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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
"Jewish Nobel" Awarded to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla (from January 2022)
2024-12-10
Genesis Prize Chairman highlights immense role of Jewish scientists and doctors in combatting the pandemic: "A very proud moment for the entire Jewish community"

January 19, 2022, Jerusalem — Today, The Genesis Prize Foundation announced Dr. Albert Bourla, Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, as the 2022 Genesis Prize Laureate. Dr. Bourla received the largest number of votes in a recently concluded global campaign, during which 200,000 people in 71 countries voted online. The choice of the voters was unanimously endorsed by the nine judges on the Genesis Prize Selection Committee.

The Committee commended Dr. Bourla for his leadership, determination, and especially for his willingness to assume great risks. Unlike CEOs of most other major companies working on developing COVID-19 vaccines, Dr. Bourla declined billions of dollars in US federal subsidies in order to avoid government bureaucracy and expedite development and production of the vaccine. As a result, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine was ready in record time: months instead of years.

The Committee also noted Dr. Bourla’s pride in his Jewish identity and heritage, commitment to Jewish values and support for the State of Israel.

The annual $1 million Genesis Prize, dubbed the "Jewish Nobel" by TIME Magazine, honors extraordinary individuals for their outstanding professional achievement, contribution to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values. Dr. Bourla becomes the ninth Genesis Prize Laureate. He follows filmmaker and philanthropist Steven Spielberg, who was awarded the Genesis Prize in 2021, and the legendary human rights activist Natan Sharansky, the 2020 Laureate.

The President of Israel Isaac Herzog will present the Genesis Prize to Dr. Bourla at a ceremony in Jerusalem planned for June 29.

In line with the tradition established by the inaugural Laureate Michael Bloomberg, all Genesis Prize honorees have chosen to forgo the monetary award to philanthropic causes. Dr. Bourla has asked The Genesis Prize Foundation to direct his $1 million prize award to projects aimed at preserving the memory of the victims of the Holocaust, with a particular emphasis on the tragedy suffered by the Greek Jewish community.

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Dr. Bourla was raised in a family that knew the horrors of the Holocaust first-hand. His parents were among only 2,000 survivors out of a once-thriving, ancient Jewish community of 50,000, almost completely wiped out by the Nazis.

"I am delighted to welcome Dr. Albert Bourla to the distinguished family of Genesis Prize Laureates," said Co-Founder and Chairman of The Genesis Prize Foundation Stan Polovets. "Dr. Bourla personifies two of the most fundamental Jewish values: the commitment to the sanctity of life and to repairing the world. And while the pandemic is far from over, millions of people are alive and healthy because of what Dr. Bourla and his team at Pfizer have accomplished."
Link


Government Corruption
John Podesta Was Behind Biden’s Decision To Pause Natural Gas Exports. His Lobbyist Brother Stands To Benefit.
2024-02-16
[FreeBeacon]
BAD ACTORS:
Tony Podesta, John Podesta, Rockefeller brothers,
Michael Bloomberg, Atanas Bostandjiev, Albert Avdolyan,
Serguei Adoniev, Vladimir Putin, Georgi Samuilov

BAD FIRMS:
Golden Pass, QatarEnergy, Protos Energy,
Gemcorp, Huawei, Rostec, Sberbank

STORY:

Tony Podesta represents foreign companies involved in the natural gas industry

Biden administration climate envoy John Podesta was behind the administration’s decision to pause U.S. liquefied natural gas exports. His brother Tony Podesta could reap the benefits as a longtime lobbyist for foreign Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) companies—including one founded by a Russian energy oligarch.

John Podesta played a major role in ushering in the new LNG policy, sources told the Washington Free Beacon, a move that is seen as a political giveaway to green energy activists in the Democratic Party base. Deep-pocketed left-leaning donors, including charities funded by the Rockefeller brothers and Michael Bloomberg, have poured millions of dollars into environmental groups that lobbied to cut off new LNG permit approvals, the Wall Street Journal reported.

But the decision could also boost current and former clients of Podesta’s brother, Washington power-lobbyist Tony Podesta, who has long represented foreign companies involved in the LNG industry.

Over the past decade, Tony Podesta’s client roster has included LNG group Golden Pass, which is co-owned by the state-run QatarEnergy, and the Bulgarian company Protos Energy, which reportedly hired him to work on LNG-related issues.

Since 2022, Tony Podesta’s firm has raked in over $1 million from Gemcorp, an investment fund that was barred from working on a Bulgarian LNG and energy development project due to the company’s links to Russia.

Tony Podesta’s lobbying work, and its potential overlap with his brother’s role in the Biden administration, has come under scrutiny in the past. In 2021, House lawmakers questioned whether Tony Podesta’s work for the Chinese telecom company Huawei would have an influence on the Biden administration’s China policy.

The lobbyist’s work in the LNG industry is raising similar questions, according to critics.

"It's no secret that John Podesta is the person behind this moratorium," one energy industry insider told the Free Beacon. "Congress should take a very hard look at the fact that his own brother stands to financially benefit from a restriction of U.S. LNG on the global market, whether it be from his past work with the Qataris or current reported work with Russian-backed entities with interest in LNG."

"Less U.S. LNG on the global market will ensure Qatar and Russia receive hundreds of billions of dollars that would otherwise go to the U.S."

Energy industry insiders have also warned that the administration’s decision to pause on LNG export permits will boost America’s foreign energy rivals, including Qatar and Russia. The countries are two of the world’s largest LNG exporters next to the United States.

Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, called the LNG pause a "win for Russia and a loss for American allies, U.S. jobs, and global climate progress."

Tony Podesta has represented Gemcorp since 2022. But the investment group’s Russian roots have made it a controversial player in the energy industry.

In April 2022, the Bulgarian government agreed to co-finance Gemcorp’s energy modernization projects in the country, including an "Interconnector Greece Bulgaria (QGB) project for LNG," according to a copy of the memorandum. But the plan drew public backlash after media outlets reported on Gemcorp’s links to Russia.

Gemcorp’s founder and chairman is Atanas Bostandjiev, the former London head of Russian state-owned bank VTB Capital. The bank was placed under international sanctions in 2022.

Gemcorp was founded with $250 million in seed money from Russian energy tycoon Albert Avdolyan and telecom mogul Serguei Adoniev, the Financial Times reported in 2022. The funding reportedly came from their sale of a company connected to Rostec, the sanctioned Russian defense conglomerate.

Adoniev, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the U.S. government last year.

Both Avdolyan and Gemcorp were reportedly involved in Russia’s LNG industry. Gemcorp helped finance a loan to an LNG project in eastern Russia, according to the Financial Times. Avdolyan invested in a Russian LNG export terminal near China’s border in 2020.

Gemcorp was also involved in exporting Russian grain, and it signed an agreement with Moscow-controlled Sberbank to "support Russian exports, technological, agricultural, and some equipment that is so necessary for the African continent" in 2019, according to a statement from Bostandjiev at the time.

Avdolyan divested from Gemcorp in 2020, and the company has sought to distance itself from Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. Gemcorp’s website says it was initially "backed by two Russian individuals who have never been subject to sanctions" but does "not now have any Russian investors or clients."

But its attempts to move away from Moscow failed to mollify critics in Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian government revoked its deal with Gemcorp shortly after it was signed in 2022. Bulgarian politician Desislava Trifonova claimed the energy agreement with Gemcorp was in the "service of the Russian state" and would have turned the government energy sector into "Russian property."

Prior to his work with Gemcorp, Podesta represented Protos Energy from 2021 to 2022. The company’s owner Georgi Samuilov told the Bureau for Investigative Reporting and Data that he hired Podesta because the company has an "interest" in the U.S. LNG market.

Between 2013 and 2018, Tony Podesta also lobbied for Golden Pass, a joint venture of QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil, according to lobbying disclosure records.

Tony Podesta, the White House, and Gemcorp did not respond to requests for comment.
Related:
Sberbank: 2024-01-24 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: January 23, 2024
Sberbank: 2023-04-18 Americans bring an ultimatum to Russia's partners in Central Asia
Sberbank: 2023-03-25 A native of the Kuban considered the revenge of the security forces the case of financing terrorism
Related:
Rostec: 2024-01-03 Ammunition production in Russia increased 17.5 times, the Ministry of Defense reports
Rostec: 2023-12-30 Artillerymen receive modernized 152mm self-propelled guns
Rostec: 2023-12-29 Uralvagonzavod fulfilled contracts for the supply of T-90M and T-72B3M to the Ministry of Defense
Related:
Huawei: 2023-09-26 Daily Evacuation Brief | September 26, 2023
Huawei: 2023-09-19 Is That a Spy in Your Car?
Huawei: 2023-09-08 The household appliances spying on YOU: How doorbells, smart speakers, TVs and washing machines capture and share private data with firms such as Google and TikTok - so which are worst offenders?
Related:
Golden Pass: 2017-04-26 US to enter LNG global export market with Golden Pass
Related:
Albert Avdolyan: 2022-06-14 Ukrainian Perspective: Invasion of Ukraine: June 13th, 2022
Related:
Michael Bloomberg: 2023-11-13 American Jews not waiting for Biden promises: donations for Israel since 10/7 approaching $1 billion
Michael Bloomberg: 2023-08-27 Times Square back to the bad old days: 'It's a sh-thole'
Michael Bloomberg: 2023-08-20 These 14 American Cities Have A ‘Target' Of Banning Meat, Dairy, And Private Vehicles By 2030
Related:
John Podesta: 2024-02-03 Biden's new climate envoy had a close relationship with CCP/Chinese United Front influence group
John Podesta: 2024-02-02 Top Republicans blast Biden for replacing John Kerry with John Podesta
John Podesta: 2024-02-01 Biden taps John Podesta as his top climate envoy to replace John Kerry: Obama official embroiled in Hillary Clinton email saga gets post to push Joe's ambitious green agenda
Related:
Tony Podesta: 2024-02-03 Biden's new climate envoy had a close relationship with CCP/Chinese United Front influence group
Tony Podesta: 2022-05-21 Hillary Clinton OK'd sharing Trump-Russia 'data,' campaign manager says
Tony Podesta: 2022-01-24 Tony Podesta Has Now Earned $1 Million Lobbying Biden White House For Blacklisted Chinese Tech Giant
Link


-Land of the Free
American Jews not waiting for Biden promises: donations for Israel since 10/7 approaching $1 billion
2023-11-13
Self-organizing is a Jewish habit since before Christ was born. But it’s not just Jews: see here to see some of what non-Jewish Americans are organizing to donate in the way of money, carefully considered goods in kind, and equally carefully targetted boots on the ground.
[IsraelTimes] Jewish organizations donate millions in emergency funds to support Israelis affected by war.
Ignoring inside baseball concerns about fundraising for domestic projects, here are the key facts:
Moving Traditions is a small Jewish organization with an unusual name and a mission that can be hard to describe on one foot. Working through synagogues, Hebrew schools and its own programs and curricula, it helps Jewish kids navigate their teen years in healthy, safe, appropriate and socially conscious ways.

When the Hamas
...a regional Iranian catspaw,...
attacks in Israel on October 7 threw the Jewish world into crisis, Moving Traditions created curricula to help teachers and teens talk about the conflict. And its CEO, Shuli Karkowsky, ordered up a "worst-case scenario" plan in case some of her reliable funders decided to hold back on their support and direct more money to Israel.

As they have during previous crises in Israel, American Jews are pouring dollars into Israel to support people displaced by the war, to bolster nonprofits whose employees are headed to the front and, in a newish twist, to defend both Israel in the court of public opinion and Jews abroad who are seeing an uptick in antisemitism.

War erupted after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, which saw some 3,000 gunnies burst across the border into Israel from the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip, killing some 1,200 people and seizing some 230 hostages. The vast majority of those killed as button men seized border communities were civilians — including babies, children and the elderly.

Jewish Federations of North America has raised $638 million among its network of local Jewish community chests. UJA-Federation, the largest of these, has so far allocated more than $38 million for work on the ground in Israel. Israel Bonds said it sold more than $200 million worth of bonds in the week following the Hamas attacks.
That’s $838 million just in this paragraph. Organizations like Magen David Adom that accept donations directly wouldn’t be included in these numbers.
Past crises have shaped Jewish priorities for generations. In response to the Six-Day War in 1967, American Jews donated more than $100 million — close to $1 billion in today’s dollars — in a little over two weeks. Six years later, when the Yom Kippur War punctured Israel’s aura of invulnerability, American Jews contributed $700 million in emergency aid, or $6.4 billion in today’s money. Both wars also cemented Israel as a central component of American Jewish identity, politics and philanthropy.

At the time, however, Israel was still viewed as a developing country, the historian Lila Corwin Berman points out. "For quite a while, Israel has been economically a fairly well-to-do nation and hasn’t needed American Jewish dollars in the same sort of fundamental way," said Corwin Berman, the chair of American Jewish History at Temple University.

Related from the New York Times on October 30th (paywalled): Israel’s Emergency Medical Service to Receive $88 Million in Gift Led by Michael Bloomberg: The former New York City mayor and billionaire philanthropist said he would match $44 million in donations from nearly 34,000 people.
Link


-Great Cultural Revolution
Times Square back to the bad old days: 'It's a sh-thole'
2023-08-27
[NYPOST] Times Square is looking a lot like its bad old self, with vagrants, boozy migrants colonists, junkies, and scofflaws making the Crossroads of the World look more like the third world, infuriating those who played an important role in its cleanup.
They keep voting for the same set of dipshits. That must be the way New Yorkers wanna live.
The City is so much more interesting and real when it’s gritty instead of livable, donchaknow.
On three separate days over the past week, The Post saw junkies brazenly smoking crack pipes on West 43rd Street, drug pushers peddling their wares within eyeshot of cops, hobos conked out wherever they can find a spot, and scores of aimless migrants colonists loitering the day away.

"A lot of people are worried about [Times Square] collapsing. And unless they start getting it together for a rebuild, it might actually collapse," said William Bratton, the NYPD commissioner who helped then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani clean up the area in the 1990s.

"We had a lot more to work with than the current commissioner and the mayor have in 2023," Bratton added. "There was a lot more of a criminal justice system back then. The courts, district attorneys, and the police were pretty much united about doing something about crime in Times Square. So you had a collaboration that is not in place today."

By contrast, "we [now] have a number of district attorneys not wanting to deal with a lot of ... the so-called ’broken windows’," signs of social disorganization and lead to crime, he explained — referring to the far-left, soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
...Soros-owned and operated Manhattan DA. Putting vicious and blood-thirsty criminals in jail only makes them unhappy, and they've led such hard lives after all...
, who critics say is pushing "reforms" which favor criminals instead of victims.

"Until we get better collaboration between various elements of government, we’re not going to see it improve dramatically," Bratton warned.

The lawlessness, vice, and depravity that ruled Times Square since the 1960s came to a screeching halt in the mid-90s, when Giuliani cracked down on crime and closed down the area’s notorious sex shops and peep shows.

The redevelopment plan then accelerated in the 2000s under billionaire former Mayor Michael Nanny Mike Bloomberg
...former Republican mayor of New York. He tried to take the credit for Rudy Giuliani's actions in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. He was known as Nanny Bloomberg for his war on 32-ounce Slurpees. Nanny was a candidate for the Dem presidential nomination in 2020. He was born on Valentine's day, 1942, which makes him 81.45345 years old, which is pretty ripe. Mike has lots of money, some of which he spends on grass roots organizations pushing for common sense gun laws along the same lines as his common sense Slurpee regulations....
, who helped lure national store and restaurant chains to the new-look area and complete its "Disneyfication," as some critics whined at the time.

Since the pandemic, there’s been "a lot of change for the worse," in Times Square, said Raymond Kelly, the city’s police commissioner from 1992 to 1994 under then-Mayor David Dinkins
...the former mayor of New York. He sez he lost to Rudy Giuliani in 1993 because of racism, which is pervasive in places like Manhattan...
, and again from 2002 to 2013 under Bloomberg.

Link


-Great Cultural Revolution
These 14 American Cities Have A ‘Target' Of Banning Meat, Dairy, And Private Vehicles By 2030
2023-08-20
[Federalist] If C40 Cities’ climate aims are carried out, people will die.

Fourteen major American cities are part of a globalist climate organization known as the “C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group,” which has an “ambitious target” by the year 2030 of “0 kg [of] meat consumption,” “0 kg [of] dairy consumption,” “3 new clothing items per person per year,” “0 private vehicles” owned, and “1 short-haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every 3 years per person.”

C40’s dystopian goals can be found in its “The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World” report, which was published in 2019 and reportedly reemphasized in 2023. The organization is headed and largely funded by Democrat billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Nearly 100 cities across the world make up the organization, and its American members include Austin, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Seattle.

Media coverage of C40 Cities’ goals has been relatively sparse. The few media personalities and news outlets who have discussed it have been heavily attacked by the corporate “fact-checkers.” In a “fact check” aimed at conservative commentator Glenn Beck, AFP Fact Check claimed that the banning of meat and dairy and limits on air travel and clothing consumption were actually “not policy recommendations.”

AFP quotes a paragraph from the original “The Future of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World” report, which reads, “This report does not advocate for the wholesale adoption of these more ambitious targets in C40 cities; rather, they are included to provide a set of reference points that cities, and other actors, can reflect on when considering different emission-reduction alternatives and long-term urban visions.”

But this paragraph, likely included in the report as a liability in the case of pushback, seems to directly contradict the meaning of “target,” which in this context can be defined as a “desired goal.” The target of eliminating meat, dairy, and private vehicles by 2030 is “based on a future vision of resource-efficient production and extensive changes in consumer choices,” the report notes — something its authors clearly hope to bring about. If these were not their goals, they would not have labeled them “ambitious targets.”

The “fact-checker’s” insistence that C40 Cities’ explicitly stated climate goals are somehow insincere is even more unconvincing, given that we are watching them start to unfold right now. This year, in lockstep with C40 Cities’ 2030 aims, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced that the city will place caps on the amount of meat and dairy served by city institutions, such as schools and prisons. Meanwhile, the U.K. has banned the sale of new gas-powered vehicles after 2030, and France has banned short-haul flights “to cut carbon emissions.”

In 2020, the World Economic Forum (which promotes C40 Cities on its website) introduced “The Great Reset,” which seeks to use the Covid-19 pandemic as a point from which to launch a global reset of society to supposedly combat climate change. This reset, however, has far more to do with social control than it does with the climate. If globalist leaders truly cared about the environment, they wouldn’t be chartering private jets or owning massive, energy-consuming mansions on the coast in California, which, by climate fanatics’ own calculation, will soon be underwater.

Read the rest at the link.
Related:
Michael Bloomberg: 2022-10-07 America's Adderall shortage deepens: Now a SEVENTH company warns it's running out of ADHD drug after sales rocketed during COVID
Michael Bloomberg: 2022-07-19 Those destroying public schools don't want you thinking about alternatives
Michael Bloomberg: 2021-08-14 Bill Gates Pledges $1.5 Billion for Climate Change Initiatives – as He Prepares to Mine Greenland
Related:
Eric Adams: 2023-08-14 Urban progressives blast the unsafe cities that THEY created
Eric Adams: 2023-08-10 NYC Mayor Eric Adams says migrant crisis could cost the city $12 BILLION as more are bussed to the Roosevelt Hotel from Texas - as he calls on Biden to declare state of emergency
Eric Adams: 2023-08-09 Kai Cenat riot: NYPD smashes rioting kid's face through back window of taxi
Related:
Great Reset: 2023-07-30 Could Globalists Fake an Alien Invasion?
Great Reset: 2023-07-27 Transhumanism: ‘Upgrading’ People With Techno Implants and Genetic Engineering
Great Reset: 2023-05-20 This Years Bilderberg Meeting Agenda & Attendees Revealed
Link


Economy
America's Adderall shortage deepens: Now a SEVENTH company warns it's running out of ADHD drug after sales rocketed during COVID
2022-10-07
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
  • Novartis Sandoz is the latest company to report a shortages

  • Companies experiencing shortages did not offer specific reasons for scarcities

  • The shortage affects about 2.5M Americans who are treated for ADD/ADHD
Related:
ADHD: 2020-10-21 Cameron Peak Fire grows to more than 205,000 acres
ADHD: 2020-10-18 Sugar, high-fructose corn syrup linked to ADHD, bipolar, aggressive behavior
ADHD: 2020-09-25 Why Isn't the Radical Left Objecting to Billionaire Michael Bloomberg Buying the Florida Election?
Link


Government Corruption
Those destroying public schools don't want you thinking about alternatives
2022-07-19
[NYPOST] What comes after the end of public schools?

Anyone who cares about the education of children should be asking that question. So of course it’s one that the teachers unions don’t want us to discuss.

New York City schools are in trouble. As The Post reported Friday, "the city Department of Education expects to enroll roughly 28,100 fewer students this fall." Enrollment at the city’s regular public schools already fell during the pandemic, and this new projection suggests it’s not improving any time soon.

And New York leads a large pack: Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, Illinois, Oregon, Mississippi and Michigan have all seen serious losses of students departing their public-school systems.

Why? A Gallup poll last week showed only 28% of Americans have "a great deal or a lot" of "confidence in U.S. public schools."

Much of this is tied to long closures during the pandemic. Teachers unions, with people like American Federation of Teachers chief Randi Weingarten leading the charge, pushed hard to keep schools closed for far too long. The shutdowns (and the travesty of remote learning) smashed public trust and it simply isn’t that easy to rebuild. Researchers at the American Enterprise Institute found that the longer a school district stayed remote, the larger its enrollment drop.

But parents tell me they have many reasons for saying "enough."

New York City’s crushing of merit-based admissions under Mayor Comrade Bill de Blasio
...cryptocommie mayor of New York and for some reason a Dem candidate for president in 2020. Corrupt and incompetent, his qualifications for office seem to consist of being married to a black woman, with whom he honeymooned in Cuba. He has a preppy-looking son named Dante, whose Divine Comedy involved getting his back hair up when a police car drove past him slowly. New Yorkers voted for him, so they deserve him...
pushed people out, as did general woke nonsense replacing academics. Other parents pulled their kids when toddlers stayed masked after the rest of the city had stopped.

Mayor Eric Adams isn’t mincing words: "We have a massive hemorrhaging of students — massive hemorrhaging. We’re in a very dangerous place in the number of students that we are dropping." But the City Council (clearly lobbied by the teachers union) is pushing for schools to retain funding at the old enrollment numbers. That’s crazy: These schools aren’t meeting families’ needs; they shouldn’t be rewarded for this failure with cash.

Especially because money is so often set on fire in the New York City system. Schools Chancellor David Banks and over 50 other staffers attended a conference last week "at a swanky hotel near Universal Studios in Orlando," The Post reports. Kids had to zoom to get an education for over a year, but the grownups need to meet up near theme parks to discuss their education plan? Ridiculous.

Public schools are in a serious downward spiral. The options are fixing them, which hasn’t worked for decades, or letting parents get their kids out.

Public charter schools are, understandably, booming despite getting far less funding. Former Mayor Michael Nanny Mike Bloomberg
...former Republican mayor of New York. He tried to take the credit for Rudy Giuliani's actions in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. He was known as Nanny Bloomberg for his war on 32-ounce Slurpees. Nanny was a candidate for the Dem presidential nomination in 2020. He was born on Valentine's day, 1942, which makes him 80.34636 years old, which is pretty ripe. Mike has lots of money, some of which he spends on grass roots organizations pushing for common sense gun laws along the same lines as his common sense Slurpee regulations....
recently pointed out, "Charter schools educate 7% of all public-school students, yet they receive less than 1% of total federal spending on K-12 education."

On average, charters have higher math and reading scores than traditional public schools; Bloomberg notes, "Research has found that the benefits are especially pronounced for Black, Latino and low-income students."

But the teachers unions hate charters. They hate when parents have choices for their kids.

They also hate outspoken parents fighting for their kids. Weingarten called parents showing up to school board meetings "racists" and has argued that school vouchers, which would give parents a way to get their kids out of failing schools, are "the end of public education as we know it." To which we all should say: good.

Public education shouldn’t exist to serve Weingarten. It’s our money paying for our children to get an education.
Link


Economy
Bill Gates Pledges $1.5 Billion for Climate Change Initiatives – as He Prepares to Mine Greenland
2021-08-14
[Breitbart] Microsoft founder Bill Gates has reportedly pledged $1.5 billion towards climate change initiatives as part of the Democrat’s infrastructure bill. The announcement comes just days after Gates and his billionaire friends announced a plan to tear apart Greenland in search of pricey minerals.

The Hill reports that Microsoft founder Bill Gates has pledged $1.5 billion from his climate investment fund, Breakthrough Energy, to finance climate change and renewable energy initiatives if a recently proposed White House-supported infrastructure package is made law. The bill passed the Senate 69-30 this week and includes $25 billion for the Energy Department.

The bill includes over $100 billion towards improving the resilience of power grids and further incentives for the electrification of transportation. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Gates said that all clean-energy initiatives must “get the costs down and to be able to scale them up to a pretty gigantic level.”

Gates added: “You’ll never get that scale up unless the government’s coming in with the right policies, and the right policy is exactly what’s in that infrastructure bill.” Gates told the WSJ that his fund would aim to redirect most of the pledged $1.5 billion to fund climate efforts in Asia and Europe if the infrastructure bill is not made into law.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement Thursday: “Breakthrough Energy Catalyst’s commitment shows that the private sector is ready to lead the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. Paired with the historic investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal and President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda, these investments will unlock new technologies to position the U.S. as a global leader of the clean energy economy—creating good-paying jobs for all kinds of workers in all pockets of the country.”

While Gates has long been a proponent of green energy and climate change initiatives, it was reported recently that a mineral exploration company backed by Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg has entered into a joint venture with the London-based mining firm Bluejay to mine for raw materials in Greenland that could be used in electric vehicles.
Did Greenland really agree to be strip mined for the benefit of foreign tech billionaires?
KoBold Metals, a mineral exploration firm backed by the billionaires, plans to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to decide where to purchase land in Greenland likely to contain ore deposits.
Related:
Bill Gates: 2021-08-07 Bill Gates Speaks Out About His Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, 'seeking money, not sechs'
Bill Gates: 2021-07-26 King Abdullah confirms Jordan previously attacked by Iran-made drones
Bill Gates: 2021-07-12 Foreign aid: Gates and others to partially cover UK aid cuts
Related:
Greenland: 2021-05-21 Breathe easy Greenland: Blinken says U.S. no longer has its sights set on 1.3million square mile Arctic country after Trump planned to buy it [from] Denmark
Greenland: 2021-03-17 Stunning scientific revelation?
Greenland: 2021-02-03 The Four Chaplains...
Link


-Great Cultural Revolution
Expensive NYC School insults white women
2021-06-16
[NYPOST] An ex-top trustee of Manhattan’s elite Spence School says she yanked her daughter out over her growing disgust with its racial indoctrination — capped by a class video that "tarred and feathered’’ white women.

Hispanic tech exec Gabriela Baron fired off a scorched-earth letter to the prestigious Upper East Side institution last week seething that the video — shown to her eighth-grade daughter and classmates on graduation day — "openly derides, humiliates and ridicules white women.

"They sat there in their graduation dresses while the white mothers of the white students — many of whom volunteer, donate, call, email and do whatever the school asks of them — were tarred and feathered in a video their teacher showed them. While their white female teachers were mocked,’’ Baron raged in the missive, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

Baron said the footage, featuring racially charged comedian Ziwe Fumudoh,
... Ziwerekoru Fumudoh, child of Nigerian immigrants, graduate of the elite Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Northwestern University, and internships at Comedy Central and The Onion. Her idea of comedy was to get her white friends to come on her YourTube show and bait them in to unintentionally saying racist things, even if she had to edit the film to achieve the desired effect...
Wossa modda widdat? I used to do dat wid ma frien's alla time. Back when I had frien's.
was just another indication of what she and her husband "see happening at Spence (and many other schools in NYC).

"Over the last several years my husband and I have grown increasingly concerned about certain trends at Spence, including what we believe is a de-emphasis of academic rigor and a single-minded focus on race, diversity and inclusion that is now driving the School and everything that goes on within its walls,’’ wrote Baron, the daughter of Cuban immigrants colonists.

Spence is among a slew of posh "woke" private schools in New York City that have come under fire for allegedly putting political correctness before actual learning and common-sense.

Baron — who confirmed to The Post on Tuesday that she sent the letter — is an alum of Spence, which includes actresses Gwyneth Paltrow
...Hollywood interchangeable blonde and Eva Braun taste-alike, who's convinced herself that it would be wonderful if Obama were given all the power that he needs. She was married to a guitar player in a rock band, but now she's becoming long in the tooth so he's moved on to somebody else...
and Kerry Washington and Michael Nanny Mike Bloomberg
...former Republican mayor of New York. He tried to take the credit for Rudy Giuliani's actions in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. He was known as Nanny Bloomberg for his war on 32-ounce Slurpees. Nanny was a candidate for the Dem presidential nomination in 2020. He won big in American Samoa, not so big anywhere else. He was born on Valentine's day, 1942, which makes him 79.25782 years old, which is pretty ripe. Mike has lots of money, some of which he spends on grass roots organizations pushing for common sense gun laws along the same lines as his common sense Slurpee regulations...
’s daughter Georgina among its graduates. The K-12 school charges more than $57,400 a year per student.

"The blatantly racist video,’’ shown during her daughter’s last middle-school history class was of Fumudoh’s premiere episode of her Showtime talk series "Ziwe,’’ which aired last month, Baron said.

It featured sit-downs with writer Fran Lebowitz, women’s rights icon Gloria Steinem — and four white women named Karen.

The caption to introduce Lebowitz read, "Author, Public Speaker, White Woman.’’ At one point, Fumudoh remarked to her, "I believe that you are not concerned with how annoying white women can be.’’

The host also said, "What percentage of white women do you hate? And there is a right answer."

Fumudoh asked Steinem how many black friends she has, then read her obscene lyrics from the rap song "WAP" by Cardi B
...the eminent American political analyst and entertainer, noted for her dignified performance at the Grammy awards and her well-reasoned commentary on race relations...
and Megan Thee Stallion and wanted to know whether the activist felt "empowered’’ by them.

Before the "Karens" took the stage, Fumudoh read what she said was an Urban Dictionary meaning for their name, which included "obnoxious, angry and entitled, often racist, white women.’’

At the end of the segment, Fumudoh gave the women temporary tattoos that said, "Karen & Proud.’’

"It astounds me that a Spence faculty member felt comfortable showing this to students and thought it was acceptable to do so," Baron said of the mocking, cringe-worthy footage.

"Had the video derided and ridiculed Asian women, Black women or Hispanic women, the Spence community would declare with one voice that it was blatantly racist," said the mom, executive vice president of strategy at the tech software firm KLDiscovery, according to her LinkedIn page.

Link


Government Corruption
ProPublica Gets Its Hands On IRS Data Of Very Rich Americans
2021-06-08
A few things - this article doesn't give links to the actual database / other solid information on what numbers are actually on their 1040's, which then allows the leftists at ProPublica to deliberately conflate wealth / net worth with income, only the latter of which is subject to tax, in order to paint these guys in the worst possible light. Dishonest to the core, but you knew that already.
[ProPublica via TaxProf blog] - ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.
Ever hear of a net operating loss or a carryforward loss, guys?
In 2007, Jeff Bezos, then a multibillionaire and now the world’s richest man, did not pay a penny in federal income taxes. He achieved the feat again in 2011. In 2018, Tesla founder Elon Musk, the second-richest person in the world, also paid no federal income taxes.

Michael Bloomberg managed to do the same in recent years. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn did it twice. George Soros paid no federal income tax three years in a row.
Also ignored are the employer payroll taxes paid by their respective companies, generally 9% - 10% of total wages.
Link


Economy
Big Tech, Chamber of Commerce, Outsourcing Industry Unite to Keep Foreign Workers in American Jobs
2021-06-01
[Breitbart] The nation’s biggest tech corporations joined forces with the United States Chamber of Commerce and the outsourcing industry to keep foreign visa-holders in American jobs even as about 16.4 million Americans remain jobless.

Executives with Google, Amazon, Apple, IBM, HP, the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the Microsoft Corporation, Twitter, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, Michael Bloomberg’s New American Economy, and other corporations have filed an amicus brief in a lawsuit to ask a federal court to keep more than 90,000 foreign visa-holders in the U.S. workforce.

The lawsuit was first filed in 2015 by Save Jobs USA, a group of former American workers at Southern California Edison who had their jobs outsourced to foreign visa workers, to block the Obama administration from giving work permits to H-4 visa-holders who are the spouses of H-1B visa workers.

The outsourced American workers argue that the executive action by Obama wrongly gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) the authority to provide work permits to tens of thousands of H-4 visa holders. Congress, they argue, did not authorize such authority to DHS and thus, the agency does not have the authority to provide the work permits.

"There is no statutory authorization for an alien possessing an H-4 visa to work," Save Jobs USA’s initial complaint states.
Link


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Allen & Co. plans Sun Valley return
2021-03-20
Normalcy returns.
[ID MTN EXP] Allen & Co. is coming back to Sun Valley this summer, one year after canceling its annual summit due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to multiple sources familiar with the event.

The planned return marks the 38th running of the annual conference, an anniversary delayed a year after the boutique New York investment bank canceled the annual conclave in mid-April, 2020.

It also marks another step towards normalcy in the Wood River Valley after a 2020 stripped of its usual hallmarks by the coronavirus and subsequent lockdown. Earlier this week, another summer stalwart, the Sun Valley Music Festival, announced that it would bring back live music in late July. The Express could not confirm the dates of this year's Allen & Co. conference, though it typically takes place the first week of July.

The local economic impact of Allen & Co. is tough to pin down. Most of the accounting is locked in the private records of two very private businesses: the eponymous investment bank, and Sun Valley Co. For scores of locals, though, from restauranteurs to rafting guides, the conference has provided a reliable boost to mid-summer business.

As vaccination efforts ramp up, it remains to be seen how remnant COVID-19 protocols will alter the event, which typically brings some world's foremost figures in business, media, technology and politics to the north valley. Guests in 2019 included former New York City Mayor and one-time presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Nike co-founder Phil Knight, to name a few. Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet, Microsoft Founder Bill Gates and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg—four of the five richest people on the planet, according to Forbes Magazine—routinely attend.

Though 2020's conference was canceled, the traditionally secretive Allen & Co. was more visible than usual in the valley last year. Within the first month of the pandemic, the company donated $1 million to the St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund and $200,000 to The Hunger Coalition, according to those nonprofits. Allen & Co. and conference founder Herbert Allen Jr. and the company own more than a dozen properties in Ketchum and Sun Valley, according to Blaine County records.
Link



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