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Friday, April 19, 2024
OpenDemocracy
Just now
Jack Montgomery
Media

OpenDemocracy Slashes Newsroom Jobs as Soros Funding Dries Up.

OpenDemocracy, a non-profit news publisher previously funded by George Soros, is facing job cuts and financial uncertainty as the elderly plutocrat’s Open Society Foundations group scales back funding under the stewardship of his son, Alex Soros.

OpenDemocracy revealed it would have been insolvent by June had it not cut its budget by around 40 percent. Cutbacks included around a third of its journalists in the United Kingdom, including Head of News Ramzy Alwakeel.

The outlet’s unionized staff are in uproar and have passed votes of no confidence in both chief executive Satbir Singh and board chairwoman Suzanna Taverne.

During its Soros-funded heyday, OpenDemocracy adopted a strong stance against Donald Trump and “whiteness.” It advocated for Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Mariana Islands, including Guam, to be granted statehood to “end the whiteness of Congress” in 2021.

In 2022, it argued that press interest in the Ukraine war was a racist “dog whistle” driven by the fact the combatants are European.

In 2020, former OpenDemocracy editor Eleanor Penny posted on X, formerly Twitter, that she hoped Trump “dies from anything” when he was diagnosed with COVID-19.

Alex Soros, who describes himself as “more political” than his 93-year-old father, has focused Open Society’s financial resources on the United States. Soros Fund Management has poured millions into buying up radio stations and invested in a podcasting network aptly named Crooked Media.

Alex Soros had already visited Joe Biden’s White House at least 20 times as of June 2023.

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OpenDemocracy, a non-profit news publisher previously funded by George Soros, is facing job cuts and financial uncertainty as the elderly plutocrat's Open Society Foundations group scales back funding under the stewardship of his son, Alex Soros. show more
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2 hours ago
Politics

Gaetz Files Amendment to Fund Border Wall Construction with Ukraine Loan Repayments.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has proposed an amendment to the Ukraine aid bill that stipulates funds repaid by Ukraine under the agreement be utilized to construct the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The amendment comes as the House prepares to vote on three separate financial aid packages on Saturday, namely $26.4 billion in funding for Israel, $8.1 billion for Taiwan, and an additional $61 billion in aid for Ukraine.

“Funds repaid by Ukraine pursuant to an agreement under this section shall be made available to the Secretary of Homeland Security, without limitation as to fiscal year, for the construction of a physical barrier along the southern border of the United States,” the amendment reads.

“If Ukraine pays back any part of the money we are gifting them in this bill, that money should be spent on our nation’s largest domestic problem: the construction of a border wall with Mexico,” Gaetz said in an interview. “Time and again, Republicans have shown that they have no appetite to vote for what the American people demand, but if we have random billions laying around for a war halfway across the world, we should be able to get some table scraps for our own country,” he added.

House Speaker Mike Johnson announced his decision to permit members a span of 72 hours to review the respective legislation in anticipation of Saturday’s vote. The individual aid bills mark a u-turn for Johnson, who had earlier supported Ukraine aid only on the condition that it was linked with a border security package. While acknowledging the U.S.’ global commitments, he underlined the necessity of domestic security saying, “we have to take care of our own house first.”

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Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) has proposed an amendment to the Ukraine aid bill that stipulates funds repaid by Ukraine under the agreement be utilized to construct the wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The amendment comes as the House prepares to vote on three separate financial aid packages on Saturday, namely $26.4 billion in funding for Israel, $8.1 billion for Taiwan, and an additional $61 billion in aid for Ukraine. show more
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Trump Hush Money Trial
3 hours ago
William Upton
Lawfare

Prospective Juror in Trump Trial Peddles ‘Fine People’ Hoax.

A prospective alternate juror in the Manhattan-based hush money trial of former President Donald Trump was dismissed ‘for cause’ after she repeated the “fine people” hoax and other anti-Trump sentiments as the jury selection process continued on Friday. The former President’s defense attorney, Susan Necheles, objected to the seating of the juror, informing Judge Juan Merchan, “She said Trump enables homophobic and racist comments.” Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger objected to the challenge, arguing the juror also said she doesn’t hold Trump responsible for the actions of his supporters.

EXCUSED FOR CAUSE.

Judge Merchan asked the juror to elaborate on her views. “His followers feel emboldened by his rhetoric. There was speeches like the ‘both sides’ thing. Does that make sense?” the prospective alternate juror responded. Following additional questioning, Judge Merchan ruled, “I think the safer course is to grant excusal for cause.”

Her reference to the “‘both sides’ thing” almost certainly meant the Democrat and corporate media‘s “very fine people on both sides” hoax from 2017. In the aftermath of the Charlottesville protests on August 12, 2017, former President Trump repeatedly condemned the “egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence” that occurred during the demonstration.

WHAT TRUMP ACTUALLY SAID.

After being continually pressed by the media to condemn only the pro-Robert E. Lee statue demonstrators in the days following the violent protests, Trump responded: “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides… You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.”

The National Pulse previously reported that anti-Trump actor and comedian Micahel Rapaport admitted, “I was wrong,” claiming the media had misled him regarding the “very fine people” hoax.

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A prospective alternate juror in the Manhattan-based hush money trial of former President Donald Trump was dismissed 'for cause' after she repeated the "fine people" hoax and other anti-Trump sentiments as the jury selection process continued on Friday. The former President's defense attorney, Susan Necheles, objected to the seating of the juror, informing Judge Juan Merchan, "She said Trump enables homophobic and racist comments." Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger objected to the challenge, arguing the juror also said she doesn't hold Trump responsible for the actions of his supporters. show more
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5 hours ago
William Upton
Corruption
Media

Wikipedia Founder Says Website Is Corrupted By NPR’s Katherine Maher, Who May Have Worked With Intel Agencies.

Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, says the massive open-source online encyclopedia is likely ideologically corrupted due to the efforts of its former chief executive, Katherine Maher. Maher led the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the online resource, before she was hired as the CEO of NPR.

“For the ex-CEO of Wikipedia to say that it was somehow a mistake for Wikipedia to be ‘free and open,’ that it led to bad consequences—my jaw is on the floor,” Sanger told the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher F. Rufo. He added: “I can’t say I’m terribly surprised that she thinks it, but I am surprised that she would say it.”

Maher, during her tenure as the head of the Wikimedia Foundation, told the Atlantic Council that she “took a very active approach to disinformation” and “through conversations with government” targeted what she deemed misinformation. Sanger, responding to Maher‘s claim, acknowledged that she likely worked with U.S. intelligence agencies to suppress political dissenters.

‘PROBABLY THE CIA.’

“We know that there is a lot of backchannel communication and I think it has to be the case that the Wikimedia Foundation now, probably governments, probably the CIA, have accounts that they control, in which they actually exert their influence,” Sanger said, continuing: “And it’s fantastic, in a bad way, that she actually comes out against the system for being ‘free and open.'”

He added, regarding the state of Wikipedia: “When she says that she’s worked with government to shut down what they consider ‘misinformation,’ that, in itself, means that it’s no longer free and open.”

Sanger lamented Wikipedia’s ideological capture, telling Rufo: “[It] has not just been taken over by the Left, but that it has been co-opted by and working with the government, is just—that’s not a thing I would’ve imagined happening 20 years ago.”

Concerns regarding Maher’s ideological bias and the Left’s capture of important media institutions were first raised by former NPR editor Uri Berliner. The veteran journalist resigned from the taxpayer-funded media outlet yesterday after being suspended by Maher.

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Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, says the massive open-source online encyclopedia is likely ideologically corrupted due to the efforts of its former chief executive, Katherine Maher. Maher led the Wikimedia Foundation, which oversees the online resource, before she was hired as the CEO of NPR. show more
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China Apple App Store Bans
5 hours ago
Jack Montgomery
TECH

China Demands Apple Remove WhatsApp, Threads, Signal, & Telegram from App Store… Apple Caves.

China’s Cyberspace Administration has demanded that Apple pull four popular messaging apps from its China-based App Store over national security concerns. WhatsApp and Threads, owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, along with Signal and Telegram, could circumvent China’s ‘Great Firewall’ via virtual private networks.

“We are obligated to follow the laws in the countries where we operate, even when we disagree. The Cyberspace Administration of China ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns,” Apple confirmed in a statement.

The takedowns come as the Chinese Embassy in the United States is lobbying Congress directly over the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications bill. Passed by the House of Representatives but still requiring Senate approval, the bill would require ByteDance, the China-based parent company of TikTok, to divest from the social media app or be banned from operating in the U.S.

The Chinese regime, which denies controlling TikTok, insists its intervention is “not about lobbying for a single company but about whether all Chinese companies can be treated fairly.”

Chinese state-owned entities own “golden shares” in ByteDance, giving Chinese Communist Party apparatchiks veto power on its board.

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China's Cyberspace Administration has demanded that Apple pull four popular messaging apps from its China-based App Store over national security concerns. WhatsApp and Threads, owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, along with Signal and Telegram, could circumvent China's 'Great Firewall' via virtual private networks. show more
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