- Otto Warmbier's Parents Sue North Korea For $1.05 Billion (2.5% Of Total GDP)
The parents of Otto Warmbier, the student who was imprisoned and tortured in North Korea before slipping into a coma and dying, have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the North Korean government for more than $1 billion, or about 2.5% of the country’s entire GDP.
The family, that lives in Wyoming, Ohio, filed the lawsuit in federal court last April. North Korean authorities had arrested their son in January 2016 for attempting to steal a propaganda poster. He was later sentenced to 15 years in prison and subsequently died last year, days after he was released from North Korea to the United States in a coma. He had been tortured and in captivity in a North Korean labor camp for more than 17 months.
In October, a motion in the lawsuit was filed that seeks $1.05 billion in punitive damages on top of $46 million for the family’s suffering. North Korea has repeatedly denied that it tortured the 22-year-old. The family’s lawsuit claims that North Korea was in violation of international laws and forced their son to confess to carrying out an act of subversion on behalf of the United States.
If the dollar amount of the lawsuit pops out at you, it is for good reason. The motion includes language clarifying that the amount is intended to prevent North Korea from such unlawful behavior in the future. In federal court in Washington this week, the family of Warmbier said that they only wanted closure and justice on behalf of their son.
Fred Warmbier, Otto’s father, said last week:
“We’re here because we don’t fear North Korea anymore”.
The family was blindsided not only when their son did not return from his trip to North Korea when he was supposed to, but also after he was brought home more than a year later in a coma – after North Korea described his condition as “good”.
President Trump has repeatedly said that Warmbier “did not die in vain” and has credited Otto and his family, whom Trump calls “good friends” of his, for the denuclearization pact signed with North Korea this past summer.
“Otto Warmbier is a very special person and he will be for a long time in my life,” Trump said over the summer.
- Why Trump Can't Be Airbrushed Out Of The Picture
Authored by Amir Taheri via The Gatestone Institute,
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President Donald Trump has put a number of burning issues back on the agenda. These include the widening income gap in the United States, the unintended and unexpected consequences of outsourcing, and the disequilibrium created by signing trade agreements with countries with different labor laws and environmental, health and safety standards.
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In foreign policy, Trump has managed to pass on an important message: don’t take American heavy lifting for granted! More importantly, Trump has persuaded millions of Americans excluded or self-excluded from the political arena to end their isolation and demand a meaningful place in collective decision-making.
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Thus, for the time being at least, air-brushing Trump out of the picture is a forlorn task.
(Image source: Ryan Johnson/City of North Charleston/Wikimedia Commons)
As the American political elite head for Christmas holidays, the buzz in Washington circles is that 2019 will start with fresh attempts at curtailing the Trump presidency or, failing that, preventing Donald Trump’s re-election in 2020. Amateurs of the conspiracy theory may suggest that the whole thing may be a trap set by the Trump camp to keep the president’s opponents chained to a strategy doomed to failure.
By devoting almost all of their energies to attacking Trump personally and praying that the Mueller probe may open the way for impeachment, the president’s opponents, starting with the Democrat Party leadership, have shut down debate about key issues of economic, social and foreign policy — issues that matter to the broader public. Reducing all politics to a simple “Get Trump!’ slogan makes them a one-trick pony that may amuse people for a while but is unlikely to go very far.
Despite sensational daily headlines furnished by the Mueller soap opera, there is little chance of the impeachment strategy to get anywhere close to success. And even if the pro-impeachment lobby succeeds in triggering the process, it is unlikely that this would lead to Trump’s removal from office. In fact, out of the 45 men who have served as President of the United States only two, Andrew Jackson and Bill Clinton, faced formal impeachment procedures, but neither was driven out of office.
Two others, Richard Nixon and John Tyler, came close to being impeached but managed not to face the music in the end. Nixon resigned and Tyler dodged by not seeking re-election. With impeachment unlikely, Trump’s opponents may be looking for other ways of terminating his tenure at the White House. One way is to exert so much psychological pressure that he decides to regain his tranquility by resigning. However, apart from Nixon’s special case, the resignation has never been a feature of the American presidential history.
In any case, Trump looks like the last man on earth to opt for the humiliation of entering history as a quitter. A third way to get rid of Trump is to persuade the Republican Party not to nominate him for a second term. At first glance that may look like a credible option if only because the main body of the Republican Party has never warmed up to Trump.
In fact, calling Trump a Republican president may be more of a verbal conceit than an accurate depiction of reality. In the mid-term elections in November, some Republican senators and congressmen insisted that Trump should stay away from their campaigns. Some who did lose their seats may have regretted their decision, as Trump proved to be in command of his own support base beyond the Republican Party.
The anti-Trump section of the US media is desperate to find at least one Republican figure capable of challenging the incumbent president in the coming nomination contest. So far, however, none of the putative knights-in-shining-armor fielded by the anti-Trump media has succeeded in making an impression.
In any event, there are only five cases in which an incumbent president failed to win re-nomination by his party. Of these, four were men who had inherited the presidency after the death of the president.
One was the already mentioned — John Tyler, who became president in 1841 after the death of President William Henry Harrison. Another was Millard Fillmore, who entered the White House after the death of President Zachary Taylor.
The third on the list was the already mentioned Andrew Jackson, who not only failed to secure re-nomination but also narrowly escaped impeachment. The fourth was Chester Arthur, who took over after the assassination of President James Garfield. He was ditched when he launched an anti-graft campaign that alienated many within his own party.
Only one sitting president who had won the first term failed to secure re-nomination by his party. He was Franklin Pierce, whose demise came in exceptional circumstances created by the division over the issue of slavery as the nation moved towards the War of Secession. Today, none of those conditions obtains in the United States and the Republican Party, and the possibility of a palace revolt against the incumbent seems remote. Some of Trump’s opponents publicly pray that he might forswear a second term because of poor health. Although he has entered his eight-decade, however, Trump shows no signs of physical fatigue let alone serious illness leading to possible incapacitation. During the mid-term elections, this septuagenarian was capable of flying from one end of the continent to the other in a single day to address half a dozen public meetings.
That political power may act as an aphrodisiac and doping agent has been known at least since the time of the great Xerxes, whose only regret was that, in 100 years, none in his million-man army would be alive. There is no doubt that Trump thrives on power and, despite the extra kilos he has gained in the past two years, still sees himself as a long-distance runner. The mistake that Trump’s opponents made from the start, and some still continue to make, is to underestimate him and dismiss his appeal to wide segments of society as an aberration.
Trump has, however, managed to question the political agenda by questioning the so-called Washington Consensus that led to globalization with all its benefits and drawbacks. In his unorthodox manner, Trump has put a number of burning issues back on the agenda.
These include the widening income gap in the United States, the unintended and unexpected consequences of outsourcing, and the disequilibrium created by signing trade agreements with countries with different labor laws and environmental, health and safety standards. In foreign policy, Trump has managed to pass on an important message: don’t take American heavy lifting for granted! More importantly, Trump has persuaded millions of Americans excluded or self-excluded from the political arena to end their isolation and demand a meaningful place in collective decision-making. Thus, for the time being at least, air-brushing Trump out of the picture is a forlorn task.
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- Is This The Military Technology Used To Defeat The Gatwick Drone?
The mystery behind the ‘drone incident’ that paralyzed air traffic at Sussex’s Gatwick airport for 36 hours this week – interrupting the holiday travel plans of some 140,000 people and cancelling more than 1,000 flights – is getting more bizarre by the day. After police revealed they had arrested two individuals – a middle-aged man and woman from Crawley – on Friday night – both suspects have reportedly been cleared of their involvement in the crime and released, according to the BBC.
Police are now continuing their search for the mysterious pilot who disrupted plane traffic by flying drones over the Gatwick runway, piloting them within feet of a control tower and even flashing lights at police who had gathered at the scene in what appeared to be a taunting. One detective who has been assigned to the case told reporters that police had recovered a damaged drone near the airport. Investigators will be working with “the forensic opportunities that the drone presents.”
“Our inquiry continues at a pace to locate those responsible for the drone incursions, and we continue to actively follow lines of investigation,” the detective said.
Gatwick is offering a 50,000 pound ($63,000) reward via the UK’s Crimestoppers for any information that might lead to the arrest and conviction of whoever is responsible for piloting the drones. The culprit will ultimately face up to 5 years in prison if found and convicted.
Meanwhile, the army and police have released few details about the techniques they used to resolve the drone issue. But after photographs of three unidentified devices spotted on the airport’s roof surfaced in the media…
…some experts are beginning to develop theories about what the devices are and how they were used.
Many have suggested that the Israeli-developed “Drone Dome” was used to jam communications and down the drone, according to the BBC.
It is believed that the Israeli-developed Drone Dome system, which can jam communications between the drone and its operator, was used.
However, experts have said it does not enable the person responsible to be tracked down and captured.
John Murray, professor of robotics and autonomous systems at the University of Hull, said it could only “take the drone out of the sky”.
The Telegraph published a guide to three systems its experts believe may have been used (text courtesy of the Telegraph):
1. Drone detection device
Gatwick deployed Metis Aerospace’s Skyperion, counter drone system, that detects drones and tracks their flight. The device can also track the drone’s operator, in theory allowing authorities to trace the drone pilot.
The company is based in Lincoln and arrived on site at Gatwick on Thursday evening. The equipment takes minutes to set up and can track an in-flight drone from about three miles away in seconds.
Two Skyperion detectors were deployed at Gatwick giving coverage across the entire airport. Detection equipment attempts to locate a controller by “triangulating” the signals between the controller and the drone to pinpoint where they are geographically.
The Skyperion consists of six panels with round, white faces giving 360 degree detection for radio frequencies used by the operators to direct and control the drones. The Skyperion was successfully tested at London Southend airport in May.
2. Drone tracker
Working in tandem with the Metis Aerospace Skyperion is the ‘military grade’ Falcon Shield counter-drone system developed by Leonardo, one of the key players in the aerospace, defence and security industry.
The Falcon Shield system can “reliably find, fix, track, identify and defeat the security threat posed by low, slow and small drones,” according to its manufacturer.
The Falcon Shield consists of two cameras, one for infra-red night-time detection and the other, smaller lens for regular daytime observation. The third lens – the square lens on the right – is a laser range finder.
Falcon Shield claims to be able to take control of a rogue drone and land it safely if needs be.
3. Drone jamming device
Obscured by police officers, the third piece of kit seen on the Gatwick airport roof is possibly a jamming device, used to disrupt the signal between the ground operator and the drone. A well-placed source said a jamming device was deployed at Gatwick and which was supplied by the British military. The source suggested the drone jammer was to be used as backup and as a last resort. Authorities had placed Army and police snipers around the perimeter of the airport and had hoped to shoot the drone down or else trace it back to its operator – rather than jam the signal. “We want to capture the drone not destroy it,” said the source.
Jamming technology disrupts the radio frequencies being used by the controller to direct the drone. Experts describe it as like using a huge blast of targeted noise to block the signals between the controller and the drone.
The jamming device resembles a gun developed by the US military nicknamed the “dronekiller” that can also jam signals and knock drones out of the sky.
Whatever the technology used, we imagine airports across Europe are taking notes: Though the Gatwick drone incident isn’t believed to be a terror attack, the massive disruptions caused by a simple drone – something that doesn’t require much in terms of capital investment – will inevitably stoke fears of copycat attacks.
- The Daily Caller's List Of 2018's Worst 'Fake News' Stories
Authored by Amber Athey via The Daily Caller,
As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to review the year’s worst cases of media misquotes, misleading narratives, major corrections and straight-up fake news…
While last year’s fake reporting largely occurred during the media’s relentless pursuit to prove Russian collusion, this year’s list is much more varied. However, some themes emerged: stories about then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the U.S. border were routinely flagged for misinformation.
Without further ado, here is the list of 2018’s worst examples of fake news:
1. WAPO BLAMES BORDER PATROL FOR DEATH OF 7-YEAR-OLD MIGRANT
The Washington Post published a story in December focusing on a 7-year-old migrant child from Guatemala who died in border patrol custody.
Despite WaPo’s misleading headline suggesting border patrol was to blame for the girl’s death, the full timeline of events and statements from the girl’s father praising border agents revealed a different story.
2. CNN AND THE HILL SPREAD RETRACTED SEXUAL ASSAULT CLAIM AGAINST KAVANAUGH
CNN and The Hill both reported on a sexual assault claim against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in late September without ever mentioning that the claim had been quickly retracted.
WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 27: Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Kavanaugh was called back to testify about claims by Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Jeffrey Catalan apologized for making a “mistake” in leveling the false claim against Kavanaugh, but CNN and The Hill’s initial reports on the claim failed to note the retraction. The Hill later retracted a tweet bolstering the claim and CNN updated its misleading report.
3. BOSTON GLOBE CORRECTS LIZ WARREN STORY — MAKES HER LESS NATIVE AMERICAN
Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a DNA test in October seeking to prove her repeated claims that she has Native American ancestry.
The Boston Globe initially reported on the DNA test by explaining that Warren was somewhere between 1/32 and 1/512 Native American. However, the paper eventually issued two corrections that damaged Warren’s ancestral claims even further.
“The generational range based on the ancestor that the report identified suggests she’s between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American,” The Globe admitted.
4. NYT ACCUSES NIKKI HALEY OF PURCHASING EXPENSIVE CURTAINS
The New York Times initially tied U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to expensive curtains hanging in the ambassador’s apartment in New York, writing, “Nikki Haley’s View of New York Is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701.”
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley addresses the UNSC during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine November 26, 2018 at the United Nations in New York. (Photo by DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)
However, NYT’s own article later admitted that the curtains were approved in 2016 and that Haley had no say in the matter.
5. MEDIA STILL BLAMING REPUBLICANS FOR STEELE DOSSIER
CNN’s Jim Sciutto, MSNBC’s Katy Tur, and MSNBC’s Ari Melber were all responsible for falsely claiming that Never-Trump Republicans were responsible for initial funding of the salacious Steele dossier.
Washington Free Beacon founder Paul Singer did pay Fusion GPS for standard opposition research, however, he stopped paying Fusion GPS well before they contracted Christopher Steele to create the dossier. That research was paid for solely by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
This falsehood has been shared so many times that even former FBI director James Comeyhas repeated it.
6. NBC SAT ON INFORMATION THAT CONTRADICTED KAVANAUGH ALLEGATIONS
While NBC’s story is not incorrect, its choice to sit on evidence that contradicted a serious sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh earned them a spot on this list.
Celebrity porn lawyer Michael Avenatti claimed he knew a second woman who could back up gang rape allegations made against Kavanaugh by his client, Julie Swetnick.
That second woman actually contradicted the allegations in a phone interview with NBC News on September 30. Mysteriously, NBC chose not to publish this information until weeks later and after Kavanaugh had already been confirmed to the Supreme Court.
7. MCCLATCHY CLAIMS MUELLER HAS EVIDENCE THAT CORROBORATES PIECE OF DOSSIER
McClatchy reported in April that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen had been in Prague in the summer of 2016. The report appeared to corroborate a key part of the largely unverified Steele dossier.
US President Donald Trumps former attorney Michael Cohen leaves US Federal Court in New York on December 12, 2018 after his sentencing after pleading guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)
But no other news outlets came forward to confirm McClatchy’s reporting and a spokesperson for Mueller’s team hinted to The Daily Caller News Foundation that the report may be false.
Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, emphatically denied in December that Cohen had ever been in Prague as the dossier alleges.
8. JIM ACOSTA SAID ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WOULDN’T CLIMB BORDER
CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta got into an ugly, public battle with President Donald Trump over immigration in November. During the testy exchange, Acosta claimed that illegal immigrants would “not be” trying to climb over the U.S.-Mexico border wall.
TOPSHOT – US President Donald Trump points to journalist Jim Acosta from CNN during a post-election press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on November 7, 2018. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)
Unfortunately for Acosta, images a week later revealed that immigrants were doing exactlywhat he claimed they wouldn’t.
9. WAPO RAN KAVANAUGH STORY WITH KNOWINGLY FALSE INFORMATION
The Washington Post ran a story in October suggesting that Georgetown Preparatory School was hiring a new employee to deal with fallout from the Kavanaugh hearings.
The author of the report was informed by a spokesperson for Georgetown Prep that the new position was actually listed well before the Kavanaugh hearings. Somehow, that information didn’t make it into the report and WaPo had to issue a correction.
“This was a completely unintentional error-I read right over the date in haste. Story was corrected and correction is noted. Have a great weekend, all!” reporter Emily Heil wrote in response to backlash.
10. ANDREA MITCHELL SAYS DISGRACED FL ELECTION OFFICIAL IS A REPUBLICAN
Allegations of voter fraud and electoral misconduct in Florida during the 2018 midterms brought Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes into the spotlight.
Snipes, a Democrat, had been accused of misconduct in the past and was slammed again for violating Florida election law.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell bafflingly said on air that Snipes is a Republican and “hardly a Democratic official, or someone doing the bidding of the Democratic candidates there.”
11. WAPO FORCED TO CORRECT NIKKI HALEY MISQUOTE
The Washington Post had to issue a correction after falsely attributing a quote about poverty to U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
After multiple requests by Haley for WaPo to issue a correction, the paper admitted that the quote in question was actually said by The U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations and International Organizations in Geneva.
12. MEDIA CLAIMS TRUMP CALLED THE FBI A ‘CANCER’
President Donald Trump referred to corruption and bias within the FBI, particularly related to the Russia probe, as a “cancer” during a September interview with The Hill.
The media repeatedly misquoted the president and claimed he called the FBI itself “cancer,” despite clarification from the two people who interviewed him.
13. RACHEL MADDOW ACCUSES WH OF EDITING PUTIN TAPE
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow opened a show in July by insisting that the Trump administration edited a tape of the president’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Helsinki.
The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump pointed out that the error was made by reporters too and was due to a change “between the feed from the reporters and the feed from the translator.”
14. NBC’S BRIAN WILLIAMS BUNGLES HIT PIECE ABOUT TRUMP AND DOGS
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams — also a noted survivor of a helicopter attack during the Iraq war — thought he exposed the president for being a dog-hater in an August segment.
Williams claimed his team “launched an extensive web search” and only found one photo of President Donald Trump with a dog.
The Daily Caller revealed, with the help of a quick Google search, multiple photos of the president holding dogs.
15. NPR: DONALD TRUMP JR. COMMITTED PERJURY
NPR published a report in November insisting that Donald Trump Jr. lied to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow because his statements conflicted with those of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.
However, NPR failed to realize that the piece of Trump Jr.’s testimony they quoted was about a different project.
“Trump Jr.’s statements about work on a Trump Tower Moscow that ended in 2014 referred to negotiations with Aras Agalarov,” The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Chuck Ross explained. “Felix Sater, a businessman with links to Cohen and Russian officials, tried to make a Trump Tower Moscow happen in 2015.”
16. TIME MAGAZINE’S FAMILY SEPARATION COVER FEATURING CRYING HONDURAN CHILD
Time Magazine published an infamous cover in June that showed a Honduran child crying at the U.S. border, apparently after she had been separated from her mother. The image quickly became the face of the “issue of family separations at the border,” despite the fact that the child in question was never separated.
An AFP journalists reads a copy of Time Magazine with a front cover using a combination of pictures showing a crying child taken at the US Border Mexico and a picture of US President Donald Trump looking down, on June 22, 2018 in Washington DC. (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images)
Later reports also revealed that, in contrast to common left-wing talking points, the mother and her child were not fleeing violence, and the mother had been previously deported from the U.S. In addition, the mother left three other children in Honduras and allegedly paid a smuggler to help her and her daughter cross the border illegally.
17. MIC WRITER CLAIMS RUSSIAN SPY WAS IN THE OVAL OFFICE
Shortly after it was revealed that a Russian spy was attempting to infiltrate right-wing networks, Mic writer Emily Singer claimed that same Russian spy was present during an Oval Office meeting with Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov.
Singer claimed Russian spy Maria Butina was spotted in a photo of the meeting, citing the fact that she has red hair like the woman in the photo.
The woman in the photo is actually NSC staffer Cari Lutkins.
18. NEW YORKER PUBLISHES KAVANAUGH ACCUSATION WITH ZERO CORROBORATION
The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow — generally known for their sharp reporting on sexual harassment — made a major blunder with their report on Deborah Ramirez’s allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face at a college party, but The New Yorker was unable to produce any firsthand witnesses or even confirm that Kavanaugh was at the party in question.
The New York Times even opted not to run the same allegation because they were unable to corroborate it. Ramirez herself admitted she had significant memory gaps about the incident and she told former classmates that she wasn’t even sure if Kavanaugh was the offender.
19. DAILY BEAST CLAIMS MIGRANTS IN CARAVAN DON’T HAVE DISEASES
The Daily Beast claimed that there is “zero evidence” that members of the migrant caravan were bringing HIV and TB into the United States.
The Tijuana Health Department reported a handful of cases of tuberculosis, HIV and chickenpox among the caravan. Officials with the Mexican state of Baja California disputed that there have been cases of tuberculosis, but confirmed that some migrants are carrying HIV and chickenpox.
20. MEDIA CLAIMS OBAMA DIDN’T SEPARATE FAMILIES AT THE BORDER
Several reporters claimed during the uproar over President Donald Trump’s family separations at the border that President Barack Obama never separated families.
However, reports from McClatchy and statements from former Obama administration officials revealed that, yes, Obama did separate some families who crossed the borderillegally.
MCALLEN, TX – SEPTEMBER 08: A girl from Central America rests on thermal blankets at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol on September 8, 2014 in McAllen, Texas. The Border Patrol opened the holding center to temporarily house the children after tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the border illegally into the United States during the spring and summer. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
“ICE could not devise a safe way where men and children could be in detention together in one facility,” Leon Fresco, a deputy assistant attorney general under Obama, said. “It was deemed too much of a security risk.”
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- The Exodus Continues: Tesla Gigafactory VP Leaves For Softbank-Backed Startup
The revolving door of executives at Tesla simply knows no bounds.
Just days after it was reported that the company lost investor relations manager Aaron Chew, Tesla is now reportedly losing Jens Peter Clausen, one of their Gigafactory Vice Presidents who was heading up battery manufacturing.
This also rounds out, according to CNBC, over 40 executives that have left the company this year. That list includes Doug Field, once slated to possibly be the company’s obvious choice for COO, and general counsel Todd Maron.
Clausen is moving to Zymergen, a synthetic biology company that has backing from Softbank. When interviewed by CNBC, the CEO of Zymergen stated that they were growing “at a pace that I’m not sure has been seen in life sciences”. Of Clausen, he said that he was sought out due to his experience “designing and improving largely automated manufacturing environments”.
At Tesla, Clausen was in charge of the rapid expansion of battery manufacturing at the company’s Gigafactory outside of Reno, Nevada. Tesla manufactures batteries using an amalgam of both automated and manual manufacturing processes alongside of Panasonic, its main supplier and partner at the facility. Prior to joining Tesla in 2015, Clausen worked in manufacturing at Lego. His tenure at Tesla barely lasted over three years, which surprisingly probably puts him above the median executive tenure at the company.
Clausen had previously been reported to be on leave. Gigafactory workers had told CNBC during the summer that they weren’t sure whether or not he would be returning to the company. As part of promotions Tesla made on September 7, it announced Chris Lister as its new Gigafactory Vice President. Despite promoting somebody else to his position, the company stated then that “Clausen had no plans to leave”.
Like many other things the company says, this may have not been the case.
His official start date at his new job is January 3, right around when the year to date clock for departures at Tesla will reset and the company will again get a chance to break what appeared to be a record year for its executive revolving door.
- LA Doubled Homeless Budget, Doubled Homeless Crime
Authored by Daniel Greenfield via Sultan Knish blog,
It wasn’t all that long ago that the nation watched transfixed in horror as fires tore apart California, destroying homes and claiming lives. In all the debates about global warming and forestry management, one singular cause of the fire was left unaddressed.
Global warming wasn’t starting the fires. People were.
Last December, the 422-acre Skirball Fire that forced the evacuation of 700 homes and took 10 days to put out was started by illegal cooking in a homeless encampment. The Leo Baeck Temple in Bel-Air, which celebrates “social justice”, even sued Los Angeles (both city and county) over fire damage for ignoring multiple complaints about the homeless encampment and the fire hazard that it posed.
This November, the Los Angeles Zoo had to evacuate its animals over a fire in yet another homeless encampment. That fire not only endangered lives, but diverted resources from fighting the much more serious fires in Ventura County.
But instead of shutting down the encampments, Mayor Garcetti, who has done more to legalize and subsidize homelessness in Los Angeles than any of his predecessors, sent “outreach workers” from the expanding behemoth of the LA Homeless Services Agency to ask them to please move.
That worked about as well as expected.
Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer blasted Garcetti for condoning campfires and refusing to arrest “homeless firebugs” and “vagrants” because there weren’t enough “No Trespassing” signs. “It’s unclear to me how many signs Mayor Eric Garcetti thinks he would need to cover the Santa Monica Mountains behind Bel Air and the Getty Museum,” he angrily wrote.
Brush fires are just one of the wages of the legalization and subsidization of the homeless. And while these fires are spectacular, they are not the most dangerous consequence.
Los Angeles had doubled its homeless budget to $450 million. Despite that its homeless population had only dropped to 39,826, a reduction of only 256 people. The only surprise in those statistics is that the population dropped at all. Homeless spending has the notorious effect of increasing homeless populations rather than diminishing them as vagrants swarm in and agencies inflate their numbers.
But while doubling its homeless budget didn’t significantly diminish the homeless population in Los Angeles, it did have another spectacular statistical effect on the wellbeing of city residents.
LAPD statistics showed that homeless crime actually increased by nearly 50%, jumping from 5,976 crime reports of homeless perpetrators in most of 2017 to 8,906 crime reports in most of 2018.
Los Angeles had doubled its homeless budget and doubled the amount of homeless crime.
Homeless advocates like to claim that the police wrongly arrest the homeless for quality of life offenses that other people get a pass on. If ordinary people aren’t arrested for public urination or campfires, why should the homeless?
That argument fueled the legalization of homelessness which allowed vagrants to urinate and defecate in public, resulting in businesses fleeing the affected areas, and Hepatitis outbreaks among homeless populations in Los Angeles and other major California cities, and it also allowed them to start fires.
Several epidemics and fires later, not to mention an outbreak of shoplifting and tents being set up in residential areas and outside small businesses, the full scale of homeless legalization looks even worse.
It’s not just the “quality of life” offenses or broken windows policing whose accomplishments helped bring back American cities in the 90s, but which the pro-Crime progressives have been reversing.
LAPD statistics showed that while the homeless were suspects in 4.3% of all crime in Los Angeles, they were the suspects in 12.6% of aggravated assaults. The footprint of homeless crime was three times as high when it came to aggravated assaults compared to the whole general geography of crime.
And that’s not surprising.
Despite the echo chamber of public officials and media talking heads claiming that the homeless are just “ordinary folks” who are down on their luck, the most visible homeless population is the one that stays outside the shelter system, that aggressively camps in public areas and that is mentally ill.
Drive around Los Angeles for a few hours and you will quickly encounter Third World street scenes. Ragged men and women stomp down deserted streets, threatening, cursing and violently gesticulating in the air. Legions of schizophrenics hang out in even the most expensive areas having angry debates with unseen antagonists. And sometimes they take a break from fighting ghosts to punch passerby.
Talk to enough people and the anecdotal stories of being threatened, punched or otherwise assaulted by the homeless population pile up. Most of these assaults aren’t serious and aren’t reported to the police. But they have frightened residents and made them more willing to shovel money into a homeless services system that only encourages and enables the very problem they are hoping to end.
The real story of the homeless crisis is not about economics, it’s about mental illness. And the way it has played out is another demonstration of how leftist activism can manage to wreak havoc on a city, a state or a country on behalf of an incrementally tiny and dysfunctional population.
LAPD statistics show 8,906 crime reports among a homeless population which has been measured at 39,826 people. The crime rate per population in Los Angeles is a little over 3%. Among the homeless, it’s 22%.
Out of 4 million people, 39,826 homeless are responsible for 12.6% or one eight of aggravated assaults.
Less than 1% of the population commits one eight of the aggravated assaults in a city of four million. Meanwhile 4.5% of a budget meant to serve those 4 million is going to 1% of the population.
As it turns out, there is a 1% that is responsible for many of the problems. It’s just the other 1%.
It’s not the people who work harder, who achieve more and who produce more that are the problem. Nor is it the people who have fallen on hard times, but are still looking to get back on their feet.
It’s the people who are wrecking everything.
The greatest lie that leftists have ever told is that they seek to help the less fortunate. They don’t. If they are accidentally helped, that’s collateral assistance. Instead they elevate the most disruptive elements, economically, politically, socially and culturally, in order to wreck cities, states and countries.
Lefty activism insists that everything stop to help that 1% which can’t stop dealing drugs, complaining about microaggressions or urinating in doorways. It inflates their numbers, their suffering and their significance to prop up a narrative of an uncaring society that must be taken over and reformed.
By the Left.
The opposite is true.
It’s not that we care too little. We care too much. The Left took over by playing on that empathy.
Our empathy often overpowers our common sense. We do what feels good, rather than what is good. But our good deeds don’t lead to good outcomes. We legalize homelessness and Hepatitis outbreaks follow among the very people we tried to help. The more money we spend on the homeless, the more homeless there are. And then violence, crime and brush fires break out because we listened to the Left.
The Left wants us to enable criminals and the mentally ill. But when we do that, it not only harms us, it harms them. Mental illness and crime are not social problems. They are individual problems. They only become social problems to the extent that we lose the ability to meaningfully address them. And that not only means that we can’t help ourselves, it also means that we can no longer help them.
California’s homeless crisis is a tragic demonstration of a society losing its values and its sense. The Hepatitis outbreaks, violent assaults and brush fires are just symptoms of what happens when the 99% allow the 1% and its progressive protectors to get away with anything in the name of social justice.
- New Cold War? WikiLeaks Reveals US Embassies Stockpiling Spy Gear And Hacking Tools
WikiLeaks has released a new batch of documents dubbed the “US Embassy Shopping List” which reveals American embassies around the world have been busy upgrading their spy capabilities on a massive scale. Some 16,000 documents reveal embassies abroad have been purchasing an assortment of James Bond style personal spy devises including tiny spy cams embedded in pens, buttons, caps, ties, and watches.
US Embassy in Moscow, via ABC News The documents published Friday were previously an “open secret” given they are available through government archives, yet WikiLeaks made them easier to access by created a searchable database after US embassies stopped linking their routine procurement requests to their websites.
One list of items sought by the US embassy in El Salvador includes items described as “tactical spy equipment.” Among more common items like binoculars and hidden cameras, the procurement request includes almost 100 spying devices masquerading as everyday objects such as pens, lighters, watches, and glasses.
In El Salvador and Colombia, the US embassy was shopping for spy cameras disguised as ties, caps, shirt buttons, watches, USB drives, lighters, and penshttps://t.co/fzcwoZskYVhttps://t.co/adxkW7R70S
What is the nearest US embassy up to? Look for clues:https://t.co/ecyLrZrJQD pic.twitter.com/BliRzrdMSn
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 21, 2018
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A number of similar lists were uncovered in Latin American countries, where there appears to be an uptick in US clandestine activity of late, given the seemingly ubiquitous presence of such spy and surveillance items on documents for embassies in El Salvador, Columbia, and Panama.
Of particular note featured in media coverage of the WikiLeaks publication, one document revealed that the embassy in Panama is seeking a contract with an Israeli company which develops Universal Extraction Devices (UFEDs), or small, portable computers capable of extracting the entire contents of a cellphone.
Der Spiegel: “Hard Working US Diplomats in Frankfurt”. WikiLeaks release shows central role of Frankfurt consulate. Shopping list includes devices to crack mobile phones in Armenia and analyse data.
Search the shopping lists of an US embassy near you: https://t.co/NYqyCmg1kZ pic.twitter.com/JDfxd51zWC
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 21, 2018
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And elsewhere State Department staff at the consulate in Frankfurt requested a forensic tool “necessary for extraction of existing and deleted communication data” and other hacking tools for use at the US embassy in Montenegro. The US Embassy in Ukraine has sought and obtained surveillance devices including 15 covert radios and 20 specialized voice recorders.
Given that in the past few years some US defense officials have framed US tensions with Russia as one of a “new Cold War,” it’s somewhat to be expected that US embassies abroad continue stocking up on spy equipment and gear in preparation for the next hostile covert environment reminiscent of the mid-20th century.
- Ethereum Soars As Lubin Calls "The Cryptobottom"
Ethereum is up 30% from Friday’s ‘close’ (and Bitcoin back above $4000) after Joseph Lubin, co-founder of the cryptocurrency, declared that he is “calling the cryptobottom of 2018” in a tweet.
I am calling the cryptobottom of 2018. This bottom is marked by an epic amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt from our friends in the 4th and crypto-5th estates.
— Joseph Lubin (@ethereumJoseph) December 21, 2018
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After a strong week last week, all major cryptos are up again, with Ether leading the way…
Driving Ethereum up to one-month highs, erasing almost all the post-Bitcoin-Cash hard-fork losses…
And Bitcoin back above $4,000…
As CoinTelegraph reports, according to Lubin, the crypto market’s bottom “is marked by an epic amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” specifically from industry media and social commentators, which he refers to as “our friends in the 4th and crypto-5th estates.”
image courtesy of CoinTelegraph
Continuing in a Twitter thread, the founder of Ethereum blockchain-focused software firm ConsenSys then evidently addressed his firms recently reported major layoffs:
“ConsenSys remains healthy and is engaging in a rebalancing of priorities and activities which started about nine months ago.”
He stated that Consensys continues investing in projects — in its role as a blockchain tech incubator and venture firm — and hiring for internal projects that “remain core to our forward looking-business.”
In the same thread, Lubin complained about “an epic amount of conjecture and preemptive paranoia” concerning “situations journalists and bloggers don’t have real data for, actual insight into, or understanding of.”
Concluding, Lubin reiterated his optimism about the future of ConsenSys and Ethereum, stating:
“The sky is not falling. From my perspective the future looks very bright. […] Peaking [sic] into 2019, if you could see the landscape through my eyes, you’d have to wear shades.”
Reports surfaced this week — citing sources familiar with the matter — that ConsenSys is spinning out startups it previously backed, some of them without financial support. The sources reported that the number of employees to be laid off could be anywhere between 50 and 60 percent of ConsenSys’ 1,200 person workforce.
This past week, Cointelegraph reported that in comparison to more significant job cuts in various industries globally, the current slump in the cryptocurrency markets and ensuring job cuts in associated companies seem relatively benign.
In September, Ethereum’s other co-founder Vitalik Buterin had pointed out that there is no chance that the cryptocurrency and blockchain space will see “1,000-times growth” again.
- 2018 Summed Up In One Picture
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