1680: Seismic Sundae

Ok now, enough is enough. I am now convinced that John is a time traveler following his recent can inspector story. This man has had too many jobs. More jobs than a man of his age could accommodate. I bet you $33 that if you covered a story like a nationwide Tuna fish shortage, John would tell tale of his days as a Tuna Boat Capt. This man is truly the most interesting man on the planet.

Have a great week and keep up the fantastic work

Brad

I run an independent ISP in Los Angeles. While we are quite small in comparison to the incumbents in our area, about 80% of our customers are small and medium business, including one municipality. Thus we have some direct insight into issues like what have been happening the past week. We were aware of the Crowdstrike incident, and something else that seems to have gone unreported.

On Thursday afternoon, about 3pm PST we began getting calls from clients complaining that they couldn't do certain things. access their email, get to their sharepoint, and in one case single sign on with Microsoft 365 was not operating. Then, we started accessing these clients to open support tickets on our "cloud hosted" software, and were getting 550 server not found errors. This condition lasted well into Thursday night.

A quick check of downdetector.com showed that Microsoft Azure services was down, and so were a LOT of things.

The next day, the crowd strike incident arose. It seems quite coincidental that these two very large issues happens almost in tandem. Is it possible that Azure was hit with some kind of "attack" and asked Crowd strike to push out something to fix it, at which point the fix took a dump? I did a little research and have a link below to a notice on azure central forum, and a support announcement from Sonar, our ISP management vendor. A third link provides the Azure post-incident report. They claim an IP access list was modified or lost during a routine update causing issues with VM drives. Plausable, but in light of the next event, less likely? Anyway, food for thought.

https://azure.status.microsoft/en-us/status/history/

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1824441/azure-central-was-down-for-hours-will-customers-be

# 6:16am PST 7/19/24: Sonar Software Service Restoration Update

Dear Valued Sonar Software Customers,

I am writing to you today with an update regarding the recent service disruption that impacted our platform due to the widespread Microsoft Azure incident that affected numerous cloud-based services globally. I understand the frustration and inconvenience this outage caused, and I want to express my sincere apologies for the impact it had on your operations. While this was an external issue outside of our immediate control, we fully acknowledge the disruption it caused your Sonar Software experience.

Our dedicated team of engineers worked tirelessly throughout the incident to restore services as quickly as possible. I am pleased to report that as of 3:30am EST, all Sonar Software services have been fully restored and are operating normally.

We deeply value your trust in Sonar Software, and we are committed to providing you with a reliable and stable platform. We understand the importance of our services to your business, and we take our responsibility to maintain uninterrupted operations very seriously.

First, the issue doesn’t really have anything to do with micro services. The way falcon works is it is essentially a rootkit users install on their machines. It’s a c++ kernel module (ebpf) and data files. One of the data files was corrupted, and caused the code to crash. These data files are updated frequently with Windows updates. The fix was to remove the bad data file in safe mode.

The backend or the service was not down at all during this event. The file that gets delivered over CDN was corrupted.

Crwd is a very odd company. I feel like I work in the Alias or something. It’s extremely compartmentalized. I can’t even see the Falcon code as a high level engineer. During a call, a higher level engineer made comments on Thursday warning an external partner we were working on a deal with that there might be a hold up. You are correct imo that there is no way this update to the file hit the cdn unless it was intentional.

Falcon is the oldest and most mature part of the product. Basically its the part that runs in all customers computers and sends kernel level back to Crwd so that it can analyze EVERYTHING that happens on a computer for ongoing “attacks”. Crwd doesn’t run only on AWS. It stores data on its own hardware and we store exabytes.

What I garner from this:

Your local policies could have saved you from the outage. Shame on you!!

It was a bug in our validator. WTF?

Additionally, I have multiple reports that Azure services were failing up to 9 hours BEFORE the offending update was released. Does not seem unrelated to me.

Oh yeah, the "update" includes AI and Machine learning magic that is awesome.

Link

This paper suggests AI models could conclude the CrowdStrike outage was

100% effective in preventing hacks and viruses in protected customers.

Link

That’s insane. The typical DJI drone (I assume that’s what he flew) has a

full flight data log that can be downloaded in seconds. They just have

to connect a USB cable to the drone fuselage and to a computer, download

the recorded flight data which saves lat/long/altitude and time stamp

every few seconds. You get a VERY accurate 3D flight data log file.

They

can then lay that over any map like a Google map or Earth and see

everything about that drone AND it’s past flight history - recorded

second by second. It takes less than 3 minutes to collect.

We

do it as needed for flight maintenance logs or review, and the data

also shows stick control positions, battery power levels used at that

moment, heading, speed, and all the inflight control stick input

settings, everything. It’s the drone version of the black box.

You

can re-create an exact 3D flight with all control inputs and power

settings used. And the FBI can’t figure it out by now?! BS.

A 🤡 show. Every serious drone pilot knows how to easily access this data. They are clueless or stonewalling.

We found the assassin’s connections through our in-depth analysis of mobile ad data to track movements of Crooks and his associates.

To do this, we tracked devices that regularly visited both Crooks’s home and place of work and followed them

Link

To assassinate the future president

Greetings sir. In regards to the shooters drone activities... DJI drones will let you know if you are in a restricted area, but still let the drone go up (at least the last time i played with one). It will let you go because a pilot with a Part 107 might have clearance to do so. There are no transponders so no way to know if something was actually in the air, though newer models have Remote ID software installed which is somewhat of a transponder, it just lets the FAA know there is a drone in this area. As far as i know, this is all done on an honor system, so he may have well seen a NOTAM, and just went up anyways. Another option is a self built drone using iNav to plot a course and fly autonomously. Like you guys, i dont buy there was a drone used in the first place, and this is just reverse engineering.

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Thu, 25 Jul 2024 15:50

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American novelist

Walter Norris Kirn (born August 3, 1962)[1] is an American novelist, literary critic, and essayist. He is the author of eight books, most notably Up in the Air, which was made into a film of the same name starring George Clooney.

Kirn graduated with an A.B. in English from Princeton University in 1983 after completing a 22-page-long senior thesis entitled "Entangling Breaths (Poems)."[2] Following that, he obtained a second undergraduate degree in English Literature at Oxford University, where he was a Keasbey Memorial Foundation Scholar.[3]

Kirn has published a collection of short stories and several novels. These include Thumbsucker (1999), which was made into a 2005 film featuring Keanu Reeves and Vince Vaughn. Kirn's 2001 novel, Up in the Air, has been characterized as a literary chronotope relating to the genre of road narratives.[4] It was made into a 2009 film directed by Jason Reitman. The film adaptation of Up In The Air, which starred George Clooney and Anna Kendrick, was a commercial success and went on to receive critical acclaim as well as numerous nominations and awards.

In 2005, Kirn took over blogger Andrew Sullivan's publication while Sullivan was on vacation. He also wrote The Unbinding, an Internet-only novel that was published in Slate magazine.[5]

Kirn's 2013 memoir Blood Will Out, is an account of his relationship with the convicted murderer and imposter Christian Gerhartsreiter, who had initially approached Kirn using the alias of "Clark Rockefeller".

He has also reviewed books for New York Magazine and has written for The New York Times Book Review, New York Times Sunday Magazine, The Atlantic and Spy, and is a contributing editor of Time, where he has received popularity for his entertaining and sometimes humorous first-person essays among other articles of interest. He also served as an American cultural correspondent for the BBC.

In 2023, Kirn and David Samuels launched County Highway, a magazine about America in the form of a nineteenth-century newspaper, and as America's only newspaper. Donald Rosenfeld is the publisher.

In addition to teaching nonfiction writing at the University of Montana, Kirn was the 2008''09 Vare Nonfiction Writer in Residence at the University of Chicago.[6]

Kirn appears on the weekly podcast, America This Week with Matt Taibbi. He is a weekly regular panelist on Gutfeld!.

Kirn was born in Akron, Ohio, but grew up in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. After high school, he attended Macalester College for one year before transferring to Princeton University.[7] Kirn's family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was twelve, but Kirn is no longer affiliated with the church.[8] In 1995, Kirn married Maggie McGuane, daughter of actress Margot Kidder and novelist Thomas McGuane. Kirn was 32 at the time; McGuane was 19.[9] The couple had two children but have since divorced.[10] Kirn is now married to magazine writer Amanda Fortini. The two split their time between Livingston, Montana and Las Vegas, Nevada.

She Needed Me (1992)Thumbsucker (1999)Up in the Air (2001)Mission to America (2005)The Unbinding (2006)Short fiction collections [ edit ] My Hard Bargain: Stories (1990)[11]Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever (2009)Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade (2013)Thumbsucker (2005)Up in the Air (2009) ^ "Walter Kirn". Mormon Literature Database. Brigham Young University. c. 2003 . Retrieved June 30, 2010 . ^ Kirn, Walter Norris (1983). "Entangling Breaths (Poems)". ^ "Walter Kirn" . Retrieved 2014-11-22 . ^ Hansen, Julie. "Space, time, and plane travel in Walter Kirn's novel up in the air." Nordic Journal of English Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, Sept. 2012, pp. 18+ ^ "The Unbinding: An exclusive Slate novel. By Walter Kim". Slate. 13 March 2006 . Retrieved 2006-06-22 . ^ Coming This Fall: Walter Kirn ^ Kirn, Walter (2005-01-05). "Lost in the Meritocracy". The Atlantic . Retrieved 2014-07-20 . ^ NPR: Writer Walter Kirn, on a 'Mission to America' ^ Brozan, Nadine (1995-08-16). "Chronicle". The New York Times . Retrieved 2010-05-27 . ^ - Walter Kirn Author, "Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever"] ^ Kirn, Walter (1990). My Hard Bargain: Stories. New York: Knopf. No URL found. Please specify a URL here or add one to Wikidata. 1980s1990s2000s2010s2020s

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Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:55

MrBeast's YouTube co-host Ava Kris Tyson has quit the channel after grooming allegations, which she denies.

The 28-year-old US YouTuber, who has more than 22,000 subscribers on her own channel, was accused of sending inappropriate messages to a minor, reportedly then 13, when she was 20.

On X, Ava denied the claims saying, "I never groomed anyone", but apologised for her "past behaviour" in a statement.

She said that she and MrBeast - real name Jimmy Donaldson - have "mutually decided it's best I permanently step away from all things MrBeast and social media to focus on my family and mental health".

Ava rose to fame after appearing alongside MrBeast on his channel, which has more than 300m subscribers, since 2012.

In 2022 he became the most subscribed YouTuber on the platform and is known for huge stunts and his philanthropic videos.

Ava revealed last year that she was a transgender woman and that she was undergoing gender-affirming therapy while changing her pronouns to she/her.

Allegations first surfaced against her last month in videos shared by other YouTubers which accuse her of messaging a minor when she was 20.

Ava responded by saying: "To create a narrative that my behaviour extended beyond bad edgy jokes is disgusting and did not happen.

"In past years, I have learned that my old humour is not acceptable. I cannot change who I was, but I can continue to work on myself.

"I humbly apologise to anyone I have hurt with my unacceptable social media posts, past actions, and to those who may feel betrayed by how I used to act online."

The alleged victim - who was named online - has come out to defend Ava saying: "These videos are massive lies and twisting the truth.

"Ava never did anything wrong and just made a few edgy jokes. I was never exploited or taken advantage of."

BBC Newsbeat has contacted representatives for Ava Kris Tyson and MrBeast for comment.

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:43

Dhaka, Bangladesh '' During a nationwide curfew and with the army on the streets, an unlikely group of people gathered at Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's office with demands '' not student protesters who have been seeking an end to job quotas, but industry leaders.

The country's top business owners asked Hasina on Monday to withdraw the curfew and restore internet service, which has been down for days as part of a complete communications blackout. They pleaded with her to have the army provide security for the Dhaka-Chattogram highway '-- the economic lifeline that connects the capital to the country's main port city '-- amid fears of vandalism.

Hasina told them her government was forced to impose the curfew and deploy the army across the nation to ''save lives and properties of people''. ''It [the curfew] will be gradually relaxed,'' she said.

But for millions of Bangladeshi workers, business owners and thousands of companies, ''gradually'' might not be good enough.

For nearly two weeks, student protesters and security forces have been locked in a tense standoff, and violent clashes have killed at least 146 people. The protests started out against quotas '-- primarily against the 30 percent of government jobs reserved for descendants of people who found in Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence. On Sunday, the Bangladesh Supreme Court significantly shrunk the quotas, but the students have released a list of eight demands, focused on seeking justice for their comrades killed in the violence. The government-imposed curfew remains in place, as does the internet block.

All of that has brought the economy to a screeching halt amid high inflation and fast-depleting foreign reserves. In the past five days, Bangladesh's economy has suffered losses amounting to more than $1.2bn, according to an estimate by the country's business community.

Aside from the shutdown of almost all industries, there were economic losses due to vandalism and arson attacks, including on the country's lone metro rail system in Dhaka, and the national television network's premises. Speaking to business leaders on Monday, Hasina blamed the internet blackout on opposition parties, alleging that their activists had ruptured internet cables across the country. She promised the internet connections would be restored soon.

Losses mount every dayThe shutdown and communications blackout have hit the readymade garment sector the hardest. It is responsible for more than 80 percent of the country's export earnings of over $50bn.

All factories have remained closed since Saturday due to safety concerns, and the sector is suffering losses of nearly $150m a day, SM Mannan Kochi, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, told Al Jazeera.

''The biggest problem is that our international buyers are losing confidence '-- a loss whose value can't be gauged with just money as it will have a long-term negative impact on the country's most valuable industry,'' Kochi said.

Steelmakers have estimated that in the past four days, their sector has suffered a loss of nearly $110m. Suman Chowdhury, general secretary of the Bangladesh Steel Manufacturers Association, said in a statement that because of the curfew, they couldn't release raw materials from the port, resulting in the disruption of production.

''Also, we didn't want to put the lives of our workers in risk and asked them to stay at home,'' he said.

Production and distribution of pharmaceutical products have also been severely disrupted as medicine makers have been unable to receive imported raw materials from the Chattogram port and Dhaka airport.

''Because of the internet shutdown, we couldn't get custom clearance to release our products,'' said Jahangir Alam, chief financial officer of Beximco Pharma, a generic drugmaker. ''Our productions are disrupted as we lack raw materials now.''

The growing ceramics industry also fears losing export orders worth about $8m per day, a local newspaper reported, quoting Irfan Uddin, secretary of the Bangladesh Ceramic Manufacturers and Exporters Associations.

Impact of internet blackoutThe internet blackout imposed on Thursday night has hit almost all businesses and industries.

It has shut down e-commerce and f-commerce, which are Facebook-based businesses popular in Bangladesh. These sectors are estimated to be losing at least $5m in revenue per day.

Shahab Uddin, vice president of the e-commerce Association of Bangladesh, told Al Jazeera that it's not just the businesses that are taking losses.

''People in the city got habituated to ordering everything online in the past few years. I also ordered most things, including groceries, online, and my daily life has become a struggle now.''

Call centres are facing daily losses of at least $3m per day, Wahid Sharif, president of the Bangladesh Association of Contact Centres and Outsourcing Association, told Al Jazeera.

More than two-thirds of the call centre industry's revenue comes from serving global companies, and the reputational damage that this industry has suffered because of nearly five days of the ongoing internet blackout is ''irreparable,'' Sharif said.

Officials at commercial banks said they might have to pay additional interest amounting to millions of dollars because of delays in scheduled payments.

Zunaid Ahmed Palak, Bangladesh's state minister for information and communication technology, told the media on Monday that the government was aware of the financial losses due to the blackout.

''We are trying our best to restore the connection,'' Palak said. ''The repair work is going on, and it could be back at any time.''

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:35

Training artificial intelligence (AI) models on AI-generated text quickly leads to the models churning out nonsense, a study has found. This cannibalistic phenomenon, termed model collapse, could halt the improvement of large language models (LLMs) as they run out of human-derived training data and as increasing amounts of AI-generated text pervade the Internet.

How does ChatGPT 'think'? Psychology and neuroscience crack open AI large language models

''The message is we have to be very careful about what ends up in our training data,'' says co-author Zakhar Shumaylov, an AI researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK. Otherwise ''things will always, provably, go wrong,'' he says.'' The team used a mathematical analysis to show that the problem of model collapse is likely to be universal, affecting all sizes of language model that use uncurated data, as well as simple image generators and other types of AI.

The researchers began by using an LLM to create Wikipedia-like entries, then trained new iterations of the model on text produced by its predecessor. As the AI-generated information '-- known as synthetic data '-- polluted the training set, the model's outputs became gibberish. The ninth iteration of the model completed a Wikipedia-style article about English church towers with a treatise on the many colours of jackrabbit tails (see 'AI gibberish').

More subtly, the study, published in Nature1 on 24 July, showed that even before complete collapse, learning from AI-derived texts caused models to forget the information mentioned least frequently in their data sets as their outputs became more homogeneous.

Robo-writers: the rise and risks of language-generating AI

This is a concern when it comes to making AI models that represent all groups fairly, because low-probability events often relate to marginalized groups, says study co-author Ilia Shumailov, who worked on the project while at the University of Oxford, UK.

''This is a fantastic paper,'' says Julia Kempe, a computer scientist at New York University in New York City. Until now, many technology firms have improved their models by feeding them larger and larger amounts of data. But as human-produced content runs out, they are hoping to use synthetic data to keep improving. The study '-- a version of which first appeared on the arXiv preprint server in May 2023 '-- has spurred the AI community to try to find solutions to the problem, she says. ''It's been a call to arms.''

You are what you eatLanguage models work by building up associations between tokens '-- words or word parts '-- in huge swathes of text, often scraped from the Internet. They generate text by spitting out the statistically most probable next word, based on these learned patterns.

AI gibberishThe study authors trained their large language model on Wikipedia articles and trained successive generations of the model on the text produced by the previous version. Prompted to follow on from a paragraph of text from the Wikipedia entry on Grade I listed buildings in Somerset, the models output the following text. The first output from the model (generation 0) contains some errors, but the ninth generation spews complete gibberish.

Model generation 0Revival architecture such as St. John's Cathedral in London. The earliest surviving example of Perpendicular Revival architecture is found in the 18th @-@ century Church of Our Lady of Guernsey, which dates from the late 19th century. There are two types of per- pendicular churches : those.

Model generation 9architecture. In addition to being home to some of the world's largest populations of black @-@ tailed jackrabbits, white @-@ tailed jackrabbits, blue @-@ tailed jackrabbits, red @-@ tailed jackrabbits, yellow @-

To demonstrate model collapse, the researchers took a pre-trained LLM and fine-tuned it by training it using a dataset based on Wikipedia entries. They then asked the resulting model to generate its own Wikipedia-style articles. To train the next generation of the model, they started with the same pre-trained LLM, but fine-tuned it on the articles created by its predecessor. They judged the performance of each model by giving it an opening paragraph and asking it to predict the next few sentences, then comparing the output to that of the model trained on real data. The team expected to see errors crop up, says Shumaylov, but were surprised to see ''things go wrong very quickly'', he says.

Collapse happens because each model necessarily only samples from the data it is trained on. This means that words that were infrequent in the original data are less likely to be reproduced, and the probability of common ones being regurgitated is boosted. Complete collapse eventually occurs because each model learns not from reality, but from the previous model's prediction of reality, with errors getting amplified in each iteration. ''Over time, those errors end up stacking up on top of each other, to the point where the model basically only learns errors and nothing else,'' says Shumailov.

ChatGPT broke the Turing test '-- the race is on for new ways to assess AI

The problem is analogous to inbreeding in a species, says Hany Farid, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley. ''If a species inbreeds with their own offspring and doesn't diversify their gene pool, it can lead to a collapse of the species,'' says Farid, whose work has demonstrated the same effect in image models, producing eerie distortions of reality2.

Synthetic data problemsModel collapse does not mean that LLMs will stop working, but the cost of making them will increase, says Shumailov.

As synthetic data build up in the web, the scaling laws that state that models should get better the more data they train on are likely to break '-- because training data will lose the richness and variety that comes with human-generated content, says Kempe.

AI image generators often give racist and sexist results: can they be fixed?

How much synthetic data is used in training matters. When Shumailov and his team fine-tuned each model on 10% real data, alongside synthetic data, collapse occurred more slowly. And model collapse has not yet been seen in the 'wild', says Matthias Gerstgrasser, an AI researcher at Stanford University in California. A study by Gerstgrasser's team found that when synthetic data didn't replace real data, but instead accumulated alongside them, catastrophic model collapse was unlikely3. It is unclear what happens when a model trains on data produced by a different AI, rather than its own.

Developers might need to find ways, such as watermarking, to keep AI-generated data separate from real data, which would require unprecedented coordination by big-tech firms, says Shumailov. And society might need to find incentives for human creators to keep producing content. Filtering is likely to become important, too '-- for example, humans could curate AI-generated text before it goes back into the data pool, says Kempe. ''Our work4 shows that if you can prune it properly, the phenomenon can be partly or maybe fully avoided,'' she says.

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:31

Jul 24th 2024

This is the introduction to Blighty, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter in which our correspondents turn their gaze on the latest developments in Britain.

Explore more Britain Reuse this content

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:29

Shares of Universal Music Group plummeted up to 30% in Amsterdam on Thursday after the world's largest record label, representing top artists like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Drake, Adele, and Ariana Grande, reported disappointing second-quarter earnings. The report fell short of investor expectations regarding subscription and streaming revenue growth.

Universal's second-quarter report showed subscription revenue in recorded music grew 6.5% year-over-year, or 6.9% in constant currency, missing the Bloomberg estimate of surveyed analysts for growth of 11%.

Recorded Music subscription revenue grew 6.5% year-over-year, or 6.9% in constant currency and streaming revenue decreased 4.2% year-over-year, or 3.9% in constant currency, while physical revenue grew 9.5% year-over-year, or 14.4% in constant currency and license and other revenue grew 18.0% year-over-year on both a reported and constant currency basisOn an earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Boyd Muir told investors that Spotify and YouTube's weak advertising revenue growth were some of the major drivers of softer sales. He said there are emerging roadblocks with social media platforms becoming major music distributors.

Universal Music has been pushing for platforms to compensate artists fairly and has advocated for a new streaming royalty model. The company started pulling its music from ByteDance Ltd.-owned TikTok in February after talks to extend a licensing deal failed. In May, it reached a deal with TikTok that included better pay for songwriters and artists, new promotional agreements and protections against AI-generated music. -Bloomberg

Here's a snapshot of second-quarter results:

Revenue EU2.93 billion, +8.7% y/y, estimate EU2.88 billion (Bloomberg Consensus)

Recorded Music revenue EU2.20 billion, estimate EU2.22 billion

Music Publishing revenue EU511 million, estimate EU519.9 million

Merchandising & Other revenue EU227 million, estimate EU165.4 million

Ebitda EU580 million, estimate EU591.4 million

Adjusted Ebitda EU649 million, estimate EU641.4 million

Adjusted Ebitda margin 22.1%, estimate 22.3%

Revenue in constant currency +9.6%, estimate +8.14%

Recorded Music revenue in constant currency +6.8%, estimate +7.05%

Music Publishing revenue in constant currency +10.4%, estimate +11.2%

Merchandising & Other revenue in constant currency +43.7%, estimate +6.24%

Net income EU625.0 million

Here are first-half results:

Ebitda EU1.07 billion, estimate EU1.08 billion

Recorded Music Ebitda EU959 million, estimate EU942 million

Music Publishing Ebitda EU229 million, estimate EU238.4 million

Merchandising & Other Ebitda EU18 million, estimate EU21.9 million (2 estimates)

Shares in Amsterdam plunged as much as 30% today.

Citi analysts told clients that the results "undermine" what had been seen as defensive growth credentials. Citi, Barclays, and Guggenheim removed positive stances on the company, while Kepler Cheuvreux downgraded.

More from Wall Street analysts (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Citi (neutral vs buy)

Analyst Thomas Singlehurst says the mix was radically different from expectations, with 2Q Streaming & Subscription constant currency growth meaningfully belowMain concerns are unprecedented level of volatility between different revenue lines, and that cash conversion appears to have got worse While sources of volatility may only be temporary, sentiment may be hit until there is evidence of re-acceleration in growth and inflection in cash flowResults undermine defensive growth credentialsCowen (buy)

Results beat on revenue and profitability, but subscription streaming growth a meaningful miss and ad-supported streaming performance also disappointed, analyst Doug Creutz writesWhile still confident in the long-term growth trajectory, the 2Q results "create some unwelcome" noiseMorgan Stanley (overweight)

Analyst Ed Young says revenue miss, and unexpected deceleration, in Subscription and Streaming within Recorded Music likely to be key focus This was offset by revenue beats elsewhere, which does highlight diversified sources of growthMeanwhile, Bill Ackman's Pershing Square holds a 10% stake as the second largest shareholder of the music group.

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:24

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

GE HealthCare on Thursday announced it is teaming up with Amazon Web Services to build new generative artificial intelligence models and tools that can efficiently analyze complex medical data.

The health-care industry is responsible for generating nearly one-third of all data globally, but much of this information isn't easily accessible. Since patients' medical records, images, scans and insurance records are stored across different file formats and systems, it can be challenging for doctors and researchers to sort through this mountain of information '' especially on a larger scale.

For instance, as much as 97% of the data produced by hospitals goes unused, according to a report from Deloitte. GE HealthCare, which offers medical imaging, ultrasound, patient care and pharmaceutical diagnostic solutions, believes generative AI can help.

The company is collaborating with AWS to build models that clinicians can use to leverage data more efficiently across health-care operations, including within screenings, diagnoses, decision support and workflows like scheduling.

"The tools we expect to build as a result of this will be aimed at helping hospitals and clinicians make the most of the data that they have," Dr. Taha Kass-Hout, GE HealthCare's global chief science and technology officer, told CNBC in an interview.

Kass-Hout said AWS will likely help GE HealthCare speed up its development and deployment of web-based medical imaging applications, for instance, which would provide radiologists and other doctors with easier access to analytics.

GE HealthCare offers its own AI tools, but its partnership with AWS will supply the company with the technical infrastructure required to quickly build generative AI models and tools at scale. GE HealthCare will use AWS' solutions like Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker, according to a release Thursday.

"Training these models requires a lot of compute, requires a lot of data, requires a lot of expertise, and we're collaborating in that regard," Matt Wood, vice president of AI at AWS, told CNBC in an interview.

In addition to building applications for health care more broadly, Kass-Hout said GE HealthCare is also exploring how to use generative AI to streamline the company's internal productivity. He said one of its initial priorities will be using an assistive tool called Amazon Q Developer to generate real-time code suggestions for its software developers, which should help them work more efficiently.

Kass-Hout said GE HealthCare maintains rigorous testing and standards before bringing products to market, and the same will be true with the generative AI applications it develops. GE HealthCare does not train models on customer data, he added.

The company's new models and applications will initially be available to GE HealthCare employees and customers, but it plans to make them more widely accessible in the future.

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Archived Version

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 14:23

July 25, 2024

One of the most under-discussed drivers of illegal immigration is the explosion of remittances, which has created a major economic incentive for foreign nationals to pour into the U.S.

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Immigrants of both the legal and illegal variety are coming to the U.S., earning money, and sending it back home instead of putting it into the U.S. economy. Take for example, Nicaragua, which received a record $462.4 million in remittances during the month of May, with $385.9 million coming from the U.S., according to a report cited by Breitbart News. As Breitbart points out, not only is this money not going into the U.S. economy, but it is going to a repressive, communist regime in Nicaragua supported by U.S. adversaries, including China, Russia, and Iran. This is a major problem for the U.S.; Americans have a right to expect that money earned through the American economy will go back into the American economy, not to foreign countries.

Of course, it is reasonable to expect that people who come here will send some money they earn back to family members who still live in their home countries. However, this must be done in a responsible way that benefits the U.S., and does not create harmful incentives.

'); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1609270365559-0'); }); }Every year, hundreds of billions of dollars in remittances are sent from the U.S. to foreign countries. In 2022, India received more than $100 billion in remittances from the U.S., while Mexico received more than $60 billion. While the income earned to fund these remittances is taxable just like any other income, the remittances themselves aren't taxed in the U.S. According to a 2019 study, the U.S. loses $150 billion annually in remittances, a number that is certainly much higher now due to the influx of mass migration that has taken place in recent years. This is a scam and yet another example of how mass migration negatively impacts the American people.

The promise of remittances creates a perverse incentive structure for foreign nationals to take the perilous journey to the U.S., especially given how far the U.S. dollar goes in foreign countries. In Mexico, for example, the minimum wage is less than $15 U.S. dollars a day. In many American cities, such as New York, which has been flooded with illegal aliens, the hourly minimum wage is $15 an hour. It's no wonder why so many foreign nationals have deemed it worth the risk to make the dangerous trek through Latin America. For many foreign nationals who resettle in American cities, even a minimum-wage job could offer the opportunity of generational wealth to the foreigner and his family. One of the top immigration-related priorities for U.S. lawmakers should be to shut down the economic incentives that fuel illegal immigration. This starts with taxing remittances from illegal aliens at or close to 100%. Those who enter our country illegally and violate our laws should not be allowed to profit from doing so.

Other ways to deter economic incentives for illegal immigration include banning illegal aliens from access to taxpayer-funded programs, and cracking down on employers and businesses who hire illegal aliens. With tens of millions of illegal aliens now residing in the U.S., there has been a long-running debate on both the need for and the practicality of mass deportations. Deportations are an essential part of enforcing immigration law, and will need to be carried out on a large scale to restore American sovereignty and security. However, it is possible that many, if not most of the illegal aliens currently living in the U.S. will leave voluntarily if the economic benefits of illegal immigration are revoked. This starts with taxing remittances.

It is simply unacceptable that our government allows foreign nationals to illegally enter our country, take job opportunities from American citizens, and then send the money they earn back to their home countries, often to the benefit of foreign regimes deeply hostile to the U.S. Not only would taxing remittances deter illegal immigration, but the revenue generated from it could be used for border security priorities, including a wall at the southern border, more Border Patrol agents, and more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Heavily taxing remittances is a no-brainer policy with almost zero downside for the U.S., which is probably why it hasn't happened. If the U.S. attempted to tax remittances, there would be an immediate outcry from special interests and anti-borders groups about how unfair and inhumane such a policy is, but foreign nationals and supporters of mass immigration should not be the priority of the U.S. government'--U.S. citizens should be.

It's past time for the U.S. government to tax remittances, and tax them heavily.

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Archived Version

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 21:11

Getty ImagesThe new banknotes come in denominations from 1 to 200

Zimbabwe has introduced a new gold-backed currency called ZiG - the name stands for "Zimbabwe Gold".

It is the latest attempt to stabilise an economy that has lurched from crisis to crisis for the past 25 years.

Unveiling the new notes, central bank governor John Mushayavanhu said the ZiG would be structured, and set at a market-determined exchange rate.

The ZiG replaces a Zimbabwean dollar, the RTGS, that had lost three-quarters of its value so far this year.

Annual inflation in March reached 55% - a seven-month high.

Zimbabweans have 21 days to exchange old, inflation-hit notes for the new currency.

However, the US dollar, which accounts for 85% of transactions, will remain legal tender and most people are likely to continue to prefer this.

The new ZiG banknotes come in denominations of between 1 and 200.

Coins will also be introduced to overcome the shortage of US coins, which has seen people receive change in sweets, small chocolates and pens.

Mr Mushayavanhu said the new currency was being rolled out with immediate effect and banks must convert current Zimbabwe dollar balances to the ZiG.

He committed to ensuring that the amount of local currency in circulation was backed by equivalent value in precious minerals - mainly gold - or foreign exchange, in order to prevent the currency losing value like its predecessors.

Zimbabweans have a historic mistrust of the central bank, dating back to 2008, when it was printing Z$10tn notes while inflation had run out of control.

It then abolished its own currency and for many years only used foreign banknotes such as the US dollar and the South African rand.

In late 2016, the body introduced a new currency called the bond note that was backed by the US dollar loan facility. The then-central bank governor John Mangudya vowed it would remain on a par with the US dollar. But the bond note crashed when the government began printing excess money.

Promises have now been made by the central bank's new governor that overprinting will not be allowed to happen again.

But public reaction on Friday to the latest currency reveal has been subdued.

"We now end up in the same place where we started - where assurances are being given to the market that the government will live within its means," economist Godfrey Kanyenze told the BBC.

"The political culture has not changed - the critical point is discipline on the part of the authorities."

The announcement of the new currency comes as the country is grappling with the effects of a serious drought, which has destroyed half of the country's crop of the staple food, maize.

More Zimbabwe stories from the BBC:

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Archived Version

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 21:06

EXCLUSIVE '' Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is demanding that a group claiming to represent former Haley voters who support the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris stop using her name.

"Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue. Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong," Haley said in a statement shared first with Fox News on Tuesday. "I support Donald Trump because he understands we need to make America strong, safe, and prosperous."

Haley's comments were directed toward a political action committee (PAC) that was previously known as "Haley Voters for Biden."

The group started featuring Harris' name on Sunday, after President Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president to succeed him as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR HARRIS NOW THAT SHE'S SEEMINGLY LOCKED UP THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION

Nikki Haley speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

Haley launched her own White House bid in February of last year, becoming the first major Republican candidate to challenge former President Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. And she was the last rival to Trump left standing before she dropped out of the race in early March. Even after ending her campaign, Haley continued to grab up to 20% of the vote in some of the ensuing Republican presidential primaries.

ONE TIME TRUMP RIVAL HALEY IN GOP CONVENTION SPOTLIGHT

Haley was a very vocal critic of the former president during their heated primary race. But in late May, in her first public comments since announcing the end of her 2024 campaign, Haley said she would vote for Trump. And in a speech last week at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she formally endorsed Trump.

The group, which says it's a coalition of former Haley voters, pledged their support for Harris soon after Biden endorsed his vice president.

"We support @JoeBiden's recommendation and will immediately change the name of our organization to Haley Voters for Harris. There is no time to lose," the group wrote in a social media posting on Sunday afternoon.

The group, which changed the name of its page on X and on its website, also spotlighted that it has no affiliation with Haley or her aligned political committees.

"We also do not and never claimed to speak for Nikki Haley. We are reaching out to a subset of Haley voters who will vote their consciences," the group wrote. "Haley said Trump had to earn our votes. He has done nothing to do so '' constantly deriding her '' and picked Vance as his running mate."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

But a letter from a law firm representing Haley's presidential campaign, shared with Fox News, demanded that the group "cease and desist from any unlawful use of Ambassador Haley's name in your political action committee name, and from any use of her name, image or likeness that implies her support for the election of Kamala Harris as President of the United States."

"Any use by you of Ambassador Haley's name, image, or likeness is without her permission. Ambassador Haley has been clear in her support of Harris' opponent. Any intimation that Ambassador Haley supports Harris is intentionally false and misleading," the letter continued.

"Kamala Harris and I are total opposites on every issue. Any attempt to use my name to support her or her agenda is deceptive and wrong," Haley said in a statement shared with Fox News on Tuesday. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The letter warns that if the group fundraises under the name "Haley Voters for Harris" or a similar name, the Haley campaign will alert investigative authorities, including the Justice Department and the FBI.

Less than 36 hours after Biden's blockbuster news, Harris announced that she had locked up the nomination.

"I am proud to have earned the support needed to become our party's nominee," the vice president wrote in a social media post just after midnight early Tuesday morning.

Harris showcased that she'd won commitments of backing from a majority of the nearly 4,000 delegates to next month's Democratic National Convention, which kicks off Aug. 19 in Chicago.

As much of the Democratic Party '' including governors, senators and House members as well as party leaders '' quickly coalesced behind Harris following Biden's blockbuster news, state delegations to the convention started huddling the past two days and announced their support for the vice president. And an Associated Press survey of Democratic delegates indicated by late Monday that Harris had gone over the top.

Last week, before Biden ended his bid, Haley reiterated her criticism of Harris when it comes to the crisis at the nation's southern border.

In her address at the GOP convention, Haley emphasized that the vice president "had one job... and that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country."

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

Paul Steinhauser is a politics reporter based in New Hampshire.

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Archived Version

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 20:55

Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com

The mainstream media has, until now, played a key role in advancing the Global War on Cash '' a war that began with no official declaration but in which propaganda, as with all wars, is a vital weapon.

Last week's global IT outage appears to have shaken some British media outlets' confidence in the idea of a fully cashless society. When a content update by the cyber-security giant CrowdStrike caused millions of Microsoft systems around the world to crash on Friday morning, bringing the operating systems of banks, payment card firms, airlines, hospitals, NHS clinics, retailers and hospitality businesses to a standstill, businesses were faced with a stark choice: go cash-only, or close until the systems came back online. From WIRED magazine:

This quickly caused chaos in Australia, whose government has explicitly encouraged businesses to go cashless. Pictures posted on social media showed card-only self-checkout registers at the grocery chain Coles displaying Blue Screens of Death (BSODs). Queues for human-run registers at Australian groceries stretched to the back of the store, according to local media. Some Australian marts simply locked their doors'...

Starbucks'--whose then-CEO said in 2020 was shifting ''toward more cashless experiences'''--appeared to have been particularly hard hit. One Kansas-based Starbucks worker posted a TikTok showing that the mobile order system was ''completely down.'' The machine that the store uses to print labels for cups was also not working. ''It just comes out blank every time,'' she said, gesturing to the label printer. She tells WIRED that some customers were ''upset and very rude'' when she tried to explain. A different Starbucks worker said on TikTok that she had to write down every order on sticky notes.

Richard Forno, a cybersecurity lecturer at the University of Maryland, tells WIRED that Friday's outage demonstrates the vulnerability of our current cloud and internet infrastructure. ''Software supply chains have long been a serious cybersecurity concern and potential single point of failure,'' Forno says. ''Given today's events, with any luck, perhaps the world may finally realize that our modern information- and often cloud-based society is based on a very fragile foundation that's not built for security or resiliency.'' (A Microsoft spokesperson did not respond directly to this assessment.)

Here on NC, we have periodically discussed (including here, here, here and here) the hyper-fragility of our tightly coupled IT-based societies, particularly on the banking and payments side of things. In March, UK citizens had a foretaste of the inherent fragility of a cashless economy after the payment systems of the country's two largest supermarket chains, Tesco and Sainsbury's, went down on the same day. Then, as on Friday, cash provided a vital, albeit imperfect, fall-back mechanism for citizens and businesses.

Cash Does Not CrashThis is one of the most important arguments in favour of cash: the resilience it provides to a country's overarching payments system. Put another way, cash does not crash. It does not fail in a power cut or seize up during a cyber attack or software outage (though, of course, ATMs might). By contrast, digital payment systems generally need a stable and continuous internet connection and power supply to process transactions.

This is a lesson central bankers in Sweden, one of the world's most cashless economies, are apparently relearning. From our recent piece, ''The World's Oldest Central Bank Keeps Sounding Alarm on Fragility of Cashless Economies. Are Other Central Banks Listening?''

After playing a part in the wholesale removal of cash from Sweden's economy, the Riksbank is now trying to reverse some of the damage it has caused. It is not the only Scandinavian central bank to have flagged up the fragility risks of exclusively digital payment systems. In 2022, the Bank of Finland recommended that the use of cash payments be guaranteed by law. Like all Nordic countries, Finland is a largely cash-free economy. But like Sweden, it has begun to see the risks of going too far, too soon.

It seems that certain legacy media outlets may also finally be learning this lesson. In the UK alone, four of the country's largest newspapers '-- The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Daily Mail '-- have run articles on how the global IT outage has underscored the fragility of a cashless society. The Daily Mail plastered the message across its front page:

From that article:

Critics said the havoc showed the dangers of a cashless world, with almost half of Britons now leaving the house with only their phones as a means of payment'...

Dennis Reed, director of the Silver Voices campaign group which represents older people, said: 'It's extremely worrying. This should be a big warning for the Government. Obviously it has affected older people particularly, not just with the cash side of things but GP appointments and everything else.

'If people can't pay because they can't use their phone then when systems go down '' and they always will '' people won't be able to access vital services, food, and the essentials of life.

'With this ever-more digital society, we are reliant on it all working. But we have no control over it. We are putting all our eggs in one basket. The future security of the nation is in danger.'

Martin Quinn, campaign director at the Payment Choice Alliance, told The Daily Telegraph: 'With IT outages happening now at alarming regularity, businesses should be mindful of only taking card payments.

'However many supermarkets prefer to have self-service card-only tills, which makes cash users feel like second-class citizens, a concerted effort is needed to return to using and accepting cash, because cash never crashes.'

Media's Role in Global War on CashOver the past couple of decades, the mainstream media has played a crucial role in advancing the Global War on Cash '-- a war that began with no official declaration but in which propaganda, as with all wars, has been a vital weapon. The mainstream and financial media have provided a perfect platform for that propaganda.

In 2007, when contactless payments were barely getting off the ground, Guillermo de la Dehesa, a Spanish economist, former senior civil servant and then-international adviser to Banco Santander and Goldman Sachs, singled out cash as the major source of crime and evil in an El Pais article titled ''The Great Advantage of a Cashless World'':

''Without cash, we would live in a much safer, less violent world with enhanced social cohesion, since the major incentive fuelling all illegal activity [i.e. cash]'... would disappear.''

In 2013, Mastercard sponsored an Oxford University ''trial'' into the germ loads found on the banknotes of a selection of global currencies. Mastercard reserved the exclusive right to present the findings of the trial as well as the results of a highly misleading survey on public perceptions of the health risks of cash, which it did in gaudy glory. As the German financial journalist Norbert H¤ring documented in his article, ''How Mastercard Invented the Health Hazard of Cash,'' the global media did the rest of the work.

United States

CNN, March 28: ''If you thought dirty money was only found in offshore bank accounts, check your wallet instead. But you may want to wash your hands afterward. ['...]. An Oxford University study found an average of 26,000 bacteria on bank notes.'' Source

Switzerland

Blick, March 26: ''Disgusting money: many Swiss find cash unhygienic[.] 64 percent of Swiss people find their cash unhygienic. No wonder, since it is particularly dirty.'' Source

The Local, March 27: ''['...] a study by researchers at Oxford University concludes that legal tender in Switzerland is among the dirtiest in Europe ['...].'' Source

France

Le Monde, April 1: ''Is Cash Dirty?'' Source

UK

Metro, March 26: ''More than half of Brits fear germ risk from filthy money '' with good reason[.]'' Source

Etc'...'...

This was just a dress rehearsal for what was to come in 2020. At the very onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, when public panic was surging, a World Health Organization official responded to a question about whether banknotes could spread the coronavirus with a qualified ''yes.'' In the hours and days that followed legacy media outlets around the world pounced on the comments and magnified them, sparking fears about the safety of using cash.

It worked like a dream. As the graphic below (courtesy of Visual Capitalist) shows, four years on cash is being used for transactions far less frequently in most countries, in large part due to the exaggerated safety fears propagated by the media.

Central bankers themselves have admitted that the pandemic played a key role in accelerating the mass abandonment of cash and adoption of contactless, mobile and online payments. As the author and cash advocate Brett Scott notes, since the pandemic the private sector has turbocharged its anti-cash drive, ''as Big Finance, Big Tech and Big Retail have weaponised the public's temporary fear of physical contact to amplify the anti-cash automation agenda that they already had.''

But at the same time, the amount of cash in circulation has actually surged in many jurisdictions. When the pandemic began, central banks around the world recorded a sharp increase in cash withdrawn from ATMs while at the same time registering a sharp fall in transactional usage of cash. Put simply, people still wanted cash but often as a means of storing their money outside the banking system at a time of crisis.

In some countries, including the UK and Spain, the use of cash has staged a moderate recovery in the last couple of years as people's priorities have shifted from (largely manufactured) concerns about hygiene during a global pandemic to making ends meet amid soaring inflation. But media outlets around the world have continued to churn out articles, columns and op-eds demonising cash and gleefully foretelling its imminent death.

A recent op-ed in the Sydney Morning Herald declared in its title that ''Cash is Dead,'' only to then ask: ''Why Are We Still Pretending to Use It?'' '-- as if the 13% of Australians still using cash on a regular basis are just pretending. In September 2023, the Washington Post's Data Department ran a more informative and less insulting piece titled ''Paper Checks are Dead, Cash is Dying. Who Still Uses Them?''

Doubts Setting InBut doubts appear to be setting in as the IT outages affecting payments systems become increasingly frequent and larger. The mere fact that some of the UK's biggest newspapers, as well as other media organisations around the world including Yahoo Finance Australia, are now discussing the inherent fragility risks of a fully cashless society represents an important shift. The Guardian, for example, reports that the Crowdstrike outage has shown the ''dangers of a cashless society'' '-- according to cash campaigners.

''There will always be outages,'' Ron Delnevo, the chair of the Payment Choice Alliance, told the newspaper. ''But if there is no alternative, then the whole thing can collapse around you.''

Last year, cash payments in the UK increased for the first time in a decade, the article notes. The number of people who never use cash, or use it less than once a month, also declined.

In China and the US, businesses have been fined for not accepting cash. In the UK, by contrast, businesses can choose which forms of payment to accept (and which not to). Delnevo told The Guardian that the UK should have a law requiring all businesses to accept cash (within certain parameters), as is already the case in my country of residence, Spain. Unfortunately, that is as unlikely to happen under a government led by Kier Starmer as one led by Rishi Sunak, both of whom are in thrall to the WEF's techno-tyrannical agenda.

The Daily Telegraph's Money Editor, Johanna Noble, argues that people should ultimately have a choice about which payment method to use in each given transaction while warning that the UK is clearly ''nowhere near ready to go cashless'':

And do we have to be? Does it have to be binary? Sometimes paying with cash (small shops, the tooth fairy, car boot sales) might be best, while in other circumstances paying by card (getting consumer protection when buying goods or services) will be better.

In May, an editorial in The Guardian cautioned that the most vulnerable in society will ultimately bear the costs of a cashless economy:

Cutting out cash hits the vulnerable hardest: according to a 2020 survey by the Financial Conduct Authority, 46% of the digitally excluded, 31% of those without educational qualifications, and 26% of those in poor health rely on it to a ''great or very great extent''. Mencap warned the Welsh Senedd that people with learning disabilities can find it hard to manage money without cash. And there are good, as well as nefarious, reasons to value its anonymising quality: women whose abortion rights have been restricted might find it life-saving.

Businesses should think carefully before refusing cash payments. Governments must ensure that people reliant on cash can continue to use it: in the UK, where thousands of bank branches and ATMs have vanished, the Financial Conduct Authority now has powers to protect access. But even if the supply of notes and coins can be assured, authorities must also ensure that services accept them.

In the UK, there is no law preventing businesses from rejecting cash. Legal tender traditionally has a very narrow definition in the UK, and strictly applies to money used by a debtor to settle a court-awarded debt when offered ('tendered') in the exact amount that is owed to a creditor. In other words, if a debtor is offering to settle a debt in court with legal tender such as cash, the creditor is not allowed to refuse it. Shops and hospitality businesses, by contrast, are.

Many retailers, particularly in the more salubrious parts of towns and cities, have taken full advantage of this loophole, despite the discriminatory effects it has on the millions of people who still depend on cash, including the roughly 1.3 million who are unbanked. Whether retailers continue to do this following the global chaos uncorked by one US tech firm's botched content update (?) remains to be seen. One thing is clear: UK citizens and businesses have had their fair share of warnings about the fragility of cashless economics.

Sourced from ZeroHedge

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Archived Version

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 19:16

American author

Napoleon Hill

Hill in 1904

Born ( 1883-10-26 ) October 26, 1883Pound, Virginia, U.S.DiedNovember 8, 1970 (1970-11-08) (aged 87)Greenville, South Carolina, U.S.OccupationAuthor, journalist, salesman, lecturerNationalityAmericanPeriod1928''1970GenreNon-fiction, self-helpNotable worksThink and Grow Rich (1937)The Law of Success (1928)Outwitting the Devil (1938)Spouse Unknown (1898 or 1899)Edith Whitman (1903''1908)Florence Elizabeth Horner (1910''1935)Rosa Lee Beeland (1937''1940?)Annie Lou Norman (1943''1970)Children4+ Literature portalOliver Napoleon Hill (October 26, 1883 '' November 8, 1970) was an American self-help author. He is best known for his book Think and Grow Rich (1937), which is among the best-selling self-help books of all time.[1][2] Hill's works insisted that fervid expectations are essential to improving one's life.[3][4] Most of his books were promoted as expounding principles to achieve "success".

Hill is a controversial figure. Accused of fraud, modern historians also doubt many of his claims, such as that he met Andrew Carnegie and that he was an attorney.

Hill was born in a one-room cabin near the Appalachian town of Pound in southwest Virginia.[5] His parents were James Monroe Hill and Sarah Sylvania (Blair), and he was the grandson of James Madison Hill and Elizabeth (Jones). His grandfather came to the United States from England and settled in southwestern Virginia in 1847.[6] His father was an dentist, at first unofficially and then with a license.[7]

Hill's mother died when he was nine years old, and his father remarried two years later to Martha. His stepmother was a good influence for him: "Hill's stepmother, the widow of a school principal, civilized the wild-child, Napoleon, making him go to school and attend church."[7] At the age of 13, Hill began writing as a "mountain reporter", initially for his father's newspaper.[8] At the age of fifteen, he married a local girl who had accused him of fathering her child; the girl later recanted the claim, and the marriage was annulled.[9]

At the age of seventeen, Hill graduated from high school and moved to Tazewell, Virginia, to attend business school. In 1901, Hill accepted a job working for the lawyer Rufus A. Ayers, a coal magnate and former Virginia attorney general. Author Richard Lingeman wrote that Hill received this job after arranging to keep confidential the death of a black bellhop whom the previous manager of the mine had accidentally shot while drunk.[7]

Hill left his coal mine management job soon afterward and enrolled in law school before withdrawing owing to a lack of funds. Later in life, Hill would use the title of "Attorney of Law", although Hill's official biography notes that "there is no record of his having actually performed legal services for anyone."[10]

In 1903, Hill married for the second time to Edith Whitman; in 1905 their child Edith Whitman Hill was born. Their marriage was a fraught one due to Hill's alleged physical abuse of his wife and daughter in addition to his frequenting of prostitutes.[11]

Failed business ventures and charges of fraud [ edit ] Hill relocated to Mobile, Alabama, in 1907 and co-founded the Acree-Hill Lumber Company. In October 1908, the Pensacola Journal reported that the company was facing bankruptcy proceedings and charges of mail fraud for purchasing lumber from outside Mobile, from other counties in Alabama and Florida, and selling it below cost, thereby failing to generate a return.[12]

His wife Edith filed for divorce in 1908; at the proceedings Hill's friends and business partners testified to his affairs with prostitutes. It is sometime in 1908 that Hill claims his pivotal conversation with Andrew Carnegie happened; however, there is no record of the two meeting, and he spent much of the year on the run from the authorities.[11]

Following the exposure of his fraud in Alabama, Hill fled to Washington, DC, where he dropped Oliver as his first name and began going by Napoleon Hill. In 1909 he founded the Automobile College of Washington. The college assembled cars for the Carter Motor Corporation, which declared bankruptcy in early 1912; students were not paid for their labor.[11] During April 1912, the automobile magazine Motor World accused Hill's college of being a scam and derided its marketing materials as "a joke to anyone of average intelligence".[13] Following the bankruptcy of the Carter Motor Corporation, Hill pivoted the organization to teaching people how to sell cars rather than make them. Students were incentivized to themselves sell Automobile College of Washington courses on which they would earn a commission. In practice, the focus was on signing up more students, not in learning how to sell cars. In this form, it resembled a modern multi-level marketing company.[11]

During June 1910, Hill married Florence Elizabeth Horner,[14] with whom he had three sons: James, born in 1911; Napoleon Blair, born in 1912; and David, born in 1918.[15] Hill would postpone their honeymoon until 1919.[16] Horner was in high school when they met and was from a wealthy West Virginia family. Despite investment from her family, the Automobile College of Washington closed in 1912. He subsequently moved to Chicago and accepted a job with the La Salle Extension University, before co-founding the Betsy Ross Candy Shop. Following his move to Chicago, Hill began claiming that he was a lawyer. Hill was soon forced out of the candy shop by his partners and had left La Salle within a year of starting.[11]

In September 1915, he established the George Washington Institute of Advertising, where he intended to teach principles of success and self-confidence. On June 4, 1918, the Chicago Tribune reported that the state of Illinois had issued two warrants for his arrest, charging him with violating blue sky laws by fraudulently attempting to sell shares of his school at a $100,000 capitalization, despite the school's possessing assets appraised only at $1,200.[17]

In 1917, Hill threatened the Illinois Central Railroad with a lawsuit due to low lighting in their cars allegedly making him need glasses. The George Washington Institute was unaccredited and closed in 1918 following allegations of fraud made by students. During this time, Florence and their children were living with her family in West Virginia.[11]

Following the closure of the George Washington Institute, Hill embarked on other business ventures, among them the personal magazines Hill's Golden Rule and Napoleon Hill's Magazine.[18] In 1919 the Federal Trade Commission brought charges against Hill and Hill's Golden Rule for fraudulent advertising and laundering funds meant for a veteran's charity into a fraudulent oil stock scheme. Hill claimed that it was in 1918 following the collapse of GWI that Woodrow Wilson personally reached out to Hill for his help winning the First World War; Hill claimed that Wilson offered him large sums for his aid but that he did not accept any payment for his work because he was a patriot. He claimed that he was so important and involved in the war effort that he had the power to veto the President. Hill claimed to have participated intimately in the negotiation of the armistice with Germany. These claims are not believed to be true.[11] White House records include no reference to his ever being there.[19]

In 1922, he opened the Intra-Wall Correspondence School, a charitable foundation intended to provide educational materials to prisoners in Ohio. The foundation was directed by, among others, check forger and former convict Butler Storke, who would be sent back to prison only a year later. According to Hill's official biography, it was during this period that hundreds of documents proving Hill's association with various famous figures were destroyed in a Chicago storage fire.[18] Intra-Wall Correspondence School primarily sold Hill's Golden Rule and correspondence courses. In 1923 it was exposed by local newspapers as a scam. Following the murder of Donald Mellett, he promoted a lecture tour based on their acquaintance; this event would later become a significant part of his personal mythos, with Hill claiming to have been the target of the same assassins.[11]

Hill lost control over Hill's Golden Rule to a group of disgruntled employees. Hill attempted to get revenge against one of the employees by reporting them to the FBI as a spy.[7]

Hill founded the Peptomists and the Co-Operative Club which advertised themselves as business organizations in the style of the rotary club.[7]

During 1928, Hill relocated to Philadelphia and persuaded a Connecticut-based publisher to publish his eight-volume work The Law of Success (1925). The book was Hill's first major success, allowing Hill to adopt an opulent lifestyle. By 1929, he had already bought a Rolls-Royce and a 600-acre (240-hectare) property in the Catskill Mountains,[7] with the aid of some lenders.[20]

The beginning of the Great Depression, however, affected Hill's finances adversely, forcing his Catskills property into foreclosure before the end of 1929.[15] He went broke, forcing his wife's family to pay for the expenses of Florence and her children.

Hill's next published work, The Magic Ladder to Success (1930), proved to be a commercial failure. During the next few years, Hill traveled through the country, returning to his habits from the prior decade of initiating various short-lived business ventures. He was involved in the production of the first Mormon film Corianton: A Story of Unholy Love, which collapsed after investors accused Hill of malfeasance. Hill claimed to have been an advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt during this time. He claimed to have coined the President's famous phrase "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

In 1935, Hill's wife Florence filed for and received a divorce in Florida as divorce was illegal at that time in West Virginia. In 1936 Hill met Rosa Lee Beeland when she attended one of his lectures; he proposed the next day, and they were soon married. Unable to afford a place of their own, he and Rosa moved in with Hill's son Blair in New York City. Following a few months of this living arrangement Blair's wife Vera left due to Napoleon Hill's harassment and abuse with Blair following soon after. Before leaving Blair gave his father and Rosa a loan to continue work on a new book, Think and Grow Rich.[11]

Think and Grow Rich [ edit ] In 1937, Hill published the bestselling book Think and Grow Rich, which became Hill's best-known work. Hill's new wife Rosa Lee Beeland contributed substantially to the authoring and editing of Think and Grow Rich. Hill's biographers would later say this book sold 20 million copies over 50 years, although as Richard Lingeman remarks in his brief biography, "Alice Payne Hackett's 70 Years of Best Sellers suggests the number was considerably less."[7]

Wealthy once more, Hill resumed his lavish lifestyle and purchased a new estate in Mount Dora, Florida. Napoleon and Rosa become involved with The Royal Fraternity of the Master Metaphysicians, a cult led by James Bernard Schafer, which regarded Think and Grow Rich as a religious text. Napoleon became the godfather of "Baby Jene", a child the cult had adopted and claimed to be raising in such a way that she would be immortal. In 1941 the child was returned to her biological mother. After being arrested and convicted in 1942, Schafer claimed that Napoleon had scammed him.[11]

The couple divorced around 1940. With much of the wealth from the book going to Rosa, Napoleon returned to his pursuit of success.[15] Rosa proceeded to marry her divorce lawyer. Hill and Rosa never repaid Blair for the $300 loan; indeed, Rosa taunted Blair about it.[11] Rosa would later write a self help book entitled "How to Attract Men and Money."[7]

In 1941 Hill published Mental Dynamite, but it was a commercial failure.[11]

Hill met Annie Lou Norman, who was 47 years old, where he rented a room from her. They married in 1943 and relocated to California. Hill went on the lecture circuit once again.[15] In 1947 he briefly hosted a show on KFWB Radio in Los Angeles. In 1952 he launched a new scam selling courses about success in Missouri. The scam soon collapsed, and he set up a firm called Napoleon Hill Associates to sell courses with W. Clement Stone. In the 1960s Hill and Stone fell out. Hill turned to selling his course Science of Success through franchises. In 1963 he founded the Napoleon Hill Foundation.[11]

Philosophy of Achievement [ edit ] Napoleon Hill holding his book Think and Grow Rich, 1937.Hill's "Philosophy of Achievement", offered as a formula for rags-to-riches success, was published initially in the 1928 multi-volume study course entitled The Law of Success,[21] a rewrite of a 1925 manuscript. Hill identified freedom, democracy, capitalism, and harmony as being among the foundations to his "Philosophy of Achievement". He asserted that without these foundations, great personal achievements would not be possible.[22][23]

Hill claimed his philosophy was superior to those of others and that its principles were responsible for the successes of Americans. Hill blamed failure on such emotions as fear and selfishness.[24]

A "secret" of achievement was discussed in Think and Grow Rich, but Hill did not explicitly identify this secret in the book, insisting that readers would benefit most if they discovered it for themselves.

In the introduction, Hill states of the "secret" that Andrew Carnegie "carelessly tossed it into my mind" and that it inspired Manuel L. Quezon of the Philippine Islands to "gain freedom for his people". Although he mentions a "burning desire for money" repeatedly throughout the book, he suggests that avarice is not his "secret" at all. Indeed, in The Law of Success, published nine years earlier, he identifies the secret as the Golden Rule, insisting that only by working harmoniously and cooperating with other individuals or groups of individuals and thereby creating value and benefit for them can one create sustainable achievement for oneself.[citation needed ]

Hill returned to the topic of a secret in a 1967 book, where he explicitly stated:

Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve. That is the Supreme Secret.... This is the secret known in bygone times; thisis the secret which governs present-day accomplishment; this is the secret which will follow man to the stars. This is the secret of the ages.

'--'ŠNapoleon Hill, Grow Rich!: With Peace of Mind, Chapter 14

He presents the notion of a "Definite Major Purpose" as a challenge to his readers to ask themselves: "In what do I truly believe?" According to Hill, "98%" of people have few or no strong beliefs, which made their achieving success unlikely.[25]

Hill declares that the life story of his son Blair is an inspiration to him, claiming that despite being born without ears, Blair had grown up able to hear and speak almost normally. Hill reports that his son, during his last year of college, read chapter two of the manuscript of Think and Grow Rich, discovered Hill's secret "for himself", and then inspired "hundreds and thousands" of people who could neither listen nor speak.[26]

From 1952 to 1962, Hill taught his Philosophy of Personal Achievement'--Lectures on Science of Success in association with W. Clement Stone.[27] During 1960, Hill and Stone co-authored the book Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude. Norman Vincent Peale is quoted saying that Hill and Stone "have the rare gift of inspiring and helping people" and that he owes "them both a personal debt of gratitude for the helpful guidance I have received from their writings."[28]

The book is listed in John C. Maxwell's A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List.[29]

Hill claimed insight into racism, slavery, oppression, failure, revolution, war, and poverty, asserting that overcoming these difficulties using his "Philosophy of Achievement" was the responsibility of every human.[25]

Influence of famous people [ edit ] Later in life, Hill claimed that the turning point of his life had been a 1908 assignment to interview the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. At that time, Carnegie was among the most powerful men in the world. Hill wrote, after Carnegie's death in 1918, that Carnegie had actually met with him at that time and challenged him to interview wealthy people to discover a simple formula for success,[30] and that he had then interviewed many successful people of the time. The authenticity of many of Hill's claims has been widely disputed. Napoleon Hill's collaboration with Andrew Carnegie has never been confirmed either by Carnegie himself or the Carnegie estate, and Hill allegedly only started making claims of interviewing Carnegie after he had died. Aside from Hill's writings, there are no accounts of the meeting taking place. Carnegie biographer David Nasaw stated that he "found no evidence of any sort that Carnegie and Hill ever met" or "that the book was authentic."[11]

The acknowledgments in his 1928 multi-volume work The Law of Success,[21] listed forty-five of those he had studied, "the majority of these men at close range, in person", like those to whom the book set was dedicated: Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, and Edwin C. Barnes (an associate of Thomas Edison). Hill reported that Carnegie had given him a letter of introduction to Ford,[31] who Hill said then introduced him to Alexander Graham Bell, Elmer R. Gates, Thomas Edison, and Luther Burbank.[32]

Endorsements for The Law of Success were allegedly sent in by William H. Taft, Cyrus H. K. Curtis, Thomas Edison, Luther Burbank, E. M. Statler, Edward W. Bok, and John D. Rockefeller.[31][32] The list in the acknowledgments includes, among those Hill wrote that he had personally interviewed, Rufus A. Ayers, John Burroughs, Harvey Samuel Firestone, Elbert H. Gary, James J. Hill, George Safford Parker, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles M. Schwab, Frank A. Vanderlip, John Wanamaker, F. W. Woolworth, Daniel Thew Wright, and William Wrigley Jr.[32]

Aside from these, Hill's other claims have been called into question. There is no known evidence that he aided President Wilson to negotiate Germany's surrender in World War I; that he helped President Roosevelt write his fireside chats; or that he was an attorney. There are no known records of Hill's meetings with the famous men he claimed to have interviewed besides for a brief photo op with Edison.[16]

Alleged spirit visitations [ edit ] Hill openly described visits from spirits in chapter 12 of his book Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind (1967). He described them as unseen friends, unseen watchers, strange beings, and the Great School of Masters that had been guarding him, and who maintain a "school of wisdom". Hill states that the "Master" spoke to him audibly, revealing secret knowledge. Hill further insists that the Masters "can disembody themselves and travel instantly to any place they choose to acquire essential knowledge or to give knowledge directly, by voice, to anyone else."

Grow Rich! With Peace of Mind was allegedly influenced by Hill's spirit voices; Hill cites the "Master", writing: "Much of what he said already has been presented to you in the chapters of this book or will follow in other chapters." In Chapter 14 of his book Think and Grow Rich (1937), he openly talks about his "invisible counselors" with whom he discusses various areas of his life. Hill refers to these meetings with his counselors as being real because he consistently told himself they were real, a principle he refers to as "autosuggestion". Hill does admit the talks were only real to him because of his imagination but professes his belief that the "dominating thoughts and desires" of one's mind make those thoughts real.[33]

Napoleon Hill died aged 87 on November 8, 1970.[34] He was worth about a million dollars.[16]

Hill's works were inspired by the philosophy of New Thought and the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and are listed as New Thought reading.[35][36][37]

Hill has been seen as inspiring later self-help works, such as Rhonda Byrne's The Secret. Gizmodo has called him "the most famous conman you've probably never heard of".[11]

Napoleon Hill Foundation [ edit ] The Napoleon Hill Foundation is a nonprofit foundation that promotes the teachings of Napoleon Hill. Following the death of Napoleon in 1970, the foundation and his widow Annie Lou were embroiled in a protracted court battle over the estate, which lasted into the 1980s. The foundation maintains a private archive of Hill's papers. It awards the annual Napoleon Hill Award. The foundation continues to sell Hill's books, courses, and leadership certificates.[11]

In 1995 the authorized biography of Hill's life, A Lifetime of Riches, was released by Michael J. Ritt Jr. (the executive director of the foundation) and Kirk Landers, which came to a number of controversial conclusions.[7]

The Law of Success (1928)The Magic Ladder to Success (1930)Think and Grow Rich (1937)Outwitting the Devil (1938, published 2011)How to Sell Your Way Through Life (1939)The Master-Key to Riches (1945)How to Raise Your Own Salary (1953)Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude (with W. Clement Stone) (1959)Grow Rich!: With Peace of Mind (1967)Succeed and Grow Rich Through Persuasion (with E. Harold Keown) (1970)You Can Work Your Own Miracles (1971)Dale CarnegieLaw of Attraction ^ "The Milwaukee Sentinel - Google News Archive Search". [dead link ] ^ Driscoll, Molly (April 26, 2015). "10 Best Self Help Books of All Time". Christian Science Monitor . Retrieved March 25, 2017 . ^ Chang, Larry (2006). Wisdom for the Soul. Gnosophia Publishers. p. 514. ISBN 978-0-9773391-0-5 . Retrieved September 10, 2014 . ^ Hill, Napoleon (1937). Think and Grow Rich. Chicago, Illinois: Combined Registry Company. ISBN 1-60506-930-2. A similar quote regarding Thomas Edison is on page 230. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link) ^ About Napoleon Hill Archived July 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, The Napoleon Hill Foundation. ^ Derby, George; White, James Terry (1977). "The National Cyclop...dia of American Biography: Being the History of the United States as Illustrated in the Lives of the Founders, Builders, and Defenders of the Republic, and the Men and Women who are Doing the Work and Moulding the Thought of the Present Time". J. T. White '' via Google Books. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lingeman, Richard (August 13, 1995). "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 8, 2016 . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ Ritt, Michael; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A Lifetime of Riches. Dutton Book. p. 23. ISBN 0525941460. ^ Ritt, Michael; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A Lifetime of Riches. Dutton Book. p. 17. ISBN 0525941460. ^ Ritt, Michael; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A Lifetime of Riches. Dutton Book. p. 46. ISBN 0525941460. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Novak, Matt (December 6, 2016). "The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time". Paleofuture (Gizmodo) . Retrieved August 13, 2019 . ^ "President of Lumber Company Is Missing". The Pensacola Journal. Pensacola, Florida. October 17, 1908 '' via Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress. ^ "Pointing the Easy Route to GETRICHQUICKLAND". Motor World Wholesale. Vol. 31. Chilton Company. April 12, 1912. pp. 39''41. ^ Ritt, Michael J.; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A lifetime of riches: the biography of Napoleon Hill . Dutton Book. p. 35. ISBN 9780525941460. ^ a b c d Emmert, J. M. (January 5, 2009). "Rich Man, Poor Man". Success . Retrieved March 25, 2017 . ^ a b c Farnham, Alan (August 7, 1995). "Seamy Side Of A Self-Help Swami A New Biography Reveals That Napoleon Hill, Author Of Think & Grow Rich, Which Has Sold Ten Million Copies, Knew Failure Well". Fortune. Archived from the original on July 12, 2018 . Retrieved June 18, 2019 . ^ "TWO WARRANTS OUT FOR MODEST NAPOLEON HILL". Chicago Daily Tribune. June 4, 1918 . Retrieved January 31, 2017 . ^ a b Ritt, Michael J.; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A lifetime of riches: the biography of Napoleon Hill . Dutton Book. pp. 88''91. ISBN 9780525941460. ^ Napoleon Hill's Greatest Speeches, N Hill, D Green ^ Ritt, Michael J.; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A lifetime of riches: the biography of Napoleon Hill . Dutton Book. pp. 122''125. ISBN 9780525941460. ^ a b Hill, Napoleon (1928). The Law of Success. Ralston University Press. ^ Hill, Napoleon (2011) [1925]. The Law of Success from the 1925 Manuscript Lessons. Vieux Publishing. ISBN 978-0578084916. ^ Napoleon Hill Foundation: About the "1925 Edition" of Law of Success ^ Kearns, Brad (2008). How Tiger Does It . McGraw-Hill Professional. pp. 24''25. ISBN 978-0-07-154564-8. ^ a b Hill, Napoleon (1937). Think and Grow Rich. Chicago, Illinois: Combined Registry Company. p. viii. ISBN 1-60506-930-2. ^ Hill, Napoleon (1937). Think and Grow Rich. Chicago, Illinois: Combined Registry Company. pp. 11, 52''63. ISBN 1-60506-930-2 . Retrieved May 3, 2010 . [dead link ] ^ "Napoleon Hill Timeline". Napoleon Hill Foundation . Retrieved March 25, 2017 . ^ Hill, Napoleon, Stone, W. Clement, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude [Back Cover] Pocket Books (1991) ISBN 0-671-74322-8 ^ Maxwell, John (March 2008). "A Lifetime "Must Read" Books List" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on September 4, 2012 . Retrieved March 25, 2017 . ^ Hill, Napoleon (1937). Think and Grow Rich. Chicago, Illinois: Combined Registry Company. p. 8. ISBN 1-60506-930-2. ^ a b Ritt, Michael J.; Landers, Kirk (July 1, 1995). A Lifetime of Riches: The Biography of Napoleon Hill . Dutton Book. ISBN 0525941460. ^ a b c Hill, Napoleon (2010) [1939]. How to Sell Your Way Through Life. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0470541180. ^ Hill, Napoleon (1937). Think and Grow Rich. Chicago, Illinois: Combined Registry Company. ISBN 1-60506-930-2. ^ "Napoleon Hill". The Bee. November 10, 1970. p. 7 . Retrieved June 5, 2017 '' via Newspapers.com. ^ Horowitz, Mitch (January 1, 2009). Occult America: The Secret History of how Mysticism Shaped Our Nation. Bantam Books. p. 87. ISBN 9780553806755. ^ Starker, S. (2002) Oracle at the Supermarket: The American Preoccupation With Self-Help Books ^ Books : Religion & Spirituality : New Age & Spirituality : New Thought : Napoleon Hill, Amazon.com

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Wed, 24 Jul 2024 18:36

I am going to post in installments an interview that relates to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Since reading the interview I have followed up some of the information and names mentioned and the more I learn the more questions I have. The interviewer, Greg Doudna, has kindly agreed to write an introduction. (I have previously posted on some of Greg's work '-- a totally different subject from this interview.)

John Curington The following is an interview with John Curington, former right-hand man of Texas oilman H.L. Hunt of Dallas, Texas, concerning the John F. Kennedy assassination.

In June 1977 the American tabloidNational Enquirer published a story reporting unusual information related by Curington relevant to H. L. Hunt and the JFK assassination. Despite its significance and relevance to an understanding of the JFK assassination, Curington's story attracted little further notice. Curington himself did not seek further publicity, living quietly in the intervening decades in rural Texas in obscurity as a small rancher and country lawyer. As an illustration of how under-the-radar Curington has been, the most encyclopedic compendium of JFK assassination information available, former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney Vincent Bugliosi's The Assassination of President Kennedy (2007; 1632 pages print plus an additional 1125 pages of footnotes on an attached CD-ROM), does not mention Curington's name, according to the index.

My interview with Curington came about by accident, through a long-time acquaintance who I belatedly learned is a friend of Curington's. I had read the National Enquirer article about Curington long ago and recognized who he was. I was surprised to learn he was still alive. This interview is the result.

By the time I met Curington he had prepared an unpublished manuscript of memoirs of his years with H. L. Hunt, which went well beyond the brief account inNational Enquirer of 1977. Curington's manuscript is now published (John Curington with Mitchel Whitington, Motive and Opportunity: The Means by which H.L. Hunt Influenced the Assassination of JFK, King, Bobby & Hoffa, 2018, available on Amazon).

This interview is appearing first onVridar, and to my knowledge is the first publication of a full interview with Curington. Many view the current political climate in the United States with foreboding. I believe it is instructive to recall an earlier time in American history with, in certain respects, parallel issues.

''Greg Doudna

Billionaire Logic and the Fate of JFK

Interview with John Curington,

Right-hand Man and Attorney to H. L. Hunt of Dallas, Texas

(the Richest Man in the World in 1963),

Concerning the Assassination of President Kennedy

by

Gregory Doudna

H. L. HuntTexas oilman H. L. Hunt (1889-1974) of Dallas, Texas, was the richest man in the world in the 1960s'--oil, natural gas, land, companies producing food and energy, worldwide.

Mr. Hunt was also America's pre-eminent producer and purveyor of conservative, anti-communist ideology, through a daily radio program broadcast, at its peak, on over five hundred radio stations across America called Life Line. Hunt backed politicians who held political views he thought were best for business and for the country, and he was a close associate of J. Edgar Hoover, the long-time director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Hunt had a special phone line to Hoover and they talked frequently back and forth, on matters affecting the nation's business.

Hunt's Life Line program was relentlessly critical of President John F. Kennedy'--for ''creeping socialism,'' for being soft on America's enemies abroad and their fellow-travellers domestically, for cozying up to the satanic United Nations and the one-worlders behind that organization intent on America's destruction.

One of Hunt's sons, Bunker Hunt, helped pay the cost of a black-bordered full-page newspaper ad accusing Kennedy of traitorous actions. Its headline was: ''Welcome Mr. Kennedy: Why Are You a Communist?'' The black borders were like a funeral notice. This ad appeared in the Dallas Morning News on Friday, November 22, 1963. It was seeing that ad which prompted Kennedy to remark to Jacqueline at their hotel that morning, ''We're heading into nut country.''

November 22, 1963 was the day President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy visited Dallas, overriding futile private pleas of people like Adlai Stevenson and Sen. William Fulbright to Kennedy not to make that trip, out of concern for his safety. But the trip had been planned and was regarded as politically necessary in the runup to the 1964 presidential elections. H. L. Hunt's political ally and fellow Texan, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson'--at that moment under investigation in Congress for a corruption scandal with a growing likelihood of being dumped from the Kennedy ticket in 1964 and ending up in disgrace'--had spent the preceding month at his Texas ranch preparing for Kennedy's visit to Texas.

And so it was that the President and First Lady waved to the crowds from their open limousine as it took its fateful slow hairpin turn in front of the Texas School Book Depository on Elm Street. Moments later shots rang out and part of Kennedy's head was blown off. The motorcade sped to nearby Parkland Hospital but it was hopeless; Kennedy was dead. Texas Governor John Connally also was shot but survived. Two hours later Vice President Johnson, riding in the same motorcade two cars back, was sworn in as the new President of the United States as a nation reeled in shock and grief. To this day, every American of a certain age and unimpaired memory remembers where they were when they heard the news.

An hour after the assassination, Texas School Book Depository employee Lee Harvey Oswald, an ex-Marine and returned defector to the Soviet Union with professed communist sympathies and associations (but oddly not a single known communist friend), was arrested and later that evening charged with the murder of a police officer and of President Kennedy.

1 In 1997 handwritten notes of Will Fritz from his Oswald interrogations were conveyed by an anonymous donor to authorities and released publicly after the donor had been in possession of them since Fritz's death in 1984. Fritz's claim to have taken no notes is in his testimony to the Warren Commission (''I kept no notes at the time'').

Oswald was denied a lawyer despite repeated requests heard by reporters. When a delegation of attorneys from the Dallas Civil Liberties Union appeared at the police station intent upon ensuring that Oswald had access to counsel, they left without seeing the prisoner after being told that Oswald had made no specific request to see them (Oswald had not been told they were there). Veteran Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz questioned the accused assassin of the President for twelve hours over two days without recording any of it (there was no tape recorder handy in the police station, he later explained) and also, he claimed, without taking any notes.1 Oswald's story would not come out in court. Less than 48 hours after his arrest, on Sunday morning, November 24, 1963, Oswald was shot and killed while in police custody by Jack Ruby, a Mob-connected Dallas strip club operator friendly with Dallas police.

Veteran Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz '' image from Mary Ferrell FoundationWithin hours of the assassination the Federal Bureau of Investigation under Director J. Edgar Hoover, in consultation with the new president, took over control of the investigation from the Dallas Police Department. The FBI immediately assured the nation in definitive terms that the assassination had been done by Oswald acting alone, following which the investigation got underway.

Others however, such as some U.S. intelligence insiders seeking a cause of war for a desired invasion of Cuba, wanted it to be believed'--and privately Johnson himself let it be known to a few trusted friends and media sources on a strictly confidential basis (such as CBS television news anchor Walter Cronkite), that he too believed'--that Castro and/or the Soviet Union were behind Oswald's action.

But publicly Johnson appointed the prestigious President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, better known as the Warren Commission, to investigate. The Warren Commission relied in large part upon the FBI's investigation. One of the Warren Commission's seven members, Congressional Representative (and future president) Gerald Ford, secretly informed Hoover's FBI on an ongoing basis via a back channel of the activities of the Commission and the thinking of its members. Another member of the Warren Commission, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief Allen Dulles who had been fired by Kennedy, is believed to have functioned on the CIA's behalf to shield certain areas of inquiry from the Warren Commission's attention, such as a covert assassination program directed at (foreign) heads of state, which had been run by Dulles, that would later come to light in 1970s Congressional investigations.

Evoking a threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union, President Johnson and members of his administration persuaded Commission members'--most notably Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and respected liberal icon Earl Warren who headed the Commission'--that it was imperative for the noblest of motives to find sole and complete responsibility for the JFK assassination began and ended with the dead Oswald.

And so it was that the lone-nut explanation of the JFK assassination became the conclusion of the Warren Commission in its final report issued on September 24, 1964, signed unanimously by all seven Commission members, even though at least three of those seven disagreed with the lone-assassin-without-assistance conclusion (Boggs, Cooper, Russell). Meanwhile, the question of Oswald's motive was left unexplained: it was a ''mystery.''

2 Interview in ''Richard Russell: Georgia Giant,'' a documentary aired Feb. 11, 1970 on WSB-TV, Atlanta, Georgia. Donald E. Wilkes, Jr., ''Sen. Richard Russell and the Great American Murder Mystery'' (2003). http://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_pm/133.

Richard RussellOne of the seven Warren Commission members, Senator Richard Russell, said in a television interview in 1970, the year before he died, that he ''never believed that Lee Harvey Oswald planned that altogether by himself '... [T]here were so many circumstances there that led me to believe that you couldn't just completely eliminate the possibility that he did have some co-conspirators '... I'm not completely satisfied in my own mind that he did plan and commit this act altogether on his own, without consultation with anyone else. And that's what a majority of the Committee wanted to find.''2

A majority, he said? Disagreed with their own unanimous conclusion? They wanted to find differently than they did? Welcome to the surreal world of American politics of the 1960s.

~ ~ ~

The ''lone nut'' conclusion of the Warren Commission was not the assessment of intelligence services of some other nations. Within the first months following the JFK assassination, the KGB (intelligence agency of the Soviet Union) as well as some European intelligence agencies concluded that the assassination appeared to have been a coup and that the deed had been pinned on the former USSR resident Oswald for the purpose of blaming the Soviet Union in the Cold War.

3 Christopher Andrew and Vasali Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 225.

''[Soviet Premier] Khrushchev seems to have been convinced by the KGB view that the aim of the right-wing conspirators behind Kennedy's assassination was to intensify the Cold War '... The choice of Oswald as Kennedy's assassin, the KGB believed, was intended to divert public attention from the racist oil magnates and make the assassination appear to be a Communist plot.''3

~ ~ ~

Attorney John Curington (1927- ), whose interview follows this introduction, was H. L. Hunt's right-hand man from 1960 to 1969. Curington's office immediately adjoined Hunt's office in Dallas's downtown Mercantile Bank Building.

Curington grew up in Farmersville, Texas, and graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas, followed by law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In 1954 he began working as an attorney for Hunt Oil. By 1960 Curington was working directly for Mr. Hunt, doing things ranging from (as described by Curington) ''running HLH Products (the 'food division') to covering up tax-evasion schemes, collecting gambling debts, handling matters involving Hunt's secret family [of which Hunt had two in addition to his public family in Dallas] '... and carrying out covert political operations.''4

4 Harry Hurt, Texas Rich : The Hunt Dynasty from the early Oil Days through the Silver Crash (New York: Norton & Co., 1981), 188-89.5 For fuller details see Hurt, Texas Rich, 276-308. After years of legal wrangling, Curington and another aide were convicted on three federal counts of mail fraud with a suspended sentence (''Hunt Aides Plan Appeal,'' San Antonio Express, April 19, 1975, p. 6).6 Martin Waldron, ''Family Fight Texas Style,'' New York Times, April 15, 1973, p. 173.

In 1969 during acrimonious disputes between Hunt's public family and his two other families, Curington left Hunt's employ. As the family feud escalated, Curington and other aides, having sided with one branch of Hunt heirs, were charged by rival family members with embezzlement.5 To give an idea of the world in which Curington operated in that era, here is a description from a 1970s legal brief:

''The attorneys said that the two men [Curington and John K. Brown] 'have been H. L. Hunt's closely associated subordinates all through such periods during which, at his instance, or at the instance of members of his family authorized by him, they have engaged in many confidential and clandestine transactions for him with other persons such as holders and seekers of public office, labor leaders, actual or potential competitors, influential job holders in commercial contracts, professional sports figures and nonbusiness social persons.'''6

In this context a President was killed in Dallas. Five and a half decades later Curington has a story to tell.

Curington's story comes in the form of a new book, written with Texas regional author Mitchel Whitington, entitled Motive and Opportunity: The Means by which H. L. Hunt Influenced the Assassination of JFK, King, Bobby & Hoffa (2018, published by 23House, available on Amazon). In addition to vivid day-to-day portraits of what it was like to be the right-hand man to H. L. Hunt and how billionaire power worked in the 1960s, Mr. Curington maps out his firsthand account of H. L. Hunt's political dealings, and how and why he believes his former boss was involved in the assassinations of JFK (1963), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968), and Robert F. Kennedy (1968).

Thanks to having a mutual friend in common and after he had seen a book I had written with a Texas theme, Mr. Curington granted me a rare recorded interview.

Although Curington is ninety, one would not know it in meeting him. I found Curington to be alert and active, of sharp and sound mind. In person Curington is lean, with a mustache and ten-gallon hat, looking like he could have just walked off the set of an episode of the old television show Bonanza. He walks unaided, no walking stick or cane or slow movements, and his hearing and vision are good. Before I met him I returned a phone call from him. A woman who answered said Curington could not come to the phone ''because he is out hauling hay.'' Was that just Texas or was it genes? In favor of the genes theory: Curington told me his grandmother lived to age 116.

The interview that follows took place March 1, 2018, in east Texas, and focuses on the JFK assassination. I have added a few notes to explain names and contexts. Mr. Curington has seen and approved this transcript. Here is this living voice of history, Mr. Curington.

~ ~ ~

GD: Good morning Mr. Curington. I have read the manuscript of your book written with Mitchel Whitington, Motive and Opportunity: The Means by which H. L. Hunt Influenced the Assassination of JFK, King, Bobby & Hoffa. I would like to focus on the assassination of John F. Kennedy. You were Mr. Hunt's right-hand man in those years, right?

JC: Yes. My story goes back to 1960 at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles, California. At that time Lyndon Johnson was going to run for President of the United States. Lyndon was the most powerful politician in Washington. But he was under the guidance of Sam Rayburn, who was a Congressman from Texas and also Speaker of the House for many years.

(Sam Rayburn was a Democratic Representative to Congress from east Texas 1913 to 1961. He holds the record for longest tenure as Speaker of the House, over seventeen years.)

Sam Rayburn thought he had complete control of the Democratic convention. Lyndon Johnson thought he was completely in charge of the election and would be nominated. But after two or three days'--uh no, I'd say within a half a day'--of Mr. Hunt and I being at the Democratic convention, I reached the conclusion, and Mr. Hunt reached the conclusion, that Lyndon Johnson was not going to receive the nomination.

Lyndon Johnson would not accept that explanation from Mr. Hunt or anybody else. If you mentioned it to him there would be a loud cussing tirade, that, you know, we were wrong and he was right, and he was going to get the nomination. After a few hours period of time it became obvious to Lyndon Johnson that he would not get the nomination, and that John F. Kennedy would. At that time Mr. Hunt came up with the idea or the suggestion that for he, Mr. Hunt, to salvage his own business empire he had to have Lyndon Johnson in office, even if it meant him accepting the Vice Presidency. And the reason for that'--Mr. Hunt had enough confidence in Lyndon Johnson, that he, Lyndon, could influence John Kennedy as president and still get what Mr. Hunt wanted, and protect Mr. Hunt's interests in all government activities there.

But at that point the situation is, Lyndon Johnson didn't want the vice-presidency, and the Kennedys didn't want Lyndon Johnson to accept it. But politics make unusual bedfellows, and to convince each other that both were needed, it was necessary to sell and convince Lyndon Johnson that he had to take the vice presidency. Mr. Hunt's selling point on that was, without making any direct accusations or finger-pointing, that there were a lot of things that could happen to John Fitzgerald Kennedy while he was in office. Kennedy's health was not good. He had medical problems. He was in a high profile situation where he would be subject to people that wanted him out of office for one reason or another.

But without assuring Johnson in direct words that Kennedy would not live through the first four years, it was certainly put in a language that Lyndon Johnson could understand.

And that was an acceptable explanation as to why he finally agreed to take the second spot, on the theory that Mr. Hunt, I think convinced him that he could still pretty well run Washington, and that he, Johnson, could control Kennedy, and in the event if something did happen to Kennedy, then in that event Johnson would move into the presidency. And if it was late in the presidency, then Johnson would by all means be elected for four more years. In 1964 that would ensure Mr. Hunt of having control of his business activities through a Washington contact for the next several years.

GD: And you were there at those discussions in 1960?

JC: Yes, I was present there when those discussions were made.

GD: Hunt had his Life Line radio program, and was attacking Kennedy at the same time'--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_XUOYahqi8JC: Mr. Hunt for several years had developed what I called, or we called, pro-American programs. They were radio programs that originated and were distributed throughout the United States. His Life Line program was aired on over five hundred radio stations and at one time was at a daily cost in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars a day, which in today's money would be in excess of fifty thousand dollars a day. And this was Mr. Hunt's own money, you know, he wasn't under any grants, didn't get a contribution from anybody.

The program was designed to educate his listeners as to what was good for the government and what was good for business, and who should be in office and who should be replaced from office. It was Mr. Hunt's thought, if he released this daily radio program, that out of an estimated audience of five million people, there would be a sufficient number of people that would listen to and follow his suggestions or recommendations as to what should be done, or could be done, to remove those from power that should, in Mr. Hunt's opinion, not be expressing the views that they shouldn't express.

GD: Then we come down to 1963, and President Kennedy visits Dallas and he is assassinated. President Kennedy is assassinated, in Dallas'--

JC: Yes'--

GD: '--which is Hunt's city.

JC: Yes.

GD: All the books say that there was a lot of hostility toward Kennedy coming from Hunt's Life Line and as well as in the Dallas community. You were there at the time. Is that accurate?

JC: That's correct. But there's a little bit more foundation to that 1963 assassination that I think might be important to those who would have interest in making an evaluation. Back in 1963 Mr. Hunt and I spent a lot of time in New York. We always stayed at the Waldorf-Astoria. And had made arrangements to lease space at the New York World's Fair. And I believe the concession fee cost Mr. Hunt a million, about a million three hundred thousand dollars. And Mr. Hunt was going to build an amusement compound, but he leased the space primarily to have a distribution for Life Line material, which would be printed material, and radio transcripts, and TV transcripts. He knew the Fair would attract millions of people and it would give him the exposure that he heretofore had not had for that kind of distribution.

Robert MosesBut the director of the World's Fair, or the president of it, was a man by the name of Robert Moses. And Moses was a very powerful man from New York. I don't believe he was ever mayor of New York, but he sort of ran New York, you know, <unintelligible> matters there. Moses eventually elected to terminate Mr. Hunt's contract with the World's Fair. And that was after I had gone to Germany and bought several hundred thousand dollars worth of amusement rides to be used at the World's Fair.

(Robert Moses's termination of H. L. Hunt from the 1964 World's Fair occurred mid-October 1963.)

Well, by Mr. Hunt getting kicked out of the World's Fair, it not only cost him millions of dollars, but he turned to his old-time friend Lyndon Johnson for help to get reinstated. And Vice President Johnson told Mr. Hunt that the authority to kick him out of the World's Fair came from ''a higher authority.'' And he was unable to help him on that. Well, the only higher authority at that time was John Fitzgerald Kennedy. So I think at that time Mr. Hunt came to the conclusion that it was absolutely necessary for Kennedy to be removed from office in some way, and Johnson to move into the presidency.

And then in Mr. Hunt's mind Johnson would and could be reelected in '64 for another four years. So, with Johnson in office, Mr. Hunt felt confident that Johnson would and could control for him some other people that Mr. Hunt considered detrimental to some things'--detrimental to his political views and his business views'--Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, and Jimmy Hoffa, who also met untimely deaths.

GD: And so Life Line, I think you mentioned, was a major'--

Facts Forum. Image from University of Houston Libraries News ArchiveJC: Life Line had to have a well-maintained office staff in Washington, D.C. It had a crew of experienced speechwriters. It had to have a polished commentator. We had to have recording studios or facilities to duplicate tapes and different <unintelligible> of this. Everything was sent off, sent out to radio stations which numbered in excess of five hundred. They had to be mailed on a weekly basis, the tapes had to be returned, we reused them. It was a very, very large assignment just from a logistical standpoint. The program was produced on a six day a week basis. Fifteen minutes in length. It required a tremendous amount of research and documentation to put our program together. And J. Edgar Hoover, with the information that he had available, furnished quite a bit of information that we used in the Life Line program as well as Facts Forum.

(J. Edgar Hoover was the long-time Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1935-1972.)

GD: And you said that J. Edgar Hoover and Hunt were in personal contact with telephone conversations frequently?

JC: I think they could be considered not only good friends but I think they respected each other, that both of them had the same political views, that both of them had the same views as to who was good or who was not for good, for the benefit of the government.

GD: And your office was right next to Mr. Hunt's?

JC: Yes, our offices were contiguous to each other, and very few people ever saw Mr. Hunt without coming into my office first. And as far as I know Mr. Hunt never made any efforts to keep me unaware of what conversations he was having with people. Telephone'--our doors were always open, and he could hear anything that I said, and I could hear anything that he said.

GD: And the conversations'--this was happening in 1963 along with other years, but this relationship with Hoover with Hunt was already happening?

JC: As far as I know, Mr. Hunt always had a close personal relationship and friendship with Hoover, so no, it was not uncommon at all to'--for Mr. Hunt to pick up the phone and call Hoover, or for Hoover to pick up the phone and call Mr. Hunt. Now that doesn't mean that they crossed every ''I'' and crossed every ''T'' with each other, but they felt free to communicate whenever they felt communication was needed.

GD: And General Edwin Walker was living in Dallas also?

7 Edwin Walker, ''Why I Went to Oxford,'' Fourth Decade 8/2 (2001), 17-27 at 19, accessible at the Mary Ferrell Foundation website (www.maryferrell.org).

(General Edwin Walker, 1909-1993, was a Dallas-based nationwide conservative cause c(C)l¨bre after calling for resistance, which turned violent, to the U.S. government in Sept. 1962 in Oxford, Mississippi. President Kennedy had sent five hundred federal marshals to enforce court orders compelling the University of Mississippi to enroll fully-qualified African-American applicant James Meredith who was being refused admission because he was black. In a speech of Oct. 26, 1963, in Jackson, Mississippi, Walker said, ''The best definition I can find for Communism is 'Kennedy liberalism' '... [Kennedy is] the greatest leader of the anti-Christ movement.''7)

General Edwin WalkerJC: General Walker would be considered a friend of mine, and a friend of Mr. Hunt's. He was a visitor from time to time to our offices. Each time he came in I would visit with him, Mr. Hunt would visit with him, and it was not uncommon for him to pick up Life Line materials that we had used in a broadcast, or Life Line materials that were available to us that had not been put into a radio transcript.

GD: And among the conservatives, or the right, or whatever you want to call it, was it correct that General Walker was well-regarded as the most prominent figure in America almost?

JC: Well I believe General Walker was either a two- or three-star retired general. He had a very good reputation among people that were in the conservative family. I think he was well respected. But he was an individual who expressed his own views and as such he stepped on people's toes, and I think they really forced him out of the military, because he did have very strong conservative, what I call conservative, views there.

GD: Do you remember whether Lee Harvey Oswald was known to Hunt or Walker before the assassination?

JC: The only information I have on that is street talk, or whatever was printed in the newspaper. But I think even Marina Oswald, Lee Harvey's wife, did make statements to the effect that Lee Harvey Oswald did confess to her that he took a shot at General Walker. And as far as I know there was never a really thorough police investigation of the shooting. If so, I was not privileged to too much of the investigation. But it seems to me that there was an indication that Oswald was involved, but for reasons unknown to me there was really not much police followup on the shooting.

GD: Was Hunt aware of what Walker was doing?

JC: Oh yes, I think he approved. I never heard Mr. Hunt express displeasure with what General Walker said or what General Walker did. I would consider both of them on the same page.

GD: And Hunt had somebody working for Lyndon Johnson that was reporting on Johnson's affairs?

JC: We made arrangements to hire a person that was an ex-FBI man. He was a head speechwriter for Lyndon Johnson. But one of his duties was to'--and normally that would be done through me'--he was to keep me advised on a <unintelligible> basis as to who Johnson was talking to, normally the subject matter of the conversation, how long the person might be in the office, or just any general information that he felt like might be beneficial as to what Johnson was doing or not doing while he was in the office of president.

GD: That's a lot of information.

JC: Yo.

GD: So then we come to'--Kennedy is assassinated.

JC: Yeah. . . . . . [continuing in next installment]

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The death of John Kennedy is viewed through another angle in this conspiracy-themed film defending the theory that George Herbert Walker Bush was a key player in all aspects of the assassina... Read all The death of John Kennedy is viewed through another angle in this conspiracy-themed film defending the theory that George Herbert Walker Bush was a key player in all aspects of the assassination of American president John F. Kennedy. The death of John Kennedy is viewed through another angle in this conspiracy-themed film defending the theory that George Herbert Walker Bush was a key player in all aspects of the assassination of American president John F. Kennedy.

Review Deeply challenging.

For many, if not most, Americans the material John Hankey presents challenges some of our most deeply held cultural beliefs. That can make the video very hard to watch for many. But that in and of itself does not render Mr. Hankey's hypotheses as false. Can our deeply held, culturally instilled, predispositions prevent us from accepting information, facts, when this information is uncomfortable and threatening to what may be our preexisting world view? Having experienced the national trauma that accompanied the JFK assassination and, along with many others, having the lingering, inescapable impression that the official explanations were blatantly evasive and incomplete, I am glad there are scholars such as Mr. Hankey still working on the matter.

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By what name was Dark Legacy (2009) officially released in Canada in English?

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Space Cowboy may refer to:

Space Cowboy (performer) (born 1978), an Australian performance artistSpace Cowboy (musician), stage name for Nick Dresti, an electronic music producer and performerSpacecowboy, a South Korean composer, record producer, singer and songwriter, who is a member of OnePiece"Space Cowboy", a song by the Steve Miller Band from the 1969 album Brave New World"The Joker", a 1973 song by the Steve Miller Band, often mistakenly called "Space Cowboy""Space Cowboy" (Banaroo song), from the album Banaroo's World"Space Cowboy", a song from the 1983 Jonzun Crew album Lost in Space"Space Cowboy", a song from the 1997 Savage album Babylon"Space Cowboy", a song from the 2000 'N Sync album No Strings Attached"Space Cowboy", a song from the 2000 Scooter album Sheffield"Space Cowboy", a song from the 2012 album "Eye of the Hurricane" by Ilse DeLange"Space Cowboy" (Jamiroquai song), appearing on the 1994 Jamiroquai album The Return of the Space Cowboy"Space Cowboy", a song from the 2010 Abney Park album The End of Days"Space Cowboy" (Kacey Musgraves song), from the 2018 album Golden Hour"Space Cowboy", a song from the 2021 ZillaKami album DOG BOYSugar Land Space Cowboys, the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros in Minor League BaseballSpace Cowboy (video game), a 1984 video game from Avalon HillSpace Cowboy Online, alternative name in North America for the role playing game Ace Online"The Space Cowboy", a character in the Stephen King novel Gerald's Game"Deep Space Cowboys" is a term used in the Stephen King novel Lisey's StoryGeorge Peppard's character in Battle Beyond The StarsThe phrase "see you space cowboy" at the end of nearly every episode of the anime series Cowboy BebopPaulson, an Old West cowboy abducted by aliens in the Mothership Zeta add-on for Fallout 3Space Cowboys, 2000 Clint Eastwood film"Spaced Cowboy", a song by Sly and the Family Stone from the 1971 LP There's a Riot Goin' OnSpace Western, a genre often incorporating cowboys in outer spaceSpace pirates, often depicted as gunslingers rather than swordfightersTopics referred to by the same term

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Feud involving two families of the West Virginia''Kentucky area

Hatfield''McCoy feud Date1863''1891Caused byAmerican Civil War, land disputes, revenge killingsResulted inMore than a dozen killed from both sidesNine Hatfields imprisoned (including seven Hatfields who were imprisoned for life and one Hatfield who was executed)The Hatfield''McCoy Feud involved two American families of the West Virginia''Kentucky area along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River from 1863 to 1891. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, while the McCoys of Kentucky were under the leadership of Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy. Those involved in the feud were descended from Joseph Hatfield and William McCoy (born c. '‰1750 ). The feud has entered the American folklore lexicon as a metonym for any bitterly feuding rival parties.

The McCoy family lived primarily on the Kentucky side of the Tug Fork; the Hatfields lived mostly on the West Virginia side.[1][2] The majority of the Hatfields, although living in Mingo County (then part of Logan County), fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War; most McCoys also fought for the Confederates,[3] with the exception of Asa Harmon McCoy, who fought for the Union. The first real violence in the feud was the death of Asa as he returned from the war, murdered by a group of Confederate Home Guards called the Logan Wildcats. Devil Anse Hatfield was a suspect at first, but was later confirmed to have been sick at home at the time of the murder. It was widely believed that his uncle, Jim Vance, a member of the Wildcats, committed the murder.

The Hatfields were more affluent and had many more political connections than the McCoys. Anse's timbering operation was a source of wealth for his family, while the McCoys were more of a lower-middle-class family. Ole Ran'l owned a 300-acre (120 ha) farm. Both families had also been involved in the manufacturing and selling of illegal moonshine, a popular commodity at the time.[citation needed ]

The Hatfield clan in 1897Asa Harmon McCoy joined the 45th Kentucky Infantry on October 20, 1863. According to his Compiled Service Records, he was "captured by Rebels" on December 5, 1863, and was released four months later to a Union hospital in Maryland. At the time of his capture, he was recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest. During the early months of the Civil War, Asa joined a company of the Pike County Home Guards, under the command of Uriah Runyon, and it is thought he sustained the wound while serving in this unit. William Francis also led a company of Pike County Guards during 1862, a group of which attacked and shot Mose Christian Cline, a friend of Devil Anse Hatfield. Although Cline survived his wounds, Anse vowed to retaliate against the responsible parties. Some time in 1863, a group of Confederate Home Guards ambushed and killed Francis as he was leaving his house, and Anse took credit for the deed. Runyon later joined the 39th Kentucky Infantry and was killed on May 7, 1864, in Pike County, Kentucky. His Compiled Service Records say "Killed by Rebels".

On muster rolls beginning on May 6, 1864, Asa is reported in a Lexington hospital, suffering from a leg fracture. Beginning in December 1864, the 45th Kentucky Infantry began mustering its companies out of service. Asa's Company E was mustered out on December 24, 1864, in Ashland. He was killed near his home on January 7, 1865, just thirteen days after leaving the Union Army. A group of Confederate guerrillas took credit for the killing, and his wife's pension application states that he was "killed by Rebels". There are no existing records pertaining to his death, and no warrants were issued in connection with the murder. McCoy family tradition points to James "Jim" Vance, an uncle of Anse and a member of a West Virginia militia group, as the culprit.[5][6][7][8]

The second recorded instance of violence in the feud occurred thirteen years later, in 1878, after a dispute about the ownership of a hog: Floyd Hatfield, a cousin of Anse, owned the hog, but Randolph McCoy claimed it was his,[9] saying that the notches on the pig's ears were McCoy, not Hatfield, marks. The matter was taken to the local Justice of the Peace, Anderson "Preacher Anse" Hatfield,[10] who ruled in favor of the Hatfields by the testimony of Bill Staton, a relative of both families. In June 1880, Staton was killed by two McCoy brothers, Sam and Paris, who were later acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.

A section of the flood wall along the Tug Fork in Matewan, West Virginia, constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, depicts the Hatfield''McCoy feud.The feud escalated after Roseanna McCoy entered a relationship with Devil Anse's son Johnson, known as "Johnse" (spelled "Jonce" in some sources), leaving her family to live with the Hatfields in West Virginia. Roseanna eventually returned to the McCoys, but when the couple tried to resume their relationship, Johnse was arrested by the McCoys on outstanding Kentucky bootlegging warrants. He was freed from McCoy custody only when Roseanna made a desperate midnight ride to alert Anse, who organized a rescue party. The Hatfield party surrounded the McCoys and took Johnse back to West Virginia before he could be transported the next day to the county seat in Pikeville, Kentucky. Despite what was seen as her betrayal of her own family on his behalf, Johnse thereafter abandoned the pregnant Roseanna for her cousin, Nancy McCoy, whom he wed in 1881.

The feud continued in 1882 when Ellison Hatfield, brother of Anse, was killed by three of Roseanna's younger brothers: Tolbert, Phamer (Pharmer), and Bud.[11] On an election day in Kentucky, the three McCoy brothers fought a drunken Ellison and another Hatfield brother; Ellison was stabbed 26 times and finished off with a gunshot. The McCoy brothers were initially arrested by Hatfield constables and were taken to Pikeville for trial. Secretly, Anse organized a large group of vigilantes and intercepted the constables and their McCoy prisoners before they reached Pikeville. The brothers were taken by force to West Virginia. When Ellison died from his injuries, all three McCoy brothers were killed by the Hatfields in turn: they were tied to pawpaw bushes and each was shot numerous times, with a total of fifty shots fired. Their bodies were described as "bullet-riddled". Soon, another McCoy, the second son of the murdered Asa named Larkin "Lark" McCoy, was ambushed by an alleged West Virginia posse led by the Hatfields.[13]

Even though the Hatfields and most inhabitants of the area believed their revenge was warranted, up to about twenty men, including Anse, were indicted. All of the Hatfields eluded arrest; this angered the McCoy family, who took their cause up with Perry Cline.[14] Upon hearing of the meeting, Anse resolved to stop Randall and sent gunmen to ambush Randall and his son Calvin, but the gunmen killed Randall's nephews John and Henderson Scott instead after mistaking them for their targets.[15] Cline, who was Martha McCoy's brother, is believed to have used his political connections to reinstate the charges and announced rewards for the Hatfields' arrests as an act of revenge. A few years prior, Cline had lost a lawsuit against Anse over the deed to thousands of acres of land, subsequently increasing the hatred between the two families.

Days after the killing of the Scotts, acting constable Cap Hatfield and family friend Tom Wallace broke into the house of Bill Daniels and flogged his wife Mary, sister of Jeff McCoy, who they suspected of warning her brother's family of danger. Jeff McCoy heard of the whipping in 1886 while on the run for the murder of mail carrier Fred Wolford. Infuriated, he and his friend Josiah Hurley set out to capture Tom Wallace and take him to jail in Pikeville, but he escaped them.[16] As Jeff tried to flee, he was shot dead by Cap and Wallace on the banks of the Tug Fork.[17] Two other McCoys, Jake and Larkin, once again attempted to arrest Tom Wallace for the assault on Mary Daniels in August 1887, but he managed to escape from jail; he was found murdered the following year, likely by the McCoys.[18] Larkin "Lark" McCoy was the second son of the murdered Asa McCoy. He too was ambushed and murdered by an alleged West Virginia posse led by the Hatfields.[19]

The feud reached its peak during the 1888 New Year's Night Massacre. Cap and Vance led several members of the Hatfield clan to surround the McCoy cabin and opened fire on the sleeping family.[14] Awakened by the shooting, the McCoys managed to grab their weapons and fired back.[20] The cabin was then set on fire in an effort to drive the McCoys into the open.

Panicking, the McCoys rushed to every exit they could find. Randolph managed to escape and hide inside the pig pen. Most of his children managed to escape into the woods. Two of Randolph's children, Calvin and Alifair, were shot and killed near the family well as they exited their home.[20][21] Randolph's wife, Sarah, was caught, beaten, and almost killed by Vance and Johnse. With his house burning, Randolph and his remaining family members were able to escape farther into the wilderness; his children, unprepared for the elements, suffered frostbite. The remaining McCoys moved to Pikeville to escape the West Virginia raiding parties.

Battle of the Grapevine Creek [ edit ] Between 1880 and 1891, the feud claimed more than a dozen members of the two families. On one occasion, the governors of West Virginia and Kentucky even threatened to have their militias invade each other's states. In response, Kentucky Governor S. B. Buckner sent his Adjutant General Sam Hill to Pike County to investigate the situation.[22]

A few days after the New Year's Massacre, a posse led by Pike County Deputy Sheriff Frank Philipps rode out to track down Anse's group across the state line into West Virginia. Two McCoys were members of Philipps' posse, Bud and one of Randolph's sons, James "Jim" McCoy.[23] The posse's first victim was Vance, who was killed in the woods after he refused to be arrested. Philipps then made other successive raids on Hatfield homes and supporters, capturing many and killing another three Hatfield supporters,[24] before cornering the rest in Grapevine Creek on January 19.[25] Unfortunately for Philipps, Anse and other Hatfields were waiting for them with an armed group of their own. A battle ensued between the two parties, and the Hatfields were eventually apprehended.[14] A deputy, Bill Dempsey, was wounded and executed by Frank Philipps after they surrendered.[24] On August 24, 1888, eight of the Hatfields and their friends were indicted for the murder of Randolph's young daughter, Alifair McCoy (sometimes spelled Allaphare), who was killed during the New Year's Massacre. They included Cap, Johnse, Robert and Elliot Hatfield, Ellison Mounts, French Ellis, Charles Gillespie, and Thomas Chambers.

Because of issues of due process and illegal extradition, the United States Supreme Court became involved (Mahon v. Justice, 127 U.S. 700 (1888)).[27] The Supreme Court ruled 7''2 in favor of Kentucky, holding that, even if a fugitive is returned from the asylum state illegally instead of through lawful extradition procedure, no federal law prevents him from being tried. Eventually, the men were tried in Kentucky and all were found guilty. Seven received life imprisonment, while the eighth, Ellison "Cottontop" Mounts, was executed by hanging and buried in an unmarked grave within sight of the gallows.

Ellison had tried to retract his confession, stating that he was innocent and that he had only confessed because he expected leniency, but his retraction was denied. Thousands attended his hanging in Pikeville, but though the scaffold was in the open, its base was fenced in to comply with laws that had been passed which prohibited public executions. The hanging site is the current location of a classroom building of the present-day University of Pikeville. With his last words, Ellison claimed that: "The Hatfields made me do it." No one had been sent to the gallows in Pike County for forty years, and after Ellison, no one ever was again.

Of those sent to prison:

Valentine "Uncle Wall" Hatfield, elder brother of Anse, was overshadowed by Anse's ambitions but was one of the eight convicted, dying in prison of unknown causes. He had petitioned his brothers to assist in his emancipation from jail, but none came for fear of being captured and brought to trial. He was buried in the prison cemetery, which has since been paved over.Doc D. Mahon, son-in-law of Valentine and brother of Pliant, one of the eight Hatfields convicted, served 14 years in prison before returning home to live with his son, Melvin.Pliant Mahon, son-in-law of Valentine, served fourteen years in prison before returning home to rejoin his ex-wife, who had remarried but left her second husband to live with Pliant again.Fighting between the families eased following the hanging of Mounts. Trials continued for years until the 1901 trial of Johnse, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the New Year's Massacre in the last of the feud trials.

In 1979, the families united for a special week's taping of the popular game show Family Feud, in which they played for a cash prize and a pig which was kept on stage during the games.[29] The McCoy family won the week-long series three games to two. While the Hatfield family won more money '' $11,272.32 to the McCoys' $8,459.53'--the decision was made to augment the McCoy family's winnings to $11,273.37.[30][better source needed ]

Tourists travel to those parts of West Virginia and Kentucky each year to examine the relics that remain from the days of the feud. In 1999, a large project known as the "Hatfield and McCoy Historic Site Restoration" was completed, funded by a federal grant from the Small Business Administration. Many improvements to various feud sites were completed. A committee of local historians spent months researching reams of information to find out about the factual history of the events surrounding the feud. This research was compiled in an audio compact disc, the Hatfield''McCoy Feud Driving Tour, which is available only at the Pike County Tourism CVB Visitors Center in Pikeville. The CD is a self-guided driving tour of the restored feud sites and includes maps and pictures as well as the audio CD. The driving tour leads visitors to feud related points of interest including the gravesites of the feudists, the "Hog Trial Cabin", also known as Valentine Hatfield's cabin, Randolph McCoy's homeplace and well in Hardy, Kentucky, Aunt Betty's House and many more sites, some complete with historical markers.[31]

Great-great-great-grandsons Bo McCoy and Ron McCoy of feud patriarch Randolph McCoy organized a joint family reunion of the Hatfield and McCoy families in 2000 that garnered national attention. More than 5,000 people attended.[32]

The Hatfield''McCoy feud is featured in a musical comedy dinner show in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.Hatfield''McCoy production (July 2012)In 2002, Bo and Ron McCoy brought a lawsuit to acquire access to the McCoy Cemetery which holds the graves of six family members, including five slain during the feud. The McCoys took on a private property owner, John Vance, who had restricted access to the cemetery.[33]

In the 2000s, a 500-mile (800 km) all-terrain vehicle trail system, the Hatfield''McCoy Trails, was created around the theme of the feud.[34]

On June 14, 2003, in Pikeville, Kentucky, the McCoy cousins partnered with Reo Hatfield of Waynesboro, Virginia, to declare an official truce between the families. Reo Hatfield said that he wanted to show that if the two families could reach an accord, others could also. He had said that he wanted to send a broader message to the world that when national security is at risk, Americans put their differences aside and stand united: "We're not saying you don't have to fight because sometimes you do have to fight," he said. "But you don't have to fight forever." Signed by more than sixty descendants during the fourth Hatfield''McCoy Festival, the truce was touted as a proclamation of peace, saying "We ask by God's grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America." Governor Paul E. Patton of Kentucky and Governor Bob Wise of West Virginia signed proclamations declaring June 14 Hatfield and McCoy Reconciliation Day. Ron McCoy, one of the festival's founders, said it is unknown where the three signed proclamations will be exhibited and that "the Hatfields and McCoys symbolize violence and feuding and fighting, but by signing this, hopefully people will realize that's not the final chapter."[citation needed ]

The Hatfield and McCoy Reunion Festival and Marathon are held annually in June on a three-day weekend. The events take place in Pikeville, Kentucky, Matewan, West Virginia, and Williamson, West Virginia. The festival commemorates the famed feud and includes a marathon and half-marathon (the motto is "no feudin', just runnin'"), in addition to an ATV ride in all three towns. There is also a tug-of-war across the Tug Fork tributary near which the feuding families lived, a live re-enactment of scenes from their most famous fight, a motorcycle ride, live entertainment, Hatfield''McCoy landmark tours, a cornbread contest, pancake breakfast, arts, crafts, and dancing. Launched in 2000, the festival typically attracts thousands with more than 300 runners taking part in the races.[35]

Statue honoring Randolph McCoy at the McCoy Homeplace in Hardy, KentuckyIn August 2015 members of both families helped archeologists dig for ruins at a site where they believe Randolph McCoy's house was burned.[36]

In September 2018, a wooden statue, standing over 8 feet tall, was erected in honor of Randolph McCoy at the McCoy homeplace in Hardy, Kentucky. Carved by chainsaw carver Travis Williams and donated to the property, this statue had been commissioned by McCoy property owner and Hatfield descendant Bob Scott. The statue was unveiled during Hatfield-McCoy Heritage Days in Pike County, Kentucky, an event that occurs every September that brings Hatfield and McCoy descendants back to Pike County to celebrate the long-standing peace between the families. The McCoy homeplace, like many others associated with the feud, is open to tourists year-round.[37]

The 1923 Buster Keaton comedy Our Hospitality centers on the "Canfield''McKay feud," a fictionalized version of the Hatfield''McCoy feud.

The 1938 Merrie Melodies cartoon A Feud There Was depicts a feud between two backwoods families, called the Weavers and the McCoys. It features Egghead as a peace activist - going by the name Elmer Fudd (before he was a hunter) - trying to put an end to the feuding between the two hillbilly clans.

The 1939 Max Fleischer cartoon Musical Mountaineers has Betty Boop wander into the territory of the Peters family who are at war with the Hatfields.

The 1943 Walter Lantz Swing Symphony cartoon Pass the Biscuits Mirandy! depicts the feud between the Foys and Bartons, basing off from the lyrics of a song of the same title.[38]

The 1946 Disney cartoon short The Martins and the Coys in Make Mine Music animated feature was another very thinly disguised caricature of the Hatfield''McCoy feud.

In 1949, the Samuel Goldwyn feature film Roseanna McCoy told a fictionalized version of the romance between the title character, played by Joan Evans, and Johnse Hatfield, played by Farley Granger.

The 1949 Screen Songs short "Comin' Round the Mountain" features another thinly disguised caricature of the Hatfield''McCoy feud, with cats (called "Catfields") and dogs ("McHounds") fighting each other, until a new school teacher arrives.

In 1950, Warner Bros. released a spoof of the Hatfield''McCoy feud titled Hillbilly Hare, featuring Bugs Bunny interacting with members of the "Martin family", obviously a reference to a family in the other famous Kentucky feud, the Rowan County War who had been feuding with the "Coy family". When Bugs Bunny is asked, "Be y'all a Martin or be y'all a Coy rabbit?", Bugs answers, "Well, my friends say I'm very coy!" and laughs. The Martin brothers chase Bugs for the rest of the short and are outwitted by him at every turn.

The 1951 Abbott and Costello feature Comin' Round the Mountain features a feud between the Winfields and McCoys.

The 2007 movie Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud portrays the feud between the Hatfields and McCoys, but the circumstances of the feud are different.

In 2012, Lionsgate Films released a direct-to-DVD film titled Hatfields & McCoys: Bad Blood, starring Jeff Fahey, Perry King, and Christian Slater. This was another thinly-disguised fictional version of the conflict.

Members of the Hatfield clan appear in Manly Wade Wellman's 1957 short story Old Devlins Was A-Waiting alongside fictional great-grandchildren of both the Hatfields and McCoys.

The Lucky Luke adventure Les Rivaux de Painful Gulch (The Rivals of Painful Gulch) from 1962 was inspired by the Hatfield''McCoy feud.

Ann Rinaldi authored a 2002 historical novel titled The Coffin Quilt, based on a fictionalized account of the feud.[39]

In Kurt Vonnegut's 1976 novel Slapstick, a frontiersman dressed like "Davy Crockett" kills a man charged with conveying a message to the former of the United States because he mistakes him for Newton McCoy. When the frontiersman is asked his name, he replies "Byron Hatfield".

In Mark Twain's 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the Grangerfords, an aristocratic Kentuckian family headed by the sexagenarian Colonel Saul Grangerford, take Huck in after he is separated from Jim on the Mississippi. Huck becomes close friends with the youngest male of the family, Buck Grangerford, who is Huck's age. By the time Huck meets them, the Grangerfords have been engaged in an age-old blood feud with another local family, the Shepherdsons. He also becomes the unwitting correspondent between two young lovers among the families, an elopement which leads to a battle between the two families and the loss of several lives on both sides.

The 1960 episode of "The Andy Griffith Show" titled "A Feud is a Feud" has a Wakefield and a Carter trying to prevent Andy, in his role as Justice of the Peace, from marrying two young lovers on opposite sides of the feud. Andy calls the two feuding fathers to a duel when he finds out that "not nary a shot had ever been fired during this feud". Both prove to be cowards in comparison with their courageous children, and the feuding fathers order Andy at gunpoint: "Sheriff, get to marryin'!"

In the Bonanza episode "The Gunmen" (season 1, episode 19; aired January 23, 1960) Joe and Hoss were mistaken for two gunmen called Sladeboys that were hired by Mcfadden (McCoy) to take out the Hatfields in the small Texas town of Kiowa Flats.[40]

In the story arc "Missouri Mish Mash" in season 3 of The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends (1961''62), the heroes are drawn into the feud between the "Hatfuls" and the "Floys", unaware that both sides are secretly controlled by their nemesis Boris Badenov. They finally get elected to Congress from the area, and end the feud by responding to their "constitutents"' request to move the other side out of the district... not telling that they are doing to both sides.

The Flintstones featured a feud between the Hatrocks and the Flintstones in the episode "The Flintstone Hillbillies" (aired January 16, 1964), which was loosely based upon the Hatfield''McCoy feud. They later returned in "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes" (aired January 22, 1965) where they visit Fred and are shown to dislike bug music. The Hatrock family consist of Jethro Hatrock (voiced by Howard Morris), Gravella Hatrock (voiced by Bea Benaderet), Zack Hatrock (voiced by Mel Blanc), Slab Hatrock (voiced by Howard Morris), Granny Hatrock (voiced by June Foray in "The Flintstone Hillbillies", Gerry Johnson in "The Hatrocks and the Gruesomes"), Benji Hatrock (voiced by Doug Young), and their dogasaurus Percy.

The 1968 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Feud with a Dude" has the character Merlin the Magic Mouse trying to make peace with the two families, only to end up as the new target. This short has Hatfield claiming McCoy stole his hen, while McCoy claims Hatfield stole his pig.

The Ghost of Witch McCoy appears as the main villain in The Scooby-Doo Show episode "The Ozark Witch Switch". When a fictional member of the McCoy family hanged for witchcraft, she exacts her vengeance by turning Hatfields into frogs.

A 1975 television movie titled The Hatfields and the McCoys told a fictionalized version of the story. It starred Jack Palance as "Devil Anse" Hatfield and Steve Forrest as "Randall" McCoy.

An episode of the Cartoon Network time travel animated series Time Squad, titled 'Feud For Thought' (aired October 26, 2001) with David Anse Hatfield voiced by Fred Tatasciore and Randall McCoy voiced by John Kassir. The Time Squad going back to the time of the Hatfields and the McCoys, where they find that the McCoys are being peaceful rather than fighting. This poses a threat to established history, leading the titular team to try and restore the feud.[41]

A fifth-season episode of The West Wing has the Communications Director describe the feud between Israelis and Palestinians as "Hatfield and McCoy".

The two feuding Virginia families in the 2007 made-for-TV film Pumpkinhead: Blood Feud are called Hatfield and McCoy.

The second-season episode Vanished of NCIS takes place in a rural valley in Virginia, the two sides of which are feuding in a manner that Leroy Jethro Gibbs compares to the Hatfields and McCoys.

The eleventh episode of Bones season 7, entitled The Family in the Feud, is about a long-running family feud that main character Seeley Booth likens to the Hatfield''McCoy feud.

From May 28''30, 2012, U.S. television network The History Channel aired a three-part miniseries titled Hatfields & McCoys,[42] starring Kevin Costner as William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield and co-starring Bill Paxton as Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy, Tom Berenger as Jim Vance, and Powers Boothe as Judge Valentine "Wall" Hatfield.[43] The miniseries set the record as the most-watched entertainment telecast in the history of advertising-supported basic cable.[44]

A pair of rifles owned by the Hatfields and the McCoys appeared as a pair of artifacts in the fourth season of the Syfy original show Warehouse 13. Within the show, the rifles have the ability to attract each other like magnets but open fire when they get close enough to each other.[45]

In 2013, NBC commissioned a pilot for a television show updating the feud to present-day Pittsburgh with Rebecca De Mornay, Virginia Madsen, Sophia Bush, and James Remar but it was not picked up.[46]

On August 1, 2013, the reality television series Hatfields & McCoys: White Lightning premiered on the History channel. The series begins with an investor offering to set up the feuding families into business making moonshine, and follows the families' attempt to run the business together.[47]

In an episode of Modern Family originally aired January 15, 2014, titled "Under Pressure," Cam is working as a gym teacher who has plans to let parents play dodgeball with each other at the school's open house, and wants to divide the two teams into Hatfields and McCoys. The school principal frowns upon this idea, however, Gloria and a competitive mother played by Jane Krakowski decide to settle their score with such a game. Hurriedly Cam proclaims Hatfields for one side and McCoys for the other.

In episode 9 of the fourth season of the Chilean series 31 minutos, called "Westland", in the middle of the episode Tulio sees a "Oestelandia" between the Hatfields and the McCoys where the origin of the conflict is that one of the members of the Hatfields had stolen Grandma McCoy's potty. Near the end of the episode, they manage to end the conflict where in the credits both families play their instrumental version of the show together.

The fifth season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic featured an episode titled "The Hooffields and McColts", in which two clans have a longstanding feud over whether to use land for farming or construction. A similar theme was covered in Season 3, episode 9 of Littlest Pet Shop, "Feud for Thought", in which two koalas are at odds with each other but don't know why, other than that their owners are in a feud.

In the Ben 10 reboot, a season 3 episode called "Them's Fighting Words!" features a parody of the feud involving the Hartfields and the McJoys. The Hartfield family's known member is Cornelius Hartfield (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and the McJoy family's known member is Cornflower McJoy (voiced by Laura Bailey). The Hartfields and McJoys have been trying to claim ownership over a missing corn flute, accusing the other family of stealing it. The villain Hex actually finds it and starts summoning the ghosts of the family's ancestors (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker and David Kaye), finding out the flute's power increases the more the two families fight each other. Though Ben and Gwen are able to quell them and stop Hex's plans to create an army of ghost soldiers by revealing that it was meant to be shared by them as a marriage gift, ending the feud.

WGBH Boston's Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) American Experience episode "The Feud" (season 32, episode 1) originally aired on September 10, 2019, documenting the Hatfield-McCoy family feud 1863''1891.[48][49]

In the 16th episode of the 12th season of Family Guy, Herpe the Love Sore, the Hatfield-McCoy feud is briefly referenced in the History Channel's fictional show, The Guy who Lived in-Between the Hatfields and the McCoys.

The song "The Hatfield and the McCoy's" was written and sung by Eddie Martin, a Bristol-based musician and regular at the famous Old Duke. It is track 8 on Pillowcase Blues.

In 2018, Mountain Fever Records released a single from their album from Dave Adkins, Right Or Wrong. The song, "Blood Feud", written by Dave Adkins and Larry Cordle, is a retelling of the familiar story of the deadly discord between the Hatfield and McCoy families during the Civil War era.

Ice Cube's 1991 song ''My Summer Vacation'' includes a reference ''Feudin', like the Hatfields and McCoys''

In the song ''Black Cowboys'' from Jeru the Damaja's 1996 album "Wrath of the Math", he includes a reference ''We shoot sh*t up like the Hatfields and McCoys''.

Waylon Jennings' 1977 song "Luckenbach Texas (Back To The Basics Of Love)" includes the reference "... this successful life we're livin', got us feudin' like the Hatfields and McCoys" [50]

A dinner show based on the rivalry is performed year round in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee since 2010.[51]

In 2006, The House Theatre of Chicago debuted a Romeo and Juliet-inspired dramatization of the feud, Simply called Hatfield and McCoy. The company staged another production of this play in 2018 at the Chopin Theatre.[52]

The 2018 action-adventure video game Red Dead Redemption 2 features a violent feud between two families, the Braithwaites and the Grays, inspired by the Hatfield-McCoy conflict.

Devil Anse Hatfield family tree [ edit ] Names in red indicate those who were killed as a direct result of the feud.Names in orange highlight intermarriages between Hatfield and McCoy.

Randolph McCoy family tree [ edit ] Names in red indicate those who were killed as a direct result of the feud.Names in orange highlight intermarriages between Hatfield and McCoy.[54]

Jones''Liddell feudList of feuds in the United StatesNarcissism of small differences ^ "From Roots to Nuts: Hatfield Thomas, I". Genfan.com. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015 . Retrieved September 12, 2013 . ^ "Devil Anse Hatfield Biography (1839''1921)". Biography.com. A&E Television Networks. December 4, 2014 . Retrieved August 13, 2019 . ^ Farley, Christopher John (May 29, 2012). "How Realistic is 'Hatfields and McCoys'?". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved April 1, 2016 . ^ Williams McCoy, Truda (1976). The McCoys: Their Story. Press of the Preservation Council of Pike County. ISBN 978-0-91681-400-7. ^ "Fold 3". Compiled Service Records of Union Soldiers 1861''1865. Washington, DC: National Archives. ^ Dickinson, Jack L. (2003). Wayne County, West Virginia in the Civil War. Higginson Book Co. ISBN 978-0-74044-086-1. ^ Cline, Cecil L. (1998). The Clines and Allied Families of The Tug River Valley. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press. ^ Donnelly, Shirley (August 7, 1957). "Hatfield-McCoy Feud 75 Years Old Today". Beckley Post-Herald . Retrieved September 12, 2013 '' via WV Culture.org. ^ "Anderson "Preacher Anse" Hatfield". Ghat.com. Archived from the original on March 23, 2012 . Retrieved September 12, 2013 . ^ "On This Day in West Virginia History - August 7". www.wvculture.org. ^ Alther, Lisa. Blood Feud: The Hatfields And The Mccoys: The Epic Story Of Murder And Vengeance. Lyons Press; First Edition (May 22, 2012). p. 138. ISBN 978-0762779185 ^ a b c "The Hatfield and McCoy Feud". History.com . Retrieved October 24, 2013 . ^ Pearce, John (1994) Days of Darkness: The Feuds of Eastern Kentucky University Press of Kentucky ISBN 9780813126579 p. 64 ^ Pearce (1994), pp. 64'--65 ^ Kleber, John (May 18, 1992). "Hatfields and McCoys". The Kentucky Encyclopedia. University Press of Kentucky. p. 418. ISBN 978-0-81311-772-0. ^ Pearce (1994), p. 66 ^ Alther, Lisa. Blood Feud: The Hatfields And The Mccoys: The Epic Story Of Murder And Vengeance. Lyons Press; First Edition (May 22, 2012). p. 138. ISBN 978-0762779185 ^ a b Smith, Miranda (June 9, 2019). "Randolph McCoy Statue, McCoy Well, and Site of New Year's Day Massacre of 1888". The Clio . Retrieved December 15, 2021 . ^ Wheeler, Edward Jewitt; Crane, Frank (November 1888). "The Dramatic Story of a Mountain Feud". Current Literature. 1 (5). Current Literature Publishing Company: 417 . Retrieved September 12, 2013 . ^ "What in Sam Hill ... started the Hatfield and McCoy Feud? Report from the Adjutant General of Kentucky, 1888". National Guard History eMuseum. Kentucky.gov. May 29, 2008. Archived from the original on June 4, 2012 . Retrieved May 31, 2012 . ^ Rice, Otis K. The Hatfields and the McCoys. University Press of Kentucky; 1st edition (December 31, 1982). pp. 69-70. ISBN 9780813114590 ^ a b "Hatfields and McCoys". Encyclop...dia Britannica. January 28, 2014 . Retrieved December 20, 2015 . ^ "The Hatfield McCoy Feud". Hatfield and McCoy Country. Archived from the original on December 10, 2015 . Retrieved December 20, 2015 . ^ "Mahon v. Justice, 127 U.S. 700 (1888)". Findlaw.com . Retrieved September 12, 2013 . ^ "Game Show Network airs milestone episodes, including Hatfield''McCoy battle". ^ " "Family Feud" episode clip". YouTube. June 3, 2012. Archived from the original on November 14, 2021 . Retrieved September 22, 2014 . ^ Shepherd, Jay (May 2012). "Hatfields and McCoys Feud Tour". Pike County Tourism CVB. The Hatfield and McCoy Driving Tour is a self-guided tour that includes all historic sites, both in Kentucky and West Virginia, of the feud. ^ Powell, Kimberly (April 30, 2000). "Hatfield & McCoy - The Reunion They Said Would Never Happen". About.com. Archived from the original on July 11, 2014 . Retrieved September 22, 2014 . ^ "Hatfields, McCoys trade shots in court". Chicago Tribune. January 29, 2003 . Retrieved September 22, 2014 . ^ "Hatfield''McCoy Regional Recreation Area". National Recreation Trails. Archived from the original on April 7, 2015 . Retrieved September 22, 2014 . ^ "Hatfield and McCoy Reunion Festival and Marathon". Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary. Detroit: Omnigraphics, Inc. 2010. ^ "Hatfields, McCoys work together with experts to help pinpoint key battle site in famous feud". The Daily Courier. Kelowna, British Columbia. August 7, 2015. ^ Shepherd, Jay (September 25, 2018). "Randolph McCoy Statue Unveiled at the McCoy Well, Hardy, KY". Pike County Tourism CVB. The Randolph McCoy statue stands approximately 8 feet tall, and is situated in such a way to provide visitors with a beautiful photo opportunity. ^ " 'Pass the Biscuits' Part of the Hatfield-McCoy Pop-Culture Legacy". www.tvworthwatching.com . Retrieved November 19, 2021 . ^ The Coffin Quilt. HMH Books for Young Readers. April 1, 2001. ISBN 978-0-15216-450-8 . Retrieved September 22, 2014 . ^ "The Gunmen". IMDb . Retrieved August 31, 2022 . ^ Time Squad#Season 1 (2001) ^ Imbrogno, Douglas (April 14, 2012). "Hatfield & McCoy feud fuels star treatment". Charleston Gazette-Mail. Archived from the original on June 6, 2012 . Retrieved April 16, 2012 . ^ "Hatfields & McCoys". History.com. Archived from the original on January 25, 2013 . Retrieved April 16, 2012 . ^ "Hatfields & McCoys' is a ratings record-setter". CBS News. Associated Press. June 1, 2012. Archived from the original on June 5, 2012. ^ " "Warehouse 13" '-- No Pain, No Gain episode review". Blast Magazine. August 21, 2012 . Retrieved October 29, 2019 . ^ Kenneally, Tim; Molloy, Tim (May 8, 2013). "NBC passes on 'Hatfields,' six other pilots, cancels 'Deception' ". TheWrap . Retrieved September 12, 2013 . ^ Shattuck, Kathryn (August 1, 2013). "What's On Thursday". The New York Times . Retrieved August 1, 2013 . ^ MacLowry, Randall (September 10, 2019), The Feud, American Experience , retrieved August 31, 2022 ^ "The Feud | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org . Retrieved August 31, 2022 . ^ "Waylon Jennings - Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) Lyrics". Lyrics.com . Retrieved August 4, 2022 . ^ "Our Pigeon Forge Dinner Show | Hatfield & McCoy Dinner Feud". ^ "Hatfield and McCoy presented by the House Theatre of Chicago at Chopin Theatre". Theatre in Chicago . Retrieved January 25, 2024 . ^ "Family Group Record '' Randolph 'Ranel' McCOY (AFN:1RJ9-QNF)". FamilySearch.org. Archived from the original on June 1, 2012 . Retrieved May 26, 2012 . BibliographyPearce, John Ed (1994). Days of Darkness: The Feuds of Eastern Kentucky. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-1874-3. Rice, Otis K. (1982). The Hatfields and McCoys. The University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-1459-4. Dotson, Tom (2013). The Hatfield & McCoy Feud after Kevin Costner: Rescuing History. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-48417-785-3. Jones, Virgil Carrington (1948). The Hatfields and the McCoys. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-89176-014-8. Waller, Altina L. (1988). Feud: Hatfields, McCoys, and Social Change in Appalachia, 1860''1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0-8078-4216-8. King, Dean (2013). The Feud: the Hatfields & McCoys, the true story. New York: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-16706-2.

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American writer (1935''2011)

Carl Preston OglesbyCarl Preston Oglesby (July 30, 1935 '' September 13, 2011) was an American writer, academic, and political activist. He was the President of the leftist student organization Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) from 1965 to 1966.[1]

His father was from South Carolina, and his mother was from Alabama. They met in Akron, Ohio, where the elder Oglesby worked in the rubber mills.[1]

Carl Oglesby graduated from Revere High School in suburban Akron, winning a prize in his final year for a speech in favor of America's Cold War stance.[2] He then enrolled at Kent State University for three years before dropping out to attempt to make his way as an actor and playwright in Greenwich Village, a traditionally Bohemian neighborhood in New York City. While at Kent State, he married Beth Rimanoczy, a graduate student in the English department; they ultimately had three children (Aron, Caleb and Shay). After a year in New York, he returned to Akron, where he became a copywriter for Goodyear and continued working on his creative endeavors, including three plays influenced by Britain's "angry young men" literary movement (exemplified by "a well-received work on the Hatfield-McCoy feud")[1] and an unfinished novel.

In 1958, Oglesby and his family moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he took a technical writing position with the Bendix Corporation, a defense contractor. He ascended to the directorship of the company's technical writing division before completing his undergraduate degree as a part-time student at the University of Michigan (where he cultivated a circle of friends that included Donald Hall and Frithjof Bergmann) in 1962.[3][4]

Oglesby first came into contact with members of SDS in Ann Arbor in 1964. He wrote a critical article on American foreign policy in the Far East in the University of Michigan's campus magazine. SDSers read it, and went to meet Carl at his family home to see if he might become a supporter of the SDS. As Oglebsy put it, "We talked. I got to thinking about things. As a writer, I needed a mode of action [...] I saw that people were already moving, so I joined up." He left Bendix in 1965 and became a full-time Research, Information, Publications (RIP) worker for SDS. [citation needed ]

It isn't the rebels who cause the troubles of the world, it's the troubles that cause the rebels.'--Carl Oglesby[5]He co-authored with Richard Shaull the book, Containment and Change which argued for an alliance between the New Left and the libertarian, non-interventionist Old Right in opposing an imperialist U.S. foreign policy.[6]

He became so impressed by the spirit and intellectual strength of the SDS that he became deeply involved in the organization. Despite the notable age gap between Oglesby and the traditionally-aged undergraduates who comprised most of the organization's membership, he became its president within a year. His first project was to be a "grass-roots theatre", but that project was soon superseded by the opposition to escalating American activity in Vietnam; he helped organize a teach-in in Michigan, and to build for the large SDS peace march in Washington on April 17, 1965. The National Council meeting after was Oglesby's first national SDS meeting. On November 27, 1965, Oglesby gave a speech, "Let Us Shape the Future," before tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators in Washington. He compared the Vietnam revolution to the American revolution. He condemned corporate liberalism and accused corporate anti-Communists of self-righteously denouncing Communist tyranny, while ignoring the "right-wing tyrannies that our businessmen traffic with and our nation profits from every day."[7][8] The speech became one of the most important documents to come out of the anti-war movement. According to Kirkpatrick Sale: "It was a devastating performance: skilled, moderate, learned, and compassionate, but uncompromising, angry, radical, and above all persuasive. It drew the only standing ovation of the afternoon... for years afterward it would continue to be one of the most popular items of SDS literature."[9]

Oglesby's political outlook was more eclectic than that of many in SDS. He was heavily influenced by libertarian economist Murray Rothbard, and dismissed socialism as "a way to bury social problems under a federal bureaucracy."[1] He once unsuccessfully proposed cooperation between SDS and the conservative group Young Americans for Freedom on some projects,[10] and argued that "in a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate":[11]

In his essay "Vietnamese Crucible," published in the 1967 volume Containment and Change, Oglesby rejected the "socialist radical, the corporatist conservative, and the welfare-state liberal" and challenged the New Left to embrace "American democratic populism" and "the American libertarian right."Invoking Senator Taft, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Congressman Buffett, and Saturday Evening Post writer Garet Garrett, among other stalwarts of the Old Right, he asked, "Why have the traditional opponents of big, militarized, central authoritarian government now joined forces with such a government's boldest advocates?" What in the name of Thomas Jefferson were conservatives doing holding the bag for Robert Strange McNamara?[1]

Steve Mariotti, a teenage SDS colleague of Oglesby's in 1965, credits Oglesby with describing an early form of what became known as the two-axis Nolan Chart during a delivery of his "Let Us Shape the Future" speech in order to distinguish between authoritarian conservatives and liberty-loving right-wingers.[12]

In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[13] Also in 1968, he was asked by Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver to serve as his running mate on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in that year's presidential election (he declined the offer).[1]

Oglesby was forced out of SDS in 1969, after more left-wing members accused him of "being 'trapped in our early, bourgeois stage' and for not progressing into 'a Marxist''Leninist perspective.'"[1] After the collapse of SDS in the summer of 1969, Oglesby became a writer, a musician and an academic. His self-titled album was released by Vanguard Records and later reviewed by Village Voice critic Robert Christgau, who wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): "In which the first president of SDS takes after Leonard Cohen, offering a clue as to why the framers of the Port Huron Statement didn't change the world in quite the way they envisioned. Overwritten, undermusicked, not much fun, not much enlightenment'--in short, the work of someone who needs a weatherman (small 'w' please) to know which way the wind blows."[14]

In 1970 he was a featured speaker at the "Left/Right Festival of Liberation" organized by the California Libertarian Alliance. This type of bridge building was not unlike Oglesby; three years earlier, he had written that, "...in a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate."[15]

Oglesby moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he founded the Assassination Information Bureau, an organization that has been credited with bringing about the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations.[16] He wrote several books on the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the various competing theories that attempt to explain it. According to Oglesby, Kennedy was killed by "a rightist conspiracy formed out of anti-Castro Cuban exiles, the Syndicate, and a Cowboy oligarchy, supported by renegade CIA and FBI agents."[17] He recorded two albums, roughly in the folk-rock genre, one titled "Going To Damascus."[citation needed ]

He taught politics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Dartmouth College. He attended the April 2006 North-Eastern Regional Conference of the "new SDS" and where he gave a speech in which he said that activism is about "teaching yourself how to do what you don't know how to do."[18]

Oglesby died of lung cancer at his home in Montclair, New Jersey on September 13, 2011, aged 76.[19][20]

Oglesby has been credited with originating the term "global south," which he first used in a 1969 article.[21]

Oglesby was portrayed by Michael A. Dean in The Trial of the Chicago 7.

He appeared on The Ron Reagan Show on November 19, 1991, with David Lifton, Robert J. Groden, and Robert Sam Anson.

Containment and Change: Two Dissenting Views of American Foreign Policy, with Richard Shaull. Introduction by Leon Howell. New York: Macmillan (1967). OCLC 5432663. Contains Oglesby's award-winning essay, "Vietnam Crucible: An Essay in the Meanings of the Cold War," pp. 3''176.The New Left Reader. New York: Grove Press (1969). ISBN 978-8345615363. OCLC 44987.The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate. Kansas City: Sheed Andrews and McMeel (1976).Full text (hardcover). ISBN 0836206800.Full text (softcover). ISBN 0836206886.Bob Vila's Guide to Buying Your Dream House, with Bob Vila. Research by Nena Groskind. Boston: Little, Brown (1990). ISBN 978-0316902915. OCLC 19775698.[22]Who Killed JFK? Berkeley, Calif: Odonian Press (1991). ISBN 978-1878825100. OCLC 25093879.The JFK Assassination: The Facts and Theories. Signet (1992). ISBN 0451174763.Ravens in the Storm: A Personal History of the 1960s Antiwar Movement. New York: Scribner (2008). ISBN 1416547363."The Secret Treaty of Fort Hunt." CovertAction Information Bulletin (Fall 1990).Television documentaries [ edit ] Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy (1992). Directed by Barbara Kopple & Danny Schechter.Articulate '60s Activist Looks Back To See How He Failed Making Sense of the Sixties] (January 21''23, 1991). PBS. Read excerpts.Rebels With a Cause (2000). Written and directed by Helen Garvey.Interviewed by Bob Fass (January 31, 1975). WBAI Radio (New York). doi:10.7916/d8-q3mg-7326.Interviewed by Bret Eynon (1981). New York Times oral history program. Contemporary History Project oral history collection, no. 35."Student Movements of the 1960s: The Reminiscences of Carl Oglesby." (December 12, 1984). Interviewed by Bret Eynon. Columbia University Oral History Collection (Cambridge, Massachusetts). doi:10.7916/d8-ga9g-2y51. Full transcript / audio.[23]"Former SDS Leader Insists That LaRouche 'Has Never Been a Marxist.'" Interviewed by Herbert Quinde. Executive Intelligence Review, vol. 13, no. 20 (May 16, 1986), pp. 32''33. Full issue.Rosenblatt, Rand K. "Carl Oglesby (Silhouette)." Harvard Crimson (February 15, 1966).Kauffman, Bill. "Writers on the Storm." Reason (Apr. 2008). Full issue."Former New Left leader Carl Oglesby on the '60s, his old friend Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the dream of a left-libertarian alliance."Carl Oglesby [LP] (1967)Going to Damascus [LP] (1971)Clandestine America: Selected Writings on Conspiracies from the Nazi Surrender to Dallas, Watergate, and Beyond. Cambridge, Mass.: Protean Press (2020). ISBN 978-0991352050. ^ a b c d e f g Kauffman, Bill (May 19, 2008) When the Left Was Right, The American Conservative. ^ Segall, Grant. ''Carl Oglesby Rose from Akron to Lead the SDS'' (Obituary). Cleveland Plain Dealer, September 14, 2011. Cleveland.com ^ ''Carl Oglesby: Interviewed by Bret Eynon''. Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965''1972. The New Left in Ann Arbor's Contemporary History Project, July 1978. ^ Carl Oglesby Papers, 1942''2005 Archived August 19, 2017, at the Wayback Machine. University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Special Collections and University Archives. ^ Brosi, George (Winter 2012). "A Tribute To Carl Oglesby, 1935''2011." Appalachian Heritage, vol. 40, no. 1. pp. 8-9. doi:10.1353/aph.2012.0008. ^ Conger, Wally (2006). New Libertarian Manifesto and Agorist Class Theory. Lulu.com. ISBN 978-1847287717. ^ "Carl Oglesby, Antiwar Leader in 1960s, Dies at 76", By Margalit Fox, The New York Times, September 14, 2011 ^ Students For A Democratic Society (SDS), Document Library, Let Us Shape the Future, By Carl Oglesby, November 27, 1965 ^ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS, p. 244 ^ Kauffman, Bill. "Writers on the Storm: Former New Left Leader Carl Oglesby on the '60s, His Old Friend Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the Dream of a Left-Libertarian Alliance." Interview with Carl Oglesby. Reason (April 2008). Full issue. ^ McCarthy, Daniel (February 24, 2010). "Carl Oglesby Was Right." American Conservative. ^ Steve Mariotti (October 23, 2013). "Economically Conservative Yet Socially Tolerant? Find Yourself on the Nolan Chart". Huffington Post. ^ "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" January 30, 1968 New York Post ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: O". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X . Retrieved March 10, 2019 '' via robertchristgau.com. ^ Oglesby, Carl, and Richard Shaull. Containment and Change: Two Dissenting Views of American Foreign Policy. New York: Macmillan (1967), p. 167. OCLC 5432663. ^ Greenberg, David (November 20, 2003). "The plot to link JFK's death and Watergate". Slate Magazine . Retrieved April 9, 2020 . ^ "The Yankee and the Cowboy War; Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate". kirkusreviews.com. Kirkus Reviews. October 4, 1976 . Retrieved August 28, 2017 . ^ Buhle, Paul. "SDS Northeast Conference Report, Apr.23, Brown University (Providence, RI)." Documents from the SDS Northeast Regional Conference, Brown University, Providence, RI. Next Left Notes (April 2006). ^ "Author, '60s activist and anti-war leader Carl Oglesby dead at age 76". Washington Post. September 13, 2011 . Retrieved September 13, 2011 . [dead link ] ^ "Carl Oglesby, Antiwar Leader in 1960s, Dies at 76". New York Times. September 14, 2011. ^ "Year in a Word: 'Global South' ". The Financial Times. December 31, 2023 . Retrieved December 31, 2023 . ^ "Carl Oglesby." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. Gale (2011). Gale In Context: Biography. Gale H1000185836. ^ Also: Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965''1972 at University of Michigan. Sale, Kirkpatrick (1974). SDS: Ten Years Towards a Revolution. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN 0394719654. See esp. 194''199.Rosenblatt, Rand K. (February 15, 1966). "Carl Oglesby (Silhouette)." Harvard Crimson.Russell, Dick (Nov. 1993). "From Dallas to Eternity." Boston Magazine. pp. 62''65, 82, 85''88.Gardner, Fred (2016). "The Working Class Stranger '' Carl Oglesby." O'Shaughnessy's'.Carl Oglesby at DiscogsCarl Oglesby at IMDbCarl Oglesby collection at the Harold Weisberg Archive via Internet ArchiveArchive of SDS documents, including two speeches by Carl Oglesby.Carl Oglesby Papers, 1942''2005 Archived August 19, 2017, at the Wayback Machine at University of Massachusetts at AmherstOglesby Songs Archived October 26, 2020, at the Wayback Machine '' Website devoted to the music of Carl Oglesby, including arrangements of several of his songs.Johanna Vogelsang. "I told you things were crumbling." (c.1975) at Center for the Study of Political Graphics

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Loose group of far-right activists and internet trolls

Groypers, sometimes called the Groyper Army, are a group of alt-right and white nationalist activists, provocateurs, and internet trolls. They are notable for their attempts to introduce alt-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States, their participation in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and the protests leading up to it, and their extremist views. They have targeted other conservative groups and individuals whose agendas they view as too moderate and insufficiently nationalist.[3][4] The Groyper movement has been described as white nationalist, homophobic, nativist, fascist, sexist, antisemitic, and an attempt to rebrand the declining alt-right movement.[2][5][6][7]

Groypers are a loosely defined group of followers and fans of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, far-right political commentator and livestreamer.[8][2] After Fuentes, there is no clear second in the Groyper hierarchy. Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named "Groyper", which is a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog.

Michelle Malkin, a conservative blogger and political commentator, has referred to herself as the "mommy" of the Groyper movement, though she plays a minor role in the cause.[9][10]

In February 2021, the Groyper movement splintered between Nick Fuentes and Patrick Casey over fears of infiltration by federal informants and doxing at the 2021 America First Political Action Conference, held by Fuentes. Jaden McNeil of America First Students joined in support of Fuentes' conference and accused Casey of disloyalty to Fuentes.[11][12] In May 2022, McNeil distanced himself from Fuentes in an "interpersonal clash of egos" following conflict over his former position as treasurer of Fuentes' America First Foundation.[13]

Ideology

Groypers are extremely conservative and critical of more mainstream conservative organizations, which they believe to be insufficiently nationalist and pro-white; thus, they appeal to racist and xenophobic individuals.[14] Groypers and their leaders have tried to position the group's ideology as being based around "Christian conservatism", "traditional values", and "American nationalism". Some Groypers downplay the extremism of their positions, and instruct others on how to engage in entryism and radicalization tactics such as slowly introducing their targets to increasingly extreme ideas. Despite attempts to brand themselves more moderately, the group is widely recognized as white nationalist, antisemitic, and homophobic.[1][17]

Fuentes claimed that he had been "oppressed" by "the Jews" and blamed antisemitic actions as being the Jewish community's own fault, claiming that matters "tend to go from zero to sixty" and that "the reason is them". Fuentes declared that matters would get "a lot uglier" for their community if they did not begin to support "people like us".[18][19] According to the Anti-Defamation League, Groypers blame the mainstream conservative movement as well as the political left for what they view as "destroying white America". They oppose immigration and globalism. Groypers support "traditional" values and Christianity and oppose feminism and LGBTQ rights.[1]

Describing the relationship between Groypers and the Republican Party, Nick Fuentes has stated, "We are the right-wing flank of the Republican Party." He summarized his political ambitions by stating, "We have got to be on the right, dragging [moderate Republicans] kicking and screaming into the future. Into a truly reactionary party."[20] In 2022, Fuentes advocated for a political "white uprising" to bring Donald Trump back to power and "never leave," wanting America to "stop having elections" and abolish the United States Congress.[21][22]

Background

Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named "Groyper", which is a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. Groyper is depicted as a rotund, green, frog-like creature, often in a sitting position with its chin resting on interlocked fingers.[23][24] There is some disagreement around the specifics of Groyper: it is alternatively said to be a depiction of the Pepe character,[5] a different character from Pepe but of the same species,[25] or a toad.[23] The Groyper meme was used as early as 2015, and became popular in 2017.[26]

In 2018, a group of computer scientists studying hateful speech on Twitter observed the Groyper image being used frequently in account avatars among the accounts identified as "hateful" in their dataset. The researchers observed that the profiles tended to be anonymous and collectively tweeted primarily about politics, race, and religion. Similarly, they detected that the users were not "lone wolves" and the individuals could be identified as a community with a high network centrality.[27] The same year, Right Wing Watch reported that Massachusetts congressional hopeful Shiva Ayyadurai had created a campaign pin featuring a variation of the Groyper image, which RWW described as an attempt to appeal to the far-right activists on 4chan, Gab, and Twitter who had adopted the meme.[28]

Nick Fuentes in 2022Followers of Nick Fuentes began to be known as Groypers beginning in 2019. Fuentes' followers are also sometimes called "Nickers".[2][29] In September 2019, Ashley St. Clair, a "brand ambassador" for the conservative student group Turning Point USA, was photographed at an event featuring several allegedly white nationalist and alt-right figures, including Fuentes, Jacob Wohl, and Anthime Gionet, better known as "Baked Alaska". After Right Wing Watch brought the photographs to Turning Point USA's attention, the organization issued a statement declaring that it had severed ties with St. Clair, and condemning white nationalism as "abhorrent and un-American".[30][31] At the 2019 Politicon convention, Fuentes tried to access several of the Turning Point USA events featuring its founder Charlie Kirk, including a line to take photos with Kirk and Kirk's debate with Kyle Kulinski of The Young Turks. Security repeatedly barred him from being allowed anywhere near Kirk, with Fuentes accusing Kirk of deliberately suppressing him in order to avoid a confrontation, as Fuentes had grown critical of Kirk's positions, which he believes are too weak.[24] Charlie Kirk and Rob Smith were then questioned by Patrick Casey and other plants in the audience on their views on free speech and homosexuality. Groypers believe that mainstream conservative groups are moving the country towards the left and ceding ground on cultural issues by banning members for associating with white nationalists or neo-Nazis and not caring about what consenting adults do.

Groyper Wars

In the fall of 2019, Kirk launched a college speaking tour with Turning Point USA titled "Culture War", featuring himself alongside such guests as Senator Rand Paul, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, and Congressman Dan Crenshaw.[1] In retaliation for the firing of St. Clair and the Politicon incident, Fuentes subsequently began organizing a social media campaign asking his followers to go to Kirk's events and ask provocative and controversial leading questions regarding his stances on immigration, Israel, and LGBT rights during the question-and-answer sessions, for the purpose of exposing Kirk as a "fake conservative". At a Culture War event hosted by Ohio State University on October 29, eleven out of fourteen questions during the Q&A section were asked by Groypers.[32] Groypers asked questions including, "Can you prove that our white European ideals will be maintained if the country is no longer made up of white European descendants?", and directed the question "How does anal sex help us win the culture war?" at Kirk's co-host Rob Smith, a gay black veteran of the Iraq War.[33] Fuentes' social media campaign against Kirk became known as the "Groyper Wars".[5][23] Kirk, Smith, and others at Turning Point USA, including Benny Johnson, began labeling the questioners as white supremacists and antisemites.[24][34]

Another Turning Point USA event targeted by the Groypers was a promotional event for Donald Trump Jr.'s book Triggered, featuring Trump, Kirk, and Guilfoyle at the University of California, Los Angeles in November 2019. Anticipating further questions from Fuentes' followers, it was announced that the originally planned Q&A portion of the event would be canceled, which led to heckling and boos from the mostly pro-Trump audience.[35] The disruptions eventually forced them to cut the event short after 30 minutes, when it was originally scheduled to last for two hours.[36][37][8]

Groypers' targets for heckling quickly expanded beyond Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.[23] Groypers began targeting other mainstream conservative groups and individuals, which they sometimes collectively call "Conservative Inc.", including events hosted by Young America's Foundation and their student outreach branch Young Americans for Freedom, which included such speakers as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire, and Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch.[3] Questions posed to their opponents often focus on topics including United States''Israel relations, immigration policy, affirmative action, and LGBTQ conservatives.[4][5] They regularly use antisemitic dogwhistles in their confrontations with other conservatives, including numerous questions about the USS Liberty incident, and references to the "dancing Israelis" conspiracy theory alleging Israeli involvement in the September 11 attacks.[41][1]

Other activities

In December 2019, Fuentes announced and held the Groyper Leadership Summit in Florida. A small group attended the event in person, and attendees also joined via livestream. The event was held at the same time and in the same city as Turning Point USA's Student Action Summit (SAS); Groypers argued with SAS attendees outside of their venue, and Fuentes, Patrick Casey, and some Groypers were removed from the SAS venue after attempting to enter. At the Groyper Leadership Summit, Fuentes, Casey, and former InfoWars contributor Jake Lloyd spoke about the Groypers' strategy and ideology. While outside of a venue where a Turning Point USA event was being held, Fuentes crossed paths with Ben Shapiro, who was on his way to the event with his pregnant wife and two children. Fuentes confronted Shapiro over his past public speaking comments, while Shapiro refused to acknowledge him.[43] Fuentes faced widespread condemnation from politicians and various pundits'--including Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain, Sebastian Gorka, Megyn Kelly, and Michael Avenatti'--for confronting Shapiro while he was with his family.[44]

In January 2020, Groyper and former leader of Kansas State University's Turning Point USA chapter Jaden McNeil formed the Kansas State University organization America First Students. The group, which shares a name with Fuentes' America First podcast, was conceived at the Groyper Leadership Summit, and Groyper leaders have helped promote the group. The America First Students organization, which states it was formed "in defense of Christian values, strong families, closed borders, and the American worker", is considered to push the Groyper movement.[6][7]

In February 2020, Fuentes spoke at several events that were held as rival events to the Conservative Political Action Conference. One such event, hosted by the online publication National File, featured Fuentes, Alex Jones of InfoWars, and Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes.[45][46] Fuentes hosted the first annual America First Political Action Conference, which included such speakers as Patrick Casey, former Daily Caller author Scott Greer, and Malkin.[47]

Groypers are very active online, particularly on Twitter, and have engaged in targeted harassment against opponents.[32] Financial Times reported that many Groypers use "deceptively anodyne" Twitter biographies, describing themselves in terms that downplay their extremism, like "Christian conservative".[48] In April 2020, The Daily Dot reported that Fuentes and other Groypers had begun to move to the video sharing platform TikTok, where they streamed live and used the "duet" feature to respond to Trump supporters. Groypers particularly targeted one left-wing teenage girl for harassment, which began on TikTok but spread across platforms.[48][49] Fuentes and some other Groyper accounts were banned from TikTok shortly after the Daily Dot article was published.[50]

Presence at January 6 United States Capitol attack

Groypers were present at the January 6 United States Capitol attack. Exact numbers are not known but several were arrested.Nicholas (Nick) Fuentes was on the steps of the Capitol and celebrated the temporary disruption of Congress, but has not been charged.[51] Patrick Casey is the leader of American Identity Movement (AIM), was on the steps of the Capitol and celebrated the temporary disruption of Congress, but has not been charged.[51] Riley June Williams of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania was accused of invading Nancy Pelosi's office and stealing her laptop and gavel and of accelerating the attack in general. She was tried and found guilty of six charges, including a felony count of civil disorder. She was sentenced on March 23, 2023, to three years in prison with three years of probation and fined.[52]Christian Secor of Cosa Mesa, California was present at the Capitol Building, where he allegedly flew the Groypers flag. He was accused of Obstruction of an Official Proceeding, Civil Disorder, Assault, and Resisting arrest. At trial, he was found guilty and sentenced last year to three years and six months in prison.[53]

Joseph Brody of Springfield, Virginia, and four others acted as a group which assisted the mob "... in using a metal barricade against a U.S. Capitol Police officer, knocking the officers back as he attempted to secure the North Door". He faces felony charges of assaulting a police officer, resisting or impeding law enforcement officers, causing bodily injury, interfering with a law enforcement officer during a civil disorder and obstruction of an official proceeding.[54][55]

Thomas Carey of Pittsburgh, Ohio, pled guilty to demonstrating in a Capitol Building and was fined $500.[56]Gabriel Chase of Gainesville, Florida, pled guilty to demonstrating in a Capitol Building and was fined $500.[56]Jon Lizak of Cold Spring Harbor, New York, pled guilty to demonstrating in a Capitol Building and was fined $500.[57]Paul Ewald Lovley of Halethorpe, Maryland, pled guilty to demonstrating in a Capitol Building and was fined $500.[58]Political activism

The Groyper movement has repeatedly failed to gain any serious political traction, often being disavowed by most politicians it has attempted to support. Congressman Paul Gosar, the keynote speaker for Fuentes' AFPAC II in 2021, disavowed Fuentes and his followers the following day while addressing CPAC.[59] At AFPAC III in 2022, several political figures whom Fuentes claimed were slated to speak, including Arizona gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake and former acting Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, did not attend and disavowed the event upon learning of Fuentes' views.[60][61] The conference's keynote speaker, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, later claimed that she did not know who Fuentes was and, upon learning of his views, condemned him as well.[62]

Of the speakers at AFPAC III who did not rescind their support for Fuentes, only two went on to run for major office: Lieutenant Governor of Idaho Janice McGeachin and Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers. Rogers ultimately won a competitive primary later that year and was re-elected to the senate, although she was censured for her remarks at the conference calling for political violence.[63] McGeachin, who ran for governor of Idaho that year, was defeated in the primary by incumbent Governor Brad Little by a 20-point margin.

One of the candidates endorsed by Fuentes in the 2022 midterms who later disavowed his endorsement was Joe Kent, running for the 3rd congressional district in Washington.[64] In response to the disavowal, Fuentes began organizing an online campaign against Kent in the hopes of blocking him from winning the nomination; Kent ultimately secured the Republican nomination, defeating incumbent Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler.[65]

Fuentes and the Groyper movement later supported the candidacy of Laura Loomer for the 11th congressional district of Florida in 2022.[66] On the night of the primary, Fuentes attended Loomer's election watch-party, and they were filmed sharing a toast as results came in that seemed to suggest Loomer would actually defeat incumbent Congressman Daniel Webster; Loomer toasted "to the hostile takeover of the Republican Party."[67] When additional results came in confirming Loomer's loss to Webster by a 7-point margin, she claimed without evidence in a speech to her supporters that her loss was due to voter fraud.[68][69]

In late 2022 and early 2023, the Groyper movement shifted away from its longtime position of supporting Donald Trump and instead began promoting the presidential campaign of rapper Kanye West. West brought Fuentes with him for a dinner at Mar-a-Lago with former President Trump, which generated significant controversy while also raising Fuentes' profile; Trump later disavowed Fuentes, claiming he was not initially aware of Fuentes' views.[70][71] West's campaign soon included other figures in the Groyper movement, including Milo Yiannopoulos,[72] Ali Alexander,[73] and Rumble streamer Nico Kenn De Balinthazy, better known by his online alias "Sneako".[74] Many Groypers, including fellow streamers on Fuentes' website Cozy.tv, began using their platforms to promote West's antisemitic views.[75] Two Cozy streamers, Dalton Clodfelter and Tyler Russell, began streaming themselves harassing students at college campuses with a table display reading "Ye is Right - Change my Mind," a slogan that was derivative of a prior college tour by right-wing commentator Steven Crowder.[76][77] The events were frequently protested by Jewish student groups and allies, who played music on loudspeakers and chanted in order to drown out the streamers' speeches.[78] The planned college tour was canceled after less than one month, after Clodfelter lost the funding for both the tour itself and the Rumble channel associated with it.[79]

On May 4, 2023, it was reported that West had fired Fuentes and Alexander, the latter of whom had become embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal involving young men and underaged boys, and re-hired Yiannopoulos, who had since split from Fuentes and was the first one to leak the allegations against Alexander.[80][81]

The Groyper Wars earned widespread media attention after the UCLA incident with Donald Trump Jr. Chadwick Moore of Spectator USA commented that the ordeal revealed deep divisions within the American right among young voters, particularly with regards to the political beliefs of Generation Z, or "Zoomers". This divide, Moore claims, is due to the Groypers viewing Charlie Kirk and others in the mainstream conservative movement as "snatching the baton and appointing themselves the guardians of 2016's spoils", despite holding beliefs that Fuentes and his followers believe to be in conflict with then-President Trump's "Make America Great Again" agenda.[82] Another Spectator author, Ben Sixsmith, claimed that Turning Point's unwillingness to respond to controversial questions, and subsequent use of insults to dismiss their critics, revealed the organization's hypocrisy after having "promoted themselves as the debate guys".[83]

Several mainstream conservative commentators also weighed in on the matter. Addressing the increase in attention towards the far-right due to the aggressive questioning of Kirk, Ben Shapiro gave a speech at Stanford University in which he attacked Fuentes (without naming him) and his followers as essentially being a rebranded version of the alt-right.[84][85][86] Representative Dan Crenshaw similarly referred to the questioners as "alt-right 2.0" while American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp said that "there is no place in our conservative movement for those interested in fomenting hate, mob violence, or racist propaganda."[87] Conversely, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin wrote an article for American Greatness attacking Kirk for his immigration policies, and particularly his stance that green cards should be awarded to immigrants who graduate from American universities.[88] After defending Fuentes and his followers, Malkin was fired as a speaker for Young America's Foundation, a rival organization to Turning Point whose events had also been targeted by Groypers.[89] Malkin later would refer to herself as a mother figure among and a leader of the Groypers.[90]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i "Groyper Army". Anti-Defamation League . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b c d e Tanner, Charles; Burghart, Devin (2020). From Alt-Right to Groyper: White Nationalists Rebrand for 2020 and Beyond (PDF) (Report). Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights. p. 3 . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b Kidder, Jeffrey L.; Binder, Amy J. (February 19, 2020). "In the Trump era, campus conservative groups are fighting one another". The Washington Post . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b Kampeas, Ron (December 9, 2019). "In the US, the 'groyper army' seeks to make anti-Semitism mainstream". The Times of Israel . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b c d Coaston, Jane (November 11, 2019). "Why alt-right trolls shouted down Donald Trump Jr". Vox . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b Thomas, Judy L. (February 11, 2020). "Report: White nationalists turn focus to college campuses, with trial run at K-State". The Kansas City Star . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b Garcia, Rafael (February 12, 2020). "Group accuses KSU student org of white nationalist connections". The Mercury . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ a b Collins, Ben (November 12, 2019). "Pro-Trump conservatives are getting trolled in real life by a far-right group". NBC News . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ Shugerman, Emily (May 16, 2020). "Trump's Very Normal Saturday Amplifying the Far-Right Blogger Shunned by Conservatives". The Daily Beast . Retrieved May 28, 2020 . Malkin has even started referring to herself as a "mommy" to these fringe-right figures, and talked about "passing the torch" to "kids who do video from their basement." ^ "Trump retweets right-wing activist associated with Holocaust denier". Haaretz . Retrieved May 28, 2020 . Malkin has been ostracized by mainstream conservatism after supporting a Holocaust denier earlier this year. 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"Nick Fuentes says the only hope for America is for there to be a "white uprising" that then disbands Congress and installs Trump as a dictator: "Elect Trump one more time and then stop having elections." " (Tweet) '' via Twitter. ^ a b c d Kupfer, Theodore (November 14, 2019). "Why Donald Trump Jr. Was Heckled by 'America First Nationalists' ". National Review . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ a b c Petrizzo, Zachary (December 5, 2019). "Charlie Kirk has finally had it with these white nationalists in his movement". The Daily Dot . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Kupfer, Theodore (November 14, 2019). "Why Donald Trump Jr. Was Heckled by 'America First Nationalists' ". National Review . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Mak, Aaron (December 4, 2017). "The Far Right's New Toad Mascot Is a Fatter, More Racist Pepe the Frog". Slate Magazine . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Ribeiro, Manoel Horta; Calais, Pedro H.; Santos, Yuri A.; Almeida, Virg­lio A. F.; Meira, Wagner Jr. (2018). " 'Like Sheep Among Wolves': Characterizing Hateful Users on Twitter". Proceedings of WSDM Workshop on Misinformation and Misbehavior Mining on the Web (MIS2). Association for Computing Machinery: 1. arXiv:1801.00317 . ^ Holt, Jared (May 24, 2018). "In Latest Nod To The Fringe, Shiva Ayyadurai Is Hawking 'Groyper' Campaign Pins". Right Wing Watch . Retrieved June 20, 2020 . ^ Maly, Ico (October 31, 2019). "Charlie Kirk's Culture War, Groypers, Nickers and Q&A-trolling". Diggit Magazine . Retrieved March 6, 2021 . ^ Holt, Jared (September 30, 2019). "TPUSA Cuts Ties With 'Brand Ambassador' Photographed With White Nationalists". Right Wing Watch . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Becker, Carlin (October 1, 2019). "Turning Point USA 'brand ambassador' dumped after photo with white nationalists and anti-Semites surfaces". Washington Examiner . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ a b Maly, Ico (October 31, 2019). "Charlie Kirk's Culture War, Groypers, Nickers and Q&A-trolling". Diggit Magazine . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ Neiwert, David (November 1, 2019). "Alt-right trolls make life miserable for Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA 'Culture War' tour". Daily Kos . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . ^ Gumbel, Andrew (November 10, 2019). "Donald Trump Jr walks out of Triggered book launch after heckling - from supporters". The Guardian . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ "Donald Trump Jr. talk marked by anger over no questions". Associated Press. November 11, 2019 . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Shepherd, Katie (November 11, 2019). "Donald Trump Jr. went to UCLA to decry 'triggered' liberals. He was heckled off the stage by the far right". The Washington Post . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Sommer, Will (November 12, 2019). "How Donald Trump Jr. Landed Smack in the Middle of a Right-Wing Civil War". The Daily Beast . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Collins, Ben (November 12, 2019). "Pro-Trump conservatives are getting trolled in real life by a far-right group". NBC News . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Petrizzo, Zachary (December 21, 2019). "Nick Fuentes trying to bicker with Ben Shapiro riles up the internet". The Daily Dot . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Calicchio, Dom (December 22, 2019). "Nick Fuentes fires back at Nikki Haley, Meghan McCain, others over Ben Shapiro confrontation". Fox News . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Nguyen, Tina (February 29, 2020). "CPAC exiles grapple with the new devotion to TrumpTin". Politico . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Fisher, Anthony (March 1, 2020). "CPAC 2020: Worshipping Trump and feeling bullied by 'the left' ". Business Insider . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Soave, Robby (November 18, 2019). "Young America's Foundation Excommunicates Michelle Malkin for Defending Nick Fuentes". Reason . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ a b Venkataramakrishnan, Siddharth (February 10, 2021). "Big Tech needs to tackle the white supremacists of Gen Z" . Financial Times . Retrieved March 5, 2021 . ^ Petrizzo, Zachary (May 1, 2020). "This woman criticized white nationalists on TikTok. It led to an internet-wide harassment campaign". The Daily Dot . Retrieved March 5, 2021 . ^ Petrizzo, Zachary (April 23, 2020). "Nick Fuentes and his white nationalist 'Groyper Army' have a new home on TikTok". The Daily Dot . Retrieved May 20, 2020 . ^ a b "Far-right activist who encouraged U.S. Capitol occupation also organized 'stop the steal' rally in Michigan". January 7, 2021. ^ Kunzelman, Michael (March 23, 2023). "Rioter charged in Pelosi laptop theft sentenced to prison". ^ U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia, Capitol Breach Cases (October 19, 2022). "SECOR, Christian, Case Number: 1:21-cr-157". justice.gov. {{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia (September 20, 2022). "Virginia Man Arrested on Felony and Misdemeanor Charges for Actions During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach". justice.gov. {{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) ^ Ryan J. Reilly and Zo Richards (September 20, 2022). "Members of far-right group America First charged in connection with Jan. 6 riot". nbcnews.com. ^ a b [1] ^ " 'All Around Great Guy' from Cold Spring Harbor Charged for Alleged Role in Jan. 6 Riots". September 22, 2022. ^ "Virginia Man Arrested on Felony and Misdemeanor Charges for Actions During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach". September 20, 2022. ^ Weigel, David (February 27, 2021). "Rep. Gosar criticizes 'white racism' after speaking at event whose organizer called for white supremacy". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286 . Retrieved March 5, 2021 . ^ Holt, Jared (February 23, 2022). "Republican Footsie With White Nationalists Has to Stop". The Daily Beast . Retrieved February 28, 2022 . ^ "White Nationalists With Lanyards: Orlando Showed The Ugly Future Of The GOP". HuffPost. March 3, 2022 . Retrieved March 4, 2022 . ^ "Marjorie Taylor Greene downplays speaking at a conference founded by white nationalist". www.cbsnews.com. February 28, 2022 . Retrieved February 28, 2022 . ^ Wise, Alana (March 1, 2022). "Arizona State Senate censures lawmaker who threatened rivals with violence". NPR . Retrieved March 4, 2022 . ^ Hounshell, Blake (July 25, 2022). "A Trump-Backed Veteran Ran Hard to the Right, Only to be Outflanked". New York Times . Retrieved March 29, 2023 . ^ Grisales, Claudia (November 8, 2022). "In Washington state, controversial ties and rhetoric are upending a House race". NPR. ^ Breland, Ali (August 24, 2022). "Laura Loomer Loses GOP Primary, Opportunity to Vie for Most Racist Congressperson". Mother Jones . Retrieved March 29, 2023 . ^ "Losing Far-Right Candidate Laura Loomer Won't Concede Because She's "A Winner," After Toasting With Holocaust Denier". Yeshiva World News. August 24, 2022 . Retrieved March 29, 2023 . ^ Jankowicz, Mia (August 24, 2022). "Far-right GOP candidate Laura Loomer refuses to concede after losing Florida primary, alleging voter fraud". Business Insider . Retrieved August 26, 2022 . ^ "Loomer lost, but naturally, she claims she won | Editorial". Sun Sentinel. September 6, 2022 . Retrieved September 8, 2022 . ^ McGraw, Meridith (November 25, 2022). "Donald Trump dined with white nationalist, Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes". POLITICO. ^ Dress, Brad (November 27, 2022). "Trump blames Kanye West for bringing Nick Fuentes as dinner guest". The Hill. ^ "Kanye West Confirms Presidential Run, Enlists Milo Yiannopoulos for His 2024 Campaign". www.billboard.com. November 21, 2022 . Retrieved November 23, 2022 . "Yes'... It's simple'.... It's just we're moving toward the future," he said when asked if he's running. ^ Burris, Sarah (December 5, 2022). "Jan. 6 rally organizer Ali Alexander takes over Kanye West's political campaign". Raw Story . Retrieved February 16, 2023 . ^ Petrizzo, Zachary (November 29, 2022). "Racist YouTuber Joins Kanye West's Campaign". The Daily Beast . Retrieved December 4, 2022 . ^ Ecarma, Caleb (February 13, 2023). "Kanye West has fueled a flurry of antisemitic hate on college campuses". Vanity Fair . Retrieved March 4, 2023 . ^ Pefley, Al (February 7, 2023). " 'Ye is Right' group takes messages of antisemitism to college campuses". WPEC . Retrieved February 16, 2023 . ^ Goforth, Claire (February 24, 2023). "Dalton Clodfelter's 'Ye is Right' college tour is the latest outgrowth of Zoomer antisemitism". The Daily Dot . Retrieved February 26, 2023 . ^ Bushman, Heather; O'Neill, Nora (February 2, 2023). "Kanye West supporters host show, clash with Jewish students on UF campus". Yahoo News . Retrieved February 16, 2023 . ^ Goforth, Claire (March 2, 2023). "Zoomer antisemite Dalton Clodfelter loses funding for 'Ye is Right' college tour, Rumble channel". The Daily Dot . Retrieved March 4, 2023 . ^ "Milo Yiannopoulos back leading Ye24 campaign'...Nick Fuentes booted". TMZ. May 4, 2023. ^ Grow, Kory; Madarang, Charisma (May 4, 2023). "Kanye West Rehires Far-Right 'Troll' Milo Yiannopoulos in Run-Up to Presidential Bid". Rolling Stone. ^ Moore, Chadwick (November 1, 2019). "Nick Fuentes fills Milo's gap". The Spectator. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020 . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Sixsmith, Ben (November 5, 2019). "How the groypers gave the 'debate guys' a rough time". The Spectator. Archived from the original on December 31, 2019 . Retrieved May 21, 2020 . ^ Sexton, John (November 8, 2019). "Ben Shapiro bashes the alt-right- gets protested by the far-left". Hot Air . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Anderson, Nick (November 16, 2019). "Far-right agitators roil the conservative movement on college campuses in battle to define Trumpism". Washington Post . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Schwartz, Ian (November 11, 2019). "Ben Shapiro Bashes Alt-Right In Stanford Speech: "Keeping People Confused Is One Of Their Chief Tactics" ". RealClearPolitics . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Boyer, Dave (November 28, 2019). " 'Groyper' white nationalists target Don Jr., Charlie Kirk, causing rift in Trump's conservative base". Washington Times . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Nash, Charlie (October 31, 2019). "Michelle Malkin Tears Into 'Slow Learner' Charlie Kirk In Scathing Article". Mediaite . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Lancaster, Jordan (November 18, 2019). "Conservative group cuts ties with Michelle Malkin". The Hill . Retrieved May 22, 2020 . ^ Carpenter, Amanda (March 9, 2020). "Michelle Malkin: Mother of Groypers". The Bulwark . Retrieved May 19, 2020 . Further reading

Keady, Joseph (July 5, 2020). "Far Right Reading List Shows Link Between Its Literature and Real-World Violence". Truthout.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

American historian (born 1949)

Gerald Horne (born January 3, 1949) is an American historian who holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.[1]

Gerald Horne was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. After his undergraduate education at Princeton University, he received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.[2]

Horne holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.

He was a contributing editor of Political Affairs magazine.[3]

Horne has published extensively on W. E. B. Du Bois and has written books on neglected episodes of world history including Hawaii and the Pacific.[4] He writes about topics he perceives as misrepresented struggles for justice; in particular communist struggles and struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism, racism, and white supremacy. Horne is a Marxist.[5] Much of his work highlights and analyzes specific individuals in their historical contexts, including figures such as the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter John Howard Lawson, Ferdinand Smith (a Jamaican-born communist, sailor, labor leader, and co-founder of the National Maritime Union), and Lawrence Dennis, a man described as "the brains behind American fascism".[6]

While many of Horne's books use an individual as a prism to inspect the historical forces of their times, Horne has also produced broad canvas chronicles of infrequently examined periods and aspects of the history of white supremacy and imperialism. For example, he has written on the post-civil war involvement of the US ruling class'--newly dispossessed of human chattels'--in relation to slavery in Brazil, which was not legally abolished until 1888.[7] He has also written on the historic relationships between African Americans and the Japanese in the mid-20th century, specifically examining the ways in which the Japanese state gained sympathy and solidarity from people of colour by positioning themselves as the leaders of a global war against white supremacy.[8]

Manning Marable has said: "Gerald Horne is one of the most gifted and insightful historians on racial matters of his generation."[9]

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Horne published an article, placing the blame for the conflict on the United States and NATO:[10][11]

Then, when Washington forced the dissolution of the USSR, this allowed Moscow to cease subsidizing Moldova, Turkestan, Georgia and formerly socialist regimes in the vicinity. This allowed Russia to husband its resources leading to what Stanford scholar, Kathryn Stoner terms in her latest tome: "Russia Resurrected," a self-explanatory title that speaks to the development of hypersonic missiles and an agricultural superpower and a nation that can turn geopolitical tides in Syria among other sites. Imperialism failed to acknowledge that Russia had outgrown the sellout years of Boris Yeltsin and adamantly refused to adapt accordingly. NATO should have collapsed in 1991 when the USSR did but instead extended its remit to Libya, along with destroying the former Yugoslavia and devastating Afghanistan.

That is why, as I write, it is not only regime change in Kiev that is at issue: imperialism seeks regime change in Moscow, with all the dangers attendant with regard to toppling a nuclear power.

The ostensible issue '' Ukraine joining the U.S. dominated NATO '' would mean a rise in the stock price of Raytheon (former home of Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin) and Lockheed Martin, as member states are required to spend more on advanced weaponry, which inevitably comes from these corporations.

With Germany pledging to re-arm, we also witness the shortsightedness of world imperialism, which refuses to learn the lessons of the 20th century, especially the catastrophe of world war ending with the uncovering of industrial funeral pyres in 1945. Not only Washington but London, Brussels and Paris should be shuddering right now.

Historiography in and for the radical tradition [ edit ] At the Black Women and the Radical Tradition conference held at the Brooklyn College Graduate Center for Worker Education, in a session devoted to Shirley Graham Du Bois, he said:

The purpose of my brief remarks this afternoon is to use the life and times of Shirley Graham Du Bois as a vehicle for trying to understand how and why we need to think about revitalizing the radical tradition through the means of revisioning and rewriting our history, our past. I argue in these remarks that like other historians - for Shirley Graham Du Bois was among other things an historian - she tended to stress in her history writing, like most of the writers of her generation, the "Crispus Attucks" aspect of our history, I'm sure you're familiar with Crispus Attucks, he goes down in history as the first person to be slain in the uprising against British rule in then-British North America and a symbol of how black people have shed their blood to help to construct this country. Which of course is true and is accurate. But it only begins to tell part of the story, as I'll try to elaborate on in my remarks. I think today it's particularly important to talk about revitalizing our past so that we can reinvigorate the radical tradition in light of this precipitous downturn that we see in the capitalist economy. Newsweek has been amongst the many journals that have told us "We're All Socialists Now", which some might be surprised to hear. In Latin America, certainly in the most recent election in El Salvador, and in Latin American generally, one can easily espy a shift to the left. The quipsters are suggesting that the recently departed Pres. George W. Bush entered office in 2001 as a social conservative but then after being compelled to nationalize various enterprises he leaves office as a conservative socialist. When you note that in South Africa you have a Communist Party minister sitting in office in Pretoria, and perhaps the same will take place in New Delhi, after the elections that take place in the late spring, it's time to revive that aspect it seems to me reality is shouting at us, time to revitalize that aspect of black history that stresses our ancestors who as early as the 18th century were actually trying to overthrow the government of the United States of America, as opposed to shedding their blood to help to create the government of the United States of America.[12]

In a speech given at an event marking the depositing of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University,[13] Horne remarked at length on the writing of history, its importance, and what he perceives as the grievous proliferation of propagandistic historiography in the US:

Now it is often said that every generation has to rewrite history. For example, at one time there was a prevalent "moonlight and magnolias" version of slavery and Reconstruction that fundamentally portrayed "happy Negroes" during the slave era and portrayed the period following slavery as a dastardly period of Negro misrule and corruption. This began to change in the 1930s with the publication of Du Bois' magisterial 'Black Reconstruction' and changed decisively with the publication of Eric Foner's 'Reconstruction. ' "

One of the reasons why I personally '' and I daresay future generations '' are so pleased by the depositing of these CPUSA archives is because it is painfully obvious that the history of the Communist movement in this nation is long overdue for a massive rewriting and these archives will prove indispensable in that process.

It is easy to see why future generations will be displeased with much of the present history that has been written to this point about the Communist Party because it has been incredibly biased, one-sided, deeply influenced by the conservative drift of the nation '' not unlike pre-Du Bois histories of Reconstruction '' and, fundamentally, anticommunist.

From 2013 to date, Horne has discussed his historical, socio-economic and political research findings in a series of conversations with Paul Jay.[14][15]

Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War. SUNY Press (1986)Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946''1956. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press (1987)Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party. University of Delaware Press (1994)Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising And The 1960s. Da Capo Press (1997)From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe, 1965''1980. University of North Carolina Press (2000)Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930''1950 : Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds and Trade Unionists. University of Texas Press (2001)Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois. New York University Press (2002)Horne, Gerald (2004). Race War!: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire. New York University Press. ISBN 9780814736418. JSTOR j.ctt9qg215. (2004)Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910''1920. New York University Press (2005)The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten. University of California Press (2006)Cold War in a Hot Zone: The United States Confronts Labor and Independence Struggles in the British West Indies. Temple University Press (2007)The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War. University of Hawaii Press (2007)The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade. New York University Press (2007)Blows Against the Empire: U.S. Imperialism in Crisis. International Publishers (2008)Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica. New York University Press (2009)Mau Mau in Harlem?: The U.S. and the Liberation of Kenya. Palgrave MacMillan (2009)The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States. New York University Press (2009)W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography. Greenwood Press (2009)The End of Empires: African Americans and India. Temple University Press (2009)Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press (2011)Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation. New York University Press (2013)Black Revolutionary: William Patterson & the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle. University of Illinois Press (2013)The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. New York University Press (2014)Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow. Monthly Review Press (2014)Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution and the Origins of the Dominican Republic. Monthly Review Press (2015)Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. Pluto Press (2016)The Rise and Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Albert Barnett's Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox. University of Illinois Press (2017)Storming the Heavens: African Americans and the Early Struggle for the Right to Fly. Black Classic Press (2017)Facing the Rising Sun: African Americans, Japan, and the Rise of Afro-Asian Solidarity. New York University Press (2018)The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, and Capitalism in Seventeenth-Century North America and the Caribbean. Monthly Review Press (2018)Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music. Monthly Review Press (2019)White Supremacy Confronted: U.S. Imperialism and Anti-Communism vs. the Liberation of Southern Africa from Rhodes to Mandela. International Publishers (2019)The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century. Monthly Review Press (2020)The Bittersweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing. International Publishers (2020)The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism. International Publishers (2022)Armed Struggle? Panthers and Communists; Black Nationalists and Liberals in Southern California through the Sixties and Seventies International Publishers (2024)Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920 ^ Smith, Toni Mooney (September 16, 2021). "From Humble Beginnings, Gerald Horne Wins American Book Award for Exploring History of Marginalization". www.uh.edu. University of Houston . Retrieved March 2, 2023 . ^ "Gerald Horne | Department of History". www.uh.edu . Retrieved June 3, 2023 . ^ "Gerald Horne", Political Affairs. ^ Sinitiere, Phillip Luke (2022). "Comrades in the Struggle for Black Freedom: Gerald Horne and W.E.B. Du Bois". Phylon. 59 (1): 107''127. ISSN 0031-8906. JSTOR 27150917. ^ "Gerald Horne". International Publishers . Retrieved June 11, 2023 . ^ Younge, Gary (April 4, 2007). "The fascist who 'passed' for white". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved June 11, 2023 . ^ Mahony, Mary Ann (January 2011). "The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade. By Gerald Horne. New York: New York University Press, 2007. Pp.341. Notes. Index. $24.00 paper". The Americas. 67 (3): 434''436. doi:10.1017/s0003161500000286. ISSN 0003-1615. S2CID 142568677. ^ Horne, Gerald (June 11, 2020). Race War!. New York University Press. doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814773352.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-8147-7335-2. ^ NYU Press. Archived 2014-03-23 at the Wayback Machine ^ Horne, Gerald (March 2, 2022). "From Crisis to Catastrophe? What is to be Done in Eastern Europe". Black Agenda Report. ^ Horne, Gerald (March 3, 2022). "Opinion: From crisis to catastrophe (Horne on Ukraine, in 'Black Agenda Report')". Monthly Review. ^ Rector, Tabore, "The Life & Times of Shirley Graham Dubois" (video). ^ Horne, Gerald (April 6, 2007). "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party". People's World. ^ "Gerald Horne conversations with Paul Jay (2020 to date)". TheAnalysis.News . Retrieved March 4, 2022 . ^ "Gerald Horne conversations with Paul Jay (2013''2019)". TheRealNews.com . Retrieved March 3, 2022 . University of Houston faculty pageGerald Horne at IMDbRecorded speeches and interviewsAppearances on C-SPANOn The Global Civil Rights Struggle at the conference, The Long Civil Rights Movement: Histories, Politics, Memories, given by the Southern Oral History Program, April 2''4, 2009 (Video)On Shirley Graham Du Bois at the Graduate Center for Worker Education at Brooklyn College (Video)On the Red Scare and the Hollywood Blacklist on NPRHorne challenges the mainstream narrative of US history (August 2014). Six-part discussion, The Real News (all TRNN segments)"Counter-Revolution of 1776": Was U.S. Independence War a Conservative Revolt in Favor of Slavery? on Democracy Now!, June 27, 2014The Summit of the Americas in the Context of US Imperialism (April 2015). "Scholar and activist Gerald Horne traces modern-day US foreign policy in Latin America to its colonial roots." The Real NewsPolice Killings Won't Stop Until U.S. Comes to Grips with its Racist Foundations The Real News. July 8, 2016.Historian: "You Can't Disconnect History of the 2nd Amendment From the History of White Supremacy" on Democracy Now!, July 12, 2016 (all DN! segments)Appearances on On the Ground radio showOne Historian's Journey 2011 essay in The Journal of African American History

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Wed, 24 Jul 2024 17:02

Governor of Maryland since 2023

Westley Watende Omari Moore (born October 15, 1978) is an American politician, businessman, author, and veteran, serving as the 63rd governor of Maryland since 2023.

Moore was born in Maryland and raised primarily in New York. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University and received a master's degree from Wolfson College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. After several years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserve, he became an investment banker in New York. Between 2010 and 2015, Moore published five books, including a young-adult novel. He served as CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation from 2017 to 2021.[1] Moore authored The Other Wes Moore and The Work. He also hosted Beyond Belief on the Oprah Winfrey Network, and was executive producer and a writer for Coming Back with Wes Moore on PBS.[2]

Moore is a member of the Democratic Party. He won the 2022 Maryland gubernatorial election against Republican nominee Dan Cox, to become Maryland's first African-American governor and the third African-American person elected as governor of any U.S. state.[a][4][5]

Early life and education [ edit ] Moore was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, to William Westley Moore Jr., a broadcast news journalist,[6] and Joy Thomas Moore,[7] a daughter of immigrants from Cuba and Jamaica, and a media professional.[8][9][10][11]

On April 16, 1982, when Moore was three years old,[12] his father died of acute epiglottitis.[13] In the summer of 1984, Moore's mother took him and his two sisters to live in the Bronx, New York, with her parents. His grandfather, James Thomas, a Jamaican immigrant,[14] was the first Black minister in the history of the Dutch Reformed Church.[15] His grandmother, Winell Thomas, a Cuban who moved to Jamaica before immigrating to the U.S., was a retired schoolteacher.[14] Moore attended Riverdale Country School. When his grades declined and he became involved in petty crime, his mother enrolled him in Valley Forge Military Academy and College.[15][16]

In 1998, Moore graduated Phi Theta Kappa from Valley Forge with an associate degree, completed the requirements for the United States Army's early commissioning program, and was appointed a second lieutenant of Military Intelligence in the Army Reserve. He then attended Johns Hopkins University, from which he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. in international relations and economics in 2001.[17] At Johns Hopkins, he also played wide receiver for the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays football team for two seasons[18][19] and was initiated into the Omicron Delta Kappa, and Sigma Sigma Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternities.[20] In 1998 and 1999, Moore interned for Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke.[21] He later became involved with the March of Dimes before serving in the Army.[22] He also interned at the United States Department of Homeland Security under Secretary Tom Ridge.[23]

After graduating, he attended Wolfson College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, where he earned a master's degree in international relations in 2004[24] and submitted a thesis titled Rise and Ramifications of Radical Islam in the Western Hemisphere.[25] He was activated in the Army following the September 11 attacks, and deployed to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2006,[26] attaining the rank of captain while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division.[1][27] He left the Army in 2014.[25]

Moore at Social Innovation Summit by New America in January 2020In February 2006, Moore was named a White House Fellow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.[1][28][29] He later worked as an investment banker at Deutsche Bank in Manhattan[23] and at Citibank from 2007 to 2012[30] while living in Jersey City, New Jersey.[1][31] In 2009, Moore was included on Crain's New York Business's "40 Under 40" list.[32]

In 2010, Moore founded a television production company, Omari Productions, to create content for networks such as the Oprah Winfrey Network, PBS, HBO, and NBC.[33] In May 2014, he produced a three-part PBS series, Coming Back with Wes Moore, which followed the lives and experiences of returning veterans.[34][35][36]

In 2014, Moore founded BridgeEdU, a company that provided services to support students in their transition to college.[37] Students participating in BridgeEdU paid $500 into the program with varying fees.[38] BridgeEdU was not able to achieve financial stability and was acquired by student financial services company Edquity in 2019, mostly for its database of clients.[39][40] A Baltimore Banner interview with former BridgeEdU students found that the short-lived company had mixed results.[40]

In September 2016, Moore produced All the Difference, a PBS documentary that followed the lives of two young African-American men from the South Side of Chicago from high school through college and beyond.[41][42] Later that month, he launched Future City, an interview-based talk show with Baltimore's WYPR station.[43][44][45]

From June 2017 until May 2021, Moore was CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, a charitable organization that attempts to alleviate problems caused by poverty in New York City. It works mainly through funding schools, food pantries and shelters. It also administers a disaster relief fund.[46][47][1][48] During his tenure as CEO, the organization also raised more than $650 million, including $230 million in 2020 to provide increased need for assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic.[49] Moore also sought to expand his advocacy to include America's poor and transform the organization into a national force in the poverty fight.[50] Moore served on Under Armour's board of directors from September 2020 to November 2022, resigning from the board shortly after becoming governor-elect.[39][51]

On April 27, 2010, Spiegel & Grau published his first book, The Other Wes Moore.[52] The 200-page book explores the lives of two young Baltimore boys who shared the same name and race, but largely different familial histories that leads them both down very different paths.[15][53][54] In December 2012, Moore announced that The Other Wes Moore would be developed into a feature film, with Oprah Winfrey attached as an executive producer.[55] In September 2013, Ember published his second book, Discovering Wes Moore. The book maintains the message and story set out in The Other Wes Moore, but is more accessible to young adults.[56] In April 2021, Unanimous Media announced it would adapt The Other Wes Moore into a feature film.[57] As of June 2022, a film has yet to be produced.[58]

In January 2015, Moore wrote his third book, The Work.[59] In November 2016, he wrote This Way Home, a young adult novel about Elijah, a high school basketball player, who emerges from a standoff with a local gang after they attempt to recruit him to their basketball team, and he refuses.[60] In March 2020, Moore and former Baltimore Sun education reporter Erica L. Green wrote Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City, which explores the 2015 Baltimore protests from the perspectives of eight Baltimoreans who experienced it on the front lines.[61][62]

Political activities [ edit ] Moore first expressed interest in politics in June 1996, telling a New York Times reporter that he planned to attend law school and enter politics after two years at Valley Forge.[63] He told The Baltimore Sun in October 2022 that he felt the idea of holding elected office "only started to feel like a real possibility in 2020, when he was about to leave his job running Robin Hood".[31]

Moore (center) at a Maryland Democratic Party picnic, 2014Moore gave a speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, supporting Barack Obama for president.[64][65] In 2013, he said that he had "no interest" in running for public office, instead focusing on his business and volunteer work.[66] Later that year, Attorney General Doug Gansler said that he considered Moore as his running mate in the 2014 Maryland gubernatorial election, in which he ran with state delegate Jolene Ivey.[67]

In April 2015, following the 2015 Baltimore protests, Moore said that the demonstrations in Baltimore were a "long time coming"[68] and that Baltimore "must seize this moment to redress systemic problems and grow."[69] Moore attended the funeral for Freddie Gray but left early to catch a plane to Boston for a speech he was giving on urban poverty. He later said he "felt guilty being away, but it wasn't just that. An audience in Boston would listen to me talk about poverty, but at a historic moment in my own city's history, I was MIA."[70] On the eighth anniversary of Gray's death in April 2023, Moore made a tweet calling his death a "turning point not just those who knew Gray personally, but the entire city".[71]

In February 2017, Governor Larry Hogan nominated Moore to serve on the University System of Maryland Board of Regents.[72]

In October 2020, Moore was named to serve on the transition team of Baltimore mayor-elect Brandon Scott.[73] In January 2021, Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates Adrienne A. Jones consulted with Moore to craft her "Black agenda" to tackle racial inequalities in housing, health, banking, government, and private corporations.[74]

In June 2013, a Baltimore Sun investigation alleged that Moore was improperly receiving homestead property tax credits and owed back taxes to the city of Baltimore. Moore told The Sun that he was unaware of any issues with the home's taxes and wanted to pay what they owed immediately.[75] In October 2022, Baltimore Brew reported that Moore had not paid any water and sewage charges since March 2021, owing $21,200 to the city of Baltimore.[76] Moore settled his outstanding bills shortly after the article was published.[77]

In April 2022, the family of Baltimore County Police Sergeant Bruce Prothero, whose murder in 2000 is highlighted in The Other Wes Moore, accused Moore of making contradictory statements about where the proceeds of the book went, saying that the family "directed no donations" to anywhere, including the nonprofits Moore named.[78][79] The family also complained that Moore exaggerated his role in their son's life.[80]

Moore was the subject of a CNN article in which he was accused of embellishing his childhood and where he actually grew up.[81] Shortly after the article was published, Moore created a website that attempted to rebut the allegations.[82] He was later criticized for failing to correct television interviewers who incorrectly said he was awarded a Bronze Star.[83][84] A Capital News Service article highlighted Moore's connections to various industries, including pharmaceutical, technology, beauty and retail giants, and the Green Thumb Industries cannabis company.[85] Moore left Green Thumb Industries in March 2022,[86] and said in October that he would use a blind trust to hold his assets and resign from every board position if elected governor.[87][88] In May 2023, Moore finalized his trust, making him the first governor to have one since Bob Ehrlich.[89]

Governor of Maryland [ edit ] Moore campaigning in October 2022In February 2021, Moore announced he was considering a run for governor of Maryland in the 2022 election.[90] He launched his campaign on June 7, 2021,[91][92] emphasizing "work, wages, and wealth"[93][94] and running on the slogan "leave no one behind".[95][96] His running mate was Aruna Miller, a former state delegate who represented Maryland's 15th district from 2010 to 2019.[97]

During the primary, Moore was endorsed by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer,[98] Prince George's County executive Angela Alsobrooks,[99] television host Oprah Winfrey,[100] and former Governor Parris Glendening.[101] He also received backing from the Maryland State Education Association[102] and VoteVets.org.[103]

On April 6, 2022, Moore filed a complaint with the Maryland State Board of Elections against the gubernatorial campaign of John King Jr., accusing "an unidentified party" of anonymously disseminating "false and disparaging information regarding Wes Moore via electronic mail and social media in an orchestrated attempt to disparage Mr. Moore and damage his candidacy." The complaint also suggested that King "may be responsible for this smear campaign", which the King campaign denied.[104][105] In April 2024, King's campaign was fined $2,000 after prosecutors connected the email address to an IP address used by Joseph O'Hearn, King's campaign manager.[106]

Moore won the Democratic primary on July 19, 2022, defeating former Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez and Comptroller Peter Franchot with 32.4% of the vote.[107] During the general election, Moore twice campaigned with U.S. President Joe Biden.[108][109] He also campaigned on reclaiming "patriotism" from Republicans, highlighting his service in the U.S. Army while also bringing attention to Republican nominee and state delegate Dan Cox's participation in the January 6 United States Capitol attack.[110][111][112] Moore defeated Cox in the general election,[4] and became Maryland's first Black governor[113] and the first veteran to be elected governor since William Donald Schaefer.[96]

In December 2022, Moore was elected to serve as finance chair of the Democratic Governors Association.[114]

Moore being sworn in as governor, 2023Moore was sworn in on January 18, 2023.[115][116][117] He took the oath of office on a Bible owned by abolitionist Frederick Douglass, as well as his grandfather's Bible.[118][119] The morning before his inauguration, Moore participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Memorial at the Annapolis City Dock to "acknowledge the journey" that led to him becoming the third elected Black governor in U.S. history.[120][121][122] Later that night, he held a celebratory event at the Baltimore Convention Center.[123][124]

During the 2023 legislative session, Moore testified for several of his administration's bills, making him the first governor to do so since Martin O'Malley.[125]

Moore began announcing nominations for his 26-member cabinet on November 14, 2022.[126][127] He finished announcing his cabinet nominees on April 12, 2023, with the nomination of Sanjay Rai as Secretary for the Maryland Higher Education Commission.[128] According to The Baltimore Banner, Moore assembled his cabinet at a slower pace than previous Maryland governors.[129]

Twelve of Moore's cabinet nominees are women and 14 are people of color.[130][131][132] His nominees have mixed experience in government, social entrepreneurship, and philanthropy.[133][134] Three of them, Secretary of Emergency Management Russell Strickland, Maryland State Police superintendent Roland Butler, and Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services Carolyn Scruggs, are holdovers from the Hogan administration.[135][136][137]

As his chief of staff, Moore chose Fagan Harris, who co-founded the Baltimore Corps organization with Moore a decade ago.[138] Moore also named three members of the Maryland General Assembly to his administration: state senator Paul G. Pinsky as Director of the Maryland Energy Administration;[139] state senator Susan C. Lee as Secretary of State;[140] and House of Delegates Majority Leader Eric Luedtke as chief legislative officer.[138] Other notable Cabinet nominations included Salisbury mayor Jacob R. Day as Secretary of Housing and Community Development,[141] former New York City Department of Correction commissioner Vincent Schiraldi as Secretary of Juvenile Services, Anthony Woods as Secretary of Veterans Affairs,[142] and former WMATA general manager Paul Wiedefeld as Secretary of Transportation.[143]

All but two of Moore's cabinet nominees were unanimously confirmed by the Maryland Senate: Schiraldi, who faced opposition from Republicans over his policies toward juvenile justice reform;[144] and Butler, whose critics claimed had not done enough to address complaints of racism and disparate treatment of Black officers in the Maryland State Police.[145]

Political positions [ edit ] During an August 2006 interview with C-SPAN, Moore said he identified as a "social moderate and strong fiscal conservative".[146] In September 2022, he reiterated his position on fiscal issues as being "fiscally responsible".[147] During his gubernatorial campaign, he was described as center-left,[148] as well as progressive.[149][150]

Moore has cited Jared Polis, Parris Glendening, and Roy Cooper as his political role models.[101][150]

Moore greeting police officers in Hanover, Maryland, 2023Moore supports hiring more probation and parole officers, pursuing police misconduct allegations, and increasing resources for law enforcement agencies.[30][151] In February 2022, he unveiled a public safety plan that includes improving offender services, improving police diversity, and supporting and funding community-based policing and violence intervention programs.[152][153] Moore says he "believes in policing with maximum accountability and appropriate intensity",[154] and would provide funding for community-based violence intervention programs to address violent crime.[155] In an interview with MSNBC on August 30, 2022, Moore said that he would tackle crime in Baltimore by investing in violence intervention programs like Safe Streets and We Our Us.[156][157] In September 2022, Moore said he would use the "bully pulpit" of the governor's office to help recruit officers[158] and would give the state's Fraternal Order of Police a seat at the table, telling The Washington Post, "I don't think that you can be serious about actually implementing reforms if the agencies that have to be reformed are not part of the process."[147]

Moore has blamed his predecessor, Governor Larry Hogan, for increased violent crime in Maryland, citing his lack of collaboration between his administration and local leaders and legislators.[159] During his campaign, he called on Hogan to target state resources toward preventing gun violence in Baltimore[160] and campaigned on addressing crime in the city through better cooperation between the city and state, and to leverage these relationships on the federal level to bring more resources into the city.[161][162] In January 2023, Moore told CBS News that he supported a bill that would prohibit charging juveniles with felony murder.[163]

In January 2023, following the release of videos capturing the arrest and police assault of Tyre Nichols, Moore condemned the brutality of the police and thanked the U.S. Department of Justice for opening an investigation into Nichols's death.[164][165] He later said in an interview that Nichols's death only highlighted the need to tackle injustice head-on.[93]

In February 2023, Moore pledged $11 million in funding for the Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center, an agency that serves as a data-sharing platform for law enforcement officials across the state.[166] He also said that his administration would not use a quota system for traffic stops and arrests after a Baltimore Banner investigation found that Maryland State Police supervisors previously demanded troopers hit targets for traffic stops and arrests.[167][168] In June 2023, Moore released $5 million in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 toward youth intervention efforts to deter violent crime around the state.[159][169]

In July 2023, following mass shootings in Baltimore and Salisbury that left a combined three dead and 34 injured, Moore released a statement expressing his condolences and spoke in support of gun violence prevention efforts in Baltimore.[170][171] He ruled out calls to form a special session to pass legislation to address gun violence, saying it was not needed,[172] but said he supported increased policing and longer sentences for repeat violent offenders.[173]

In January 2024, Moore introduced three bills aimed at improving public safety, including one to create apprenticeships in public safety to increase law enforcement retention and another to compensate victims of crime.[174] He also expressed support for lengthening probation periods for violent juvenile offenders and increasing the severity for gun crimes from misdemeanors to felonies,[175] and another bill to restrict sex offenders' ability to earn "good time" credits that reduce their sentence following the murder of Pava LaPere.[176] He also supported a bill that would allow minors to be charged with certain crimes and enable courts to extend probation limits for juveniles.[177]

Development initiatives [ edit ] Moore (center) on the Maryland Board of Public Works, 2023As governor, Moore is a member of the Maryland Board of Public Works'--a constitutionally appointed body that oversees many aspects of the state's finances'--along with the comptroller and the state treasurer. During his first board meeting in January 2023, Moore said the state would work to include more diverse businesses in state contracts.[178][179]

In November 2022, Moore said that he would not support spending state funds to keep the Washington Commanders in Maryland. The Commanders are contractually obligated to play at FedExField until September 2027.[180] In April 2023, he said he supported spending some taxpayer money on a new Commanders football stadium "if we know there's going to be a significant societal return on the investment".[181]

In December 2022, Moore said he supported bringing the new Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters to Prince George's County, calling it a "personal priority".[182][183][184] In March 2023, Moore joined Democratic members of Maryland's congressional delegation and Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in co-signing a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to get involved in the FBI's headquarters selection process.[185] In November 2023, the General Services Administration announced that it would locate the FBI's new headquarters in Greenbelt, Maryland.[186]

In February 2023, Moore announced a $600 million five-year partnership with the Baltimore Orioles to develop properties around Camden Yards.[187] In September, he and Orioles CEO John P. Angelos announced a memorandum of understanding that would extend the team's lease by 30 years, open development rights inside the park to private developers, and give the Orioles control over stadium operations and maintenance.[188][189] The stadium lease was finalized in December, but an agreement on the team's ground lease and redevelopment plan was postponed until 2027 following concerns from Senate President Bill Ferguson.[190][191]

In May 2024, Moore signed into law a bill that would transfer ownership of the Pimlico Race Course to the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority, allowing for a state-funded, multi-million dollar renovation project of the race course's track to begin and for the construction of a new training center at a separate location. The bill would also consolidate thoroughbred racing in Maryland to Pimlico and have the Maryland state government assume responsibility over racing operations at the course by next year.[192]

Moore supports the Blueprint for Maryland's Future reform effort,[102][193] testifying before the state legislature to urge its passage.[194] During his campaign, he said that he would "work closely with local governments to make sure they are on board with their commitments to the Blueprint".[195] In September 2022, Moore said he would institute universal pre-K and apprenticeship and trade programs in schools,[95][196] and promised increases for school construction, educator wages, after-school programs, tutoring, child care, and early childhood education.[197] In his first budget in January 2023, Moore proposed allocating $500 million toward funding the Blueprint,[198] which was later increased to $900 million by state legislators.[199]

Moore does not support the expansion of charter schools, saying that he wants to focus on improving public school districts, but wants to ensure accountability for current charters.[194] In his first budget, in January 2023, Moore cut funding for the state's Broadening Options and Opportunities for Students Today (BOOST) program to provide scholarships to students attending charter schools by $2 million,[200] and introduced new eligibility limits for current BOOST students and their siblings.[201] In an interview with Jewish Insider, Moore said he intended to get rid of the BOOST program in a few years, adding, "The focus that I have, the focus that our administration is going to have, is making sure that we are creating and developing world-class public schools for our students."[202] The budget was amended to reduce these cuts by $1 million in March 2023,[199] and signed into law in April.[203]

Moore supports creating a "service year option" in schools, which would enable high school graduates to do a gap year "in exchange for job training, mentorship, and other support including compensatory tuition at a state college or university."[150][204] On January 19, 2023, Moore signed an executive order creating the Maryland Department of Service and Civic Innovation, a cabinet-level agency responsible for establishing a service-year option for all high school graduates.[205] In February, he introduced the SERVE Act to create the "service year option program", which would pay young people $15 per hour for at least 30 hours a week for work in service to the community.[206] The SERVE Act was signed into law in April 2023.[203] The service year program launched with 280 participating students in October 2023.[207]

In November 2022, Moore called a plan to cancel up to $20,000 in federal student loan debt a "good first step" and said he would push the Biden administration to forgive more federal student debt if elected governor.[26]

In May 2023, during a commencement speech at Morehouse College, Moore criticized efforts to ban books and restrict curriculum in schools, suggesting that politicians who sought to "silence or rewrite the history of Black and brown people are actually afraid of people understanding their power".[208][209]

In June 2023, Moore said he opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which held that race-based affirmative action in college admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause, calling it a "misguided ruling".[210]

During his campaign, Moore criticized the Hogan administration for a "failure of executive leadership" on fighting climate change.[211] He supports the renewable energy goals set by the state's Clean Energy Jobs Act of 2019, which called for a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and an electrification of the state's vehicle fleet by 2030, and has said the state should pursue "more ambitious goals" beyond carbon neutrality.[212] He also proposed regulations to achieve 100% clean energy use by 2035 and net zero carbon emissions by 2045, electrify the state's fleet, and prioritize environmental-justice funding.[213] Moore also said that he would establish a "cap-and-invest" program in Maryland, which would tax polluters to provide revenue for clean energy infrastructure and relief in communities of color,[212] and promised to hire a "climate czar" in his administration,[214] whom he appointed in November 2023.[215]

Moore said he would support Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts by promoting "accountability and enforcement" in Maryland, as well as in neighboring states, use federal funds to upgrade water and wastewater systems, and by increasing the number of environmental inspectors.[211] In October 2022, he told Lancaster Farming that he would develop a plan to accelerate projects to improve water quality and cut carbon emissions in his administration's first 100 days, and supported the restoration of the state's Chesapeake Bay Restoration Fund.[216] In July 2023, Moore signed an executive order to refocus cleanup efforts onto shallow areas of the bay, and another establishing the Council on the Chesapeake and Coastal Bays to research state policy on oyster restoration and harvesting.[217] In October 2023, he was appointed as the chair of the Chesapeake Executive Council.[218]

In April 2022, Moore signed a Chesapeake Climate Action Network pledge to support legislation to get Maryland to use 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035 and to remove trash incineration from the state's "clean energy" classification.[219] In March 2023, he set a goal of achieving 8.5 gigawatts of wind power generation in the state by 2031,[220] which was later codified after he signed the POWER Act in April 2023.[221]

In October 2022, Moore told Lancaster Farming that he would support farmers by eliminating burdensome regulations, preserving farmland, and giving farmers technical assistance and financial resources.[216]

In February 2023, Moore introduced the Clean Transportation and Energy Act, which increases incentives for people and businesses looking to purchase electric trucks and charging stations.[222] In March 2023, he said he supported adopting California's Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) regulation, which would phase out the sale of gas-powered cars in the state by 2035.[223][224] In April 2023, he signed the Clean Transportation and Energy Act and several other bills aimed at strengthening the state's offshore wind energy industry into law.[221] In August 2023, Moore said he supported a proposal by then-Governor Hogan to delay emissions testing on new cars from three to six years, despite initially withdrawing the proposal earlier in his term due to equity concerns, after the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration found that the change would have no severe impacts on equity.[225]

Moore speaks at a Moms Demand Action rally in Annapolis, 2023In 2022, Moore supported a bill to ban the possession and sale of privately made firearms in Maryland. He supports creating a firearms database to help law enforcement track guns used in crimes. In June 2022, Moore condemned the Supreme Court's ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, calling it a "misguided and dangerous decision." He also opposed Governor Hogan's decision to suspend the state's "good and substantial reason" standard for obtaining a concealed carry permit following the ruling.[226]

In January 2023, Moore attended a Moms Demand Action rally in Annapolis, Maryland, where he said he would support the Gun Safety Act of 2023.[227] The bill would increase the requirements and fees to obtain a handgun permit, strengthen safe storage requirements, and prohibit gun owners from carrying guns near schools, government property, construction areas, or entertainment venues, and from entering someone's property while carrying a firearm unless given permission by the owner.[228] Moore signed the bill into law on May 16, 2023.[229] That same day, the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the law's location restrictions.[230] In September 2023, two days before the law was set to go into effect, U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III blocked sections of the bill restricting open carry near public demonstrations and private buildings, but upheld the remainder of the bill.[231]

In November 2023, Moore expressed disappointment with a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that struck down a provision of the state's Firearm Safety Act of 2013 that required handgun owners to obtain a "handgun qualification license" to buy a handgun.[232]

In an interview with The Daily Record before becoming governor, Moore expressed support for the End-of-Life Options Act, which would allow terminally ill adults to request medical aid in dying.[233]

In January 2023, Moore proposed providing members of the Maryland National Guard with free health and dental care;[234] legislators later amended the bill to cap monthly reimbursements at $60 a month.[235] In May 2023, he signed into law the Josh Siems Act, a bill that would require emergency rooms to include fentanyl testing in toxicology screens.[236]

Moore supports the right to counsel in eviction cases, saying that providing tenants with access to counsel is "the just thing to do and it is the right thing to do".[237][238] On his campaign website, he says he would address the "unfair appraisal values in historically redlined neighborhoods" and provide increased funding for the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.[147] During a town hall in August 2023, Moore suggested that nonprofits could be used to help lower housing costs in addition to increasing the state's affordable housing inventory and supporting current homeowners.[239]

In January 2024, Moore introduced bills to increase federal funding and reducing barriers for affordable housing projects in the state, especially those around commuter rail stations, as well as legislation establishing a "Tenant's Bill of Rights" and providing additional protections to renters against evictions.[240] While Moore's tenant protections bills passed the legislature unchanged,[241] legislators opted to weaken the Housing Expansion and Affordability Act by removing provisions that would block jurisdictions from using an adequate public facilities ordinance to block the construction of affordable housing and modifying the qualifications needed for affordable housing projects to be eligible for density bonuses.[242]

Moore supports a balance between securing the United States' borders and creating pathways to citizenship for those already in the country.[243] In June 2023, Moore announced he would support efforts to strengthen the federal temporary protected status policy for immigrants living in the United States.[244] He also said he did not support sending members of the Maryland National Guard to the Mexico''United States border.[245]

Moore supported legislation introduced and passed during the 2022 legislative session that created a ballot referendum to legalize recreational marijuana in Maryland, and another bill that would regulate marijuana possession should the referendum pass in November. During his campaign, he has talked about implementing a recreational cannabis industry with a focus on equity "so that communities that have experienced the greatest disparities benefit the most."[226][246] In October 2022, Moore praised President Joe Biden's pardon of thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law,[247][248] and said that he would "fight to expunge the records of those arrested for marijuana possession [as governor]".[249]

In January 2023, Moore signed an executive order releasing $46.5 million to start developing the framework for a recreational marijuana industry in the state, with a majority of the released funds going toward grants for minority-owned firms.[205] In May 2023, he signed a bill regulating the state's recreational marijuana industry.[250]

In May 2023, Moore allowed a bill that prohibits police from stopping a vehicle solely based on if they smell marijuana to become law without his signature.[251]

In June 2024, Moore signed an executive order pardoning about 100,000 people with low-level cannabis-related convictions in Maryland.[252]

Moore with President Joe Biden at a campaign event in November 2022In July 2019, Moore criticized President Donald Trump's "rat and rodent infested mess" comments toward the city of Baltimore.[253]

Moore supports a two-state solution to the Israeli''Palestinian conflict.[254] In December 2022, he attended the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington's legislative breakfast, where he said he would be "very aggressive" in promoting trade between Maryland and Israel and promised that one of his first overseas visits would be to Israel.[255] He expressed solidarity with Israel amid the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel,[256][257] and later supported an immediate ceasefire in the Israel''Hamas war.[254]

In June 2021, Moore opposed voter-ID legislation introduced by state senator Justin Ready, calling it "voter suppression".[258] In September 2022, Moore said he opposed a lawsuit filed by state delegate Dan Cox against the Maryland State Board of Elections to block the early counting of Maryland's mail-in ballots in the 2022 elections, alleging that Cox was trying to sow distrust and uncertainty in the electoral system.[259] In April 2023, Moore signed a bill to allow counties to begin counting mail-in ballots before Election Day.[260] Before this bill was enacted, Maryland was the only state that restricted the processing of absentee ballots until after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.[261]

Moore signing a proclamation recognizing International Transgender Day of Visibility, 2023In 2022, Moore said he supported the Inclusive Schools Act, a bill introduced in the 2022 legislative session that bans schools from discriminating against students based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. He also supported the Trans Health Equity Act, a bill that would have required the state's Medicaid program to cover gender-affirming treatment.[226][262] In December 2022, Moore praised the signing of the Respect for Marriage Act, which codifies same-sex and interracial marriage rights.[263] On March 31, 2023, Moore became the first Maryland governor to recognize International Transgender Day of Visibility when he issued an official proclamation.[264] In May 2023, he signed the Trans Health Equity Act into law[250] and allowed a bill furthering an earlier repeal of the state's sodomy law to become law without his signature.[265] In June 2023, Moore signed an executive order to protect people or entities that provide gender-affirming care from legal punishments by other states.[266]

In June 2022, following the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Moore said that he would support an amendment to the Maryland Constitution to enshrine abortion access.[267][268] He also pledged to release $3.5 million in funding for the Abortion Care Access Act, a bill passed in the 2022 legislative session that would expand the types of medical professionals who can perform abortions in Maryland, on his first day in office.[269] On January 19, 2023, Moore signed his first executive order releasing $3.5 million in funding for training healthcare providers in abortion care under the Abortion Care Access Act.[205] In February 2023, Moore joined the Reproductive Freedom Alliance, an interstate gubernatorial agreement led by California Governor Gavin Newsom intended to strengthen abortion access in member states.[270] In May 2023, he signed a pair of bills into law aimed at protecting patients seeking an abortion and increase access to abortion medication, and a bill creating a 2024 referendum on codifying the right to abortion access into the Maryland Constitution.[250] In February 2024, Moore criticized the Alabama Supreme Court's ruling in LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine, which held that frozen embryos had the same rights as children, calling it "out of step".[271]

In April 2023, after a federal court ruling repealed the Food and Drug Administration's approval of mifepristone, Moore said the state would begin stockpiling enough of the abortion pill to last two and a half years.[272] In June 2023, he voted to approve $1.3 million toward purchasing 30,000 doses of mifepristone and 5,000 doses of misoprostol.[273]

In April 2023, following an investigation by Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh into child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore, Attorney General Anthony Brown released a 463-page report accusing the archdiocese of covering up more than 600 cases of child sexual abuse against 156 Catholic priests over 60 years.[274] On April 11, 2023, Moore signed the Maryland Child Victims Act, which eliminates the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse lawsuits.[275]

Moore opposed Governor Hogan's decision to cancel the Red Line, and said during his campaign that he supported restarting the rail project.[276][277][278] During his campaign, he called for an "intermodal Red Line, that is built quickly, cost-effectively, and with community input on stops, disruptions, and impact on local businesses".[279] In November 2022, Moore said he would support creating a regional transit authority for working on projects.[280] On June 15, 2023, Moore announced that he would seek federal funding to restart efforts to build the Red Line.[281]

Moore does not support Governor Hogan's plan to widen portions of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270 using high-occupancy toll lanes, saying that he would instead support a transit line alongside I-270 and a proposed transit line from Prince George's County to Charles County.[212] Critics have accused Moore of flip-flopping on this stance after he told the Maryland Transit Opportunities that he would be willing to dedicate federal funds to the project, issuing a statement afterwards saying that he would be open to toll lanes if there were strong public consensus.[282] In a radio interview with WAMU in July 2022, he said he preferred a "new type of proposal" for the I-270 toll lanes plan that included reversible lanes, increased transit, and greater collaboration with local "stakeholders."[283] In August 2023, Moore requested $2.4 billion in federal funding to add managed lanes to parts of the Capital Beltway and I-270, and to rebuild the American Legion Memorial Bridge.[284][285]

In December 2022, Moore said he would view all transportation issues, including the I-270 and I-495 expansion efforts, through a "lens" of equity, environmental protection, and local partnership.[286]

In his first budget in January 2023, Moore proposed allocating $500 million toward unspecified transportation projects.[198] When asked by the Capital Gazette if this money would be used for the Red Line, Moore said that he had spoken with federal officials about restarting the line and that he did not want to "start from scratch". He also said he planned to use federal funds and public-private partnerships in transportation projects, including the Purple and Red lines.[287] The budget was amended to reduce this funding to $100 million, but also gave the governor the ability to tap the state's "rainy day" fund for an extra $100 million.[288]

In July 2023, after the Maryland Transit Administration announced that the opening of the Purple Line would be delayed until spring 2027, Moore promised to complete the Purple Line during his tenure and to prevent future delays.[289] After the Purple Line was further delayed in March 2024, Moore blamed his predecessor, Larry Hogan, for creating "boondoggles of challenges" that led to delays on the rail line project.[290]

In December 2023, facing a long-term budget shortfall, Moore announced a six-year plan to cut the state's transportation budget by $3.3 billion, or eight percent, including a $1.6 billion cut to "all major highway expansion construction projects" and a $652 million cut to transit expansion projects. The proposed plan would reduce commuter bus services and lines, delay the state's transition to electric buses, and cancel plans to expand the Brunswick Line.[291][292] He later announced a one-year infusion of $150 million to the state's transportation fund, with most of the added funding being used to restore highway user revenue funding, to ease the effects of the cuts.[293]

In March 2024, following the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, Moore declared a state of emergency[294] and called the disaster a "global crisis".[295] He also thanked Maryland Transportation Authority Police officers for closing the bridge after receiving mayday calls from the MV Dali, which prevented additional deaths during the collapse.[296] In the legislature, Moore supported the PORT Act, a bill introduced by Senate President Bill Ferguson to provide $60 million in financial assistance to workers and businesses affected by the subsequent closure of the Port of Baltimore[297] and introduced a bill that would create a permanent state scholarship for the children of surviving spouses of maintenance workers killed during the bridge collapse, which was later amended into the PORT Act.[298]

Before taking office, Maryland's economic outlook was among the lowest in the nation, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council.[299] Over the past decade, the state's gross domestic product (GDP) had only grown by 11 percent, compared to a 23 percent growth nationally, and ranked in the bottom 10 states in several economic factors, including economic momentum, change in personal income, and population growth.[300] At the same time, the state had a $2.5 billion budget surplus from a combination of federal pandemic aid and a tightening of state spending, $2.9 billion in its "rainy day fund",[301][302] and low unemployment numbers.[303]

During the 2023 legislative session, Moore introduced the Innovation Economy Infrastructure Act, which would provide $10 million in grants for "infrastructure projects in eligible technology sectors"; the Access to Banking Act, which incentives banking institutions to locate in low- and moderate-income areas of the state; and the Broadband Expansion Act, which initially offered tax incentives to the broadband internet industry[206] but was later watered down to a bill to study how to incentivize broadband expansion.[235] All three bills were signed into law in May 2023.[304]

In May 2023, Moore signed an executive order creating the Innovation and Impact Council, which would investigate ways the state could partner with businesses and nonprofits to address social and equity issues.[305] In June, he signed another executive order to establish the Maryland Economic Council, which was tasked with developing economic development strategies for the state.[306]

In August 2023, following a report from the Maryland Department of Legislative Services predicting that the state's budget deficits would increase to $1.8 billion annually by 2028, Moore cautioned that the state would enter a "season of discipline".[307][308] He also pledged to hire a chief performance officer, later naming Asma Mirza, the deputy for implementation management for the White House Infrastructure Implementation Team, to the position.[309]

In October 2023, Moore said he would support giving municipalities the ability to designate local "tourism zones".[310]

Moore rallying with AFSCME union members, 2023Before taking office, the Maryland Department of Legislative Services reported a "historically high" level of vacancies in state government, with only three departments in the executive branch having vacancy rates lower than 10 percent.[311] During his campaign, Moore promised to fill 5,000 vacancies within his first year in office,[312] and included raises up to 18 percent for state employees to incentivize recruitment and retention.[300] As of October 2023, only 791 positions had been filled, according to data from the Maryland Department of Legislative Services.[313]

In February 2023, Moore said he would scrap the Maryland Aviation Administration's controversial contract process to run concessions operations at Baltimore/Washington International Airport.[314][315] In March, he promised to include a "labor peace" agreement in future BWI concessions operations contracts.[316] The BWI contract bidding process restarted in September 2023, and includes provisions to include the labor peace agreement, which would allow service workers to unionize but prohibited strikes.[317]

During the 2024 legislative session, Moore will introduce the Families Serve Act, which would allow employers to give preference to military dependents in hiring; and the Time to Serve Act, which doubles the amount of days of leave state employees can take to fulfill duties in military reserves. He also supported bills to ban discrimination toward military members in hiring.[318]

During his campaign, Moore said that he would accelerate the state's incremental increase to a minimum wage of $15 an hour by 2023.[94][319] He also supports indexing the state's minimum wage to inflation.[320] At the beginning of the 2023 legislative session, Moore introduced the Fair Wage Act, a bill that would accelerate the state's minimum wage build-up to reach $15 an hour by October 2023[198][321] and index the minimum wage to the consumer price index starting in July 2025, with increases capped at five percent per year.[222] The Senate Finance Committee amended the bill to remove provisions linking it to the consumer price index and delayed the wage increase until January 1, 2024.[322][323] Moore signed the bill into law on April 11, 2023.[324] He also allocated $218 million in his first budget to support state service providers in keeping up with the accelerated wage increase.[325]

During his tenure as CEO of the Robin Hood Foundation, Moore pushed for New York legislators and Governor Andrew Cuomo to expand the state's child tax credit, and lobbied for the issue to be mentioned in Cuomo's State of the State speech.[93]

During his campaign, Moore repeatedly said that he does not anticipate raising taxes as governor,[147][303][326] but said in September 2022 that he planned to work with the legislature to fix what he described as the state's "upside-down taxation system".[147] In January 2024, he expressed openness to raising taxes to address the state's budget shortfall, but said that any conversation about taxes would have a "very high bar".[327]

In May 2022, following a spike in gas prices as the result of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Moore said he supported staving off automatic increases to the state's gas tax, arguing that voters needed immediate relief[328] and later calling it a "regressive tax".[329] In September 2022, Moore told the Maryland Family Network that he would support child care programs by subsidizing the service through tax credits for low-income families.[95] He also expressed interest in eliminating either the state's estate or inheritance tax to make the state more attractive to retirees.[147] In June 2023, Moore said he supported shifting transportation funding away from the state's gas tax as well as decoupling it from inflation, but opposed calling a special session to do so, instead preferring to pass tax reforms during the 2024 legislative session.[330]

In his first budget in January 2023, Moore introduced the Family Prosperity Act, which allocates $171 million toward making permanent the earned income tax credit passed by lawmakers in 2021, and the Keep Our Heroes Home Act, which provides $33 million for expanding tax exemptions for military retirement income;[198][234] legislators later scaled down the Keep Our Heroes Home Act to only raise the state's income exemption limit to $20,000 for older veterans and $12,500 for younger ones.[331] Moore signed both bills into law in April and May 2023,[332][333] as well as another bill to allow workers to deduct union dues from their income taxes.[334]

Moore testifying before the Senate Committee on Finance in 2010In September 2010, Moore testified in support of reauthorizing the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families federal assistance program.[335] In July 2021, he opposed Governor Hogan's decision to end expanded federal unemployment benefits provided by the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 early.[336] In December 2022, Moore said he supported indexing the state's maximum unemployment insurance payment to inflation.[320]

In August 2022, Moore supported protests led by veterans at the United States Capitol to pass the Honoring our PACT Act of 2022, which would provide benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic phenomena.[337]

During his gubernatorial campaign, Moore said he supported establishing a state "baby bonds" program, which would cost roughly $100 million per year and be seeded with $3,200 for every child born on Medicaid, to target the racial wealth gap. If enacted, it would be the largest baby bond program ever enacted in the United States.[338]

During the 2024 legislative session, Moore introduced the ENOUGH Act, a bill to provide $15 million in grants toward underserved communities.[339]

Moore and his family at his gubernatorial inauguration, 2023Moore met Dawn Flythe in Washington, D.C. in 2002.[340] They moved to the Riverside community in Baltimore in 2006.[75] The couple eloped in Las Vegas while he was on a brief leave from Afghanistan and were married by an Elvis impersonator.[341] Their official wedding ceremony was held on July 6, 2007.[342] They have two children, born 2011 and 2013.[343]

In late 2008, the Moores moved from Riverside to Guilford, where they lived until Moore's election as governor in 2022.[344] They reside in Government House, the official residence of the Maryland governor and First Family in Annapolis, Maryland.[345]

From 2015 to 2023, Moore attended services at the Southern Baptist Church in east Baltimore.[346]

In July 2023, Moore received an honorary degree from the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean.[347]

Military decorations and badges [ edit ] Moore's decorations and medals include:[25]

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Maryland Matters . Retrieved August 25, 2023 . ^ Lazo, Luz; Shepherd, Katie (August 21, 2023). "Maryland pursues publicly funding Beltway relief project". The Washington Post . Retrieved August 25, 2023 . ^ DePuyt, Bruce (December 16, 2022). "Moore pledges to steer I-270/I-495 traffic relief efforts in a new direction". Maryland Matters . Retrieved December 16, 2022 . ^ Janesch, Sam (January 22, 2023). "With his first budget plan in, Moore's proposals begin to take shape against a backdrop of uncertain financial forecasts". Capital Gazette . Retrieved January 23, 2023 . ^ Wood, Pamela (March 31, 2023). "Maryland House, Senate resolve budget impasse over education funding". Baltimore Banner . Retrieved March 31, 2023 . ^ Sears, Bryan P. (July 19, 2023). "Moore vows to get Purple Line on track and control costs and future delays". Maryland Matters . Retrieved July 23, 2023 . ^ Bansil, Sapna (March 13, 2024). "State okays more Purple Line money, but not gladly". Capital News Service . Retrieved April 7, 2024 . ^ Duncan, Ian; Cox, Erin (December 2, 2023). "Moore administration targets $2 billion cut to Md. transportation projects". The Washington Post . Retrieved December 1, 2023 . ^ Sears, Bryan P. (December 2, 2023). "State set to announce deep cuts to transportation agencies". Maryland Matters . Retrieved December 2, 2023 . ^ Sears, Bryan P. (January 16, 2024). "Moore plans one-time infusion to ease pain of transportation cuts". Maryland Matters . Retrieved January 16, 2024 . ^ Forrest, Jack; Alonso, Melissa; Mascarenhas, Lauren (March 26, 2024). "Cargo ship lost power before colliding with Baltimore bridge; 6 presumed dead". CNN . Retrieved April 7, 2024 . ^ Halpert, Madeline (March 27, 2024). "Baltimore bridge collapse: Divers find two bodies in submerged truck". BBC . Retrieved April 7, 2024 . ^ Condon, Christine; Gardner, Hayes (March 26, 2024). "6 workers presumed dead; Baltimore's Key Bridge collapses after container ship hits support column". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved April 7, 2024 . ^ Iannetta, Jessica (April 5, 2024). "Wes Moore authorizes $60M for programs to aid Baltimore port workers, companies". Washington Business Journal . Retrieved April 7, 2024 . ^ Wood, Pamela (April 2, 2024). "How lawmakers plan to help workers, businesses affected by Baltimore port disruptions". The Baltimore Banner . Retrieved April 7, 2024 . ^ Kurtz, Josh (November 4, 2022). "Hogan gets hero's send-off at business group lunch '-- but national ratings aren't so favorable". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ a b Kurtz, Josh (January 21, 2023). "Analysis: In budget introduction, Moore takes down Hogan policies". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ DePuyt, Bruce (December 15, 2022). "As Democrats prepare to retake power in Annapolis, Hogan issues warning on spending". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Wood, Pamela (January 18, 2023). "Gov. Larry Hogan promised to change Maryland. As he leaves office, did he deliver?". Baltimore Banner . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ a b Gans, Jared (January 1, 2023). "Incoming Maryland governor 'confident' he can reach economic goals without tax hike". The Hill . Retrieved January 1, 2023 . ^ Gaskill, Hannah; Janesch, Sam (May 8, 2023). "Gov. Wes Moore to sign economic development bills". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved May 8, 2023 . ^ Sears, Bryan P. (May 8, 2023). "Moore focuses on jobs, economy in fifth bill signing". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Wintrode, Brenda (June 8, 2023). "Gov. Moore taps Netflix executive to lead new economic council". Baltimore Banner . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Cox, Erin (August 18, 2023). "Wes Moore: Maryland's 'lazy' economy must change". The Washington Post . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Gaskill, Hannah; Janesch, Sam (September 21, 2023). "Maryland Gov. Wes Moore warned of budgetary woes. What does that mean for state projects and financial planning?". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Weingarten, Dwight A. (September 7, 2023). "Gov. Wes Moore takes page from Obama, staffer from Biden in chief performance officer hire". The Herald-Mail . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Ford, William J. (October 18, 2023). "Moore plans to hold quarterly meetings with mayors at government house, support 'tourism zones' ". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Weingarten, Dwight A. (November 17, 2022). " 'Historically high': State agencies have huge job vacancies, but $2 billion surplus". The Herald-Mail . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Collins, David (January 13, 2023). "Maryland legislative leaders prioritize filling state job vacancies". WBAL-TV . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Sears, Bryan P. (November 13, 2023). "Effort to reduce vacant state government positions falling short of Moore's promise". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 13, 2023 . ^ Kurtz, Josh (February 21, 2023). "Moore orders do-over for lucrative BWI Airport concessions contract". Maryland Matters . Retrieved March 1, 2023 . ^ Belson, Dan (February 23, 2023). "Maryland Gov. Wes Moore seeks redo of controversial procurement for BWI airport concessionaire". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved March 1, 2023 . ^ Kurtz, Josh (March 1, 2023). "Moore pledges 'labor peace' for new airport concessions contract". Maryland Matters . Retrieved March 1, 2023 . ^ Kurtz, Josh (September 20, 2023). "State restarts controversial bidding process for BWI Airport concessions contract". Maryland Matters . Retrieved November 6, 2023 . ^ Wood, Pamela (December 13, 2023). "Gov. Moore's first 2024 bills would benefit military families". Baltimore Banner . Retrieved December 13, 2023 . ^ Janesch, Sam (September 14, 2022). "Maryland gubernatorial nominees Dan Cox, Wes Moore talk child care, paid leave and budget surplus in virtual forum". The Baltimore Sun. Archived from the original on September 15, 2022 . Retrieved September 14, 2022 . ^ a b Pickert, Reade (December 8, 2022). "Maryland Governor-Elect Wants to Index Jobless Benefits to Inflation". Bloomberg News . Retrieved December 8, 2022 . ^ Gaskill, Hannah; Janesch, Sam (January 20, 2023). "Maryland Gov. Wes Moore introduces $63B budget plan, calls for investments in education and transportation". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved January 20, 2023 . ^ Janesch, Sam (March 10, 2023). "Maryland senators put the brakes on Gov. Wes Moore's plans to link minimum wage with inflation". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved March 10, 2023 . ^ Gaines, Danielle E.; Kurtz, Josh (March 11, 2023). "Legislative notes: Senate panel waters down minimum wage bill, abortion measures move, cannabis framework passes House". Maryland Matters . Retrieved March 11, 2023 . ^ Elone, Emmanuel (April 11, 2023). "Maryland Law Establishes $15 Minimum Wage Starting in 2024". Bloomberg News . Retrieved April 11, 2023 . ^ Wiggins, Ovetta (January 20, 2023). "Gov. Wes Moore proposes boosting spending on education, transportation". The Washington Post . Retrieved January 20, 2023 . ^ Miller, Larry (November 3, 2022). "Wes Moore's plan to address Maryland voter concerns about economy, taxes and crime". WUSA-TV . Retrieved January 1, 2023 . ^ Sears, Bryan P.; Brown, Danielle J.; Ford, William J.; Kurtz, Josh (January 10, 2024). " 'We're back to governing' ". Maryland Matters . Retrieved January 10, 2024 . ^ Cox, Erin (May 26, 2022). "Surging gas taxes expected to be political weapon in Maryland politics". The Washington Post . Retrieved September 16, 2022 . ^ Gaskill, Hannah (June 29, 2023). "Gov. Wes Moore wants the legislature to address Maryland's automatic gas tax: 'We've got to do better for working families' ". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved June 29, 2023 . ^ Gaines, Danielle E.; Kurtz, Josh (June 30, 2023). "News roundup: State joins building standards coalition, Republicans press for gas tax reform, plus personnel news". Maryland Matters . Retrieved June 30, 2023 . ^ Gaskill, Hannah; Jansech, Sam (March 20, 2023). "General Assembly bills approach 'crossover day' with some ahead of the game, others hanging in the balance". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved April 9, 2023 . ^ "Gov. Wes Moore signs several bills into law hours after legislative session ends". WMAR-TV. April 11, 2023 . Retrieved April 11, 2023 . ^ Janesch, Sam (May 12, 2023). "Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to sign bills aimed at helping veterans and their families at military airport". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved May 12, 2023 . ^ Wade, Christian (June 20, 2023). "Lawmakers consider tax deduction for union dues". The Center Square . Retrieved June 29, 2023 . ^ "Welfare Reform: A New Conversation on Women and Poverty" (PDF) . finance.senate.gov. United States Senate Committee on Finance. September 21, 2010. Archived (PDF) from the original on September 20, 2022 . Retrieved September 18, 2022 . ^ Gaines, Danielle (July 2, 2021). "Judge to Issue Decision Saturday Morning in Cases Challenging End of Expanded Unemployment Programs". Maryland Matters. Archived from the original on July 5, 2022 . Retrieved July 5, 2022 . ^ Thorp, Frank V; Vitali, Ali; Wong, Scott (August 1, 2022). "Veterans have been camping out on the Capitol steps after GOP blocks burn pit bill". NBC News . Retrieved December 14, 2022 . ^ Cox, Erin (October 19, 2022). "Md. governor candidate's pitch to fight poverty: Trust funds for babies". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 20, 2022 . Retrieved October 19, 2022 . ^ Wood, Pamela (January 29, 2024). "Gov. Moore pushes plan to invest in high-poverty neighborhoods". The Baltimore Banner . Retrieved April 13, 2024 . ^ Gruskin, Abigail (May 8, 2024). "Maryland's first lady is trying to 'raise amazing human beings' in the limelight". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved May 8, 2024 . ^ Antrim, Taylor (July 18, 2023). "Wes Moore On Gen Z, Social Media, Winning Over Republicans, and Why "Service Will Save Us" ". Vogue . Retrieved July 23, 2023 . ^ "Dawn Flythe, Westley Moore". New York Times. July 8, 2007. Archived from the original on June 3, 2022 . Retrieved June 2, 2022 . ^ "Being Wes Moore". Baltimorestyle.com. June 17, 2015. Archived from the original on October 20, 2022 . Retrieved June 2, 2022 . ^ Janesch, Sam (July 17, 2023). "Maryland Gov. Wes Moore's Baltimore home sells for $2.5M". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved July 17, 2023 . ^ Mosbrucker, Kristen (February 22, 2023). "Gov. Wes Moore's Baltimore City home is up for sale with $2.7M price tag". WYPR . Retrieved February 22, 2023 . ^ Pitts, Jonathan (January 16, 2023). "At Gov.-elect Wes Moore's last Baltimore church service before inauguration, hugs of encouragement, prayers of hope". The Baltimore Sun . Retrieved January 27, 2024 . ^ Davidson, Vernon (July 18, 2023). "Jamaica gives me a deep sense of clarity, says Maryland Governor Wes Moore". Jamaica Observer . Retrieved July 23, 2023 . ^ "Official 2022 Gubernatorial Primary Election Results for Governor / Lt. Governor". elections.maryland.gov. Maryland State Board of Elections. July 19, 2022. Archived from the original on July 31, 2022 . Retrieved August 15, 2022 . ^ "Official 2022 Gubernatorial General Election Results for Governor / Lt. Governor". Maryland State Board of Elections . Retrieved December 7, 2022 . Wikimedia Commons has media related to

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The Office of Governor Wes Moore official government websiteWes Moore for Maryland campaign websiteAppearances on C-SPANProfile at Vote SmartWes Moore at IMDb

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The Founders Bible Homepage TheFoundersBible 2019-01-04T13:12:04-07:00

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Wed, 24 Jul 2024 16:47

Despite a national debate over whether critical race theory and ''anti-whiteness'' are being taught in public schools, research from Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African and African American Research found the exact opposite: white supremacy instruction has a long foothold in American schools. Joie Chen travels to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to speak with author and researcher Donald Yacovone about his new book, ''Teaching White Supremacy.''

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Wed, 24 Jul 2024 15:15

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By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: July 24, 2024 ~

Trump Hosts a Packed Political Fundraising Event at Mar-a-Lago on April 17, 2021. (Twitter Photo.)

Eleven days after an assassination attempt was made on a presidential candidate's life at a mass gathering in Pennsylvania, the U.S. Secret Service will face added strains and risks by the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, allowing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to come to Washington, D.C. and address a joint session of Congress today. (Numerous seats at the session will be empty as a number of progressives have indicated that they will boycott the event over Netanyahu's conduct of Israel's war in Gaza, which has resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe.)

Netanyahu arrived in D.C. on Monday. One day later, protests were occurring outside his hotel and a building that houses Congressional offices, according to the Associated Press. A mass protest attracting thousands is expected during his speech to the joint session of Congress today.

In addition to protecting the sitting President, Vice President and former Presidents and their spouses for their lifetimes, the Secret Service is also tasked with protecting foreign dignitaries. Thus, at a time of fraught political tensions, Netanyahu is simply adding to the stretched resources of the Secret Service.

Former President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform that he plans to meet with Netanyahu this Friday '' not in the northeast where Trump has been residing since May '' but at his luxury resort and winter residence, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida.

The fact that nobody voluntarily comes from the Northeast to hot, humid South Florida in July and August, raises questions about the decision to meet at Mar-a-Lago.

As we reported on Monday, using figures from an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), U.S. taxpayers picked up a tab of approximately $495 million to transport and provide protective services to Donald Trump on his 145 trips to Mar-a-Lago while he was President (representing just a small portion of the thousands of trips that he and his adult children took where Secret Service protective services were provided during his presidency.)

According to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), in just the two fiscal years of 2018 and 2019, ''the Trump family has taken 3,249 protected trips. In seven years, the Obama family took a total of 933.''

The tab for protection at Mar-a-Lago is particularly high because the resort is on the water and requires resources from the U.S. Coast Guard to protect the area. The GAO reported that the Coast Guard spent $3.4 million protecting Trump during just four trips to Mar-a-Lago that occurred in a four-week span in February and March of 2017. Because both Netanyahu and Trump will require their own protective detail from the Secret Service, plus assets from the U.S. Coast Guard, plus the likelihood of military aircraft for Netanyahu, plus rental of a Secret Service command center at Mar-a-Lago, we approximate that the costs of this trip to the taxpayer will be well over $5 million, using the prior breakdown of costs from the GAO.

The Secret Service's tab at Trump properties kept right on going cha-ching after Trump left office. On October 17, 2022, the U.S. House of Representative's Committee on Oversight released a spreadsheet showing what Donald Trump's properties had billed the Secret Service during his presidency and for the first eight months of 2021 when he was no longer in office. (We've attached that document here.)

Notice in the document linked directly above that it's not in order by dates '' making a quick assessment of spending by month or year impossible. One thing that does jump out is that on July 31, 2017 there is an item listed as ''CNOS: Golf Cart Rental'' which the U.S. taxpayer picked up for $3,464 at the Trump International Golf Club. (CNOS stands for Candidate Nominee Operation Section. Of course, by this time, Trump was already President.)

It makes sense that Secret Service agents would have to follow a President, who spends so much of his time golfing, around the links on a golf cart in order to safely protect him. What doesn't make sense is why this is the only time the words ''golf cart'' appear on this spreadsheet. The GAO report noted that certain ''classified'' expenses are not released by federal agencies. We suspect, but can't say for certain, that these outlandish golf cart expenses may have been earmarked as ''Trans'' for transportation on subsequent invoices.

Take, for example, what Trump properties billed the Secret Service in just the month of May 2021 '' after President Trump had been out of office for four months. See above graph. (We had to dig through the spreadsheet and cut and paste these May 2021 expenses together because they were out of order and spread throughout the document released to the House Committee on Oversight.) ''Hotel Trans'' comes out to $40,011.15 out of a total cost of $50,210.67 for the month of May 2021. (What kind of resort charges round off to $9,000, $9,500 and $10,000? The lump sum of $10,000 appears 13 times on the spreadsheet.)

Making this graph of expenses for May 2021 all the more suspect, is that CBS News reported that Trump moved from Mar-a-Lago to his summer residence in Bedminster, New Jersey on May 9, 2021. How could the Secret Service run up $50,000 in Mar-a-Lago expenses over the span of nine days?

We admire and respect the courage and talents and exemplary history of the U.S. Secret Service, its agents and staff. Donald Trump and his minions '' not so much.

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Wed, 24 Jul 2024 14:49

Externally validated and accredited, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform elevates your cybersecurity postureand helps you meet regulatory mandates with confidence.

Products and services to build compliance Gain peace of mind and unparalleled support with the power of the Falcon platform. Externally validated and accredited, our cybersecurity technology and solutions are trusted to safeguard thousands of organization's data and help them adhere to the strictest, regulatory mandates.

FedRAMPThe Falcon platform is authorized under the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). CrowdStrike has an Authorization to Operate (ATO) at the Moderate Impact Level from the U. S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA). In addition, CrowdStrike has achieved FedRAMP® High-Impact Level Ready status from the Joint Authorization Board (JAB).

CJISThe Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Security Policy describes controls to protect wireless networking, data encryption, remote access, personnel and more. CrowdStrike can support CJIS in states that have executed a CJIS Security Agreement with CrowdStrike in GovCloud.

DoD IL5The Falcon platform has been granted Provisional Authorizations (PA) by the DISA, meeting compliance with DoD standards to operate at and up to Impact Level 5 (IL5). This authorization allows DoD agencies and supporting organizations to use CrowdStrike without having to go through additional time and effort to vet and approve necessary security controls. View requirements here.

CMMCThe Falcon platform provides significant support for the CMMC 2.0 program, its objectives, and requirements. The Falcon platform supplies strong support for up to 11 of the 17 CMMC 2.0 Level 1 requirements and 80 of the 110 CMMC 2.0 Level 2 requirements. Read this report to learn how.

FFIECThis Coalfire report shows how the Falcon platform supports compliance with the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC). The Falcon platform was evaluated as a suitable solution to address system protection and monitoring controls required for FFIEC compliance and provides support to achieve five FFIEC objectives, addressing 17 controls within those objectives.

HIPAAIn this Coalfire report, the Falcon platform was verified as addressing eight key Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) technical requirements and has been independently validated to assist healthcare organizations in achieving HIPAA compliance.

NSA-CIRAAn accreditation from the National Security Agency (NSA), it signifies that CrowdStrike has been certified in critical focus areas derived from industry and government best practices for cybersecurity investigation. CrowdStrike is one of only 12 organizations accredited by the NSA for National Security Cyber Assistance Program (NSCAP) Cyber Incident Response Assistance (CIRA).

NIST 800-53This Coalfire report validates the Falcon platform as a suitable solution for addressing the system protection and monitoring controls identified in the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) SP 800-53 Rev. 4 and shows that the platform helps customers implement eight separate NIST control families, covering 23 separate controls.

NIST 800-171CrowdStrike supports customer compliance needs pertaining to CMMC (and NIST 800-171) through the features provided by the Falcon platform. Read our CMMC white paper for more details.

VPATCrowdStrike has created a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) in accordance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The VPAT for the Falcon platform is available on request to customers and validates our relentless commitment to helping our customers meet and exceed compliance standards.See also:Identity protectionLogScale

Spain ENS High (EDR)EDR: The Falcon platform is certified in the Spanish National Cryptologic Center (CCN) STIC Products and Services Catalog (CPSTIC) at the 'high' level. CrowdStrike is the only modern endpoint security platform with the highest achievable level of accreditation possible. This new designation is for both the antivirus/endpoint protection platform (EPP) and EDR categories.

ISO/IEC 27001:2022CrowdStrike has been independently assessed and certified to the new ISO/IEC 27001:2022 standard, which reflects our commitment to safeguarding information, managing risks effectively, and adhering to global security standards.

UK Cyber EssentialsCrowdStrike is fully compliant with the UK Cyber Essentials (CE) scheme, a testament to our commitment to our customers in the UK. Our Cyber Essentials certification demonstrates our dedication to implement fundamental security controls and measures, ensuring the protection of our systems and the sensitive data they hold.

TISAXCrowdStrike has been independently assessed and is registered to the Trust Information Security Assessment Exchange (TISAX) '-- administered and governed by the ENX Association.TISAX and TISAX results are not intended for the general public. For more information, refer to the ENX Portal:- Scope ID: SY936H- Assessment ID: AM1KZ4-1

UK NHS DSPTCrowdStrike complies with the NHS Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT), affirming our dedication to the highest standards of data security within the UK NHS sector. Designed with security and privacy in mind, our products and services offer reliable protection to our customers within the NHS.

Data Privacy FrameworksCrowdStrike is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension to it, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. This certification means that CrowdStrike complies with the Frameworks' Principles when processing personal information. Learn more and view our certification.

EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)CrowdStrike adheres to the EU's and UK's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements for the proper handling of personal information processed through its offerings and provides its customers with a Global Data Protection Agreement that meets GDPR requirements.

UK - NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF)CrowdStrike is fully aligned with the UK NCSC Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF), demonstrating our comprehensive approach to cyber resilience and security for the UK public sector organizations. Our alignment with the NCSC CAF signifies how CrowdStrike products and services can be leveraged to support UK organizations to systematically assess and manage cyber risks.

UK - NCSC 14 Cloud PrinciplesCrowdStrike's alignment with the NCSC 14 cloud principles ensures a comprehensive security foundation and measures are embedded throughout the CrowdStrike Falcon® Cloud Security solution. Our rigorous adherence to strict security controls enables a cybersecurity platform that's unparalleled across industry.

UK G-CloudCrowdStrike is included in the UK Government's G-Cloud framework, enhancing the digital security landscape for UK public sector organizations. Our inclusion reflects our compliance with rigorous government standards and ability to offer cutting edge solutions to our UK customers.

IRAPCrowdStrike was successfully assessed under the Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP), demonstrating and reinforcing our commitment to safeguarding data and networks governed by the Australian government. Our IRAP compliance signifies that CrowdStrike has been rigorously tested against the Australian Government Information Security Manual (ISM) standards.

Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Privacy Recognition for Processor (PRP)CrowdStrike participates in the APEC PRP system which provides a framework that helps CrowdStrike assist its customers in meeting relevant privacy compliance obligations, and to ensure protection of personal information transferred among participating APEC economies. To check the status of CrowdStrike's PRP certification, click here.

PCI DSS v4This Coalfire report, a PCI Qualified Security Assessor (QSA), outlines the Falcon platform's functionality with respect to PCI DSS v4, which meets all elements of requirement No. 5: "Protect all systems against malware and regularly update antivirus software or programs." In addition, the Falcon platform provides assistance with meeting four additional PCI requirements.

SOC 2CrowdStrike is compliant with Service Organization Control 2 standards and provides Falcon platform customers with a SOC 2® report. The Type 2 report addresses the suitability of design and the operating effectiveness of the controls. This attestation addresses service organization's controls relevant to security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, or privacy.

CSA STARThe Falcon platform attains both Security, Trust, Assurance, and Risk (STAR) Level 1 and STAR Level 2 within CSA STAR's public registry. CSA STAR Level 2 requires a third-party independent audit of CrowdStrike's implementation of CSA Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM) version 4.0.

AMTSOCrowdStrike is a registered Vendor Member of the Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization (AMTSO), whose mission is to help improve business conditions related to the development, use, testing and rating of anti-malware products and solutions. As a vendor member, CrowdStrike contributes to the development of standards for testing anti-malware products.

ISO/IEC 27001:2022CrowdStrike has been independently assessed and certified to the new ISO/IEC 27001:2022 standard, which reflects our commitment to safeguarding information, managing risks effectively, and adhering to global security standards.

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Archived Version

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 13:57

Updated 2024-07-24 0335 UTC

Preliminary Post Incident Review (PIR): Content Configuration Update Impacting the Falcon Sensor and the Windows Operating System (BSOD)

This is CrowdStrike's preliminary Post Incident Review (PIR). We will be detailing our full investigation in the forthcoming Root Cause Analysis that will be released publicly. Throughout this PIR, we have used generalized terminology to describe the Falcon platform for improved readability. Terminology in other documentation may be more specific and technical.

What Happened?On Friday, July 19, 2024 at 04:09 UTC, as part of regular operations, CrowdStrike released a content configuration update for the Windows sensor to gather telemetry on possible novel threat techniques.

These updates are a regular part of the dynamic protection mechanisms of the Falcon platform. The problematic Rapid Response Content configuration update resulted in a Windows system crash.

Systems in scope include Windows hosts running sensor version 7.11 and above that were online between Friday, July 19, 2024 04:09 UTC and Friday, July 19, 2024 05:27 UTC and received the update. Mac and Linux hosts were not impacted.

The defect in the content update was reverted on Friday, July 19, 2024 at 05:27 UTC. Systems coming online after this time, or that did not connect during the window, were not impacted.

What Went Wrong and Why?CrowdStrike delivers security content configuration updates to our sensors in two ways: Sensor Content that is shipped with our sensor directly, and Rapid Response Content that is designed to respond to the changing threat landscape at operational speed.

The issue on Friday involved a Rapid Response Content update with an undetected error.

Sensor ContentSensor Content provides a wide range of capabilities to assist in adversary response. It is always part of a sensor release and not dynamically updated from the cloud. Sensor Content includes on-sensor AI and machine learning models, and comprises code written expressly to deliver longer-term, reusable capabilities for CrowdStrike's threat detection engineers.

These capabilities include Template Types, which have pre-defined fields for threat detection engineers to leverage in Rapid Response Content. Template Types are expressed in code. All Sensor Content, including Template Types, go through an extensive QA process, which includes automated testing, manual testing, validation and rollout steps.

The sensor release process begins with automated testing, both prior to and after merging into our code base. This includes unit testing, integration testing, performance testing and stress testing. This culminates in a staged sensor rollout process that starts with dogfooding internally at CrowdStrike, followed by early adopters. It is then made generally available to customers. Customers then have the option of selecting which parts of their fleet should install the latest sensor release ('N'), or one version older ('N-1') or two versions older ('N-2') through Sensor Update Policies.

The event of Friday, July 19, 2024 was not triggered by Sensor Content, which is only delivered with the release of an updated Falcon sensor. Customers have complete control over the deployment of the sensor '-- which includes Sensor Content and Template Types.

Rapid Response ContentRapid Response Content is used to perform a variety of behavioral pattern-matching operations on the sensor using a highly optimized engine. Rapid Response Content is a representation of fields and values, with associated filtering. This Rapid Response Content is stored in a proprietary binary file that contains configuration data. It is not code or a kernel driver.

Rapid Response Content is delivered as ''Template Instances,'' which are instantiations of a given Template Type. Each Template Instance maps to specific behaviors for the sensor to observe, detect or prevent. Template Instances have a set of fields that can be configured to match the desired behavior.

In other words, Template Types represent a sensor capability that enables new telemetry and detection, and their runtime behavior is configured dynamically by the Template Instance (i.e., Rapid Response Content).

Rapid Response Content provides visibility and detections on the sensor without requiring sensor code changes. This capability is used by threat detection engineers to gather telemetry, identify indicators of adversary behavior and perform detections and preventions. Rapid Response Content is behavioral heuristics, separate and distinct from CrowdStrike's on-sensor AI prevention and detection capabilities.

Rapid Response Content Testing and DeploymentRapid Response Content is delivered as content configuration updates to the Falcon sensor. There are three primary systems: the Content Configuration System, the Content Interpreter and the Sensor Detection Engine.

The Content Configuration System is part of the Falcon platform in the cloud, while the Content Interpreter and Sensor Detection Engine are components of the Falcon sensor. The Content Configuration System is used to create Template Instances, which are validated and deployed to the sensor through a mechanism called Channel Files. The sensor stores and updates its content configuration data through Channel Files, which are written to disk on the host.

The Content Interpreter on the sensor reads the Channel File and interprets the Rapid Response Content, enabling the Sensor Detection Engine to observe, detect or prevent malicious activity, depending on the customer's policy configuration. The Content Interpreter is designed to gracefully handle exceptions from potentially problematic content.

Newly released Template Types are stress tested across many aspects, such as resource utilization, system performance impact and event volume. For each Template Type, a specific Template Instance is used to stress test the Template Type by matching against any possible value of the associated data fields to identify adverse system interactions.

Template Instances are created and configured through the use of the Content Configuration System, which includes the Content Validator that performs validation checks on the content before it is published.

Timeline of Events: Testing and Rollout of the InterProcessCommunication (IPC) Template TypeSensor Content Release: On February 28, 2024, sensor 7.11 was made generally available to customers, introducing a new IPC Template Type to detect novel attack techniques that abuse Named Pipes. This release followed all Sensor Content testing procedures outlined above in the Sensor Content section.

Template Type Stress Testing: On March 05, 2024, a stress test of the IPC Template Type was executed in our staging environment, which consists of a variety of operating systems and workloads. The IPC Template Type passed the stress test and was validated for use.

Template Instance Release via Channel File 291: On March 05, 2024, following the successful stress test, an IPC Template Instance was released to production as part of a content configuration update. Subsequently, three additional IPC Template Instances were deployed between April 8, 2024 and April 24, 2024. These Template Instances performed as expected in production.

What Happened on July 19, 2024?On July 19, 2024, two additional IPC Template Instances were deployed. Due to a bug in the Content Validator, one of the two Template Instances passed validation despite containing problematic content data.

Based on the testing performed before the initial deployment of the Template Type (on March 05, 2024), trust in the checks performed in the Content Validator, and previous successful IPC Template Instance deployments, these instances were deployed into production.

When received by the sensor and loaded into the Content Interpreter, problematic content in Channel File 291 resulted in an out-of-bounds memory read triggering an exception. This unexpected exception could not be gracefully handled, resulting in a Windows operating system crash (BSOD).

How Do We Prevent This From Happening Again?

Software Resiliency and Testing

Improve Rapid Response Content testing by using testing types such as:Local developer testingContent update and rollback testingStress testing, fuzzing and fault injectionStability testingContent interface testingAdd additional validation checks to the Content Validator for Rapid Response Content. A new check is in process to guard against this type of problematic content from being deployed in the future.Enhance existing error handling in the Content Interpreter.Rapid Response Content Deployment

Implement a staggered deployment strategy for Rapid Response Content in which updates are gradually deployed to larger portions of the sensor base, starting with a canary deployment.Improve monitoring for both sensor and system performance, collecting feedback during Rapid Response Content deployment to guide a phased rollout.Provide customers with greater control over the delivery of Rapid Response Content updates by allowing granular selection of when and where these updates are deployed. Provide content update details via release notes, which customers can subscribe to.In addition to this preliminary Post Incident Review, CrowdStrike is committed to publicly releasing the full Root Cause Analysis once the investigation is complete.

The channel file responsible for system crashes on Friday, July 19, 2024 beginning at 04:09 UTC was identified and deprecated on operational systems. When deprecation occurs, a new file is deployed, but the old file can remain in the sensor's directory.

Out of an abundance of caution, and to prevent Windows systems from further disruption, the impacted version of the channel file was added to Falcon's known-bad list in the CrowdStrike Cloud.

No sensor updates, new channel files, or code was deployed from the CrowdStrike Cloud.

For operational machines, this is a hygiene action. For impacted systems with strong network connectivity, this action could also result in the automatic recovery of systems in a boot loop.

This was configured in US-1, US-2, and EU on July 23, 2024 UTC.

Gov-1 and Gov-2 customers can request a channel file 291 known-bad classification by contacting CrowdStrike Support.

I want to sincerely apologize directly to all of you for the outage. All of CrowdStrike understands the gravity and impact of the situation. We quickly identified the issue and deployed a fix, allowing us to focus diligently on restoring customer systems as our highest priority.

The outage was caused by a defect found in a Falcon content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This was not a cyberattack.

We are working closely with impacted customers and partners to ensure that all systems are restored, so you can deliver the services your customers rely on.

CrowdStrike is operating normally, and this issue does not affect our Falcon platform systems. There is no impact to any protection if the Falcon sensor is installed. Falcon Complete and Falcon OverWatch services are not disrupted.

We have mobilized all of CrowdStrike to help you and your teams. If you have questions or need additional support, please reach out to your CrowdStrike representative or Technical Support.

We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this. I encourage everyone to remain vigilant and ensure that you're engaging with official CrowdStrike representatives. Our blog and technical support will continue to be the official channels for the latest updates.

Nothing is more important to me than the trust and confidence that our customers and partners have put into CrowdStrike. As we resolve this incident, you have my commitment to provide full transparency on how this occurred and steps we're taking to prevent anything like this from happening again.

The queries utilized by the dashboards are listed at the bottom of the appropriate dashboard manuals.

If hosts are still crashing and unable to stay online to receive the Channel File update, the remediation steps below can be used.

This video outlines the steps required to self-remediate impacted remote Windows laptops. Follow these instructions if directed to do so by your organization's IT department.

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Archived Version

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 12:55

A World Health Organization expert group that evaluates the safety of food additives for consumption by consumers has reaffirmed that the artificial sweetener aspartame is safe when consumed below certain daily levels.

The Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) said in a report released Thursday that people can safely consume 40 milligrams of aspartame per kilogram of body weight per day, the same level established in prior guidance from the committee. That would be the equivalent of about nine to 14 12-ounce cans of diet soda a day for an average adult.

"Our results do not indicate that occasional consumption should pose a risk to most consumers," said Francesco Branca, director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety at the WHO, during a press briefing. "We're not advising companies to withdraw products nor are we advising consumers to stop consuming altogether. We're just advising a bit of moderation."

Aspartame, which is an ingredient in brand-name artificial sweeteners including Equal and Sugar Twin, has been used in food and beverages since the 1980s. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has also consistently found that aspartame is safe and doesn't put people's health at risk.

The industry group American Beverage says the report reinforces the safety of aspartame. "People all around the world can be confident in consuming food and beverages with aspartame," Kevin Keane, interim president and CEO of American Beverage, said in a statement.

A second WHO group, which assesses whether substances might have the potential to cause cancer, also released a new report on aspartame. This group, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), says that it is a "possible carcinogen," but notes that the evidence is limited and more research is needed.

However, the IARC determination is a hazard assessment based on limited evidence linking aspartame to liver cancer. It doesn't look at how likely it is to cause cancer or how large the risk is. This is also the first time the IARC has evaluated aspartame.

"This shouldn't really be taken as a direct statement that indicates that there is a known cancer hazard from consuming aspartame," said Mary Schubauer-Berigan, acting head of the IARC Monographs program, during a WHO press briefing. "In our view, this is really more a call to the research community to try to better clarify and understand the carcinogenic hazard that may or may not be posed by aspartame consumption."

Experts say people should instead focus on the JECFA recommendations regarding safe consumption levels when they're making decisions about their diet.

"I will concentrate on looking at what JECFA for recommends, what they will consider as a safe level, and go with that," says toxicologist and risk assessment expert Samuel Cohen, a professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "It's always the quantity that makes the poison."

The FDA said in a statement that it disagrees with the IARC decision that research supports classifying aspartame as a possible carcinogen. "FDA scientists do not have safety concerns when aspartame is used under the approved conditions," an FDA official said in a statement.

Both the IARC and JECFA reports were published in summary form Thursday, and the full reports will be available in about six months.

The American Cancer Society welcomes the call for more research into aspartame, Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society, told ABC News. "As data evolves, I do think people should be aware that recommendations could change," he said.

For now, people should use the new reports as an opportunity to evaluate their dietary choices overall, Dr. Dahut added, for sweeteners generally and also for other foods that have stronger links to cancer, like processed meats and alcohol.

Even with Thursday's guidance, people who are consuming close to the recommended safe levels of aspartame might want to cut back, the WHO's Francesco Branca said. "If you're approaching the limit, why take that risk?" he said.

Additionally, just because aspartame is considered safe doesn't mean it's the healthiest choice. In May, the WHO said that people should not replace sugar with artificial sweeteners if they're trying to lose weight or improve other areas of their health. Instead, they should cut back on sweetened foods in general.

"If consumers are faced with the decision of whether to drink cola with sweeteners, or one with sugar, I think there should be a third option considered," Branca said. "Which is to drink water instead."

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Archived Version

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 21:30

Bethel Park School District can confirm that the alleged shooter in the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt on former President

Donald J. Trump is a graduate of Bethel Park High School, the Class of 2022.

The school district wishes to express its sincere wishes for a speedy and complete recovery for Mr. Trump and those in attendance at the Saturday event who may have been physically harmed or emotionally impacted by these tragic events. We offer special condolences to the family of Mr. Corey Comperatore, who was killed. Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this difficult time.

Our school district will cooperate fully with the active law enforcement investigation surrounding this case, and as such, we are limited in what we can publicly disclose.

Moving forward, we will work closely with law enforcement investigators and share information as appropriate regarding school district policies, the active investigation, and law enforcement protocols.

Otherwise, we would direct all media inquiries to those handling the investigation for more information.

CORRECTING THE RECORD:

The school district will occasionally use this space to clarify any common misconceptions that may exist about this incident.

(07-20-24)

Rifle Team Involvement: It has been reported that the shooter was a member of the Bethel Park High School rifle team or tried out for it but was dismissed due to poor performance or because the coach had character concerns. The assailant was never a member of the school's rifle team and we have no record of him trying out. The coach does not recall meeting him. However, it is possible that the shooter informally attended a practice, took a shot, and never returned. We don't have any record of that happening.

Threats of Violence:There is a false claim that the shooter once threatened violence against the school. In 2019, there was an unfortunate incident involving threats made by a different student against specific school administrators. That incident was thoroughly investigated and quickly addressed, and the student involved received appropriate discipline. It had no connection whatsoever to the would be assassin.

Bullying:There is a painful misconception that one of our students was relentlessly bullied in school, which may have led to the assassination attempt on former President Trump. The school district maintains detailed records, including academic performance, attendance, disciplinary history, and health records. According to our records, the shooter excelled academically, regularly attended school, and had no disciplinary incidents, including those related to bullying or threats.

The assailant was known as a quiet, bright young man who generally got along with his teachers and classmates.

Since graduating in 2022, the shooter earned an associate's degree in engineering science from the Community College of Allegheny County and worked as a dietary aide at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. It would be wildly irresponsible for us to speculate on his state of mind in the two years since we last saw the failed assassin.

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Archived Version

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 20:51

A cell phone associated with the home and work addresses of would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks visited the Gallery Place building in Washington, D.C., that houses a mall and offices of the FBI, the Heritage Oversight Project reported July 22.

The Oversight Project, part of the Heritage Foundation, began a geo-location investigation hours after the July 13 attempted assassination of former President Donald J. Trump at a fairground in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Crooks, 20, was killed by a Secret Service counter-sniper after opening fire on Trump and the crowd just after 6:11 p.m. ET. Only a perfectly timed turn of his head kept Trump from being killed instantly by a rifle round fired from about 130 yards away, experts said.

The shooting took the life of retired fire chief Corey Comperatore of Sarver, Pennsylvania, and seriously wounded David Dutch of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, and James Copenhaver of Moon Township, Pennsylvania.

''We began this investigation on the night of the shooting,'' an Oversight Project spokesman told Blaze News. ''We've been working 24/7 since then.''

Oversight Project leaders said they hope other experts in the fields of geo-location searches and criminal investigations will step forward to assist with their probe. The investigation was begun out of concern that the work of the FBI, Secret Service, and other federal law enforcement won't be transparent or thorough.

Washington, D.C., 'is the only town in America that you can be so bad at your job that you actually get a promotion or don't get fired.'

Investigators used Crooks' home and work addresses to find cell phones that were common to both addresses, then triangulated each phone's paths of travel. They used commercially available phone-identification numbers that are normally used to tailor advertising to the phone's user.

According to Oversight investigators, a phone associated with Crooks' work address at a nursing home in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, traveled to the Gallery Place complex in downtown Washington, D.C., on June 26, 2023. The phone ''pinged'' seven or eight times from that location the same day.

Gallery Place '-- an 11-story mixed-use building constructed over the Chinatown Metro station '-- is filled with retail stores and restaurants but also houses offices of the FBI on the upper floors, former FBI Special Agent Kyle Seraphin told Blaze News.

"It is the closest [location] off-site that I'm aware of to the Washington Field Office," Seraphin said. "Agents are assigned to Washington Field, but they work out of Gallery Place."

Investigators at the Oversight Project said the phone associated with that ID number most likely belonged to someone who visited Crooks at his place of work. They said they don't believe it was Crooks' phone.

Geo-location technology uses a unique ID assigned to each cell phone and searches for common places where the phone and its user travel.

''Every device has an ad ID. It's kind of like a Social Security number for your cell phone,'' said a spokesman for the Oversight Project. ''It's unique and it identifies the phone. You can't erase it. You can refresh and get a new one, but you only have one ID per phone.''

Investigators said they found at least nine devices associated with Crooks' home and work addresses in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. They believe at least two of those phones belonged to Crooks himself. A cell phone was found under Crooks' body after he was killed by a counter-sniper July 13.

Based on geo-location data, investigators found a device associated with Crooks that traveled twice from Bethel Park just south of Pittsburgh to Butler, about 55 miles north of Crooks' home. Those trips took place on July 4 and July 8, 2024, the Oversight Project reported. That phone ceased all activity on July 12.

The device also stopped at a Home Depot in Butler, they said. A report from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Crooks purchased a 5.5-foot double ladder at a Home Depot just after 9:30 a.m. on the day of the shooting. Investigators do not believe Crooks used the ladder to access the roof just north of the fairground.

'Maybe when the president wakes up from his nap, he can fire you.'

Investigators theorized that Crooks made trips to surveil the Butler site in advance of the July 13 Trump rally at the Butler Farm Show Inc. fairgrounds.

Another device associated with Crooks took a flight from Pittsburgh to Logan International Airport in Boston on March 1, then went to a hotel in Plymouth Harbor, Mass. The device returned to Pittsburgh on March 4.

A phone device linked to Crooks visited the Allegheny Arms & Gun Works in Bethel Park on Aug. 30, 2023, the report said.

The devices linked to Crooks' home and work addresses also visited various spots in Bethel Park, including the YMCA, a building that houses a karate school and a laundromat, a garden center, a golf course, and a Planet Fitness, the report said.

''We are willing to cooperate with legitimate investigations and share further information,'' Oversight Project Director Mike Howell wrote on X.

''For the protection of whistleblowers and our investigation, we will not be sharing further information with the congressional task force due to the connective tissue between that entity and FBI, USSS and other entities,'' Howell wrote.

The Oversight Project report will undoubtedly add fuel to an already raging public debate about how a 20-year-old man with little known firearms experience could access the AGR manufacturing complex north of the fairground, climb onto a roof with a perfect line of sight to the podium, and squeeze off a half-dozen or more rifle rounds at a former president before being killed.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) grew so frustrated questioning Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle at a July 22 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability that she snapped, "You're full of s**t."Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images

The frustration at the lack of details coming from the FBI and the Secret Service led to a collective venting of spleens by members of the U.S. House of Representatives at Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle during a July 22 hearing on Capitol Hill.

Cheatle, appointed in September 2022 by President Joe Biden, spent most of the more than four-hour hearing deflecting, deferring to the FBI, or saying she simply didn't have answers. Both Democrats and Republicans fired barbed questions at her. Many of the committee members demanded that Cheatle resign.

Tempers boiled over at several points in the hearing. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), after not getting answers she wanted from Cheatle, told the Secret Service director, ''You're full of s**t.''

Under questioning by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Cheatle acknowledged that she knew how many shell casings were found near Crooks on the roof of Building 6 but would not share the figure with Congress. Cheatle on numerous occasions told committee members they needed to ask the FBI for those answers.

"I find this rather maddening," Boebert said, "especially knowing that you do have answers from the FBI, who you have been passing the buck to this entire hearing, not answering a congressional hearing, members of Congress, while you are under oath and under a subpoena."

Rep. Russell Fry (R-S.C.) said Washington, D.C., is "the only town in America that you can be so bad at your job that you actually get a promotion or don't get fired."

After listing a litany of questions Cheatle did not answer, Fry said: "I echo the bipartisan calls of this committee and all across this country that you should resign, or maybe when the president wakes up from his nap, he can fire you."

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Archived Version

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 20:04

It's actually happening, and the more the minutes pass, the more I am able to discern how the alchemists are thinking. How they think, period, and certainly how they're thinking now.

We (non occult) think: Who '' is '' Kamala Harris? What qualifications does she

'' have ?''

They, by contrast, know that none of that matters'--they are masters of transformation and metamorphosis. They don't need any starting material to have any particular qualities.

For example, 1983/84: A blob of unremarkable proteins from the blood of ailing gay men in France was transformed into the most famous ''virus'' in the world, called ''HIV.'' They learned to make ''viruses'' that did not exist, sigils for extinction, and domination on the road to the New World Order.

The way the transformation happened in that case, was the swipe of Robert Gallo's pen, striking out his lab assistant's conclusions (about the sample that had been sent from the Pasteur Institute) and replacing them with the reverse conclusion.

Similarly, Kamala Harris can, before your eyes, be transformed into a heroic, beloved, sensational candidate, young, ''energetic,'' progressive and woke, while Joe Biden is (in the same transformation sequence) transformed into a hero on par with George Washington, for stepping aside to save the nation. (See Colbert.)

The nation, The United States, in this deranged fairy tale, will be saved by a princess, or queen, named Kamala Harris. She has no redemptive qualities, but this matters not at all, to the sorcerers. Not necessary, and in fact, an impediment. Her qualities are imbued, imposed, alchemized onto not her, but us. Just you watch to see what kind of feminist super hero branding the she be covered in.

The Beyonce Nail In The Coffin

As recently as yesterday, I was thinking: ''No w a y. Kamala Harris? That's inconceivable. They c a n't run her.''

Today I was reminded of yet another one of the sorcerers greatest secrets, which is the power of nothingness.

The multi trillion dollar AIDS cartel sprang out of nothing, (no thing,) as did the multi-multi trillion dollar Covid cartel; Our money is created out of thin air, and similarly, our ''elected leaders'' are created before our eyes in a blind flash, a single Monarch Media Tornado, and the new creation is before us. It's happening right now, with Kamala.

Enter: Beyonc(C)'--the Satanic High Priestess Who Provides The Song That Will Make It Happen

This'--the headline about Beyonc(C) giving her song ''Freedom'' to the Harris campaign'-- made me realize in an instantaneous moment of dread, that Kamala Harris actually could be deployed to ''beat'' Trump, and RFK Jr. As unfathomable as that seemed, just yesterday.

Her lack of all forms of intelligence, coherence, education, state craft etc would not matter because she would be launched as a pop culture candidate, fake-woke hip, laughing, dancing, and rousing the masses by the same dark frequencies the so-called music industry uses. All they have to do it put them together, marry them: Radical Progressive failing, detested politicians and larger than life Satanic pop culture figures.

Voil .

(The only thing is, I thought Michelle Obama was going to be the first hip hop President.)

ActBlue .

I decided to have a look at Beyonc(C)'s music video for the song ''Freedom,'' which will be the Harris campaign song. In the opening scene, the camera zooms in on a baby on a white bed, and the baby makes a devil horn sign (Masonic/Illuminati) about 20 seconds in. I lasted 1 minute 25 seconds into it. It is super next level creepy.

Beyonc(C) performing the song at Coachella .

I can easily imagine her pageantry, drums, beats, dancers, lights, etc being successfully deployed to make Candidate Harris seem like a larger than life post-post-feminist super heroine.

Here is Kamala's active use of the song, already.

Colbert oversees the Transformation Op:

''I am Kamala Harris, My Pronouns Are She And Her'...''

Have you seen these clips, of KH in the WH, overseeing Woke incantations with masks (occult symbol of transformation?) They are below:

Clip 1 here

Clip 2 here.

Clip 3 here.

Clip 4 here.

One thing I do not regret in my life is my zero-concession loathing of ''woke.''

I believe these people to be practitioners of sorcery, and to be engaged in power spells involving clothing, colors, masks, identity, names, hair, and more. (''Monarch Mind Control.'')

No further comment at the moment.

In video below, we understand why Jon Stewart punched up Joe Biden, as it was a prelude to this:

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Archived Version

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 20:01

(RNS) '-- Catholics are becoming some of Christian nationalism's most muscular champions.

Most prominently, Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance is a recent Catholic convert tied to Catholic integralism, an ideology that seeks Christian influence over society. As RNS' Jack Jenkins has reported, although integralism differs from Christian nationalism on some points, it ''shares many of the same policy goals as popular forms of Christian nationalism,'' mainly for the government and its policies to be heavily influenced by Christian values. Vance's recent elevation to the VP slot means this distinctively Catholic brand of Christian nationalism will have a larger platform than ever before.

Meanwhile, the Christian nationalist policy blueprint Project 2025 is making waves as Americans learn more about its contents. Less attention has been paid to the man behind Project 2025, Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts. Roberts is a proud ''cowboy Catholic'' who believes a ''second American Revolution'' is underway, which ''will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.'' He made this comment as a guest on ''The War Room,'' a show hosted by the far-right strategist and Catholic Stephen K. Bannon, who recently reported to prison for contempt of Congress. Bannon is a ''proud Christian nationalist,'' and ''The War Room'' is fashioned as a virtual ''military headquarters'' for Bannon's ''Army of the Awakened.'' Though Bannon describes being raised in a relatively conventional ''blue-collar, Irish Catholic'' family, later in life he turned toward an apocalyptic and conservative strain of the faith.

Earlier this summer, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative Catholic who wrote the majority opinion in the 2022 case that overturned Roe v. Wade, came under fire when it was discovered that his wife had flown both an upside-down American flag and an ''Appeal to Heaven'' flag outside their homes in recent years. Both flags, and especially the latter, were immediately recognized as symbols of support for former President Donald Trump. Both flags were carried by Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. The Appeal to Heaven flag, originally used in the Revolution's resistance to the British, resurfaced in recent years as a symbol of the movement to expand Christian influence in American government.

Shortly after, Alito was recorded by an activist posing as a fellow Catholic agreeing with the statement that ''people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that '-- to return our country to a place of Godliness.'' This confluence of revelations has led to increased scrutiny of the religious views of the six conservative justices on the court, all of whom are either practicing Catholics or were raised in the Catholic Church.

Kansas City Chiefs' kicker Harrison Butker delivers the Benedictine College commencement address on May 11, 2024, in Atchison, Kan. (Video screen grab)

Outside of formal politics, a controversial late May commencement speech by professional football player Harrison Butker drew attention to the Trad Cath (Traditionalist Catholic) world in which misogynistic and homophobic views like his have found a rapt following. Trad Caths are not just politically conservative. As Lauren Horn Griffin, assistant professor of philosophy and religious studies at Louisiana State University, wrote at Religion Dispatches, ''Trad Caths use Latin, Crusader imagery, and Catholic material culture to manufacture ideas of a once-great White Western civilization currently under threat.'' In other words, they have developed a distinctively Catholic version of the Christian nationalist narrative.

The prominence of these Catholic Christian nationalists may come as a surprise to those who associate Christian nationalism with white evangelical Protestantism. And rightfully so. While two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants nationally support Christian nationalism, according to PRRI's American Values Atlas, only 30% of white Catholics do. And of these, only 8% of white Catholics are considered Christian nationalism ''adherents'' (who express the greatest support for Christian nationalist ideas) compared to 30% of white evangelical Protestants.

To put these figures into perspective, white evangelical Protestants have the highest level of support for Christian nationalism among all religious groups, while white Catholics fall somewhere in the middle of the pack. But this should not suggest Catholics are necessarily moderate where Christian nationalism is concerned; rather, they are polarized, as they are on many other issues.

Though the Catholic Church has long been evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, the conservative wing of the Catholic Church has been expanding in the U.S. An April Pew report shows that ''the GOP now has a modest advantage among Catholics,'' and among white Catholics, 60% identify as Republicans. While young liberals are leaving organized religion in high numbers, the Trad Cath movement is attracting a new generation of young conservatives. And new Catholic priests are almost exclusively drawn from the Church's conservative ranks, with more than 80% of those ordained since 2020 describing themselves as ''theologically 'conservative/orthodox' or 'very conservative/orthodox.'''

But the emergence of a Catholic brand of Christian Nationalism does not just reflect the church's rightward turn. It is also the product of much longer process through which Catholics were gradually folded into the ''Christian'' majority in America. This had not always been the case. Before Catholics were part of the Christian in-group, they had been prime villains in the Christian nationalist narrative, alongside Jewish and Black Americans, communists and the government elites who aided and abetted these enemies of the white Christian nation. When the Ku Klux Klan marched during the 1920s under banners declaring ''America First: One God, One Country, One Flag,'' they were referring exclusively to the God of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the sole group they considered ''One Hundred Percent American.'' Catholics were not only considered ethnic outsiders (due to their Italian and Irish origins); their allegiance to a foreign pope was also considered suspicious and threatening. Think of the Islamophobia facing Muslims in America today: This was generally how American Catholics were treated during the early 20th century.

But long before most Americans were using the term ''Christian nationalism'' to describe those who sought Christian dominion in American politics, conservative Catholics had been organizing to exert influence on law and society, with a particular focus on issues like abortion. It was this issue, in part, that brought conservative Catholics into a strategic alignment with white evangelical Protestants, paving the way for the formation of an ecumenical Christian right in the 1970s.

It was through this partnership that lingering Protestant biases against Catholics also faded, and Catholics were finally folded fully into the category of American ''Christians.'' This process had been in motion since the Cold War, when the country's so-called ''Judeo-Christian'' heritage was viewed as a ballast against atheist Communism. Once the external threat of Communism faded, that same ''Judeo-Christian'' heritage was invoked by conservative Protestants and Catholics alike to rebut domestic efforts to secularize the country. By the 1980s, the process was complete '-- American Catholics were now ''Christians,'' and thus stood to benefit from the idea that America was a Christian nation.

Ruth Braunstein. (Courtesy photo)

American Catholics are politically diverse and do not speak in one voice where Christian nationalism is concerned. But the conservative wing of the Catholic Church appears to be producing a powerful cohort of elite Catholic Christian nationalists who, if Donald Trump wins in November, will be at the very epicenter of American power. It is worth considering how their distinctive history, theology and institutions will shape their vision of how to exert Christian dominion over American society.

(Ruth Braunstein is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut and the director of the Meanings of Democracy Lab. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 20:00

Following President Joe Biden's announcement that he will no longer seek re-election in November, the 2024 presidential race juxtaposes two very different versions of Christianity: Donald Trump brandishes a performative rendition of the Christian faith as a political prop to advance authoritarian theocracy, while Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Biden has endorsed to take his place as the Democratic nominee, practices the Christian faith she was raised in, while embracing her interfaith family.

In doing so, Harris embodies our nation's founding ideal of religious freedom and models a Christian commitment to religious pluralism.

Although he has reportedly mocked his conservative Christian leaders behind their backs, was not active in church before running for president and says he's never asked God for forgiveness, Trump has manufactured mass far-right devotion among his base through moves like overturning Roe v. Wade. Surviving an assassination attempt will only heighten MAGA zealotry, as we saw with the surge of Christian nationalist narrative claiming Trump survived only by the will of God.

Harris roots her personal Christian faith in the prophetic tradition of the Black Church.

Harris grew up attending 23rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland. ''I was raised to live my faith,'' she said at the National Baptist Convention, USA, Annual Meeting in 2022. ''Marching for civil rights, my parents pushed me in a stroller. That was faith in action.'' I've witnessed her put her faith in action on the national stage. Four days after Biden picked her to be his running mate in 2020, I was invited by the Biden-Harris campaign to attend a meeting between her and national faith leaders. We heard directly from the Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, her pastor at Third Baptist Church in San Francisco. It was clear from the very beginning of her national political career that she would not shy away from talking about her Baptist convictions. Harris once served as Rev. Brown's campaign manager when he ran for re-election to the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco. ''She is an encourager; she encourages all people regardless of their social station in life,'' Rev. Brown shared with Baptist news outlet Word&Way. ''She is a role model for womanhood, and just human decency and dignity at its best.''

Harris roots her personal Christian faith in the prophetic tradition of the Black Church. ''Just think, after slavery was outlawed in our country, the founders of this very convention came together to protect the freedom of worship,'' she said at the National Baptist Convention. ''As Black people in our nation battled racist laws and ideologies, men and women of the cloth were the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement in America. And they, then, following the teachings of Christ, built coalitions of people of all faiths and races and walks of life, because they understood and knew the importance of the collective.''

''I can trace my belief in the importance of public service back to learning the parable of the good Samaritan and other biblical teachings about looking out for our neighbors,'' she said in a Religion News Service interview in 2020.

''Ever since I was a girl, church has not only been a place where I draw strength, it's been a place for reflection, a place to study the teachings of the Lord and to feel grounded in a complex world,'' she told RNS. ''Church still plays that role for me. And I also draw something else from it as well: a sense of community and belonging where we can build lasting relationships and be there for one another in times of need.''

Harris grew up in an interfaith family and chose to form an interfaith family as an adult. Her mother, an immigrant from India, took her to visit Hindu temples growing up. Harris has said this teaches her ''to see that all faiths teach us to pursue justice.'' If elected, Harris' husband Douglas Emhoff wouldn't just be the first person to hold the title of first gentleman. He'd also the first Jewish spouse of a president.

''From all of these traditions and teachings, I've learned that faith is not only something we express in church and prayerful reflection, but also in the way we live our lives, do our work and pursue our respective callings,'' Harris said about the Hindu and Jewish influences in her life.

Emhoff has also been a leader in the Biden-Harris administration at fostering interfaith dialogue and collaboration. I heard him speak at an interfaith iftar at the U.S. Institute of Peace in 2022 during Ramadan. Harris and Emhoff hosted an Eid al-Adha celebration in 2023, the first Eid celebration at the vice president's residence.

One of the most exciting aspects of Harris' potential candidacy is that she doesn't shy away from making the religious case for abortion rights, meeting head on Trump's alliance of Christian nationalist groups pushing to outlaw abortion on so-called religious claims.

Harris spoke on this matter at the National Baptist Convention:

''As extremists work to take away the freedom of women to make decisions about their own bodies, faith leaders are taking a stand, knowing one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held religious beliefs to agree that a woman should have the ability to make decisions about her own body and not have her government tell her what to do. And she will choose, in consultation with her pastor or her priest, or a doctor and her loved ones. But the government should not be making that decision.''

Harris' boldness is representative, as most Christians in the United States support abortion rights.

In 2021, Rev. Lauren Jones Mayfield was invited to the White House to participate in a roundtable discussion on reproductive health care with Harris. ''Harris honored my religious voice as I intended for her to hear it, a deep valuing of American religious liberty and reproductive freedoms,'' Jones Mayfield told me. ''The vice president made clear her own support for reproductive health for all Americans alongside her ongoing commitments to religious liberty. For those of us who engage in reproductive rights activism of our faith, not in spite of it, Harris honored our collective, clerical voice that celebrates the American right for a patient to choose their best course of medical treatment with their doctor, family and faith leader if it's so desired.''

Rooted in the Black Church tradition, deeply informed and inspired by her interfaith family, and a trailblazer for reproductive freedom, Kamala Harris' Christian faith is the antithesis of Donald Trump's Christian nationalism, in which the Christian faith is wielded as a tool to oppress, exclude and limit basic rights of people who believe or pray differently.

If elected president, she would make history on multiple fronts: the first female president, the second Black president, and the first president of South Asian descent. She'll also be a role model for confidently living out your faith in public while respecting others' religious values.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons is a religion contributor and the author of "Just Faith: Reclaiming Progressive Christianity."

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:27

A coalition of former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley voters pledged their support for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential bid on Sunday, hours after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race.

Biden announced on Sunday afternoon in a letter that he will not be seeking a second term in this year's presidential election and threw his support behind Harris. The president's decision follows weeks of mounting pressure from people within his own party and from key Democratic donors urging him to step aside for the sake of the party's future after a disastrous debate performance last month against former President Donald Trump.

The political action committee (PAC), previously known as Haley Voters for Biden, which now features Harris' name, seeks to amplify the voices of former Haley voters in support of Harris' White House bid.

It is not affiliated with the Stand For America or Nikki Haley for President PACs. On Monday morning, the group posted on X clarifying this, writing "Just to clarify, we are not the Nikki Haley affiliated PAC. That was Stand for America."

They added, "We did spend $1 million supporting Haley and rallied thousands of voters across the political spectrum to vote for her because she was best for our country. And now we support @KamalaHarris."

Craig Snyder, the group's director, told Newsweek in an email on Sunday afternoon that the organization believes Harris "is best suited to defeat Donald Trump in November."

"A tough former prosecutor, the Vice President comes from the centrist wing of the Democratic Party, not it's left most fringe...For Haley voters, all of this puts the Vice President in a sweet spot for them to register their ongoing opposition to [former] President Trump," he said.

Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador running for the GOP ticket, ended her campaign in March following losses on Super Tuesday in competition with Trump who is the Republican Party's presidential nominee. Overall, Haley, who served in Trump's administration, won more than 2 million votes nationally on Super Tuesday. She also polled well among moderates and college-educated voters who don't support Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) agenda.

Last week, Haley spoke at the Republican National Convention (RNC), where she criticized the Biden administration and specifically called out Harris, saying, "Kamala had one job...one job...and that was to fix the border. Now imagine her in charge of the entire country."

Haley, meanwhile, has endorsed Trump's candidacy.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on July 17 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A coalition of former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley voters pledged their support for Harris' presidential bid on Sunday, hours after President Joe Biden... Vice President Kamala Harris speaks on July 17 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A coalition of former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley voters pledged their support for Harris' presidential bid on Sunday, hours after President Joe Biden announced that he was dropping out of the race. Chris duMond/Getty ImagesSnyder told Newsweek that Haley's "disparaging comments" were "motivated by political rather than substantive concerns, and we are certain that those comments will not be a decisive factor in the ultimate voting decision of the Haley voters whose extraordinary act in the primaries of protest against Donald Trump as the leader of the Republican Party means they are going to give the Democratic nominee at the very least serious consideration in November."

Haley has not released a statement on Biden stepping down or his endorsement of Harris as of late Sunday afternoon.

Newsweek reached out to Haley for comment via her former presidential campaign email on Sunday.

The PAC quickly shared Biden's endorsement of Harris on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: "We support @JoeBiden's recommendation and will immediately change the name of our organization to Haley Voters for Harris. There is no time to lose."

The organization has already changed its name on its social media accounts, but its website still reflects Biden's name.

Democrats will have to choose a new nominee by August 7 or face being kept off the ballot in Ohio. The nominee will then accept the party's nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which takes from August 19 to 22.

In its X post, the Haley Voters for Harris PAC advised the vice president to "select a moderate VP" and suggested three governors: Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. It is not known who will run alongside Harris.

All three governors posted statements applauding Biden's legacy and their gratitude toward him shortly after his announcement. Beshear wrote on X that "while his decision today could not have been easy, it is in the best interest of our country, and our party."

In another social media post, the PAC expressed support for Harris: "We welcome @KamalaHarris taking the torch that @JoeBiden passed to her."

Updated 07/22/24, 2:33 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.

Uncommon KnowledgeNewsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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See how they just move people around and keep control.

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🚨🚨🚨Did you know that the President of CrowdStrike Services and the Chief Security Officer served as the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI under the Obama-Biden administration? 🚨🚨🚨Weird how the CrowdStrike @CrowdStrike global outage happened during President Trump's'... pic.twitter.com/fklzj4DWMi

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 19:15

It is getting hot. Depending on where you are in the world, it could be as high as 100 degrees Fahrenheit '-- the same temperature it got to in New York City in 1911.

These historic photographs held by the Library of Congress show how people dealt with the deadly heatwave that hit the Northeastern United States over 100 years ago.

The intense heat lasted for 12 days '-- from July 3 to July 15 '-- with some estimates putting the death toll as high as 2,000 people.

Nighttime gave no respite with the temperature remaining at an oppressive 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).

The intense heat caused widespread health issues, exacerbating conditions like heart problems and respiratory diseases. The lack of modern air conditioning and other cooling methods made the situation worse, particularly for the elderly and those in poor health.

People flocked to parks, rivers, and public fountains seeking relief from the heat. It gave photographers an opportunity for unusual pictures.

The relentless Sun melted the city's asphalt streets. Horses, which were the primary mode of transportation at the time, collapsed from exhaustion and heatstroke with animal welfare groups trying to provide water for them.

The heatwave disrupted daily routines and business operations. Factories had to adjust their hours, and the ice supply '-- essential for preserving food and keeping cool '-- ran dangerously low. The city's poor suffered the most, as tenement buildings turned into suffocating ovens with little to no ventilation.

Some tried to escape to Coney Island. A newspaper cutting highlighting the heatwave.''Everyone who could get out of the city, as far away as possible from the pavements, which in the morning shone white, but in the heat of midday succumbed to the attacks of the Sun and looked like nothing as much as rivulets of melted tar,'' wrote the New York Tribune at the time.

People gathered around thermometers so they could actually watch the mercury rising. There were reports of pedestrians collapsing in these crowds as it got hotter and hotter.

Many people died by drowning as some jumped into the water to escape the heat. Sleeping indoors became intolerable and in Massachusetts, at least 5,000 people slept on Boston Common.

One elderly man in Boston named Jacob Seegar killed himself with a revolver as he became overwhelmed in the heat.

The death toll continued to rise until a sudden thunderstorm brought a wave of relief, soon after which temperatures returned to their normal levels.

Image credits: Library of Congress.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 16:52

Image source, @navalny Image caption, It is the second time Mr Navalany has had dye thrown on him this year

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been taken to hospital after an antiseptic green dye was splashed on his face in Moscow.

It is the second time he has been attacked with zelyonka ("brilliant green" in English) this year.

The dye is a common antiseptic in Russia and has been used in protests there and in Ukraine.

"It looks funny but it hurts like hell," Mr Navalny tweeted.

It is not clear who carried out the attack, which happened near the offices of the Anti-Corruption Fund (FBK) that he founded.

According to one report , external (in Russian) he was diagnosed with a chemical burn to the eye.

Mr Navalny is one of the foremost Russian critics of President Vladimir Putin and has announced his intention to run for president himself.

But his intentions may be thwarted - he has been convicted of embezzlement, which would bar him from running for office, although he denies it.

A new weapon of choice - Vitaliy Shevchenko, BBC Monitoring

A mild antiseptic known as "brilliant green" has recently become a weapon of choice against government critics in Russia.

Media caption, Footage from March appears to show Mr Navalny being attacked with a green liquid

Mr Navalny has been doused with it twice this year. One of Russia's most popular bloggers, Ilya Varlamov, had it thrown at him twice on the same day on 26 April. And pro-Western politician Mikhail Kasyanov had it splashed in his face at a rally commemorating murdered opposition activist Boris Nemtsov.

So why brilliant green? It stains the skin and is hard to wash off, which can be a problem if you want to take the media spotlight. Also, it doesn't do any lasting damage, which means attackers will not be facing charges of grave bodily harm.

But the attackers don't always have the last laugh. When Mr Navalny was last doused he turned his green face into an internet meme and was imitated by his supporters.

Mr Navalny was among 500 people arrested after organising an anti-corruption rally last month. Rallies across the country were the biggest opposition demonstrations in Russia in several years.

He has said repeatedly that he wants to challenge Vladimir Putin's control of the Kremlin and expose what he claims is the "myth" that Mr Putin commands more than 80% popular support.

Meanwhile a separate opposition group, Open Russia, says its office has been raided by police, a day after the group was blacklisted by the authorities.

Activists said more than 20 riot police raided the office and removed computer equipment and 100,000 flyers for an unsanctioned rally planned for this weekend.

Open Russia was founded by former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who lives in exile after spending 10 years in a Siberian prison on fraud charges, which he says were politically motivated.

Around the BBC

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 16:44

Since Kamala Harris announced plans to land the Democratic Party nomination on Sunday, fans have been wondering if Taylor Swift will be endorsing the former senator for president.

Joe Biden was the presumptive Democratic candidate in November's general election, after winning enough delegate votes in the presidential primaries. However, the president said he was dropping out of the race on Sunday, following calls from public figures and key Democrats expressing concerns about the 81-year-old's age and cognitive fitness.

Vice President Harris later confirmed she planned to "earn and win" the nomination, with Biden's support. As Swift threw her support behind Joe Biden and Harris in the 2020 election, fans are expecting the pop star to back Harris in her bid for president.

Left: Taylor Swift attends the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. Right: Kamala Harris attends a conversation at 92nd Street Y on January 11,... Left: Taylor Swift attends the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 7, 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. Right: Kamala Harris attends a conversation at 92nd Street Y on January 11, 2019 in New York City. The pop star endorsed the Democrat in the 2020 election. Amy Sussman/Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images EntertainmentWith a devoted fan base, it has been said that the 34-year-old singer could sway the general election result.

In January, poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies on behalf of Newsweek found that 18 percent of 1,500 voters were "more likely" or "significantly more likely" to vote for a candidate endorsed by Swift, with 45 percent of all respondents fans of the music icon.

Newsweek has reached out to a representative for Taylor Swift for comment via email.

Is Taylor Swift Endorsing Kamala Harris in the 2024 Election?Although Swift has not said whom she'll be voting for in November, the "Anti-Hero" singer endorsed Biden and Harris in the 2020 election.

Swift posted a photo of herself holding a plate of cookies to Instagram, with the sweet treats reading "Biden-Harris 2020" in icing.

The photo coincided with the release of her V Magazine cover interview, in which Swift confirmed she would be voting for Biden and Harris.

"So apt that (the cover has) come out on the night of the VP debate," she wrote on Instagram. "Gonna be watching and supporting @kamalaharris by yelling at the tv a lot."

The post was the first time the Grammy winner had publicly endorsed a presidential candidate. In the V Magazine interview, Swift said Biden and Harris gave America the "chance to start the healing process it so desperately needs."

"The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included," Swift said.

After Harris announced her presidential run on Sunday, a "Swifties for Harris" account was launched on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.

The fan account describes itself as a "Coalition of Swifties ready to mobilize Taylor Swift fans to help get Democratic candidates elected up & down the ballot!"

Although not affiliated with Swift, the account hopes to "to draw the singer's attention."

Uncommon KnowledgeNewsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 14:50

T he announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris will seek the Democratic nomination for President is inspiring a wave of false claims about her eligibility and her background. Some first emerged years ago, while others only surfaced after President Joe Biden's decision to end his bid for a second term.

Here's a look at the facts.

CLAIM:Harris is not an American citizen and therefore cannot serve as commander in chief.

THE FACTS:Completely false. Harris is a natural born U.S. citizen. She was born on Oct. 20, 1964, in Oakland, California, according to a copy of her birth certificate, obtained by the Associated Press.

Her mother, a cancer researcher from India, and her father, an economist from Jamaica, met as graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley.

Under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, anyone born on U.S. soil is considered a natural born U.S. citizen and eligible to serve as either the Vice President or President.

''All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,'' reads the amendment.

There is no question or legitimate debate about whether a citizen like Harris is eligible to serve as President or Vice President, said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School.

''So many legal questions are really nuanced'--this isn't one of those situations,'' Levinson told the AP on Monday.

Still, social media posts making the debunked assertion that Harris cannot serve as President went viral soon after Biden announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the race and would back Harris for President.

''Kamala Harris is not eligible to run for President,'' read one post on X that was liked more than 34,000 times. ''Neither of her parents were natural born American citizens when she was born.''

False assertions about Harris' eligibility began circulating in 2019 when she launched her bid for the presidency. They got a boost, thanks in part to then-President Donald Trump, when Biden selected her as his running mate.

''I heard today that she doesn't meet the requirements,'' the Republican said of Harris in 2019.

CLAIM:Harris is not Black.

THE FACTS: This is false. Harris is Black and Indian. Her father, Donald Harris, is a Black man who was born in Jamaica. Shyamala Gopalan, her mother, was born in southern India. Harris has spoken publicly for many years, including in her 2019 autobiography, about how she identifies with the heritage of both her parents.

Despite ample evidence to the contrary, social media users are making erroneous claims about Harris' race.

''Just a reminder that Kamala Harris @KamalaHarris isn't black,'' reads one X post that had received approximately 42,000 likes and 20,400 shares as of Monday. ''She Indian American. She pretends to be black as part of the delusional, Democrat DEI quota.''

But Harris is both Black and Indian. Indeed, she is the first woman, Black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as Vice President. This fact is highlighted in her biography on WhiteHouse.gov and she has spoken about her ethnicity on many occasions.

Harris wrote in her autobiography, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, that she identifies with the heritage of both her mother and father.

''My mother, grandparents, aunts, and uncle instilled us with pride in our South Asian roots,'' she wrote. ''Our classical Indian names harked back to our heritage, and we were raised with a strong awareness and appreciation for Indian culture.''

In the next paragraph, she adds, ''My mother understood very well that she was raising two black daughters.'' Harris again refers to herself as a ''black woman'' in the book's next chapter.

CLAIM:Harris got her start by having an affair with a married man, California politician Willie Brown.

THE FACTS: This is missing some important context. Brown was separated from his wife during the relationship, which was not a secret.

Brown, 90, is a former mayor of San Francisco who was serving as speaker of the California State Assembly in the 1990s when he and Harris were in a relationship. Brown had separated from his wife in 1982.

''Yes, we dated. It was more than 20 years ago,'' Brown wrote in 2020 in the San Francisco Chronicle under the article title, ''Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?''

He wrote that he supported Harris' first race to be San Francisco district attorney'--just as he has supported a long list of other California politicians, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Harris, 59, was state attorney general from 2011-2017 and served in the Senate from 2017 until 2021, when she became Vice President. She has been married to Doug Emhoff since 2014.

Harris' critics have used the past relationship to question her qualifications, as Fox News personality Tomi Lahren did when she wrote on social media in 2019: ''Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown.'' Lahren later apologized for the comment.

Trump and some of his supporters have also highlighted the nearly three-decade old relationship in recent attacks on Harris.

CLAIM:An Inside Edition clip of television host Montel Williams holding hands with Harris and another woman is proof that Harris was his ''side piece.''

THE FACTS: The clip shows Montel with Harris and his daughter, Ashley Williams. Harris and Williams, a former marine who hosted ''The Montel Williams Show'' for more than a decade, dated briefly in the early 2000s.

In the clip, taken from a 2019 Inside Edition segment, Williams can be seen posing for photographs and holding hands with both women as they arrive at the 2001 Eighth Annual Race to Erase MS in Los Angeles.

But social media users are misrepresenting the clip, using it as alleged evidence that Harris was Montel's ''side piece'''--a term used to describe a person, typically a woman, who has a sexual relationship with a man in a monogamous relationship.

Williams addressed the false claims in an X post on Monday, writing in reference to the Inside Edition clip, ''as most of you know, that is my daughter to my right.'' Getty Images photos from the Los Angeles gala identify the women as Harris and Ashley Williams.

Talk show host Montel Williams, daughter Ashley Williams, and Kamala Harris, attend the Eighth Annual Race to Erase Multiple Sclerosis in Century City on May 18, 2001. Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Getty ImagesIn 2019, Williams described his relationship with Harris in a post on X, then known as Twitter.

''@KamalaHarris and I briefly dated about 20 years ago when we were both single,'' he wrote in an X post at the time. ''So what? I have great respect for Sen. Harris. I have to wonder if the same stories about her dating history would have been written if she were a male candidate?''

CLAIM:Harris promised to inflict the ''vengeance of a nation'' on Trump supporters.

THE FACTS: A fabricated quote attributed to Harris is spreading online five years after it first surfaced.

In the quote, Harris supposedly promises that if Trump is defeated in 2020, Trump supporters will be targeted by the federal government: ''Once Trump's gone and we have regained our rightful place in the White House, look out if you supported him and endorsed his actions, because we'll be coming for you next. You will feel the vengeance of a nation.''

The quote was shared again on social media this week. One post on X containing an image of the quote was shared more than 22,000 times as of Monday afternoon.

The remarks didn't come from Harris, but from a satirical article published online in August 2019. Shortly after, Trump supporters like musician Ted Nugent reposted the comments without noting they were fake.

CLAIM:A video shows Harris saying in a speech: ''Today is today. And yesterday was today yesterday. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow. So live today, so the future today will be as the past today as it is tomorrow.''

THE FACTS: Harris never said this. Footage from a 2023 rally on reproductive rights at Howard University, her alma mater, was altered to make it seem as though she did.

In the days after Harris headlined the Washington rally, Republicans mocked a real clip of her speech, with one critic dubbing her remarks a ''word salad,'' the AP reported at the time.

Harris says in the clip: ''So I think it's very important'--as you have heard from so many incredible leaders'--for us, at every moment in time, and certainly this one, to see the moment in time in which we exist and are present, and to be able to contextualize it, to understand where we exist in the history and in the moment as it relates not only to the past, but the future.''

NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights nonprofit whose president also spoke at the rally, livestreamed the original footage. It shows Harris making the ''moment in time'' remark, but not the ''today is today'' comment.

The White House's transcript of Harris' remarks also does not include the statement from the altered video. Harris' appearance at the event came the same day that Biden announced their reelection bid.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 14:42

Dear Friends, Family, and Compassionate Strangers,

Our dear friend, Elyse Garling, has recently received the devastating news that the breast cancer she won a battle with many years ago has returned.

Back in 2010, when Elyse was just 31, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After 5 years of treatments and therapies, Elyse was miraculously pronounced cancer-free. She was able to return to her life of making beautiful jewelry in Port Townsend and spending the summers fishing in Alaska where she made her living.

Receiving this last blow to her heart and body has been a tough moment for Elyse and her loved ones. However, her resilient spirit is unwavering and ready to take on this next wave of challenges, both mentally and physically. She is determined to achieve optimal health and I am calling on our community to join in any way that you can.

Elyse's generous heart...

To know Elyse, is to know that she has the biggest heart and most courageous spirit. Her connection and reverence for the natural world is reflected in the beauty of her craft, jewelry making, the vast array of delectable treats she creates from foraged nature, and her love of spending many months of the year in Alaska.

If Elyse was in town, it would not be uncommon to come home to treats on our porch such as tundra berry jam, pickles (grandma's recipe) or fresh pressed cider from her family's annual apple press party. She absolutely loves to create from nature and freely shares her unique gifts and treats with so many people.

Elyse's jewelry is stunning and celebrates her appreciation of the wildness and flow of nature. She draws inspiration from the raw edges and soft balance of all the places she's lived, including growing up as a child on the Olympic Peninsula and the stark contrast of Bristol Bay, Alaska and New York City.

Elyse has a long and hard journey ahead. The cancer and treatments have depleted her physically and financially. She was not able to carry out her normal fishing season which usually can sustain her previously cancer-free life for most of the year. Thankfully, Elyse has medical insurance, but that does not begin to cover her loss of income or the need for healthy food, alternative remedies and supplemental therapies that she requires to win this battle.

Elyse is the most diligent and committed human I have ever personally witnessed engaged in this journey. She spends countless hours researching and discovering new things about her cancer. It is truly a full time job.

With your generosity, we can give Elyse some reprieve and alleviate some of the stress and anxiety so that she can focus on achieving the hight possible outcome.

Ways You Can Help

Donate any amount that you can afford. Any contribution, small or large, will make a huge difference as we build and grow a community to support Elyse.

Share this GoFundMe on your social media channels and/or email your community and word of mouth. You never know who is out there that might connect to Elyse's story and feel called to help.

Send Elyse messages of love and support here and anywhere you can get ahold of her. Her big, open heart will be so grateful!

Shop on Elyse's website. You can support and appreciate Elyse by purchasing her previous collections of jewelry at elysegarling.com. It remains unclear when she will have the strength and time to get back to jewelry making so get them while they are available!

Stay in touch!

I will be updating the key moments of her journey here so please stay with us as we support her. Feel free to reach out to me for any questions. I look forward to sharing with you the impact of your generosity.

So much gratitude...

Elyse is incredibly grateful for the outpouring of love and support from her community. Your generosity does so much more than ease the financial strain; it provides her with the strength and hope she needs to continue with positivity.

Let's rally together and show Elyse she is not alone in this. With your support, we can help her focus on her recovery and look forward to a future of health and happiness.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 13:28

The first race of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) took place on the Yas Marina Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Formula 1 track today, and I'm pleased to report that a race both began and ended. But the event was not without strife '-- far from it. During qualifying time trials, the driverless Dallara Super Formula racers outfitted with cameras and software seemed to struggle mightily to complete a full lap.

During the trials, cars randomly juked:

Image: A2RL

Or spun:

Image: A2RL

Or turned into walls:

Image: A2RL

Or just pulled off the track to take a little break:

Image: A2RL

You get well-acquainted with the interstitial music during these highlights. All praise to the patience and grace of the announcers, who didn't sigh once that I heard. Instead, they declared things like that these cars are ''pushing the boundaries of science.''

When it came time for the actual race, the lead racer, Polimove, spun out on the fourth of eight laps. The second car, Tum, passed it safely, but shortly after that, the event's officials threw up a yellow flag. And since these are good AI drivers who obey the rules, the two behind Polimove stopped, unwilling to pass the spun-out yellow car. Racers aren't supposed to pass each other during a caution lap, you see.

About an hour after the first lap of A2RL began, the AI racers completed their eight-lap race. If you must know, Tum won.

These are early days for autonomous racing, and surely things will get better eventually '-- certainly, they've come a long way since Roborace's first full circuit in 2017. I'm looking forward to the day they're as good as human racers (if that ever happens). But for right now, we're very much still in the ''congratulate baby for successfully getting most of its food into its mouth'' phase of self-driving racers.

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In brief: ElevenLabs, the startup that made headlines earlier this year when its AI tech was used to clone President Biden's voice in a series of robocalls, has partnered with an AI detection company to fight deepfakes. It's an import move during an election year in which misinformation is proving a big problem.

In January, a 39-second robocall went out to voters in New Hampshire telling them not to vote in the Democratic primary election, but to "save their votes" for the November presidential election. The voice handing out this advice sounded almost exactly like Joe Biden. Voice-fraud detection company Pindrop Security later analyzed the call, concluding that it was created using a text-to-speech engine made by ElevenLabs, which the company confirmed. The person who created the deepfake was suspended from ElevenLabs' service.

Now, Bloomberg reports that ElevenLabs has partnered with Reality Defender, a US-based firm that offers its deepfake detection services to governments, officials and enterprises.

The partnership appears to be a mutually beneficial one. Reality Defender gets access to ElevenLabs' voice cloning data and models, allowing it to better detect fakes, while the AI firm can use Reality Defender's tools to help prevent its products from being misused. An ElevenLabs spokesperson said there was no financial element to the deal.

ElevenLabs prohibits the cloning of a person's voice without their permission. Its services are advertised as being able to bridge language gaps, restore voices to those who have lost them, and make digital interactions feel more human.

Deepfakes that are able to create incredibly realistic video and audio of real people are becoming increasingly advanced. Not only is it being used to place victims in porn, but it's increasingly being abused in the political arena '' a big concern during an election year.

The incident with Biden's voice led to the FCC's proposal to make the use of AI-generated voices in robocalls illegal under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA. The agency cited concerns that technology was being used to confuse and deceive consumers by imitating the voices of "celebrities, political candidates, and close family members."

During his State of the Union address in March, Biden called for a ban on AI voice impersonation, though the extent of the proposed ban was unclear.

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Mon, 22 Jul 2024 19:42

Last Updated on July 22, 2024

Democrat Kamala Harris has a Freemason problem. Archived records obtained by NATIONAL FILE show that Harris worked directly with a shadowy Masonic group in California through her staffer Brandon Kiel, who got arrested for his involvement in a secret Masonic police department. The Masonic police force claimed to be directly descended from the Knights Templar and it planned to operate in 33 different states besides California, according to the group's long-buried literature, which NATIONAL FILE is presenting below.Then-Kamala Harris staffer Brandon Kiel got arrested back in 2015 and he was charged with multiple counts of ''impersonating a peace office.'' Two other people got arrested, including Masonic Grand Master David Henry, aka David Inkk Henry aka David Henry X. David Henry X, who wore a top hat around, also happened to be Brandon Kiel's father-in-law.

At the time, Kiel was serving as California attorney general Kamala Harris' deputy director of community affairs. Harris' office put Kiel on leave and actually tried to distance Kamala from Kiel, saying, ''Kiel didn't interact with the AG on a regular basis.'' Kiel's charges got dropped in 2016 on the very same day that 47-year old Masonic Grandmaster David Henry died of a pulmonary embolism. The bizarre news item disappeared quickly from the media headlines (until now'...)

It's way creepier than the mainstream media made it seem. Check out the Masonic police force's own words'...

The Masonic Fraternal Police Department had a mission statement on its website, which has long since been deleted. But the Internet is a wonderful place where information can have eternal life. (THE MASONIC FRATERNAL POLICE DEPARTMENT MISSION STATEMENT IS ARCHIVED HERE FOR HISTORY).

The Masonic Fraternal Police Department's mission statement states: ''The Masonic Fraternal Police Department, (M.F.P.D.) is the Knights Templar's!'...When asked what is the difference between The Masonic Fraternal Police Department and other Police Departments the answer is simple for us. We were here first! We are born into this Organization our bloodlines go deeper than an application. This is more then a job it is an obligation.''

''The Masonic Fraternal Police Department (M.F.P.D.) is a Masonic Sovereign Jurisdiction (Municipality) located within the incorporated City of Santa Clarita, California. The Chief of Police is Honorable Grand Master David Henry 33(degree) was elected and is Governed by a Grand Supreme Council, and 33 Masonic jurisdictions. He currently oversees a 1/2 Million members throughout the United States,'' the police force's former website stated.

''The Masonic Fraternal Police Department (M.F.P.D.) provides services to Masonic Sovereign Grand Masters and their Masonic jurisdictions, as well as other Fraternities, Sororities, and Greek Organizations. Masonic Fraternal Police Department will be located in 33 other states, including Mexico City,'' the police force's former website stated.

It turns out that Kamala Harris was interacting directly with the group that formed the Masonic police force, through Brandon Kiel.

It turns out that Brandon Kiel was acting in his official capacity as a staffer for Kamala Harris when he appeared at a Masonic St. John's Day ceremony in Los Angeles in 2014. Grand Master David Henry X introduced Brandon Kiel at the event, records show. David Henry was also arrested as part of the secret Masonic police force, along with Kiel.

L.A. Watts Times recorded the event on June 19, 2014.

L.A. Watts Times wrote: ''Grand Masters and members of the Order were escorted by a motorcade to Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church. The Conference, founded by Grand Master Willie Gaulf 33° was designed to create unity among the Grand Lodges in Southern California'...R.W. Grand High Priest, Brandon Kiel serves as the Deputy Director of Community Affairs for Attorney General Kamala D. Harris. Kiel informed the audience of the Attorney General's unyielding commitment to education and the importance of each and every members obligation to ensure that every child is reading by the 3rd grade an (sic) at 3rd grade reading level, as well as having perfect attendance. Kiel provided shocking information about the staggering numbers of elementary school students who were truant in California and how the Attorney General needs their support to address this critical issue. Kiel received a large round of applause.''

Guess what else? Brandon Kiel and Grand Master David Henry X were standing right behind the LAPD sergeant who was giving a press conference during Trayvon Martin-inspired race riots in Los Angeles. How much power do the Freemasons really have in L.A.?

Freemasons have long been associated with occult rituals and manipulating the world as part of a longstanding secret society. Many people believe that Satanism, the worship of Lucifer, is tied into the mystery religions and secret society iconography that exists in the world of Freemasonry. Obviously, the pyramid on the eyeball on the back of our money raises some questions.

Kyle Undercover recently infiltrated and filmed a Freemasonic Master Mason Degree ritual (WATCH HIS VIDEO HERE). It's disturbing stuff.

It is also pretty disturbing that Kamala Harris is directly linked to a Masonic police force based on ''bloodlines'' that vowed to operate in various U.S. states plus Mexico.

With Joe Biden fading from the presidential race, NATIONAL FILE will keep you updated with all the latest revelations from our new series THE KAMALA FILES'....

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It's the end of an era at Southwest Airlines.

After more than 50 years, the airline is getting rid of its open seating policy.

In a press release Thursday, the Dallas-based airline acknowledged "preferences have evolved with more customers taking longer flights where a seat assignment is preferred." The airline hopes moving to assigned seats and revamping its boarding process will broaden Southwest's appeal to both new and existing customers, four out of five whom prefer assigned seats, according to the airline, which did not give an exact date for the switch.

Assigned seating is just one is one several major operational changes in store. Southwest also plans to introduce premium seating options on all flights and introduce red-eye flights.

"While specific cabin layout details are still in design, Southwest expects roughly one-third of seats across the fleet to offer extended legroom, in line with that offered by industry peers on narrowbody aircraft," the airline said.

Southwest already unveiled a cabin refresh earlier this year and is in the middle of upgrading its fleet with changes announced in 2022, including in-seat USB charging and stronger Wi-Fi.

Booking for the airline's new red-eye flights opened Thursday. The first overnight flights will land next Valentine's Day, in five initial nonstop markets:

Las Vegas to BaltimoreLas Vegas to OrlandoLos Angeles to BaltimoreLos Angeles to NashvillePhoenix to BaltimoreThe airline plans to eventually roll out red-eye flights to other markets and offer 24-hour operational capabilities.

Southwest said the changes are "designed to elevate the customer experience, improve financial performance, and drive shareholder value" without sacrificing operational efficiency.

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Wed, 24 Jul 2024 21:54

SAN FRANCISCO -- The impacts of human-caused climate change are so overwhelming they're actually messing with time, according to new research.

Polar ice melt caused by global warming is changing the speed of Earth's rotation and increasing the length of each day, in a trend set to accelerate over this century as humans continue to pump out planet-heating pollution, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The changes are small - a matter of milliseconds a day - but in our high-tech, hyperconnected world have an important impact on computing systems we have come to rely on, including GPS.

It's yet another sign of the huge impact humans are having on the planet. "This is a testament to the gravity of ongoing climate change," said Surendra Adhikari, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and a report author.

The number of hours, minutes and seconds making up each day on Earth are dictated by the speed of the Earth's rotation, which is influenced by a complex knot of factors. These include processes in the planet's fluid core, the ongoing impact of the melting of huge glaciers after the last ice age, as well as melting polar ice due to climate change.

For millennia, however, the impact of the moon has dominated, increasing the length of a day by a few milliseconds per century. The moon exerts a pull on Earth causing the oceans to bulge towards it, gradually slowing Earth's rotation.

Scientists have previously made connections between polar ice melt and longer days, but the new research suggests global warming is a bigger influence on time than recent studies have shown.

In the past, the impact of climate change on time "has not been so dramatic," said Benedikt Soja, a study author and assistant professor of space geodesy at the Swiss university ETH Zurich.

But that could be changing. If the world continues to pump out planet-heating pollution, "climate change could become the new dominant factor," outpacing the moon's role, he told CNN.

It works like this: As humans warm the world, glaciers and ice sheets are melting, and that meltwater is flowing from the poles toward the equator. This changes the planet's shape - flattening it at the poles and making it bulge more in the middle - slowing its rotation.

The process is often compared to a spinning ice skater. When the skater pulls their arms in towards their body, they spin faster. But if they move their arms outwards, away from their body, their spin slows.

The team of international scientists looked at a 200-year period, between 1900 and 2100, using observational data and climate models to understand how climate change has affected day length in the past and to project its role in future.

They found the impact of climate change on day length has increased significantly.

Climate change-fueled sea level rise caused the length of a day to vary between 0.3 and 1 milliseconds in the 20th century. Over the past two decades, however, the scientists calculated an increase in day length of 1.33 milliseconds per century, "significantly higher than at any time in the 20th century," according to the report.

If planet-heating pollution continues to rise, warming the oceans and accelerating ice loss in Greenland and Antarctica, the rate of change is set to soar, the report found. If the world is unable to rein in emissions, climate change could increase the length of a day by 2.62 milliseconds by the end of the century - overtaking the natural impacts of the moon.

"In barely 200 years, we will have altered the Earth's climate system so much that we are witnessing its impact on the very way Earth spins," Adhikari told CNN.

A few milliseconds of additional time a day may be imperceptible to humans but it has an impact on technology.

Precise timekeeping is vital for GPS, which everyone with a smartphone will have, as well as other communication and navigation systems. These use highly precise atomic time, based on the frequency of certain atoms.

From the late 1960s, the world started using coordinated universal time (UTC) to set time zones. UTC relies on atomic clocks but still keeps pace with the planet's rotation. That means at some point "leap seconds" need to be added or subtracted to keep alignment with the Earth's rotation.

Some studies have also suggested a correlation between an increase in day length and an increase in earthquakes, said Mostafa Kiani Shahvandi, a study author and a geoscientist at ETH Zurich. But the connection remains speculative and much more research needs to be done to establish any clear link, he told CNN.

A paper on the same topic published in March concluded that while climate change was increasingly slowing the Earth's rotation, processes in the Earth's core could be more important and actually be speeding it up, shortening day length.

"What we have done is to go a little bit further and re-estimate these trends," said Shahvandi. They found any influence from the molten core was outweighed by that of climate change.

Duncan Agnew, professor of geophysics at the University of California San Diego and author of the March study, said the new study still meshes with his research, "and is valuable because it extends the result further into the future and looks at more than one climate scenario."

Jacqueline McCleary, an assistant professor in physics at Northeastern University who was not involved in the study, said the new research helps inform "a decades-long debate over what role, exactly, climate change will play in the changing length of the day."

While there is now general agreement climate change will have a "net lengthening effect on the day," she told CNN, there has still been uncertainty about which processes affecting time will dominate this century. This study concludes climate change is now the second-most dominant factor, she said.

It's a sobering conclusion, said ETH Zurich's Soja. "We have to consider that we are now influencing Earth's orientation in space so much that we are dominating effects that have been in action for billions of years."

The-CNN-Wire & 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

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Vice President Kamala Harris made a big entrance during her first official visit to her campaign headquarters on Monday evening, walking out to Beyonc(C)'s song "Freedom."

A source close to Harris told CNN that her team got approval from Beyonc(C)'s representatives to use the song throughout her presidential campaign.

Beyonc(C), who is known for maintaining strict clearance guidelines around her music, gave quick approval to Harris' campaign when they sought permission to use "Freedom" on Monday - just hours before she walked out to the song, the source added.

While Beyonc(C) has not officially endorsed Harris in the day since President Joe Biden announced he would not seek a second term, granting her permission to use "Freedom" as a campaign song indicates that Harris has the superstar's support.

Neither the Harris campaign nor a representative for Beyonc(C) responded to CNN's requests for comment.

Beyonc(C)'s mother, Tina Knowles, endorsed Harris on Sunday, shortly after Biden's announcement.

"New, Youthful, Sharp , energy !!!!" Knowles posted on her Instagram with a photo of herself alongside Harris. "Putting personal Ego , power and fame aside . That is the definition of a great leader, . Thank you, President Biden for your service and your leadership . Go Vice President Kamala Harris for President. Let's Go"

Beyonc(C) has a history of endorsing Democratic candidates. In 2013, she sang the National Anthem at the inauguration of President Barack Obama. In 2016, Beyonc(C) and her husband Jay-Z headlined a pre-election concert for Clinton in Cleveland, Ohio, with her backup dancers dressed in blue pantsuits to honor the woman who could have been the first female president.

"I want my daughter to grow up seeing a woman lead our country and knowing that her possibilities are limitless," Beyonc(C) said at the time. "And that's why I am with her."

In 2020, Beyonc(C) endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket, posting on her Instagram to encourage her followers to vote.

"Freedom," featuring Kendrick Lamar, debuted on Beyonc(C)'s 2016 album "Lemonade." The Grammy-nominated song became an anthem in many demonstrations following the 2020 death of George Floyd.

On Monday night at her campaign headquarters, Harris walked out to the following lyrics: "Freedom, Freedom / Where are you? / 'Cause I need freedom, too / I break chains all by myself / Won't let my freedom rot in hell / Hey! I'ma keep running / 'Cause a winner don't quit on themselves."

The-CNN-Wire & 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

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Chicago names its new Citywide Spelling Bee champion

Chicago names its new Citywide Spelling Bee champion 01:45 CHICAGO (CBS) '' The winning word was a noun: "myocarditis."

A Chicago seventh grader from Bell Elementary School spelled out the word on Tuesday to secure her spot at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. She competed against dozens of other kids at the Citywide Spelling Bee Championship.

The common denominator in the auditorium at Marie Curie Metropolitan High School might have been nerves, not on the part of the kids competing, but their parents.

"I am still shaking from being so nervous each time Alex went up there," said Katie Milewski, referring to her son.

"Every time it was like, should I stay in the room or be outside and then come back when the action is over?" said Sujay Kulkarni, whose daughter was competing.

Kids like fifth grader Alex Milewski spelled their way through the Chicago Public Schools Citywide Spelling Bee Championship. They were competing for a trip to the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C.

There were few words one could use to describe the feeling.

"Exhilarated," said Alex Milewski, a Keller Regional Gifted Center student.

"Happy and exhausted," said seventh grader Nidhi Kulkarni from Bell Elementary, who took home the trophy.

"I'm going to D.C. for the national competition, so I'm really excited," she said.

But every kid who left the state found the arms of proud parents. There was no need to spell out how that felt, but they will.

"Oh, hmm. H-a-p-p-y," said Katie Milewski.

More from CBS News

In: Chicago Public Schools Spelling Bee

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On Tuesday's broadcast of MSNBC's ''The ReidOut,'' host Joy Reid said that ''DEI is actually a good thing,'' but it's racist to argue that 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris is a DEI hire.

After playing video of some Republican criticisms of Harris and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), which included statements that Harris is a DEI hire, Reid said, ''I wonder what these two women have in common. I can't put my finger on it, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.''

Later in the segment, James stated Republicans are ''running very scared, and they have nothing else other than racism and sexism. And so, when you have nothing else, unfortunately, you just appeal to the racists among us, the white nationalists among us. That's all. The reality is is that Kamala Harris '-- Vice President Harris, is qualified and oftentimes, she's underestimated, but she's an overachiever. And that's why I have wholeheartedly endorsed her. And it's unfortunate that individuals are just amplifying racism and sexism, and it's totally inappropriate, and I will not dignify it with a response.''

Reid responded, ''Indeed. And DEI is actually a good thing, whether it is DEI in its original form or duly-elected official, which you are, Madam. And you've been a very successful statewide elected official. I think people need to understand, being an Attorney General means you were elected statewide, as was Vice President Harris when she was an attorney general.''

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett

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Philadelphia International Airport got a record July snowfall yesterday while the area was experiencing excessive heat with temperatures peaking in the 90s.

PHILADELPHIA '-- The skies over Philadelphia International Airport have taken "Christmas in July" to a whole new level.

The National Weather Service announced this morning that it measured a record snowfall at the airport on Sunday, July 14'--while the area was experiencing excessive heat with temperatures peaking in the 90s.

Thunderstorms moving through the area produced small hail, which counts as a "trace" of snow in NWS's climate reports since hail is frozen precipitation.

The Weather Service says that while this phenomenon is rare, it is not unheard of. There has been a daily record snowfall during the summer months (June - August) 14 times since 1911:

July 14, 2024August 18, 2011August 1, 2011July 23, 2008July 18, 2006June 26, 1998June 9, 1993June 27, 1951August 17, 1939August 19, 1919July 13, 1919August 3, 1914July 24, 1913June 20, 1911 Here's a win for #TeamSnow. Thunderstorms passed over Philadelphia Intl. Airport Sunday afternoon and produced small...

Posted by US National Weather Service Philadelphia/Mount Holly on Sunday, July 14, 2024Download the FOX43 app here.

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If you don't think faking Biden's stammers, coughs, and unhinged cadence is doable for an AI speech program, then you haven't been paying attention to AI.

I'm not saying this is true, though plenty of others are concerned that it might have some validity.

As for Sabia's credibility, well, he makes YouTube videos about generating $400 a day through marketing hacks, so make of that what you will.

If you want to listen to the audio of "Biden" for yourself, you can find that here:

Here's the question I have:

How do you know this video itself isn't AI-generated?Seriously!

Do you know the capabilities of AI? Do you understand how its growing proficiency is exponential, not linear?

OpenAI's Sora was making videos like this back in February this year:

Not only that, but AI can now interpret the world around it. In addition to OpenAI, Google has demoed its Astra project, which can do things like this:

In addition, ex-spooks are helping to lead these initiatives and companies!With all of that in mind, how do any of us know that Matthew Sabia's video critiquing the president voice is true, let alone the audio of the president's voice?P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:54

Listeners of ''The Breakfast Club'' called into the show on Tuesday to criticize Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris over their policies they believe are ''destroying'' black Americans.

President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday and endorsed Harris to take his place atop the Democratic ticket after consistently dismal polling and doubts about his mental fitness. Back-to-back callers expressed concern about Democratic policies harming black Americans, suggesting Harris will not be a significant improvement over Biden. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Biden News Prompts Prominent Republicans At RNC To Wargame The Kamala Scenario)

WATCH:

'They're Ruining Our Country': Callers Trash Dems, Kamala Harris On Popular Hip-Hop Show pic.twitter.com/dmOHkMoVGs

'-- Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 23, 2024

''Okay, so first let me say I'm so happy to see a woman running for president and I'm grateful for that,'' a caller named Iris said. ''However, I was on the fence even with Biden running again because everyone talks about, 'Oh, let's get the black vote, let's get the black vote.' And they get the black vote and nothing changes. When I say nothing, I mean our education system. Our children are suffering in New York City public schools.''

''And let's talk about services. My brother is a paraplegic; he got hit by a drunk driver. Very hard for him to get services,'' Iris continued. ''And I understand that they allow the migrants to come in, but they come in and they just overwhelm them with services, and they forget about the people that are already here. So what's going to change with that? What are they going to do with the black agenda to help our children that are struggling in New York City public schools? They're not even on the same level as other kids in other countries, and that's what my concern is. So is something going to change because Kamala is running instead of Biden? Like help me out, we're confused here.''

The border crisis could worsen under Harris if she becomes president as her past voting record in the Senate, remarks she has made about federal immigration authorities and the moves she has made while vice president indicate a sharp move to the left, border hawks told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Monday.

''I don't think America is ready for a female president. You know what, I'm a black man and I absolutely do not want another Democratic president in there,'' a caller named Cali said. ''I think we should give the Republicans another try. There's a lot of agendas that the Democratic Party has kind of put into place that I don't support. I think they're destroying the black man, they're destroying the black family, I think they're ruining our country. If you're living in New York like I am, man, this place is a financial nightmare, not to mention crime.''

''I think if we put Trump back in there, man, it's going to be amazing. Kamala cannot do what he's going to do to bring this country back to where it needs to be,'' Cali added. ''And this is not a race thing because that's the number one thing they like to say when they talk about Trump and how he's a criminal and blah blah blah blah blah. I don't think any of that matters. His policy is what we need to focus on and he's going to get us back where we need to go. Kamala is not ready.''

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter's byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 18:32

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 16:25

Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination has been bolstered by an unexpected group of supporters: Charli XCX fans.

Excitement around the Harris campaign grew on social media after people began editing viral videos and memes fusing songs from British pop star Charli XCX's album ''Brat'' with clips of Harris throughout her career.

After Charli XCX appeared to endorse Harris on Sunday, writing ''Kamala IS Brat,'' Harris' campaign embraced the moment, reposting the show of support, using the album's signature green color and typeface in one of its social media profiles and posting ''Brat''-themed memes.

''Brat,'' which touches on womanhood, insecurity, competition, motherhood, relationships, partying and other topics, debuted June 7. Since then, social media users have declared that they are celebrating a ''brat summer,'' meaning they are embracing being earnest and unapologetically themselves.

The pairing of Harris memes with ''Brat'' fandom has surged since Sunday, when President Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the race, but the idea had been percolating for at least the last several weeks.

Abigail De Kosnik, an associate professor at the Berkeley Center for New Media at the University of California, Berkeley, said Harris is ''plugged in'' to popular culture in a way other Democratic candidates in the past haven't been. That is a refreshing change for voters who often view Democrats as ''staid,'' De Kosnik said.

The ''Brat''-Harris crossover trend was popularized by creators like University of Delaware senior Ryan Long, who went viral after he posted a mashup of the Charli XCX song ''Von Dutch'' with clips of Harris on July 3.

''I've never seen people so excited for a candidate,'' said Long, who described himself as an enthusiastic Harris supporter for years. ''People were pessimistic about Joe Biden, but there is so much enthusiasm right now over Kamala. I really hope that she can capitalize off of it and get a landslide win.''

Long said he believes the Harris memes signal that young voters embraced her as a candidate even before Biden endorsed her presidential campaign.

The ''Brat'' Harris edits have taken over TikTok, X and Instagram, sometimes paired with the hashtag ''Brat election.'' Sound bites of Harris laughing have been used in video edits, as well as her memorable quotes like ''I love Venn diagrams'' and ''You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?''

Harris, who has spawned multiple memes during her tenure as vice president, has gotten the approval of Stan Twitter, a community of various devout fandoms on X (formerly Twitter) that often mobilizes to support certain artists. Long said Harris memes have been a part of Stan Twitter for years, resurging in popularity every few months and paving the way for a quick embrace of her presidential candidacy. A clip of Harris' laugh has been edited into numerous pop songs by various fandoms and shared on X.

Representatives for Charli XCX declined to comment. A representative for Harris didn't respond to a request for comment.

'''Brat' is one of the top albums in the world, and it's been going super big online,'' Long said. ''Kamala does such a good job at embodying what people call 'Brat summer.' The way she presents herself, she's happy, laughing, she'll dance. She is like a walking content farm.''

Charli XCX previously described a brat as someone who likes to party, ''says some dumb things sometimes'' and is ''honest, blunt and a little bit volatile.'' Harris' professional image doesn't necessarily match the messy party girl ethos of ''Brat,'' but her distinct quotes and animated laughter have gotten unique attention. Some detractors have said her demeanor is bizarre, while supporters have framed the traits as endearing.

Aly McCormick, 21, was inspired by Long's ''Von Dutch'' Harris edit when she decided to make a Harris video edit of her own set to the ''Brat'' song ''360.'' McCormick posted it on TikTok, where it has been viewed more than 1.6 million times.

''Kamala brings in such hope and light, because she's having fun, and we haven't really had that in politics for a while,'' McCormick, a rising senior in political communications at George Washington University, told NBC News. ''I feel very hopeful.''

De Kosnik said the alignment of the Harris campaign with ''Brat'' casts Harris as a worthy opponent to former President Donald Trump in November. She drew a comparison between Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who co-opted Trump's insult ''nasty woman'' as a feminist retort when she ran for president in 2016. Trump has similarly tried to call Harris names, calling her ''Laughing Kamala'' at a recent rally.

''I think there's some edge to Harris being the first Black and Asian American woman candidate for president of the United States that kind of just puts her automatically in that defiant kind of oppositional space in the culture,'' De Kosnik said.

A typical ''brat girl sees Kamala and sees something of herself in Kamala,'' she added.

'''Brat' just sets Kamala Harris' campaign up for that defiant stance that says, 'We're not perfect, and you're going to call us out on everything, but we're still winning because we're honest and we're just ourselves, and we're going to take this whole thing,''' De Kosnik said.

''Brat'' isn't the only soundtrack for fan video edits of Harris. American pop musician Kesha has also remixed her laugh with the intro of the 2011 song ''Blow,'' which has been used as the audio for over 1,300 TikTok posts, including two from Kesha herself that have almost 3 million views each. Another popular track for Harris videos is the song ''Femininomenon'' by Chappell Roan, whose summer success alongside Charli XCX has defined an era of pop underdogs' rising to the top. Harris has also previously been celebrated by celebrities like Beyonc(C) and Cardi B.

But Charli XCX is in a special position in today's pop world, having toiled for over a decade before reaching an exuberant cultural peak with ''Brat'' this summer. Harris fans' adopting ''Brat'' memes may cast Harris in the same light.

De Kosnik said many so-called brats can identify with Harris because they come from marginalized communities and understand what it feels like to be discounted.

''The brat girl is sort of like the unexpected leader, the unexpected winner,'' De Kosnik said.

Kat Tenbarge Kat Tenbarge is a tech and culture reporter for NBC News.

Daysia Tolentino Daysia Tolentino is a culture and internet reporter for NBC News.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:19

MANCHESTER, N.H. '-- The New Hampshire attorney general's office says it is investigating what appears to be an "unlawful attempt" at voter suppression after NBC News reported on a robocall impersonating President Joe Biden that told recipients not to vote in Tuesday's presidential primary.

"Although the voice in the robocall sounds like the voice of President Biden, this message appears to be artificially generated based on initial indications," the attorney general's office said in a statement. "These messages appear to be an unlawful attempt to disrupt the New Hampshire Presidential Primary Election and to suppress New Hampshire voters. New Hampshire voters should disregard the content of this message entirely."

The investigation comes after a prominent New Hampshire Democrat, whose personal cellphone number showed up on the caller ID screens of those receiving the call, filed a complaint.

''What a bunch of malarkey,'' the robocall phone message begins, echoing a favorite term Biden has uttered before.

The message says that ''it's important that you save your vote for the November election.''

''Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday,'' it says.

The message concludes with a phone number belonging to Kathy Sullivan, a former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair who now runs a super PAC supporting the campaign to urge New Hampshire Democrats to write in Biden's name in the primary.

If you received this robocall or have more information on it, contact NBC News here.

Biden's name does not appear on Tuesday's ballot, a consequence of state elections officials' setting the date of the primary before South Carolina's on Feb. 3, the first sanctioned contest of the 2024 nominating race under new Democratic National Committee rules.

But local supporters launched the late write-in effort to both marshal support for Biden and send a message to the national party about New Hampshire's coveted, centurylong tradition of holding the nation's first primary.

In an interview, Sullivan said she began receiving calls Sunday evening from those who had received the message. A woman she spoke to told her that Biden had called her, though she said she was not a Biden supporter.

''I said, 'You got a call from Joe Biden, and he gave you my number?''' Sullivan said she responded.

A volunteer for the write-in effort also received the call and recorded it, Sullivan said, and shared it with organizers of the Biden write-in campaign. One of the organizers then shared it with NBC News.

It's not clear how many voters received the call or what types of voters were targeted. Lists of voters' phone numbers can be readily purchased from data brokers.

And Sullivan said that while it is not clear who is behind the robocall, ''it's obviously somebody who wants to hurt Joe Biden.''

''I want them to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible, because this is an attack on democracy,'' said Sullivan, an attorney, who said she believes the call could violate several laws. ''I'm not going to let it go. I want to know who's paying for it. Who knew about it? Who benefits?''

She said she also plans to engage with federal law enforcement.

Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said that "the campaign is actively discussing additional actions to take immediately."

Sullivan was party chair in 2002, when a so-called phone-jamming effort was carried out during a hotly contested U.S. Senate race. Two Republican officials, including the executive director of the state Republican Party and a Republican National Committee operative, were convicted of using computer-generated phone calls to disrupt Democrats' get-out-the-vote call center operations.

State officials are speaking out against the calls.

Secretary of State David Scanlan said the calls ''reinforce a national concern about the effect of artificial intelligence on campaigns.''

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said she hopes the attempt to dampen turnout for Biden will backfire.

"I urge Granite Staters to make sure their friends and neighbors know the truth and turn out in even bigger numbers to write in President Biden's name," she said.

The campaign of Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is challenging Biden for the nomination, said it was not aware of the calls but called them ''wildly concerning.''

''Any effort to discourage voters is disgraceful and an unacceptable affront to democracy,'' spokesperson Katie Dolan said. ''The potential use of AI to manipulate voters is deeply disturbing.''

A spokesperson for Trump's campaign denied any connection to the calls, saying, ''Not us. We have nothing to do with it.''

Alex Seitz-Wald Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior political reporter for NBC News.

Mike Memoli Mike Memoli is an NBC News correspondent.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:17

Steve Kramer, a veteran political consultant working for a rival candidate, acknowledged Sunday that he commissioned the robocall that impersonated President Joe Biden using artificial intelligence, confirming an NBC News report that he was behind the call.

In a statement and interview with NBC News, Kramer expressed no remorse for creating the deepfake, in which an imitation of the president's voice discouraged participation in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary. The call launched several law enforcement investigations and provoked outcry from election officials and watchdogs.

''I'm not afraid to testify, I know why I did everything,'' he said an interview late Sunday, his first since coming forward. ''If a House oversight committee wants me to testify, I'm going to demand they put it on TV because I know more than them.''

Kramer said he has received a subpoena from the Federal Communications Commission, suspected he might get sued by a half dozen people and said he could even face jail time, but that he would keep working in politics.

NBC News has reached out to the FCC for comment.

Kramer claimed he planned the fake robocall from the start as an act of civil disobedience to call attention to the dangers of AI in politics. He compared himself to American Revolutionary heroes Paul Revere and Thomas Paine. He said more enforcement is necessary to stop people like him from doing what he did.

''This is a way for me to make a difference, and I have,'' he said in the interview. ''For $500, I got about $5 million worth of action, whether that be media attention or regulatory action.''

Rep. Dean Phillips, a Democratic presidential candidate, at a campaign stop in Manchester, N.H., on Oct. 31. Charles Krupa / AP fileKramer said he came up with the idea for the hoax entirely on his own and that it had nothing to do with his client, Biden's long-shot primary challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. Phillips had paid Kramer over $250,000 around the time the robocall went out in January, according to his campaign finance reports.

Phillips and his campaign have denounced the robocall, saying they had no knowledge of Kramer's involvement and would have immediately terminated him if they had known.

Phillips' press secretary Katie Dolan said in response to Kramer's statement Sunday, ''Our campaign repeats its condemnation of these calls and any efforts to suppress the vote.''

Phillips' team hired Kramer in December and January for ballot access work in New York and Pennsylvania, which involves collecting thousands of signatures from voters so a candidate can qualify for the ballot.

''I'm sure that a half dozen people will try to sue me, but they're used to dealing with people like themselves,'' Kramer said in the interview. ''I can tell you they're not used to me. I wrestled in college."

He also acknowledged commissioning an earlier deep fake robocall impersonating Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., which he said was just a test.

The calls went to 300 South Carolina likely Republican primary voters. It was a poll that had Graham's voice ask recipients whom they supported in the GOP primary. Kramer said the response rate from the familiar voice of Graham was four times higher than the response rate to an automated call.

Paul Carpenter, a New Orleans magician, performs card tricks during an interview in New Orleans on Friday. Matthew Hinton / APKramer was first linked to the fake Biden robocall Friday by an NBC News report.

So why did Kramer wait to come forward to until he was caught, if this was his plan all along? And why he did he instruct Paul Carpenter to delete their email correspondence?

''I was waiting for the South Carolina primary to be over, I didn't want to interfere with that,'' he said in the interview. He also said that his calls impersonating the president, which went to more than 5,000 New Hampshire voters telling them not to vote, ''wasn't going to change anything'' in that primary.

"If I had come out right away, it takes away from the goal of the call," he added, claiming the time was necessary to allow regulators to act.

Until Carpenter came forward, it was unclear whether the world would ever know who was behind the first-known use of an AI deepfake in a presidential campaign.

Carpenter, a New Orleans street magician, said Kramer hired him to use AI software to create an audio file replicating Biden's voice reading a script Kramer prepared and provided.

Carpenter was paid $150 for the work, according to Venmo transactions and text messages he shared with NBC News.

Kramer said in the interview that he hired Carpenter because the magician was ''down on his luck'' and Kramer wanted to help.

He said he came up with the idea after having clients start ask him about doing AI work.

Kramer, a get-out-the-vote specialist and president of his own small firm, has worked on dozens of federal, state and local campaigns over the past 20 years. He has worked mostly for Democrats and his career grew out of his involvement with the Young Democrats of America, though his most prominent client was likely Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, who hired Kramer for his brief 2020 independent presidential campaign.

Carpenter, a nomadic performer, said he met Kramer through a mutual acquaintance last year and was under the impression that Kramer was working for the Biden campaign when he asked Carpenter to create the audio file that eventually became the robocall.

Authorities in New Hampshire are investigating the robocall for potentially violating state laws against voter suppression. A multistate task force of state attorneys generals focused on robocalls is looking to crack down on the people involved in the Biden robocall in order to set an early example as the technology becomes more widespread. And the Federal Communications Commission sped up plans to outlaw AI robocalls in response to the Biden robocall.

A voter casts his ballot in the New Hampshire primary in Laconia on Jan. 22. Matt Nighswander / NBC News fileIn his statement, Kramer confirmed that to distribute the calls, he hired the Texas telemarketing company Life Co., which has been named by investigators as the originator of the calls.

''They had no knowledge of the content of this call prior to delivery,'' Kramer wrote. ''I'd use them again, but they are done with my business.''

He also confirmed Carpenter's account that he directed the content of the fake Biden robocall, saying the call was created ''using a script of my specific choosing.''

''Even individuals acting alone can quickly and easily use A.I. for misleading and disruptive purposes,'' Kramer added.

Alex Seitz-Wald Alex Seitz-Wald is a senior political reporter for NBC News.

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Tue, 23 Jul 2024 11:10

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