#Len Blavatnik

[nando161mando]

"Last month, members of the chat, including billionaire Len Blavatnik, held a Zoom call with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, at a time when a pro-Palestinian encampment was taking place at Columbia University in the city.

During the call, attendees spoke about making political donations to Adams, and about how the business leaders could urge Columbia's president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police on campus.

Some members of the chat offered to pay for private investigators to help police during the protests."

[screen1ne]

Tetris trailer starring Taron Egerton released

Tetris trailer starring Taron Egerton has been released and you can watch it right here #Tetris #Trailer #AppleTVPlus #TaronEgerton

Tetris Trailer A movie on Tetris. Last week it was the story of Air Jordan’s getting the hollywood treatment in a movie called… Air. This week it’s Tetris. Yes, Tetris the game that nobody could put down in the 80’s and well, err… ever since really. So today the Tetris trailer has been released for it’s debut in March on Apple TV+ Rather than a fun filled adventure with those troublesome blocks…

[soon-palestine]

Do you have a source for that Washington Post tweet with the list of billionaires funding that bill to change public opinion regarding Palestinian genocide. The one that included higher ups at Dell and Starbucks etc? I don't doubt it but I'd like to get more info and googling is NOT helping rn

according to the wp article :

it's a what's app chat group , here is te quote :

"People with direct access to the chat log’s contents supplied them to The Post. They shared the information on the condition of anonymity because the chat’s contents were meant to stay private. Members of the group verified the chat’s existence and their comments."

but the article included those names :

A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group.

Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows.

The chat was initiated by a staffer for billionaire and real estate magnate Barry Sternlicht

[..]

The messages describing the call with Adams were among thousands logged in a WhatsApp chat among some of the nation’s most prominent business leaders and financiers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

[article link]

[good-old-gossip]

American business leaders and billionaires set up a Whatsapp group to shape public opinion on Israel's war in Gaza and urged New York City's mayor to use police to disperse a pro-Palestinian protest at Columbia University.

The contents of the Whatsapp group were reported by the Washington Post on Thursday. The group was set up on 12 October, days after Hamas's surprise attack on southern Israel, to "change the narrative" on Israel, including by conveying "the atrocities committed by Hamas... to all Americans".

Among the business leaders in the group were the CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz, Dell CEO and founder Michael Dell, and Joshua Kushner, a financier and brother to Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The contents of the chat were supplied to the Washington Post by unnamed people with direct access to it. Last month, members of the chat, including billionaire Len Blavatnik, held a Zoom call with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, at a time when a pro-Palestinian encampment was taking place at Columbia University in the city.

Some members of the chat offered to pay for private investigators to help police during the protests.

According to the Washington Post, a member of the group wrote on the chat that such an offer had been accepted by Adams. New York's police denied using private investigators to manage the protests.

The Whatsapp group had over 100 members, and was titled "Israel Current Events". It was set up by real estate tycoon Barry Sternlicht, who was not directly a member of the chat but participated through a staffer.

The staffer said in October that the group's mission was to help "win the war" of public opinion in the US, while Israel worked to "win the physical war".

Source - https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/16/business-leaders-chat-group-eric-adams-columbia-protesters/

Without Paywall -

[palestinegenocide]

Now everyone hates Israel

This was a huge week in American Jewish political history.

First, the director of a movie about Auschwitz, the English director Jonathan Glazer, accepted an Oscar for the film by stating that his Jewishness should not be used to justify the slaughter of Gazans.

Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?

In saying “We,” Glazer also spoke for his producer Len Blavatnik, a billionaire who stood silently behind him and who just months ago had joined the Harvard donor revolt for alleged antisemitic — actually pro-Palestinian speech — on campus. A revolt that toppled the Harvard president.

Glazer’s speech was followed four days later by the “momentous speech” by New York Senator Chuck Schumer, speaking as a Jew and calling on Netanyahu to hold new elections because his rightwing policies are hurting Israel. “As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me, the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel,” said Schumer, the most powerful Jewish politician in American history.

Here too the Gaza slaughter figured largely. Schumer fears that the massive civilian death toll in Gaza, which causes him “anguish,” will cause Israel to become a “pariah” nation.

In coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and as a result, [Netanyahu] has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.

The first thing to observe about Schumer’s speech, and Glazer’s too, is that Palestinian lives are finally counting in American politics. The unbelievable onslaught on a captive people that caused Susan Abulhawa to somehow get in there and come back and tell us there’s a holocaust in Gaza that language cannot describe has at last registered for American politicians.

So just as Joe Biden said eight days ago that Netanyahu “cannot have another 30,000 Palestinians dead”– as if the first 30,000 were mere table stakes — those killings, now at least 31,700, are also cracking the conscience of the American Jewish community.

Schumer is at the center of the organized Jewish community. He has long put himself forward as the guardian of Israel– “a bellwether for the Jewish community, who has refrained from sharp criticism of the Israeli government” (as J Street put it)– and his speech has huge significance.

American Zionists are in complete crisis now. They know that Israel is already a pariah state in the eyes of the world. They know that you cannot destroy a territory in the genocidal manner that Israel has — and force the hand of the U.S. president in support of the genocide out of concern for his political donations, and topple Ivy League presidents who allow their students to criticize Israel — you can’t do these things without grave consequences.

Biden may lose Michigan because his hand was forced. American Jews who care about democracy in the U.S. are finally shaking loose. And Jews who see that corrupt Zionist influence is feeding antisemitic ideas about Jews are acting to openly criticize Israel.

Schumer acted out of pure desperation. He sees Biden being hurt politically if the Jewish community cannot pivot and condemn a genocide. He sees Israel becoming a “pariah” state.

There is today no difference between right-wing and left-wing Zionists inside the Democratic Party. They have all now gathered around the Schumer/Biden delusion that if you just get rid of Netanyahu, Israel will be able to curb the slaughter, pursue the two-state solution, and save the Jewish state.

So, we are seeing Zionism in an ongoing public crisis. Because Netanyahu won’t go. Or if he does go, he will be replaced by others who are equally or almost as warmongering and who will be able to do nothing to end the occupation. So Israel will just continue to be a pariah state. And the tsunami of boycotts, long predicted by Israel lovers, will really be upon us. Even Schumer said that the U.S. must restrict aid to Israel if it cannot stop slaughtering civilians.

This is a crisis of Jewish identity. Schumer again and again cited Jewish tradition and conscience as motivators for his speech. “What horrifies so many Jews especially is our sense that Israel is falling short of upholding these distinctly Jewish values that we hold so dear. We must be better than our enemies, lest we become them.”

However cynical you are about Jewish values and conscience — and I’m as cynical as they come — his speech represents a great wake-up call for Jews who care about human rights to take on the genocide-enablers in the U.S. Jewish community. Despite the love he expressed for Israel and the mythologies about its creation and supposed democracy, Schumer’s speech is historic and important on this ground.

Because as more than one critic of Schumer’s said this week, he is giving permission to others. The most powerful Jewish politician in U.S. history is saying, As a Jew I tell America, Israel is doing wrong. Yes, everyone hates Israel now!

So Schumer has opened the doors on the Jewish discussion that I and others in the American Jewish anti-Zionist community have long sought: How can we support a discriminatory, brutal state in our name as Jews over there when we absolutely oppose religious nationalism and persecution of minorities here?

This discussion will see the empowerment of a new generation of anti-Zionists, and their ultimate victory. Because the Jewish state will be unable to transform itself to suit American liberal values. And regardless of the political arrangements in coming years in Israel/Palestine — partition into two states, or one state — Israel’s transformation to pariah status is so well advanced now by its own actions that no Zionist will ultimately be able to save its racist apartheid constitution. And idealistic Jews here will help transform that land.

I’d add that in directing Israelis what to do– go have another election!– Schumer exposed a great secret of Zionism: It is an international Jewish ideology that will always cause confusion about national interest. Schumer could well argue that he was justified in directing Israelis because Israel interferes in our politics all the time, and as Netanyahu did in 2015. “Imagine if, I don’t know, some foreign leader who was ostensibly an ally of the United States, came here and gave an address before Congress that threw the American president under the bus on their key policy item of the times,” as a New York Jewish liberal Zionist put it in praising Schumer’s speech.” Can you imagine it?”

I can imagine just that because Schumer himself said after he voted against the Iran deal, he did so out of Israel’s interest not the American one.

So Zionism has always been a huge asterisk on American Jewish liberal values. This week that asterisk began to fall apart.

[readingsquotes]

A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group. Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation. ...The messages describing the call with Adams were among thousands logged in a WhatsApp chat among some of the nation’s most prominent business leaders and financiers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law. .. The chat group formed shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, and its activism has stretched beyond New York, touching the highest levels of the Israeli government, the U.S. business world and elite universities. Titled “Israel Current Events,” the chat eventually expanded to about 100 members, the chat log shows. More than a dozen members of the group appear on Forbes’s annual list of billionaires; others work in real estate, finance and communications. Overall, the messages offer a window into how some prominent individuals have wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business and political leaders — including New York’s mayor. ..Months before the protests at Columbia this spring, some chat members attended private briefings with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett; Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet; and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, according to chat records....From the start of the chat, members sought guidance and information from officials in the Israeli government. .. In the chat, discussion turned to the fact that Columbia had to grant Adams permission before he could send city police to the campus. One member asked if the group could do anything to pressure Columbia trustees to cooperate with the mayor. In reply, former congressman Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), CEO of the American Jewish Committee, shared a PDF of a letter his organization had sent that day to Columbia President Minouche Shafik calling on her to “shut these protests down.”

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show

A WhatsApp chat started by some wealthy Americans after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack reveals their focus on Mayor Eric Adams and their work to shape U.S. opinion of the Gaza war.

By Hannah Natanson and 

Emmanuel Felton

May 16, 2024 at 3:15 p.m. EDT

[archercrosley]

Len Blavatnik

Let’s talk about Len Blavatnik. He’s the latest Harvard jackass to withdraw economic support from his university because Claudine Gay had the audacity to permit free-speech on her campus. Say, I thought free speech was what this country was about? Apparently, the Founding Fathers must have felt the same way because they enshrined free-speech into the first amendment. Not that the first…

[my-chaos-radio]

Release: September 19, 2018

Lyrics:

Come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down

Yo, let's do that song for Peep

Sunlight on your skin when I'm not around

Shit don't feel the same when you're out of town

So come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down, yeah

Come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down

Sunlight on your skin when I'm not around

Shit don't feel the same when you're out of town (oh-oh, oh-oh)

So come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Rain keeps fallin', tears keep fallin'

Rain keeps fallin', tears keep fallin'

Darlin', your love is like walking a bed of nails

And I just can't keep on fightin'

Oh, oh, oh

Come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Sunlight on your skin when I'm not around (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Shit don't feel the same when you're out of town (oh-oh, oh-oh)

So come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down (oh-oh, oh-oh)

His name will live, brother

Bro, I got, I feel hella shitty because it's like, yo

Like, if I would have known he was so cool

And it's like, yo, if I would have watched interviews sooner, bro we were so alike

It's unfortunate because it's like, yo

When people die, that's when we like 'em, you know?

'Cause your remorse kinda makes you check 'em out

Darlin', your love is like walking a bed of nails

And I just can't keep on fighting

Oh, oh, oh

Songwriter:

Come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Sunlight on your skin when I'm not around (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Shit don't feel the same when you're out of town (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Come, let's watch the rain as it's falling down (oh-oh, oh-oh)

Michael Len Williams / Makonnen Sheran / Jahseh Dwayne Onfroy / Gustav Elijah Ahr / Valentin Leon Blavatnik / Aaron Wesley Jackson

SongFacts:

👉📖

[savedfromsalvation]

Good ole Moscow Mitch, Leningrad Lindsey and the rest of the GOPutin party!

[dr-archeville]

Tetris - Official Trailer (2023) Taron Egerton, Toby Jones [source]

The game you couldn’t put down, the story you couldn’t make up. Check out the trailer for Tetris, an upcoming Apple original film starring Taron Egerton. The movie is inspired by the true story of how one man risked his life to outsmart the KGB and turn Tetris into a worldwide sensation.

Tetris is directed by Jon S. Baird and written by Noah Pink. The film’s executive producer is Iain MacKenzie. Producers include Matthew Vaughn, Gillian Berrie, Claudia Vaughn, Len Blavatnik, and Gregor Cameron.

Tetris is streaming March 31 on Apple TV+

... what?

[zimbabwelive]

Why Is CPAC Having a Conference in Budapest

Come May 18, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), for nearly 50 years the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world, will assemble in Budapest, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as its keynote speaker.

That means leading American conservatives who are supposedly deeply committed to the ideals of personal liberty, limited government, free markets, human dignity, and the like will be joining forces behind one of the most authoritarian and antisemitic heads of state in the world. The speakers reportedly will include Orbán, who won his fourth term as prime minister on April 3; Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil’s president; and Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party.

At this writing, it’s unclear which big name American conservatives will be headlining the event. “I can’t tell you who is actually scheduled to speak,” said Daniel Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which sponsors CPAC. In recent months, however, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson, have all made highly visible appearances on the Orbán bandwagon, with Carlson repeatedly extolling the virtues of the Hungarian strongman to millions of viewers on Fox News.

The hard-right’s growing affinity for Orbán’s Hungary should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed how the Republicans became Putin’s Party and how they have responded to the ongoing Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Think of Hungary in terms of Russia’s trajectory in recent years, during which Putin ushered in an era of global theft on an unimaginable scale, putting together a mafia state in which his handpicked oligarchs had monopolistic control of Russia’s strategic resources—an authoritarian kleptocracy in which billions in dark money were stashed in anonymous shell companies. As has been widely reported, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard “Len” Blavatnik, a naturalized American citizen, has contributed millions to leading GOP candidates, including Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham. Similarly, as I reported in House of Trump, House of Putin, and American Kompromat, Russian oligarchs have paid countless millions to huge white-shoe American law firms representing their banks and energy companies and have plowed millions of dollars into supporting right-wing, populist movements elsewhere in the West.

But now that Russian atrocities in Ukraine dominate the news cycle 24/7, the mechanisms through which Putin’s propaganda, disinformation, and dark money flow to the West are finally being shut down. More than a thousand Russian businesses and individuals have been sanctioned. Russia has defaulted on foreign loans. Its banks have been removed from Swift. All Russian flights have been banned from United States, the U.K., the EU, and Canadian airspace. New investment in Russia from the West is being shut down. Yachts are being seized. One by one, the faucets are being turned off. And, as The Bulwark put it, that’s why the right has begun to increasingly “launder its Putinism” through support of Orbán.

[tienramadan]

Business titans privately urged NYC mayor to use police on Columbia protesters, chats show

A group of billionaires and business titans working to shape U.S. public opinion of the war in Gaza privately pressed New York City’s mayor last month to send police to disperse pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, according to communications obtained by The Washington Post and people familiar with the group.

Business executives including Kind snack company founder Daniel Lubetzky, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, billionaire Len Blavatnik and real estate investor Joseph Sitt held a Zoom video call on April 26 with Mayor Eric Adams (D), about a week after the mayor first sent New York police to Columbia’s campus, a log of chat messages shows. During the call, some attendees discussed making political donations to Adams, as well as how the chat group’s members could pressure Columbia’s president and trustees to permit the mayor to send police to the campus to handle protesters, according to chat messages summarizing the conversation.

One member of the WhatsApp chat group told The Post he donated $2,100, the maximum legal limit, to Adams that month. Some members also offered to pay for private investigators to assist New York police in handling the protests, the chat log shows — an offer a member of the group reported in the chat that Adams accepted. The New York Police Department is not using and has not used private investigators to help manage protests, a spokeswoman for City Hall said.

The messages describing the call with Adams were among thousands logged in a WhatsApp chat among some of the nation’s most prominent business leaders and financiers, including former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell, hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Joshua Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital and brother of Jared Kushner, former president Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

People with direct access to the chat log’s contents supplied them to The Post. They shared the information on the condition of anonymity because the chat’s contents were meant to stay private. Members of the group verified the chat’s existence and their comments.

The chat was initiated by a staffer for billionaire and real estate magnate Barry Sternlicht — who never joined directly, instead communicating through the staffer, according to chat messages and a person close to Sternlicht. In an Oct. 12 message, one of the first sent in the group, the staffer posting on behalf of Sternlicht told the others the goal of the group was to “change the narrative” in favor of Israel, partly by conveying “the atrocities committed by Hamas … to all Americans.”

Israel estimates 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. In the months since the war began, the death toll in Gaza has risen above 35,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The chat group formed shortly after the Oct. 7 attack, and its activism has stretched beyond New York, touching the highest levels of the Israeli government, the U.S. business world and elite universities. Titled “Israel Current Events,” the chat eventually expanded to about 100 members, the chat log shows. More than a dozen members of the group appear on Forbes’s annual list of billionaires; others work in real estate, finance and communications.

Overall, the messages offer a window into how some prominent individuals have wielded their money and power in an effort to shape American views of the Gaza war, as well as the actions of academic, business and political leaders — including New York’s mayor.

“He’s open to any ideas we have,” chat member Sitt, founder of the retail chain Ashley Stewart and the global real estate company Thor Equities, wrote April 27, the day after the group’s Zoom call with Adams. “As you saw he’s ok if we hire private investigators to then have his police force intel team work with them.”

Sitt declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

A half-dozen prominent members of the group confirmed on the record their participation in the chat. Multiple people familiar with the group confirmed the names of other members.

Cypriot Israeli real estate billionaire Yakir Gabay wrote in a statement shared by a spokesperson that he joined the group because he wanted to “share support at a difficult and painful time,” to aid the victims of Hamas attacks, and to “try and correct the false and misleading information intentionally spread worldwide to deny or cover up the suffering caused by Hamas.”

Asked about the Zoom meeting with chat group members, the mayor’s office did not address it directly, instead sharing a statement from Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy noting that New York police entered Columbia’s campus twice in response to “specific written requests” from university leadership. “Any suggestion that other considerations were involved in the decision-making process is completely false,” Levy said. He added, “The insinuation that Jewish donors secretly plotted to influence government operations is an all too familiar antisemitic trope that the Washington Post should be ashamed to ask about, let alone normalize in print.”

Adams demonstrated a willingness to send law enforcement to deal with campus protesters from the beginning. He sent police to Columbia’s campus to disperse pro-Palestinian demonstrators April 18, at the university’s request — about a day after protesters erected their Gaza solidarity encampment. Officers arrested more than 100 protesters. The mayor has subsequently alleged that student activists were affected by “outside influences” — and that police intervention was needed to prevent “children” from being “radicalized.”

Both he and Columbia’s president have since drawn criticism — but also support — for involving police, adding to a fraught stretch for Adams, who is up for reelection in 2025 and faces an FBI corruption investigation into whether his 2021 campaign received illegal donations from Turkey. Adams has defended that campaign, saying he held it to “the highest ethical standards.”

Four days after chat members held the video call with Adams, student protesters occupied a campus building and Columbia’s president invited police back to campus to clear the building. Officers removed and arrested dozens of protesters, pushing, striking and dragging students in the process, The Post reported. One officer accidentally fired his gun.

Months before the protests at Columbia this spring, some chat members attended private briefings with former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett; Benny Gantz, a member of the Israeli war cabinet; and Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Herzog, according to chat records.

Members of the group also worked with the Israeli government to screen a roughly 40-minute film showing footage compiled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) — titled “Bearing Witness to the October 7 Massacre” — to audiences in New York City. The film portrays killings committed by Hamas. A chat member asked for help from other members to show the film at universities; it was later screened at Harvard, a showing chat member Ackman helped facilitate, attended and promoted publicly.

Sternlicht declined to comment on the record, although a person close to him — speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the chat grouppublicly — confirmed the real estate tycoon initiated the chat. Other members of the chat, including Ackman and Schultz, confirmed their membership.

A spokesman said that Ackman had not participated in the chat since Jan. 10, adding that Ackman never spoke to Adams about the Columbia protests or donated to Adams’s campaign, although Ackman “likes and is supportive of the Mayor.” Joshua Kushner declined to comment.

On Oct. 12, a staffer for Sternlicht relayed a message from his boss outlining the group’s mission: While Israel worked to “win the physical war,” the chat group’s members would “help win the war” of U.S. public opinion by funding an information campaign against Hamas. The campaign was referred to in the chat as “Facts for Peace.”

The news site Semafor reported in November that Sternlicht was launching a $50 million anti-Hamas media campaign with various Wall Street and Hollywood billionaires. The people involved, per Semafor’s reporting, include some members of the WhatsApp chat, a review by The Post found. The chat messages, the contents of which have never before been reported, appear to reveal the start of the campaign, as well as separate pro-Israel activities undertaken later by chat members. It is unclear to what extent the chat group and media campaign overlapped.

Some of the media campaign’s activities were public, including its website and Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and X accounts, which together attracted more than 170,000 followers.

[worldtodaysposts]

Why Is CPAC Having a Conference Next Month in Budapest?

As Vladimir Putin grows increasingly isolated, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán becomes the chief conduit to the West for Putin-style authoritarianism and corruption.

Come May 18, the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), for nearly 50 years the largest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world, will assemble in Budapest, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán as its keynote speaker.

That means leading American conservatives who are supposedly deeply committed to the ideals of personal liberty, limited government, free markets, human dignity, and the like will be joining forces behind one of the most authoritarian and antisemitic heads of state in the world. The speakers reportedly will include Orbán, who won his fourth term as prime minister on April 3; Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of Brazil’s president; and Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party.

At this writing, it’s unclear which big name American conservatives will be headlining the event. “I can’t tell you who is actually scheduled to speak,” said Daniel Schneider, executive director of the American Conservative Union (ACU), which sponsors CPAC. In recent months, however, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones, and Tucker Carlson, have all made highly visible appearances on the Orbán bandwagon, with Carlson repeatedly extolling the virtues of the Hungarian strongman to millions of viewers on Fox News.

The hard-right’s growing affinity for Orbán’s Hungary should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed how the Republicans became Putin’s Party and how they have responded to the ongoing Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Think of Hungary in terms of Russia’s trajectory in recent years, during which Putin ushered in an era of global theft on an unimaginable scale, putting together a mafia state in which his handpicked oligarchs had monopolistic control of Russia’s strategic resources—an authoritarian kleptocracy in which billions in dark money were stashed in anonymous shell companies. As has been widely reported, Ukrainian-born billionaire Leonard “Len” Blavatnik, a naturalized American citizen, has contributed millions to leading GOP candidates, including Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio, and Lindsey Graham. Similarly, as I reported in House of Trump, House of Putin, and American Kompromat, Russian oligarchs have paid countless millions to huge white-shoe American law firms representing their banks and energy companies and have plowed millions of dollars into supporting right-wing, populist movements elsewhere in the West.

But now that Russian atrocities in Ukraine dominate the news cycle 24/7, the mechanisms through which Putin’s propaganda, disinformation, and dark money flow to the West are finally being shut down. More than a thousand Russian businesses and individuals have been sanctioned. Russia has defaulted on foreign loans. Its banks have been removed from Swift. All Russian flights have been banned from United States, the U.K., the EU, and Canadian airspace. New investment in Russia from the West is being shut down. Yachts are being seized. One by one, the faucets are being turned off. And, as The Bulwark put it, that’s why the right has begun to increasingly “launder its Putinism” through support of Orbán.

[phonemantra-blog]

The 2024 Academy Awards ceremony may be over, but the controversy surrounding Jonathan Glazer's acceptance speech for Best International Feature for "The Zone of Interest" continues to simmer. Glazer's comments, which equated the dehumanization of the Holocaust with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, ignited a firestorm of debate. Adding another layer of complexity to the issue is the revelation that Glazer did not clear his speech with co-producer Len Blavatnik, a prominent billionaire with seemingly contradictory stances on the Middle East. A Speech Fraught with Tension Glazer's speech centered on the film's exploration of dehumanization. However, his remarks took a sharp turn when he declared, "We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people." This statement drew immediate criticism, with many interpreting it as a denial of Jewish identity. While some offered the benefit of the doubt, acknowledging the possibility of a poorly phrased statement, the damage was done. Glazer was accused of exploiting Jewish suffering to make a political point. The Producer in the Spotlight: Len Blavatnik and a History of Complexities Standing alongside Glazer on stage was co-producer Len Blavatnik, a figure whose own background adds a layer of intrigue to the situation. The 66-year-old billionaire, born Jewish in Soviet Ukraine, maintains both British and American citizenship. He has a history of supporting both Israeli and Jewish causes, including donations to the National Library of Israel and Birthright Israel. Interestingly, Blavatnik also owns a controlling stake in an Israeli television channel. A Disconnect Between Producer and Director? Despite his seemingly pro-Israel stance, Blavatnik reportedly did not endorse Glazer's speech. A spokesperson for Blavatnik confirmed this, stating that while Blavatnik is proud of the film, he was not consulted about the speech and does not want to detract from the movie's message. This revelation raises questions about the level of communication between Blavatnik and Glazer, and whether they truly shared the same vision for the film's impact. A Web of Financial Ties and Creative Freedom Blavatnik's business ventures further complicate the picture. His company, Access Entertainment, holds a significant stake in Warner Music Group, where he serves as vice chairman. Access also co-finances films with A24, a production company known for its association with directors who hold views critical of Israel's policies. This financial web creates a situation where Blavatnik, seemingly a supporter of Israel, ends up indirectly backing filmmakers whose views on the Middle East differ sharply from his own. Unanswered Questions and a Lingering Controversy The controversy surrounding Glazer's speech and Blavatnik's silence exposes the complexities of navigating art, politics, and personal beliefs. While Glazer may have intended to condemn the use of historical trauma for political gain, his execution was clumsy and offensive. Blavatnik's position remains unclear, leaving many to wonder about his true stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ultimately, the incident serves as a stark reminder of the challenges of reconciling personal convictions with the realities of the entertainment industry. FAQs Q: What was controversial about Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech? A: Glazer's comments equated the dehumanization of the Holocaust with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and some interpreted his statement as a denial of his Jewish identity. Q: Did Len Blavatnik endorse Jonathan Glazer's speech? A: No, Blavatnik did not approve the speech beforehand and distanced himself from its content. Q: How does Len Blavatnik's background relate to the controversy? A: Blavatnik is a Jewish billionaire who supports both Israel and Jewish causes, yet his company finances films by directors critical of Israel's policies. This creates a sense of dissonance.

[flm5]

Doadores estão abandonando Harvard

O bilionário Len Blavatnik’s, que entregou 270 milhões de dólares para Harvard em sua ultima doação (em 2018 ele tinha doado outros 200 milhões para a escola de medicina de Harvard), anunciou o cancelamento do donativo depois do depoimento da reitora Claudine Gay no Congresso se recusando a condenar o genocídio de judeus. Blavatnik nasceu na Ucrânia, estudou na Harvard Business School e fez uma…