Tracker

REVEALED: The Donors to Tucker Carlson’s News Org—and Their Ethical Conflicts The non-profit that feeds the conservative Daily Caller website co-founded by Fox News host Tucker Carlson has accepted tens of thousands of dollars from entities and individuals who have received favorable coverage, including some who authored opinion pieces, a new filing shows. The document—the Daily Caller News Foundation’s fiscal year 2021 tax statement—includes for the first time a list of donors to the 501(c)(4) organization, a so-called “dark money” group that is not required by law to disclose donor information. The filing also reveals that Carlson, who in 2020 announced he was leaving the Daily Caller and selling his stake in the website, is still the foundation chairman, and has not cut back on his hours. When Carlson announced his split with the Daily Caller in 2020, he cited work constraints. “I’m just too absorbed in what I’m doing,” the host told The Wall Street Journal at the time, explaining, “I wasn’t helping in any way, because I’ve got an hour to do every night” on his Fox News program. The tax filing, which covers the following year, shows he continued to hold the chairman position and put in the same hours as in all previous foundation filings—five hours a week. Many of the foundation’s donors are tied to industries and issues that the Caller covers frequently. Most notable is the Ariel Corporation, which manufactures natural gas compressors and gave $135,000 to support the news organization—which has for years been criticized for its pro-carbon energy reporting and financial ties to the Koch brothers, the right-wing industrialists. Other donors have an even closer relationship with the site, including some who have published pieces in their own names, without a disclosure of their financial ties. That, according to top journalism ethics expert Kelly McBride raises ethics questions. https://www.thedailybeast.com/donors-to-tucker-carlsons-daily-caller-news-foundation-revealed?ref=home

In Israel, Netanyahu's extremist new government rips off the mask Benjamin Netanyahu's proposed coalition government of Jewish extremists, fanatic Zionists and religious bigots represents a seismic change in Israel, one that will exacerbate Israel's pariah status, erode external support for Israel, fuel a third Palestinian uprising, or intifada, and create irreconcilable political divides within the Jewish state. Alon Pinkas, writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, calls the coalition government, scheduled to take power within the next week or so, "a kakistocracy extraordinaire: government by the worst and least suitable collection of ultra-nationalists, Jewish supremacists, anti-democrats, racists, bigots, homophobes, misogynists, corrupt and allegedly corrupt politicians. A ruling coalition of 64 lawmakers, of whom 32 are either ultra-Orthodox or religious Zionist. Certainly not a coalition Zeev Jabotinsky, the father of Revisionist Zionism, or Menachem Begin, the founder of Likud, could have ever imagined." Itamar Ben-Gvir, from the ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit or "Jewish Power," party, will be the new minister for internal security. Otzma Yehudit is populated with former members of Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach party, which was banned from running for the Knesset in 1988 for espousing a "Nazi-like ideology" that included advocating the ethnic cleansing of all Palestinian citizens of Israel as well as all Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation. Ben-Gvir's appointment, along with that of other far-right ideologues, including Bezalel Smotrich, to be in charge of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, effectively jettisons the old tropes liberal Zionists used to defend Israel: It is the only democracy in the Middle East, it seeks a peaceful settlement with the Palestinians in a two-state solution, and while extremism and racism have no place in Israeli society, Israel must impose draconian forms of control on the Palestinians to prevent terrorism. https://www.salon.com/2022/12/17/in-israel-netanyahus-extremist-new-government-rips-off-the-mask/

Couldn't be worse than the recent season.

https://9gag.com/gag/aA03DPo

To underline this, on Sunday I heard an interview with the doctor who oversees the largest childrens' hospital in the country- Toronto Sick Kid's Hospital which is just as overwhelmed as any other such in Canada (and probably the US). She said that, although it changes a bit from day to day, consistently over 90% of the children on the ward are unvaccinated and their average length of stay approaches 14 days. The kids who are vaccinated but get sick anyway typically stay 2-3 days before discharge. She also said that had been deaths on her ward, but NONE of the children who died were vaccinated.

I wish this was a joke but........an American convenience store:

Yes, I am also surprised that there are allegations of corruption there as well.

And to add icing, he looks to be wearing a cod piece.

Bout will be of little help. The Russian armaments are hopelessly outdated for the most part, but the biggest problem the Russians face is that their troops are often unpaid, dispirited, starved, desperately cold, led by cowards/fools and with little or no medical support. Since the $50 per barrel embargo was imposed on Russia, and they no longer have access to their $350 billion foreign reserves, they cannot pay for much.

A fondness for marsupials?

There's money to be made pimping.

This has absolutely nothing to do with Trump's possible re-election campaign, The money will go his private funds along wit the $164 million he has already raised.

The pressure of the DOJ investigations appears to be getting to Trump, as he is now under the impression that he is a superhero. Yes, an ex-president posted a picture of himself as some sort of grifting Superman whose superpower appears to be financial fraud. On top of it all, Trump has lasers coming out of his eyes. Why lasers? Who knows. The image above is part of a video that will not be embedded here because doing so would give Trump’s failing social media platform attention, but the video is even crazier than the image above. Trump’s presidential campaign 3.0 has been a disaster. He is not campaigning. He has no campaign staff. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be an actual presidential campaign. Donald Trump has fooled the media into covering him for years with promises of a major announcement. Unless the announcement is that he is turning over all of the classified documents that he stole from the United States government, Trump has nothing newsworthy to say. Trump has gone from running the Republican Party to overseeing a cult that specializes in propaganda that would make the regime in North Korea blush. The DOJ poses the biggest threat of criminal prosecution that Trump has faced in his life, and so far, he is not showing signs of mentally holding up well.

There are credible reports that the US through the CIA conspired once again to overthrow a democratically elected government that displeased wealthy oligarchs.

One thing I have noticed about the justice system in the US- those who commit property crimes are too often punished more heavily than crimes against the wellbeing of others- such as rape, assault and so forth. That says a lot about America, and its not flattering.

Generalizations are rarely helpful, but sometimes accurate. Both Left and Right wings have extremists but nowhere have the Left wingers exhibited the propensity towards authoritarianism and violence that the right wingers have.

MY NEW COFFEE MUG:

'Neglect': Unvaccinated people more likely to have serious driving accidents People who refused to get the COVID-19 vaccine have a 72 percent higher chance of getting into a traffic crash that requires hospitalization, a new study published in the American Journal of Medicine says. The study looked at data of 11.2 million people taken from 178 medical centers in Ontario, Canada. Researchers found that 84 percent had received a COVID-19 vaccine as of July 31, 2021 while 16 percent hadn’t. Researchers also found that, in a one-month period, 6,682 of all the individuals had received care for serious car crashes. Of those individuals, 75 percent had received COVID-19 vaccinations and 25 percent hadn’t. This may sound like vaccinated individuals were more likely to get into car crashes. But because the 25 percent of unvaccinated crash victims came from a smaller pool of similarly unvaccinated individuals, researchers calculated that unvaxxed people were 72 percent more likely to be in a serious traffic accident when compared to vaxxed`individuals. “We theorized that individual adults who tend to resist public health recommendations might also neglect basic road safety guidelines,” the study’s authors stated. https://www.alternet.org/neglect-unvaccinated-people-more-accidents/