden, reports about Ukraine’s neighbors holding territorial ambitions over part of its territory have once again started to pop up in the press, in the wake of the failed Summer offensive, of the recapture of the initiative by Russia, and the interruption of major funding from the US and the EU.
But what is fact, what is just rumor and what is pure propaganda?
The first and most grave danger resides, of course, with the Russian Federation territorial ambitions, only partially satiated in the Special Military Operation, so far.
Russians now harbor maximalist objectives in Ukraine.
Besides the Crimean peninsula, Moscow has also annexed the Oblasts (regions) of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and – partially – Kherson, in a half moon-shaped territorial loss for Kiev equivalent to over 20% of the territory – including all of the Sea of Azov, and most Black Sea coastal areas.
As the war progressed, so did the maximalist Russian objectives that now may include northern Kharkov region and even southern Mykolaiv and Odessa – which would turn Ukraine into a land-locked country.
But, unfortunately for Kiev, Russia is far from the only country with unfulfilled territorial ambitions.
Romania’s Claudiu Târziu.
In Romania, the leader of AUR party, Claudiu Târziu, declared that he wants the annexation of some territories from Ukraine.
He would even be prepared Romania to leave NATO for that.
Newsweek Romania reported:
“Claudiu Târziu gave a triumphant speech in Iasi in which he says that he is ready to sacrifice Romania’s membership in NATO, by annexing territories from Ukraine – thus leaving us completely defenseless in the face of Russia’s military desires.”
Claudiu Târziu has also made overtures towards the Russians, assuring that he was ready to ‘join hands with them’, just a few days after the war broke.
“I think there is a need for the thawing of relations between Romania and Russia, I admit the need for a good collaboration between Romania and Russia, I am ready to support this, but only after Russia proves that it also wants all this.”
Târziu sees Romania ‘crushed between two empires’ – NATO and Russia – that violate their sovereignty.
Poland’s Lazlo Toroczkai.
In the very same day that Romanian ambitions came to light, another disturbing development came from Hungary, where another political party revealed plans to annex parts of the present Ukrainian territory.
-Paul Serran, The Gateway Pundit
NEW: Israeli Defense Minister Announces Imminent Ground Troop Deployment on Lebanese Border
Image Credit: Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant. Photo: Reproduction/X/yoavgallant
Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, stated on Monday that the country’s ground troops will take action “very soon” along the Lebanese border. The Israeli offensive comes as exchanges of gunfire between Israelis and Hezbollah intensify, escalating the risks of a direct confrontation in the region.
In a video released by the Ministry of Defense, Mr. Gallant declared:
“We have strengthened our positions in the North, and we will gradually release reservists so they can prepare and be ready for the upcoming actions. And very soon, they will be sent into action.”
The Defense Minister’s statements coincide with at least 12 Hezbollah attacks recorded against Israeli positions on the same day. At least three shots landed in open areas near Kiryat Shmona, according to the Israeli Army.
In response, a Hezbollah observation post and other group infrastructures were targeted, as confirmed by the Israeli military.
Since the October 7 attacks by the Hamas terrorist group against Israel, resulting in approximately 1,200 deaths, the Lebanese political-military group Hezbollah, also supported by Iran, has been firing rockets and artillery into Northern Israel.
These actions are considered acts of solidarity with the Palestinian organization. In retaliation, Israel has also launched its own attacks on positions within Lebanon in response to the acts of terror committed by Hezbollah.
-Fernando De Castro, The Gateway Pundit
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The Atlantic: Exploring the Emergence of Technoauthoritarianism
If you had to capture Silicon Valley’s dominant ideology in a single anecdote, you might look first to Mark Zuckerberg, sitting in the blue glow of his computer some 20 years ago, chatting with a friend about how his new website, TheFacebook, had given him access to reams of personal information about his fellow students:
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
Friend: What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.
Zuckerberg: I don’t know why.
Zuckerberg: They “trust me”
Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks.That conversation—later revealed through leaked chat records—was soon followed by another that was just as telling, if better mannered. At a now-famous Christmas party in 2007, Zuckerberg first met Sheryl Sandberg, his eventual chief operating officer, who with Zuckerberg would transform the platform into a digital imperialist superpower. There, Zuckerberg, who in Facebook’s early days had adopted the mantra “Company over country,” explained to Sandberg that he wanted every American with an internet connection to have a Facebook account. For Sandberg, who once told a colleague that she’d been “put on this planet to scale organizations,” that turned out to be the perfect mission.
Facebook (now Meta) has become an avatar of all that is wrong with Silicon Valley. Its self-interested role in spreading global disinformation is an ongoing crisis. Recall, too, the company’s secret mood-manipulation experiment in 2012, which deliberately tinkered with what users saw in their News Feed in order to measure how Facebook could influence people’s emotional states without their knowledge. Or its participation in inciting genocide in Myanmar in 2017. Or its use as a clubhouse for planning and executing the January 6, 2021, insurrection. (In Facebook’s early days, Zuckerberg listed “revolutions” among his interests. This was around the time that he had a business card printed with I’M CEO, BITCH.)
And yet, to a remarkable degree, Facebook’s way of doing business remains the norm for the tech industry as a whole, even as other social platforms (TikTok) and technological developments (artificial intelligence) eclipse Facebook in cultural relevance.
The new technocrats claim to embrace Enlightenment values, but in fact they are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal movement.
To worship at the altar of mega-scale and to convince yourself that you should be the one making world-historic decisions on behalf of a global citizenry that did not elect you and may not share your values or lack thereof, you have to dispense with numerous inconveniences—humility and nuance among them. Many titans of Silicon Valley have made these trade-offs repeatedly. YouTube (owned by Google), Instagram (owned by Meta), and Twitter (which Elon Musk insists on calling X) have been as damaging to individual rights, civil society, and global democracy as Facebook was and is. Considering the way that generative AI is now being developed throughout Silicon Valley, we should brace for that damage to be multiplied many times over in the years ahead.
The behavior of these companies and the people who run them is often hypocritical, greedy, and status-obsessed. But underlying these venalities is something more dangerous, a clear and coherent ideology that is seldom called out for what it is: authoritarian technocracy. As the most powerful companies in Silicon Valley have matured, this ideology has only grown stronger, more self-righteous, more delusional, and—in the face of rising criticism—more aggrieved.
The new technocrats are ostentatious in their use of language that appeals to Enlightenment values—reason, progress, freedom—but in fact they are leading an antidemocratic, illiberal movement. Many of them profess unconditional support for free speech, but are vindictive toward those who say things that do not flatter them. They tend to hold eccentric beliefs: that technological progress of any kind is unreservedly and inherently good; that you should always build it, simply because you can; that frictionless information flow is the highest value regardless of the information’s quality; that privacy is an archaic concept; that we should welcome the day when machine intelligence surpasses our own. And above all, that their power should be unconstrained. The systems they’ve built or are building—to rewire communications, remake human social networks, insinuate artificial intelligence into daily life, and more—impose these beliefs on the population, which is neither consulted nor, usually, meaningfully informed. All this, and they still attempt to perpetuate the absurd myth that they are the swashbuckling underdogs.
From the October 2018 issue: Yuval Noah Harari on why technology favors tyranny
Comparisons between Silicon Valley and Wall Street or Washington, D.C., are commonplace, and you can see why—all are power centers, and all are magnets for people whose ambition too often outstrips their humanity. But Silicon Valley’s influence easily exceeds that of Wall Street and Washington. It is reengineering society more profoundly than any other power center in any other era since perhaps the days of the New Deal. Many Americans fret—rightfully—about the rising authoritarianism among MAGA Republicans, but they risk ignoring another ascendant force for illiberalism: the tantrum-prone and immensely powerful kings of tech.
The Shakespearean drama that unfolded late last year at OpenAI underscores the extent to which the worst of Facebook’s “move fast and break things” mentality has been internalized and celebrated in Silicon Valley. OpenAI was founded, in 2015, as a nonprofit dedicated to bringing artificial general intelligence into the world in a way that would serve the public good. Underlying its formation was the belief that the technology was too powerful and too dangerous to be developed with commercial motives alone.
From the August 2019 issue: Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher on AI
But in 2019, as the technology began to startle even the people who were working on it with the speed at which it was advancing, the company added a for-profit arm to raise more capital. Microsoft invested $1 billion at first, then many billions of dollars more. Then, this past fall, the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, was fired then quickly rehired, in a whiplash spectacle that signaled a demolition of OpenAI’s previously established safeguards against putting company over country. Those who wanted Altman out reportedly believed that he was too heavily prioritizing the pace of development over safety. But Microsoft’s response—an offer to bring on Altman and anyone else from OpenAI to re-create his team there—started a game of chicken that led to Altman’s reinstatement. The whole incident was messy, and Altman may well be the right person for the job, but the message was clear: The pursuit of scale and profit won decisively over safety concerns and public accountability.
Silicon Valley still attracts many immensely talented people who strive to do good, and who are working to realize the best possible version of a more connected, data-rich global society. Even the most deleterious companies have built some wonderful tools. But these tools, at scale, are also systems of manipulation and control. They promise community but sow division; claim to champion truth but spread lies; wrap themselves in concepts such as empowerment and liberty but surveil us relentlessly. The values that win out tend to be the ones that rob us of agency and keep us addicted to our feeds.
The theoretical promise of AI is as hopeful as the promise of social media once was, and as dazzling as its most partisan architects project. AI really could cure numerous diseases. It really could transform scholarship and unearth lost knowledge. Except that Silicon Valley, under the sway of its worst technocratic impulses, is following the playbook established in the mass scaling and monopolization of the social web. OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and other corporations leading the way in AI development are not focusing on the areas of greatest public or epistemological need, and they are certainly not operating with any degree of transparency or caution. Instead they are engaged in a race to build faster and maximize profit.
From the September 2023 issue: Does Sam Altman know what he’s creating?
-insidexpress
Exclusive-Hotelier Robert Bigelow gives Trump $1 million for legal fees
Image Credit: Donald Trump to testify in New York civil fraud trial/Reuters
Hotelier Robert Bigelow told Reuters on Tuesday he gave Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump $1 million for his legal fees and agreed to donate another $20 million to a pro-Trump outside group for campaign purposes.
"I gave him $1 million towards his legal fees a few weeks ago. I made a promise to give him $20 million more, that will be to the super PAC," the Nevada-based owner of Budget Suites of America said in an interview.
The commitments, which have not been previously reported, show some big money is coalescing around Trump, the runaway frontrunner to clinch the Republican presidential nomination to face Democrat Joe Biden in the November general election.
Bigelow's donations also highlight the unusual role some political donors are playing as Trump faces four pending criminal cases this year.
Those cases include two over his efforts to reverse his 2020 presidential election loss, one over his handling of classified documents upon leaving office and another over his hush money payments to a porn star.
Bigelow, who also founded Bigelow Aerospace and funds investigations into extraterrestrial life, said he felt Trump was being unfairly targeted in the criminal cases and that his sympathy towards the former president had motivated the donation.
"I was just sympathetic. They didn't solicit anything from me," Bigelow said. The $20 million would be spread out but "starts right away," he added.
The Justice Department says it acts without political bias.
All of Trump's Republican rivals, bar former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, have dropped out of the race, and Trump is all but assured of clinching the nomination.
Trump and his team have been seeking to peel wealthy benefactors away from Haley, making calls trying to convince donors to switch sides. Trump has gone so far as to warn the donors they would be banished from his orbit if they made further donations.
Bigelow initially backed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination, but dropped him in part over his strict anti-abortion policies.
BILLS AND FINES
For all of Trump's political success, however, his legal costs are rapidly mounting.
Trump was hit last week with an $83 million verdict in a defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, and a judge is set to rule any day now on the New York Attorney General’s request for $370 million in penalties for his misrepresentations to banks about his net worth.
The New York Times reported earlier on Tuesday that pro-Trump groups spent some $50 million on legal bills and "investigation-related" expenses in 2023. Reuters was not immediately able to confirm that figure.
Bigelow said he could not remember the exact name of the entity to which he sent the $1 million, but Trump's Save America PAC has been an important vehicle for paying his legal fees. When asked whether he was considering donating more to help pay Trump's legal fees, Bigelow declined to comment.
Bigelow said he had dinner with Trump on Monday night at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
"It was supposed to be one hour. It was over two hours. And we still ran out of time," Bigelow said, declining to provide details of their conversation.
Bigelow said he was concerned about turmoil in the Middle East and felt confident in Trump's capacity to navigate crises given his 2017-2021 term in the White House.
-Alexandra Ulmer, Reuters
Report: J6 Pipe Bomber Is a Government Employee – FBI Had His License Plate Number but Refused to Interview Him
Over three years ago, on January 5, 2021, a suspect planted pipe bombs near the Washington DC RNC and DNC headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021 protests.
The US Capitol was shut down on January 6 after the feds found the bombs near the Republican and Democrat Party headquarters.
As previously reported — A mysterious suspect planted two pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC DC Headquarters and safely detonated by a bomb squad on January 6.
The FBI continued to drip out new videos of the suspect who placed two pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC the night before the Capitol riot in the months following the incident.
A whistleblower stepped forward in 2022 and disclosed that the FBI was withholding information on the investigation.
In 2023 the FBI finally offered a $500,000 reward for information on the alleged bomber. Maybe they need to check who was on duty that night?
The culprit was caught on video but never caught by the FBI – the greatest intelligence service in the world.
Now we know why.
FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin reported in May 2023 that the technicians who worked on the program told him the devices were inoperable.
It was likely just a propaganda operation used to attack Trump supporters. Planned and sanctioned by the Deep State.
In May 2023 Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), and Bill Posey (R-FL) sent a letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), demanding an update on the case of the J6 pipe bomber.
Rep. Jordan’s letter highlights a crucial detail that has come to light: the FBI may possess information about the license plate number of the suspect’s vehicle.
“As part of our oversight investigation into the pipe bombs placed near the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee on January 5, 2021. At the start of the 118th Congress on January 17, 2023, we reiterated this request. To date, you have failed to comply,” reads the letter.
The committee’s interest in the investigation was sparked by a whistleblower disclosure from a senior FBI official, which raised questions about the “unusual” nature of the FBI’s investigative efforts.
The whistleblower disclosure revealed that the FBI’s Washington Field Office had requested other field offices to canvass all confidential human sources across the country for information about the culprit, despite more than a year having passed since the bombs were placed.
The request specifically asked for information from sources reporting on all types of threats, as the suspect’s “motive and ideology remained unknown.”
The FBI then used the security camera footage from the Northern Virginia Metro stop to identify the license plate of a car associated with the suspect. However, the FBI has yet to identify the suspect, despite these leads.
One former FBI assistant director observed, “[it just doesn’t add up … [t]here’s just too much to work with to not know who this guy is.”
-Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit
Secret Obama Memo Could Impact Jack Smith’s Classified Documents Case Against Trump
Conservative watchdog group America First Legal unearthed a secret Obama memo that could torpedo Jack Smith’s claims that President Trump didn’t have the authority to possess or retain classified documents.
In June Jack Smith indicted Trump on 37 federal counts for storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
Trump was charged in a federal court in Florida with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information and 6 other process crimes stemming from his conversations with his lawyer.
In July Jack Smith hit Trump with 3 additional charges in a superseding indictment in the investigation into classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago.
Last week AFL filed a FOIA request against the Defense Department for more information on a secretive committee created by Barack Obama
In 2014 Obama created the secretive Presidential Information Technology Committee (PITC) after Russian hackers breached the Executive Office of the President’s network.
“Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against former President Trump, claims “Trump was not authorized to possess or retain…classified documents.” But Obama’s PITC memo may have created a reasonable belief in President Trump that he, in fact, had such authority,” America First Legal said.
“Unlocking this secret of the Obama presidency is not only important for public transparency, it has clear implications for whether the government may have failed to disclose necessary information to the defendant as part of its prosecution of former President Trump – and this information may significantly affect the evidentiary support relied upon in indicting and continuing to prosecute a former President. The American people deserve to know the truth behind this secretive memo and how it has been used,” said America First Legal’s Dr. Dan Epstein.
Via America First Legal:
In October 2014, Russian hackers breached the Executive Office of the President (EOP)’s network. In response, President Obama created, via executive action, PITC. PITC includes representatives of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, among others.
First, PITC creates a presumption that the President controls all information he receives. The PITC memo established the President’s exclusive control over information resources and systems provided to the President. (§ 1, ¶ 2.). The memo created the presumption that information contained on information systems and resources was “EOP information.” ( § 4(f)). Because the memo relied upon the Federal Records Act’s definition of “information system” as resources organized for the “use” and “disposition” of “information”, the memo gives the President exclusive control over information he receives. This is relevant to what a President may reasonably believe about information given to him while in office.
Second, and related, if information stored on the PITC network formed the basis for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of former President Trump, that evidence should have been disclosed to the former President and may be relevant to his liability.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against former President Trump, claims “Trump was not authorized to possess or retain…classified documents.” But Obama’s PITC memo may have created a reasonable belief in President Trump that he, in fact, had such authority. Additionally, if the records Trump allegedly destroyed are still preserved within the EOP or the U.S. Department of Defense as part of PITC-created information systems, then other claims in the indictment may be baseless.
These explosive findings are consistent with America First Legal’s whitepaper contending that the President of the United States has absolute authority over presidential papers. Neither Congress nor the federal courts may lawfully abrogate or limit this authority.
-Cristina Laila, The Gateway Pundit
Explainer-The case against Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package
Image Credit: Tesla and SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk attends the first plenary session on Day 1 of the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in Bletchley, Britain on November 1, 2023. Leon Neal/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo
A Delaware judge on Tuesday invalidated Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package for his work as Tesla's chief executive, siding with a Tesla shareholder who called the package unfair.
Musk is one of the world's wealthiest people, according to Forbes Magazine, and his 2018 compensation package for leading the electric-vehicle maker much larger than any executive pay package to date.
Here is what the case is about:
WHO SUED AND WHY?
An investor named Richard Tornetta sued Musk and several Tesla directors in 2018, claiming Musk's pay package was unfair. While Tornetta held just nine Tesla shares, the deal had also been criticized by major pension fund California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and proxy advisory firms, who viewed the deal as too large.
Musk's 2018 pay package gave him stock grants worth around 1% of Tesla's equity each time the company achieved one of 12 tranches of escalating operational and financial goals. Tornetta argued that shareholders were not told how easily the goals would be achieved when they voted on the package.
Tesla achieved the financial goals, helping make Musk one of the world's wealthiest people.
Tornetta claimed the pay was not necessary to incentivize Musk to achieve success for Tesla, as Musk already owned around 22% of the automaker's stock.
WHAT WAS MUSK'S DEFENSE?
Tesla's board argued in court filings that the pay package was needed to align Musk's incentives with shareholders and to keep him focused on the company as it ramped up production of the Model 3. It argued that Musk did not receive any compensation other than the stock options and that if Tesla had not achieved the targets in the pay package, Musk would not have received any money.
Shareholders were told that the goals tied to Musk's pay were "challenging" yet "attainable."
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Musk is likely to appeal, experts said. Before that can happen, the judge will have to finalize the ruling and decide on compensation for the lawyers who represented Tornetta on a contingency basis.
Even without the pay package, Musk benefited from his 22% ownership share of Tesla's stock at the time the package was adopted in 2018. Since then, Tesla's stock has risen about 10-fold, raising the value of his stake by more than $100 billion.
CAN TESLA PAY MUSK RETROACTIVELY?
Musk said in January that discussions on a new pay package with the board were on holding pending the outcome of the case over the 2018 package.
The plaintiff's legal team has said in court documents that the board could adopt a new plan to pay Musk for his work for the last five years, saying that this plan would have to be reasonable.
Experts said any such payment would likely pale in comparison with the stock grant and could lead to more legal headaches.
Jesse Fried, an executive pay expert and professor at Harvard Law School, said that while Delaware courts sometimes allow boards to make modest "gift" payments to executives for past performance, shareholders could easily sue over such a payment to Musk, claiming it was a waste of corporate resources.
"Musk has already generated value for the shareholders. If they were to write a check to him now for $10 billion for past performance, what exactly do the shareholders get from that?" he said.
-Jody Godoy and Tom Hals, Reuters
RASMUSSEN REPORTS: