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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Monday, April 5, 2021

Coming out of the cave: As life creeps back, some feel dread (AP) Dinner reservations are gleefully being made again. Long-canceled vacations are being booked. People are coming together again, in some of the ways they used to. But not everyone is racing back. For some, even small tasks outside the home—a trip to the grocery store, or returning to the office—can feel overwhelming. Psychologists call it re-entry fear, and they’re finding it more common as headlines herald the imminent return to post-pandemic life. “I have embraced and gotten used to this new lifestyle of avoidance that I can’t fathom going back to how it was. I have every intention of continuing to isolate myself,” says Thomas Pietrasz, who lives alone and works from his home in the Chicago suburbs as a content creator. Pietrasz says his anxiety has grown markedly worse as talk of post-vaccine life grows. He says he got used to “hiding at home and taking advantage of curbside and delivery in order to avoid every situation with people.”

Vaccine passports are latest flash point in COVID politics (AP) Vaccine passports being developed to verify COVID-19 immunization status and allow inoculated people to more freely travel, shop and dine have become the latest flash point in America’s perpetual political wars, with Republicans portraying them as a heavy-handed intrusion into personal freedom and private health choices. They currently exist in only one state—a limited government partnership in New York with a private company—but that hasn’t stopped GOP lawmakers in a handful of states from rushing out legislative proposals to ban their use. Vaccine passports are typically an app with a code that verifies whether someone has been vaccinated or recently tested negative for COVID-19. They are in use in Israel and under development in parts of Europe. But lawmakers around the country are already taking a stand against the idea. “We have constitutional rights and health privacy laws for a reason,” said Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, a Republican. “They should not cease to exist in a time of crisis. These passports may start with COVID-19, but where will they end?” Benninghoff said this week his concern was “using taxpayer money to generate a system that will now be, possibly, in the hands of mega-tech organizations who’ve already had problems with getting hacked and security issues.”

Facebook data on more than 500M accounts found online (AP) Details from more than 500 million Facebook users have been found available on a website for hackers. The information appears to be several years old, but it is another example of the vast amount of information collected by Facebook and other social media sites, and the limits to how secure that information is. The availability of the data set was first reported by Business Insider. According to that publication, it has information from 106 countries including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, and email addresses. Facebook has been grappling with data security issues for years.

In Myanmar, Easter eggs a symbol of defiance for anti-coup protesters (Reuters) Opponents of military rule in Myanmar inscribed messages of protest on Easter eggs on Sunday while others were back on the streets, facing off with the security forces after a night of candle-lit vigils for hundreds killed since a Feb. 1 coup. In the latest in a series of impromptu shows of defiance, messages including “We must win” and “Get out MAH”—referring to junta leader Min Aung Hlaing—were seen on eggs in photographs on social media. Young people in the main city of Yangon handed out eggs bearing the messages of protest, pictures in posts showed.

With Swarms of Ships, Beijing Tightens Its Grip on South China Sea (NYT) The Chinese ships settled in like unwanted guests who wouldn’t leave. As the days passed, more appeared. They were simply fishing boats, China said, though they did not appear to be fishing. Dozens even lashed themselves together in neat rows, seeking shelter, it was claimed, from storms that never came. Not long ago, China asserted its claims on the South China Sea by building and fortifying artificial islands in waters also claimed by Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia. Its strategy now is to reinforce those outposts by swarming the disputed waters with vessels, effectively defying the other countries to expel them. The goal is to accomplish by overwhelming presence what it has been unable to do through diplomacy or international law. And to an extent, it appears to be working. “Beijing pretty clearly thinks that if it uses enough coercion and pressure over a long enough period of time, it will squeeze the Southeast Asians out,” said Greg Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, which tracks developments in the South China Sea. “It’s insidious.”

Nearly 20 arrested in alleged plot against Jordan’s King Abdullah II (Washington Post) Jordanian authorities on Saturday arrested as many as 20 people and sought to restrain the movement of a former crown prince amid what officials called a threat to the “security and stability” of a country long regarded as a vital U.S. ally in the Middle East. Prince Hamzeh bin Hussein, the eldest son of the late King Hussein and his American-born fourth wife, Queen Noor, was told to remain at his Amman palace amid an investigation into an alleged plot to unseat his older half brother, King Abdullah II, according to a senior Middle Eastern intelligence official briefed on the events. The move followed the discovery of what officials described as a complex and far-reaching plot that included at least one other Jordanian royal as well as tribal leaders and members of the country’s political and security establishment. One official cited unspecified evidence of “foreign” backing for the plan. Biden administration officials were briefed on the arrests, which come at a time of heightened economic and political tension in a country long regarded as a bulwark of stability and an essential partner in U.S.-led counterterrorism operations.

Cairo’s mummies get a new home. And a grand procession on the way. (Washington Post) It was a parade unlike any other this city has seen. A procession of 22 ancient Egyptian royal mummies streamed Saturday from downtown Cairo, where revolutionaries rose up to topple autocrat Hosni Mubarak a decade ago, to a new museum three miles away that represents Egypt’s future as much as its past. At 8 p.m., the mummies—18 kings and four queens—left the famed ochre-hued Egyptian Museum near Tahrir Square, where they had rested for decades. They were each atop specially decorated gold-and-blue-hued vehicles resembling boats. Or perhaps the symbol of a winged sun, an ornament worn by Egypt’s ancient rulers and seen as providing protection. Each of the 22 vehicles was emblazoned with the name of the royal mummy it carried. The multimillion-dollar affair—called the Pharaohs’ Golden Parade—had been promoted for months. Egyptian authorities are seeking to attract tourists, a key source of foreign currency, and alter the course of an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic, Islamist attacks and political chaos in past years. The highly choreographed ceremony was also a nationalist vehicle to highlight Egypt’s place in history. The nation’s authoritarian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, who himself is often referred to as “a new pharaoh” for his ambitious projects and iron-fisted rule, presided over the ceremony.

Confronting late-stage pandemic burnout (NYT) Like many of us, the writer Susan Orlean is having a hard time concentrating these days. “Good morning to everyone,” she tweeted recently, “but especially to the sentence I just rewrote for the tenth time.” “I feel like I’m in quicksand,” she explained by phone from California, where she has been under quasi-house arrest for the last year. “I’m just so exhausted all the time. I’m doing so much less than I normally do—I’m not traveling, I’m not entertaining, I’m just sitting in front of my computer—but I am accomplishing way less. It’s like a whole new math. I have more time and fewer obligations, yet I’m getting so much less done.” Call it a late-pandemic crisis of productivity, of will, of enthusiasm, of purpose. Whatever you call it, it has left many of us feeling like burned-out husks, dimwitted approximations of our once-productive selves. “Malaise, burnout, depression and stress—all of those are up considerably,” said Todd Katz, executive vice president and head of group benefits at MetLife. The company’s most recent Employee Benefit Trends Study, conducted in December and January, found that workers across the board felt markedly worse than they did last April. The study was based in part on interviews with 2,651 employees. In total, 34 percent of respondents reported feeling burned out, up from 27 percent last April. Twenty-two percent said they were depressed, up from 17 percent last April, and 37 percent said they felt stressed, up from 34 percent.

#headlines #news

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blog-cosmosuniverse1 · 3 years ago

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US Officials Demand Ban on Dr. Mercola’s Book

Story at-a-glance Since the publication of my book, “The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal,” which became an instant best seller on Amazon.com, there’s been a significant increase in censorship September 7, 2021, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to the chief executive officer of Amazon.com, demanding an “immediate review” of Amazon’s algorithms to weed out books peddling “COVID misinformation” Warren specifically singled out “The Truth About COVID-19” as a prime example of “highly-ranked and favorably-tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures” that she wants to see banned from sale September 9, 2021, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff sent letters to Facebook and Amazon, also calling for more prolific censorship of vaccine information Warren based her call to ban my book on a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, despite Facebook having discredited that report three weeks earlier, stating the CCDH manufactured a faulty narrative without evidence against the 12 individuals targeted in its report

Since the publication of my book, “The Truth About COVID-19: Exposing The Great Reset, Lockdowns, Vaccine Passports, and the New Normal,” which became an instant best seller on Amazon.com, there’s been a significant increase in censorship and ruthless attacks.Sadly, many of these attacks have been levied by the very people elected to safeguard democracy and our Constitutional rights. Most recently, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., sent a letter1 to Andy Jassy, chief executive officer of Amazon.com, demanding an “immediate review” of Amazon’s algorithms to weed out books peddling “COVID misinformation.”2,3,4Warren specifically singled out “The Truth About COVID-19” as a prime example of “highly-ranked and favorably-tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures” that she wants to see banned from sale.“Dr. Mercola has been described as ‘the most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online,” Warren writes,5 adding: “Not only was this book the top result when searching either ‘COVID-19’ or ‘vaccine’ in the categories of ‘All Departments’ and ‘Books’; it was tagged as a ‘Best Seller’ by Amazon and the ‘#1 Best Seller’ in the ‘Political Freedom’ category.The book perpetuates dangerous conspiracies about COVID-19 and false and misleading information about vaccines. It asserts that vitamin C, vitamin D and quercetin … can prevent COVID-19 infection … And the book contends that vaccines cannot be trusted, when study after study has demonstrated the overwhelming effectiveness and safety of COVID-19 vaccines. It should come as no surprise that the book is rife with misinformation. One of the authors, Dr. Mercola, is one of the ‘Disinformation Dozen,’ a group responsible for 65% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook and Twitter ...”Two days later, September 9, 2021, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., followed in Warren’s footsteps, sending letters6 to Facebook and Amazon, calling for more prolific censorship of vaccine information.7Modern-Day Book Burning Essentially, what Warren is calling for is modern-day book burning. “The Truth About COVID-19” exposes the hidden agenda behind the pandemic, showing the countermeasures have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with ushering in a new social and economic system based on totalitarian technocracy-led control. So, it’s not misinformation they fear. It’s the truth they want to prevent from spreading.To make her case, Warren leans on a discredited report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). In that report, “The Disinformation Dozen,”8 the CCDH founder Imran Ahmed claims to have identified the top most influential “anti-vaxxers” in the U.S. The problem is Ahmed made that up.[The ‘Disinformation Dozen’] are responsible for about just 0.05% of all views of vaccine-related content on Facebook. This includes all vaccine-related posts they’ve shared, whether true or false, as well as URLs associated with these people. ~ Monika Bickert, VP Facebook Content PolicyCCDH ‘Manufactured Narrative Without Evidence’ Facebook Says August 18, 2021 — nearly three weeks before Warren sent that letter to Amazon — Facebook actually called out the CCDH for having manufactured a faulty narrative without evidence against the 12 individuals targeted in its reports.9 Monika Bickert, vice president of Facebook content policy, set the record straight, stating:10“In recent weeks, there has been a debate about whether the global problem of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation can be solved simply by removing 12 people from social media platforms. People who have advanced this narrative contend that these 12 people are responsible for 73% of online vaccine misinformation on Facebook. There isn’t any evidence to support this claim …That said, any amount of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation that violates our policies is too much by our standards — and we have removed over three dozen Pages, groups and Facebook or Instagram accounts linked to these 12 people, including at least one linked to each of the 12 people,

for violating our policies.We have also imposed penalties on nearly two dozen additional Pages, groups or accounts linked to these 12 people, like moving their posts lower in News Feed so fewer people see them or not recommending them to others. We’ve applied penalties to some of their website domains as well so any posts including their website content are moved lower in News Feed.The remaining accounts associated with these individuals are not posting content that breaks our rules, have only posted a small amount of violating content, which we’ve removed, or are simply inactive.In fact, these 12 people are responsible for about just 0.05% of all views of vaccine-related content on Facebook. This includes all vaccine-related posts they’ve shared, whether true or false, as well as URLs associated with these people.The report11 upon which the faulty narrative is based analyzed only a narrow set of 483 pieces of content over six weeks from only 30 groups, some of which are as small as 2,500 users. They are in no way representative of the hundreds of millions of posts that people have shared about COVID-19 vaccines in the past months on Facebook.Further, there is no explanation for how the organization behind the report identified the content they describe as ‘anti-vax’ or how they chose the 30 groups they included in their analysis. There is no justification for their claim that their data constitute a ‘representative sample’ of the content shared across our apps.” ‘Disinfo Dozen’ Barely Register on the Social Media Radar In its report, the CCDH claims 12 people, including me, are responsible for 65% of anti-vaccine content on social media. I’m not sure where Bickert got the 73% figure from. Either way, we’re not responsible for anywhere near either 65% or 73%.According to Facebook’s own investigation, we account for a minuscule 0.05% of vaccine-related content — 1,460 times lower than the CCDH’s outrageous claim. Still, Warren and myriad other government officials are using the CCDH as some sort of ultimate authority.U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, White House press secretary Jen Psaki and President Biden have all used the CCDH as the sole source for their wild assertions. Now, Warren wants to use the CCDH’s fraudulent report to ban the sale of certain books, and she does so even after Facebook itself has refuted the CCDH report as being baseless!In an email, Kara Fredrick, a research fellow in technology policy at the Heritage Foundation, told Fox News that:12“Warren's push for more censorship is yet another example of the growing symbiosis between Big Tech and big government,” and is indicative of a "broader trend: That of the Biden Administration and other progressive officials attempting to circumvent the Constitution by pressuring private tech companies to restrict freedom of expression under a broad definition of misinformation.”Fredrick further stressed that “A healthy body politic depends on the genuine interrogation of ideas,” and that “Big Tech companies’ eagerness to suppress specific points of view is already corroding our free society.”Freedom Is Corroding Before Our Eyes Indeed, in early August 2021, I decided to remove the entire article archive from my website — articles I’ve made available for free for the last 24 years — and only make new articles readable for 48 hours. I did this in an effort to appease the power players who have an arsenal of overwhelming tools at their disposal, and are actively using them against us.Cyberwarfare and authoritarian forces are beyond our abilities to withstand, and these changes were deemed necessary to keep us moving forward, even if hobbled. Still, Warren is not satisfied. She wants me silenced entirely. She doesn’t even want people willing to pay for the information to have access to it.Clearly, she’s panicked about something. Reading her letter, I see before me the giant Goliath, yelling and screaming for help, demanding an army of fighters because the pea-sized David with his makeshift slingshot is in the

neighborhood.What is she really afraid of? Why pick on a person whose social media reach is a fraction of 0.05%? Could it be because the ‘Disinfo Dozen’ are actually telling the truth, and the truth has a tendency to win against all odds?Goal Posts Set in Shifting Quicksand According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, Biden met his 70% vaccination rate at the beginning of August 2021.13 For months, we were told that all would be well and good if only we would meet the goal of 70%.Yet as soon as it was met, we were told 70% “should be seen as a floor, rather than a ceiling” and Biden went on the news saying his patience with the vaccine hesitant is “wearing thin.” Because a small minority — if we are to believe CDC data — refuses to take the shot despite myriad bribes, Biden is now calling on businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate the COVID shots or face fines.It’s beyond irrational, and to many seems highly irrational, unjustified and unconstitutional. This is especially egregious as ALL illness and injury expenses will be paid by the patient, even though they were forced to take the injection as the companies have zero liability.However, as noted by Dr. Peter Breggin in yesterday’s interview, these actions are completely logical once you realize we are at war, and there are evil people out there who are intentionally trying to hurt us under the banner of providing protection. It’s no different than being in an abusive relationship where the abuser says he or she is beating you and locking you in the basement “to make you a better person.”The Web of Elite Extremists Behind the Censorship I’ve written many articles over the years about attempts by various groups and organizations to smear my credibility and label this site as a fake news hub. In March 2021, it was The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) that accused me of spreading misinformation about vaccines and COVID-19.14Not surprisingly, TBIJ is funded by Bill Gates,15,16 a leading force within the technocratic takeover movement who doles out money to anything and anyone that will help further the globalist agenda, including media.17In November 2019, as if blessed with some particular foresight, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave TBIJ a $1,068,169 grant from its “Global Health and Development Public Awareness and Analysis” advocacy program.18Other TBIJ sponsors include19 the Google News Initiative,20 George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and the Wellcome Trust.21 All of these — Gates, Google, Soros and Wellcome — are easily identified as parts of the technocratic globalist network that is reaping unprecedented financial rewards from the pandemic.Whose Interests Does CCDH Protect and Promote? While the financial supporters of the CCDH are far more opaque, it seems clear this group is yet another front for the technocratic power structure. It’s founded by a British national and unregistered foreign agent named Imran Ahmed, who is also a member of the Steering Committee on Countering Extremism Pilot Task Force under the British government’s Commission for Countering Extremism.When you think about it, isn’t it rather curious that American government officials are targeting and violating the Constitutional rights of citizens based on the opinions of an unregistered foreign agent funded by dark money?22 As noted in a July 20, 2021, Drill Down article:23“When a report goes viral in the news cycle, it only makes sense to question where it came from — especially if that report has influence all the way up to the Oval Office, affecting public health policy, while also having dangerous implications for free speech.The Center for Countering Digital Hate … released a bombshell report earlier this week. It was picked up everywhere and had the following revelation: The majority of COVID misinformation came from just 12 people … But could this be a wily gambit by outside interests to justify the Biden administration’s censorship partner-up with Big Tech? …According to its website, the

left-wing Center for Countering Digital Hate prides itself on ‘researching, exposing, and then shutting down users and news sites it deems unacceptable in the digital sphere.’Users and news sites it deems unacceptable? That seems potentially dangerous, considering we know very little about the CCDH. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) expressed his concerns on Twitter with the following post:‘Who is funding this overseas dark money group — Big Tech? Billionaire activists? Foreign governments? We have no idea. Americans deserve to know what foreign interests are attempting to influence American democracy’ …No one knows who funds them. No one knows who is driving their research. But their findings are being used in censorship efforts under the guise of controlling misinformation?”Violating Bioethical Principles Puts Lives at Risk The sad irony is that government officials are really the ones contributing to most of the unnecessary death and suffering by not adhering to bioethical principles that are enshrined in law. These laws exist for a good reason. They protect people from unnecessary harm and unwanted medical risks.As an experimental trial participant, which is what everyone is at the moment who accepts a COVID shot, you have the right to receive full disclosure of any adverse event risks. Based on that disclosure, you then have the right to decide whether you want to participate.Adverse event risk disclosure should be provided at the level of detail disclosed in any drug package insert. Not only do vaccinees not get any such disclosure documents, the censorship also prevents them from getting any balancing information regarding their risk-reward ratio, along with risk of death and permanent disability, from other sources, be it through Google searches, social media or mainstream news.When given just one side of the story, informed consent simply isn’t possible, and as such, violates several different national and international laws, including the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations 45 CFR 46 (subpart A, the Belmont report),24 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights treaty,25 the Declaration of Helsinki26 and the Nuremberg Code.27 U.S. Supreme Court rulings have also clarified that Americans have the right to choose their own health care in general.28,29As just one example of many, Marie Follmer, in an interview with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,30 said no one ever warned her there was a risk of myocarditis. Her athletic son, Greyson, took the shot and is now unable to do much of anything and she fears he might die.She admits not doing any of her own research, blindly trusting what she was told. Now, she distrusts the whole process, including doctors, as all have refused to acknowledge that there might be a link to the shot, and no one knows how to treat him.Most importantly, the acceptance of an experimental product must be fully voluntary and uncoerced. Enticement is forbidden. It’s downright impossible to argue that incentives ranging from free junk food to million-dollar lotteries and threats of losing your job, refusal of an education, travel and shopping restrictions and more do not constitute coercion.At the end of the day, if you decide you want to participate in a medical experiment, whatever it might be, that’s up to you. But everyone else also has that same right to choose.

Sen. Warren Threatens Amazon to Ban ‘The Truth About COVID-19’

Since the publication of my latest book, “The Truth About COVID-19,” which became an instant best seller on Amazon.com, there’s been a significant increase in calls for censorship and ruthless attacks against me.

Most recently, so-called “progressive” U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in an outrageous, slanderous and basically unconstitutional attempt to suppress free speech, sent a letter to Amazon, demanding an “immediate review” of their algorithms to weed out books peddling “COVID misinformation.”

Warren specifically singled out “The Truth About COVID-19” as a prime example of “highly ranked and favorably tagged books based on falsehoods about COVID-19 vaccines and cures” that she wants to see banned from sale.

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wineanddinosaur · 4 years ago

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Accusations of Sexism and Discrimination at Boulevard Brewing Company Show the Industry Still Has Far to Go

From harrowing disputes like Founders Brewing Company’s 2018 racial discrimination lawsuit to sexist marketing snafus (of which there are too many), the craft beer industry continues to struggle with myriad forms of discrimination. The latest controversy comes from Kansas City, Mo.’s Boulevard Brewing Company. It contains all the hallmarks of an unchecked culture of misogyny: accusations of bias against a pregnant person, gaslighting women by responding to claims of sexual harassment with “it’s just a joke,” and so on. Additionally, a former female employee calls out Boulevard for perpetuating targeted harassment while also participating in women-positive events, such as Women’s Brew Day, organized by national women’s nonprofit organization the Pink Boots Society.

Founded in 1989, Boulevard has long been revered in the craft brewing world, with iconic brews like Tank 7 American Saison putting it on the global map. Duvel Moortgat acquired the brewery in 2013 and was ranked No. 5 on the latest Brewers Association’s Top 50 Brewing Companies by Sales Volume report.

On Jan. 23, 2021, a Reddit post made by user notfrankthecat (a former Boulevard employee) publicly outlined her accusations against the brewery, claiming she was harassed because of her pregnancy. She specifically referred to her former boss, as well as another man employed by Boulevard, as the primary perpetrators of ongoing toxic treatment toward women, herself included. She goes on to recount her struggles to be heard and taken seriously by Boulevard’s human resources department, but says nothing was done to correct bad behavior or discipline those contributing to the hostile environment. In her statement, the former employee ultimately concludes that “If you fuck up, you are forgiven. If you report misbehavior, you are punished.”

In the same post, the former employee says she left Boulevard in March 2020, and no longer works in the brewing industry due to the discrimination she faced in her position there. During a brief correspondence with VinePair, the former employee described feeling “overwhelmed” with the response to her anonymous accusations, but ultimately declined to provide a comment for the time being.

On Jan. 25, Boulevard released a statement in response to the allegations, saying it took the accusation “very seriously” with a promise to “use this situation as an opportunity to learn and to grow.” However, nowhere in the statement were the words “apology,” “sorry,” “amends,” or any other reference to repairing the harm it is accused of. Feedback on social media has largely remained vitriolic to the statement from Boulevard, demanding more details about the investigation the brewery claims took place a year ago, as well as condemnation for the lack of accountability.

On Jan. 26, after facing widespread reproach to its first statement, Boulevard released a second statement titled “Reflecting,” which begins with an apology and acknowledgment of failure, before revealing an executive has been let go from the company. Boulevard also says it plans to hire an outside HR firm to investigate the internal issues.

We’ve heard this before. Danii Oliver, recently elected to the Pink Boots Society board of directors and owner/brewer at Island to Island Brewery in Fort Worth, Texas, laments this avoidable loss of another woman in beer. “Once again, we learn the story too late, of a woman who has been discriminated against, forced out and who has lost her livelihood,” she says on her website in a post titled “A Call To Action.” “These women are out here telling their [stories], because they’re at the point where they have nothing left to lose,” she says. “It’s all been taken from them. So now they speak. But now, they can’t do anything. It seems like every time I stop grieving from one incident, another one comes up.”

In August 2020, the Brewers Association outlined a code of conduct for its membership, which includes Boulevard. It created a “member complaint process” with a stated intent “to hold our peers accountable for unacceptable behavior while pursuing an educational path forward that leads to a more inclusive and respectful craft beer community.” It goes on to promote a partnership with the Racial Equity Institute, but does not specifically mention any gender-based discrimination partners or training other than a goal “to eliminate discrimination, harassment, and bias of all types,” which, presumably, would include gender discrimination.

According to the Brewers Association’s only brewery diversity report from 2019, women continue to be a minority in the beer industry in every single position except non-managerial service staff roles. That means in the majority of cases, women remain reliant on tips — a practice that puts workers in compromising, and sometimes dangerous, positions — and often lack access to support systems available to those in managerial or higher-level roles. Without widespread representation, women often find themselves without an advocate in their corner, even from the most seemingly inclusive brewery.

Jen Jordan, board of directors president for the Pink Boots Society, says in an email to VinePair: “Discrimination and harassment issues have been prevalent and pervasive in our industry for too long, and have done severe damage. … Please educate your management and staff on how to create a safe and inclusive workplace.” She goes on to explain that the group’s mission has always been to assist, inspire, and encourage female-identifying industry professionals working in the fermented alcohol beverage industry, and she hopes more organizations join the cause. “The Industry is now asking for self-advocacy and workplace safety education,” she says. “Pink Boots Society is working to meet those needs too, but we shouldn’t have to do it alone.”

Putting together a task force of women to review allegations of sexism, as Boulevard claims it will do, does allow women to have a voice in shaping HR framework. However, this type of thinking is wholly reactive, and relies on the labor of women to correct wrongs largely perpetuated by men who participate in toxic masculinity. It also runs the risk of non-objectivity: What employee is going to feel empowered to point out flaws to the person who signs their checks?

The Pitch, a Kansas City-based publication, reports a possible mass walkout of Boulevard employees to protest the recent scandal. Allies putting their livelihoods at risk is admirable, but individuals should not have to carry the weight of organizational failures on their backs. It’s a shame that’s the final card people feel they can play.

A better solution? Believe women. Putting women in leadership roles where they can identify areas of improvement — before they become areas of reproach — is a crucial step that many breweries have yet to take. And, breweries: If you’re going to hop on a progressive initiative like Women’s Brew Day, or Black is Beautiful, or any of the opportunities to support marginalized members of the beer community, back up those splashy PR moves with action. Earn the clout through work, in the brewhouse and out. Don’t assume you have it, regardless of how good your beers are.

[Ed. note: This is a developing story. Updates are published on thepitchkc.com.]

The article Accusations of Sexism and Discrimination at Boulevard Brewing Company Show the Industry Still Has Far to Go appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/boulevard-brewing-company-controversy/

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expatimes · 4 years ago

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‘A ghost that haunts’: Living with landmines in Kashmir | Human Rights News

One night in December 2000, Mohammad Yaqoob says he was selected by the Indian army for patrol duty along the Line of Control (LoC), the border dividing the Indian and Pakistani-administered regions of Kashmir.

Twenty years ago it was standard but informal practice in parts of Indian-administered Kashmir for the army to select young men from nearby villages for night patrol along the 734km LoC, to keep watch for “infiltrators” from the other side of the border. For this, Yaqoob says he and other men from his village did not receive any training, pay or compensation.

As he returned home just before dawn, the 30-year-old stepped on a hidden landmine and, in an instant, lost his leg.

Fellow villagers who were also part of the patrol that night took him to the nearest army hospital in Tangdar, Kupwara. While medicine was provided by the army free of cost, Yaqoob had to pay for the surgery he needed.

When Al Jazeera contacted the Divisional Commissioner of the Indian Government to clarify what the official policy is towards using villagers for patrols and the treatment of landmine victims in Kashmir, we were asked to submit our questions, which we did via email. These remain unanswered several weeks later.

A telephone call and email with questions to the Chief Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir, the Administrative Head of the State Secretariat, also went unanswered.

The spokesman for the Indian Ministry of Defence, Rajesh Kalia, referred us to the Indian army for comment. The spokesman for the Indian army, Aman Anand, also asked us to email questions, but these, too, were not answered despite numerous follow-up emails and text messages.

Former Director-General of India’s Defence Intelligence Agency Kamal Dawar did talk to us. He said: “These are localised practices and not official. The station army officer may take villagers to guide them through their area, for patrolling purposes. I am not sure if they pay them or not.” He further stated that India does not lay landmines during peace time but only when there is “a threat from an enemy state or possibility of an imminent war.”

‘My wife divorced me’

For Yaqoob, that night changed the course of his life. A member of the Pahari tribe, he lives in the village of Prada in the Kashmir district of Kupwara, just 4km from the LoC.

Sitting in his house, Yaqoob explains that he used to work as a labourer and, during summers would take his cattle to graze up in the mountains. After losing his leg, however, he cannot go to the mountains or take on any labour work. For the past two decades, this has left him with no income apart from a small pension.

After a landmine injury, victims must file a First Informer’s Report (FIR) in order to qualify for a 1,000-rupee ($13.60) monthly pension paid by the Indian Social Welfare Department to landmine survivors.

“While I was in the hospital after surgery, my brother went to file the FIR,” says Yaqoob. “He found out that the Army had already filed an FIR in our name, in which they had stated that I was in the forest collecting timber when I had stepped on a landmine. It was shocking for all of us.”

Mohammad Yaqoob lost his leg to a landmine in 2000 and receives $13 a month in compensation

He still received the pension but soon after his injury, he says, his wife divorced him and moved back to her parents’ house, leaving him to raise his two daughters, then aged four and six, alone. Yaqoob had to move in with his brother.

Today, his daughters are studying at the University of Kashmir in Srinagar. Relatives and neighbours help Yaqoob cover their tuition and living costs. He says he has faith in his daughters and hopes they will build successful lives through their education.

Division lines

The LoC is a de facto border which divides Kashmir into India-Administered Kashmir and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir. It is one of the most dangerous and militarised borders in the world and is heavily guarded on both sides by the Indian and Pakistani armies.

The Indian Army first planted landmines along the LoC during the 1965 India-Pakistan war, then again during the 1971 Indo Pak war, the 1999 Kargil war and, again, in 2001 under Operation Parakram, a military standoff between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. Like India, Pakistan has not signed up to the Mine Ban Treaty.

According to the Landmine Monitor Report 2004, the last confirmed large-scale use of anti-personnel landmines by Pakistan took place between December 2001 and mid-2002 along the LoC.

‘Preventing militants’

In April 2008, Brigadier SM Mahajan, Director of Military Affairs at the Ministry of External Affairs in India, stated that the main reason for laying landmines was to prevent the “infiltration of Kashmiri militants across the Line of Control”.

But on the Indian side of the LoC, there have been few reports of rebels being killed by landmines over the years. Most of the victims are civilians or members of the Indian army.

According to the research group, the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, the total number of casualties among civilians and the Indian army is not officially recorded. But the group gathers the figures it can from a patchwork of anecdotal reports and media accounts. Between 1999 and 2015, the Monitor identified 3,191 victims of activated mines or improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and explosive remnants of war (ERW) in India. Of these, 1,083 were killed and 2,107 were injured, with the fate of one victim unknown.

An Indian border security force soldier searches for landmines with a metal detector during a patrol at the India-Pakistan border in RS Pora, southwest of Jammu, in October 2016

Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan, a research coordinator with the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, says: “There is no known press report of an insurgent being killed by a landmine since we started the Landmine Monitor in 1999.

“Before 2011, the Indian Army maintained a website which regularly reported on deaths of insurgents in encounters, but none in minefields. In only one case, in a media report on July 29, 2020 in Nowshera, some militants were reportedly shot while trying to cross. Subsequently they “heard a blast”, and assumed it must have been a landmine triggered by a fleeing militant.”

A perfect storm

The Ottawa Convention – also known as the Mine Ban Treaty – of March 1, 1997, has been signed by 164 countries. This treaty prohibits signatory states from use, stockpiling, production or transfer of anti-personnel landmines (APLs). India has yet to sign it. The official stance of the government has been that the country has “volatile borders”, and if and when a non-lethal alternative to APLs is introduced, the country will ban the mines.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines is a global network of non-government organisations (NGOs) which is active in about 100 countries. It claims that the largest stockpiles of landmines are held by Russia, Pakistan, India, China and the United States.

Apart from killing and maiming people, landmines impede people’s freedom to go about their normal lives. They affect the local economy by rendering land useless for cultivation.

Khurram Parvez, a leading human rights activist and programme coordinator for Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies (JKCCS), says: “Once landmines are planted in fields, for people the need to stay alive becomes much greater than the need to cultivate crops or collect fodder for cattle. Not cultivating crops means a decrease in food production and landmines kill domesticated animals.”

Moser-Puangsuwan, adds: “Generally, the impact is measured in how much land becomes inaccessible due to the presence of mines. There is no publicly available information on this in India.”

A Gujjar woman with her livestock close to the Line of Control border between Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, an area which has been blighted by landmines

The agricultural and pastoral communities living alongside the LoC are mostly from the Gujjar and Pahari tribes (Yaqoob is Pahari). These people have found themselves caught in a perfect storm. On the one hand, they are economically one of the most marginalised groups in Jammu and Kashmir because they are so remote from central government areas. On the other, living near the LoC comes with the perpetual fear of a landmine blast or a mortar shell hitting them. Most of these villages are less than 2km away from the LoC.

‘Landmines were planted in our fields’

Iftikhar Shah, 27, an independent researcher working in Srinagar, who also lives in the village of Prada, says: “In late 1990s, landmines were planted in our fields. Our region is mountainous and, because of this, we are able to cultivate only a few crops like maize. With landmines in our fields now, it has been rendered completely useless. We did not even get compensation for it.”

“The Indian army provides compensation for land where bunkers and camps are built, but not for the land where landmines are planted,” explains Parvez, who himself lost a leg to a landmine.

In 2013, it was reported that landmines had been laid across approximately 3,512 acres of land in several villages in 1999.

However, when we asked about this, the sub-district Magistrate of Tangdhar Block, Kupwara, Bilal Mohiuddin, said: “I have no knowledge about any landmines in the region, neither have we received any cases of injuries or casualties.”

Parvez, however, says he believes “the civil administration and local police are not informed about the landmine plantation. For the army, they don’t want to leak out the information as there is a possibility that non-state actors might pick this vital information up”.

‘A fast track to poverty’

Adding to the plight of the villagers in the area is the fact that up until 2005, minefields were neither marked with warnings nor fenced off.

“In 2002, a man from Warsun, Lolab (Kupwara) lost both his legs in a landmine blast in a non-LoC area,” says Parvez. “Later, Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies advocated for the installation of danger signboards in Urdu and the fencing-off of areas with landmines. It was implemented to some extent. The army fenced the camps with mine plantations but they didn’t do so in areas along LoC.

“In my opinion, for the army, the objective of planting mines along the LoC is to stop incursions and if they start fencing the areas with mines off, then their objective is defeated.”

A sign warns of landmines near the Line of Control between Pakistan- and Indian-administered Kashmir

Moser-Puangsuwan says: “For the family in which a landmine casualty occurs, it is devastating. It is a fast track to poverty. This also has an impact on their community. The productivity of landmine survivors diminishes greatly, usually completely in regards to their former occupation.”

He adds: “We have no idea how well-marked the areas affected by landmines are. These areas are not accessible to international human rights groups to determine that. We have no reports from people living in the areas adjacent to the LoC how comprehensive and clear the marking is. India is a state party to the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Conventional Weapons. Article 4 of that convention requires ‘measures are taken to protect civilians from their effects, for example, the posting of warning signs, the posting of sentries, the issue of warnings or the provision of fences’.”

In this hilly terrain, however, landmines can slide down from their original position during rain or snowfall. So, even if there is a warning sign, it may be in the wrong place.

Signs used to be in Hindi, but this was changed to Urdu after advocacy efforts from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Societies. “People in Kashmir cannot read and write Hindi,” Parvez explains.

A heavy price

In 2010, a court in Kupwara district directed the government of India to pay 1.2 million rupees ($26,200) to Gulzar Mir, a double amputee who lost his legs to an anti-personnel mine in 2002 while grazing livestock in the village of Warsun. Such action, however, is rare and victims often struggle to apply for compensation, according to Moser-Puangsuwan.

Victims often have to wait up to six months until they start receiving the 1,000 rupees (just under $13.50) per month pension from the state Social Welfare Department, and the sum is too small to cover their living costs.

Getting medical treatment for injuries can also be onerous as the road infrastructure connecting villages and towns is poor. For some people, it can take half a day to reach the nearest medical facility. According to the victims, medical expenses in the aftermath of a landmine blast can be as high as 200,000 rupees ($2,700), which for agricultural workers who earn as little as 225 rupees per day ($3) is a very heavy price.

It is not unusual for an injured person to be carried from house to house so that every villager can contribute to the cost of getting them to a hospital.

‘There is always a fear’

About 30km from the main town of Uri, in the Baramulla district of Kashmir, lies Churranda – one of the most remote villages on Indian territory before the LoC.

The well-worn roads leading to this village of 226 households are inaccessible in the winter months due to heavy snowfall. Set against a backdrop of mountains veiled by a white sheet of snow and snow-capped pine trees, the concertina wires enclosing the village disturb its natural beauty.

It is hard for the residents of the villages in this area to tell their stories to the wider world. People from other parts of Kashmir and the rest of India are not permitted to enter, nor are journalists without prior permission from both the local authority and the army. For this report, we were required to present our IDs to army personnel stationed in the area. We went on two occasions – on the first we were allowed in; on the second we weren’t.

The gate at the entrance to Churranda village, where all visitors must show permission documents and be frisked by the army before they can go inside. Visitors are not allowed to take cameras or mobile phones into the village

A small army blockhouse is situated just outside the gate to Churranda. Here, the army frisks the men, check their bags and examines their permission documents if they are not locals. Women are led to a small concrete booth, inside which a local woman in army uniform frisks them and checks their belongings.

Visitors are not allowed to carry cameras or mobile phones inside the village.

The residents of Churranda recall the nights during the 1990s when they would be taken by army personnel down towards the deep mountain ravine along the LoC to help plant the landmines, cutting back crops and clearing land in the darkness to do so. But now it is impossible to pinpoint the exact location of the mines.

Pointing towards a patch of land down the hill, Mohammad narrates his story with sadness: “We – I and a few of my friends – were taken there to cut the crops for them to plant mines on. It was a very difficult time for us, but we were helpless. We don’t have any choice but to cooperate with them for our own survival.”

In August 2017, Hakam Bi, now 21, was collecting fodder for her family’s cattle along with other women from her village. Walking up the hill, she stepped on a landmine. When she came round, she found herself in a local taxi with blood all over her body. She was taken to a hospital more than 100km away in the summer capital, Srinagar city. Her right leg had to be amputated.

Bi explains that she was living with her mother and three sisters at the time and that the family lived off the income of the oldest sister’s husband. In 2015, her marriage to Mohd Sadiq, who lived in the same village, had been agreed. They married in 2018, but in many similar cases, marriages fall through as individuals with disabilities can be considered a burden to a family.

We enter Bi’s house to find her blowing into a wood-fire stove, preparing morning tea for her mother-in-law and husband, while her mother-in-law stitches a quilt. Seeing us enter, a group of young men and children gather around the house, wanting to know what is going on. Feeling uncomfortable speaking in front of the village boys, Bi takes us to the side of her house to tell us her story.

Mohammad Yaqoob, who lost his leg – and ability to work – to a landmine in 2000, was left to provide for his two small children

With tears in her eyes, she explains: “I belong to a poor family, I don’t even remember my father’s face – I lost him when I was a child because of a medical condition. At my mother’s home, I didn’t have enough clothes to wear and I couldn’t demand them from my brother-in-law. Never had I thought that my life could get even worse. Now I am even scared to have children in future. How will I take care of them? How will I do my routine tasks?”

To compound all this worry, her husband must risk his life on a daily basis to provide for his family. He works as a porter for the army in the area were landmines are planted. “There is always a fear of losing a leg or even my life, but I have no other option,” says Sadiq, 21. “I cannot migrate to the town like many have done here as I don’t have enough resources to cover the cost of living in Srinagar city.”

As government employment schemes do not reach as far as these border villages, many are dependent on the army for work as porters, labourers, cooks and watchmen, and must accept the risks that come with that.

The army pays porters a monthly salary of 15,000 to 18,000 rupees ($205 to $246). These workers are also responsible for maintaining the LoC fence, along which most of the landmines are planted. Any landmine victim is regarded as a “casualty within service” and receives a one-off compensation payment of, usually, approximately 22,000 to 23,000 rupees (around $300). But local men, such as Yaqoob, who are just casually selected to accompany patrols, do not qualify for this payment.

Each unit of the army remains in the area for two years and is then replaced by a new one. Injured porters have a degree of job security with the units with which they were working, and these units will often write a recommendation letter to the next unit. But this is not guaranteed and, in 2016, according to locals, the new unit did not employ any of the injured porters.

‘The most important thing is that he cares about me’

In Kamalkote, another border village in Uri, Mohamed Ameen, 20, lost his leg in 2016 while working at the Khamoshi border post as an army porter. He was taken by army vehicle to Srinagar for treatment. The family stayed there for six months and incurred a total cost of 4 lakh ($5,400). The army provided 23,000 rupees ($310) towards his treatment. Ameen now survives by sharing his retired father’s pension and the 1,000 rupees a month he receives from the state.

Ameen sits with his father and younger brother in his home. His face reflects the trauma he has endured when he explains how no one wants him to marry their daughters due to his disability.

In this regard, Muneer Hussain, 55, who lost his leg when he was working as a porter in 1999, is one of the “lucky” ones. He got married a few years after his accident. His wife, who is 46 but did not give her name, says: “The most important thing is that he cares about me and our three children. I am more than happy to support him in these times of crisis. It is not a bad life, we have been surviving like this for years now and will definitely thrive in future.”

Hussain received 22,000 rupees from the army but had to pay the remainder of the treatment cost himself – about two lakh ($2,700).

In many families, it is the sole breadwinner that has been injured. Since income drops off after such an incident, parents are often unable to pay for their children’s education, and a vicious cycle of poverty ensues.

Soni Begum, 45, lost a leg when she stepped on a landmine in 1998. Three years later, her husband also lost a leg while working as an army porter

In some cases, more than one member of the family has fallen victim to landmines. In 1998, Soni Begum, 45, who lives in the village of Jabra in Uri, lost her leg after she stepped on a landmine while taking her livestock to grazing land.

“Back then, Jabra was not connected by roads. I was carried by neighbours on their shoulders to reach the nearest health facility, 30km away,” she recalls.

From the balcony of her small house, overlooking the hills of Churranda, she points out one of the hills where her family’s fields are located.

“Three years later, my husband, who worked as an army porter, was building a bunker at the Nanak Post. He unknowingly stepped on a landmine and lost his leg,” says Begum. “Two kanals (a quarter of an acre) of our land are under the control of the army. This land is enclosed within the wires and we are not allowed to access it.” She says the family has not been compensated for this.

‘The last village’

Karnah, in Kupwara, is located in the northern area of the Kashmir valley and is 90km from Srinagar. To reach it, travellers must cross the Sadhana Pass, which is more than 11,000 feet above sea level and divides the Karnah block from other parts of Kupwara and the rest of the valley.

During winter, the pass is covered in 20 feet of snow, effectively cutting off the “capital” village of Tangdhar.

The road to Seemari, the last village in Indian-administered Kashmir, close to the Line of Control. On the other side of this valley is Pakistan-administered Kashmir

The Hindu Kush mountain range stands tall and, approaching the LoC, one can feel a rise in temperature. The maize fields here lie barren but the Kinnow fruit, a type of orange, is plentiful and adorns trees in the front gardens of local houses, ripened by the warmer climate.

Across the river Kishenganga (or Neelum in Pakistan) lie the villages of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. A suspension bridge on the river in Teetwal connects the two sides.

Seemari is the last village in Indian-administered Kashmir. The borders, as marked out by the bridge and the river, along with the presence of the Indian army highlights the controlled nature of people’s lives here.

Waving to a man across the river, standing on the Pakistan-administered side, our local guide tells us: “That could be my relative or my neighbour’s relative. It is such a strange thing that we have been separated from our family.”

Haider Mughal, 70, lives in Seemari. Sitting beside the front door, while his wife prepares dinner, he greets us. The sun has gone down and a lantern lights up the small kitchen. He tells us that he lost his right leg due to a landmine in 1997.

Haider Mughal lost his right leg in 1997 when he stepped on a landmine while grazing livestock on his family’s land. Landmines had been planted there without the family’s knowledge

Just as on any other day, Mughal had gone up to his share of the common grazing land to feed his livestock, when he stepped on a landmine which was hidden under the ground. “This land belongs to my family. I have the papers as well – we used to pay our share of tax to the state revenue department. We have absolutely no idea when the army planted these landmines,” he says.

Mughal has two daughters and a son. Back in 1997, he had to sell all of his livestock, which was his family’s primary source of income, to raise the funds for his operation. He now has an artificial limb which needs to be replaced every year due to wear and tear caused by the rough terrain on which he must walk.

One artificial limb costs about 10,000 rupees ($135). With the support of the army, a Jaipur-based organisation provides the initial artificial limbs – known as “Jaipur feet” – to victims. However, future expenses, such as the cost of replacement limbs, must be met by the victims themselves.

‘Plastic legs don’t work’

Amroohi village is surrounded by a fence guarded by the army. At the gate, everyone must undergo frisking and ID checks before entering and may only enter or exit at certain times of the day.

Niyaz Mohammad, 75, endures the process every day as he returns from Tangdhar. A few metres from the gate, just out of sight of the soldiers posted there, Mohammad shares his story.

He was 25 when he went out to his fields to graze cattle and stepped on a landmine. He lost his right arm. “In 1971, when landmines were planted, there were no signboards,” he says. “I was walking when I suddenly stepped on a landmine. Family members and neighbours took me to Srinagar. We had to bear all expenses on our own.”

Shakeela Begum, 60, lost her left leg to a landmine that had been planted in her back yard, while she was gathering vegetables from her garden

In 1994, Shakeela Begum, 60, a resident of Amroohi whose husband is a retired policeman, was walking towards the back yard of her house where her family had planted vegetables when she stepped on a mine and lost her left leg.

“One day before this incident, the army, during their regular night patrolling had installed mines in my back yard without informing us,” says Begum. “Due to this injury, I have been suffering multitudes of joint and backbone issues.”

At the time, she was a young mother to two daughters and a son. She has since had two more sons.

Sitting beside her, her older brother, Bashir Ahmed, adds: “We took her to the army hospital in Tangdhar. We were charged 24,000 rupees for the operation and had to pay all the costs on our own.” The family took their case to the District Magistrate in Kupwara but has never received any compensation.

Gulab Jan, 35, is sitting on the front veranda of her house in Amroohi. She says she stepped on a landmine and lost her right foot while working in her field in 1995. She says she received no compensation at all for the cost of her treatment and now survives on the 1,000-rupee monthly pension from the Social Welfare Department.

The army did take her to its artificial limb centre in Pune city and provided her with a prosthetic leg. “The plastic prosthetic legs don’t work in hilly areas,” she says. “We have to walk on the rough terrain and those legs break easily. A local cobbler has made this artificial leather shoe for me and I get it repaired when needed.”

Gulab Jan stepped on a landmine in 1995 while working in her field, and lost her foot. She says the plastic prosthetic leg she has been given is useless on the mountainous paths where she lives

The haunting

In 2016, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines urged the Indian state to cease all mine-laying activities and to join the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty.

However, India is reported to be planning to lay more mines. “It is extremely disappointing that the world’s largest democracy is reportedly contemplating the use of landmines again,” says Megan Burke, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

In October 2017, India reiterated that the Amended Protocol II of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) “enshrines the approach of taking into account legitimate defence requirements of states with long borders”.

The statement also mentions that India believes that new military alternative technologies that can perform the defensive role of anti-personnel landmines will enable it to stop using landmines altogether. In this statement, India also said that it had ceased the production of “non-detectable” landmines and had started increasing public awareness to minimise the humanitarian cost.

Landmine clearance is a time-consuming and dangerous task. In 2005, it was reported that 1,776 Indian soldiers had died while laying and removing mines since 2001.

And for the people living along the LoC, Parvez says, landmines are like a “ghost that haunts even after the war is over”.

Read full article: https://expatimes.com/?p=17347&feed_id=30835

#Asia #Features #HumanRights #India

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jaded-ghoster · 4 years ago

Text

Video Fic Pt. 1 Or Something I’m Bored

UA was number 1 for a reason. It was the school that All Might attended, its other alumni donate so much money that its able to afford the best training facilities, the teachers take their teaching seriously, and it offers a wide array of courses that aren’t limited to heroics yet still produce the best results.

But it’d be foolish of anyone to assume that other schools have never come close to UA’s prestige. Shiketsu’s teachers are just as experienced in their abilities to train their students and the training grounds at Ketsubutsu are one of the few that aren’t limited to only pure destruction lessons but stealth and undercover as well.

So with all of this in mind there are of course going to be some people who catch onto this, who question the rankings of these hero schools in order to get to the bottom of who really deserves to be at the top. It’s not that they think UA isn’t worthy, because they most definitely are, but rather that they want to play their cards right for themselves or their future children.

They’ll pull up statistics, interview some alumni of all courses, and they’ll piece it together to get some semblance of a conspiracy theory and an answer.

They’ll celebrate their findings and genius, do a little dance, go to a bar to drink the night away... and then they’ll randomly get an email invite to one of UA’s countless social events that are famous for the five star food and entertainment.

If you thought UA was above silent bribery and manipulation for their enemies in the form of social gatherings, you would be wrong. So very wrong. UA isn’t above anything, not it Nezu has anything to say about it, and especially not if the Hero Commission had anything to say about it. UA represented the golden ones, the elite percentage of society that everyone in Japan and perhaps internationally believed to be the future of this world. And thanks to the school’s boundless financial (and social, as we have just clarified) support, that belief is still justified.

And just in case you thought a specific, grumpy, dark-haired hero hated everything about this, you would also be justified.

The social events usually took place either right before or right after a scandal, always perfectly timed to avoid any backlash or suspicion. The attendees ranged from famous and underground heroes alike, important political figures in Japan, teachers from fellow hero schools, and people who needed to be silenced. The themes were random but mostly remained light-hearted, elegant, or downright humorous.

On one occasion the theme was a 19th century ball with old-fashioned gowns and suits, on another it was Under the Sea where people dressed according to their assigned sea creature and ate sushi while Jaws played on the projector screen, and one time it was just karaoke. Yes, karaoke, a simple arcade game that still managed to dazzle everyone who attended with the hired dancers, professional singers, and flashing lights.

If you think that same dark-haired hero hated all of those themes, with the exception of the karaoke because he didn’t want to trash talk singing in front of his DJ-themed best friend, you would once again be right. In fact, he hated it so much that he dedicated the week before the event to perfectly planning out his schedule, that way Nezu could never logically force him to come.

The first excuse he used was that Recovery Girl said he was dangerously sleep deprived and couldn’t waste any more energy; the second excuse was that his father was back and therefore he had to abandon the country for a couple days; the third was that he had a drug raid that night; and the fourth was when he got so desperate for an escape that he rammed himself into a brick wall seconds before Nemuri could force him into a Dracula costume. In the end he got a concussion, several alarmed stares from his students, a slap from Recovery Girl’s handbag, and a free pass from the Halloween themed dance party.

This year would be no different from last year in his case, as he had once again gotten desperate when he saw Ms. Joke crashing through the door heading straight for him and proceeded to launch himself out the window, landing face-first on the concrete outside. Hurt like a bitch, and he once again got a ‘PLEASE STOP SCARING US’ from Midoriya as he limped his way to Recovery Girl, but now he’s ‘forced’ to spend the next seven hours in the medical room’s bed with an endless supply of chocolate pudding. So he’d say it was worth it.

Midoriya, who’s eyes looked similar to a soldier that had seen one too many horrors in the heat of war, would disagree.

But for everyone besides Aizawa, this social gathering would be quite special. For the first time in UA history, the students here and the ones at several other schools would receive an invite as well. Of course some of the adults were disappointed that alcohol would no longer be provided, but they guessed the virgin pina coladas were more than enough to make up for it, as well as the newfound ability to subtly recruit some of the heroes in training for their own agencies.

And because teenagers would now make up quite a big portion of the party, Present Mic the ‘trendy’ hero- compared to others, at least- was put in charge of the theme. This was also one of the reasons Aizawa slightly regretted incapacitating himself, even though he’d never say it out loud. But he decided the chocolate pudding could erase the depression for a little while.

Present Mic dutifully chose the theme of 1980s throwback, with movies ranging from Japanese-subbed American classics like The Breakfast Club and Heathers, all the way to Akita and My Neighbor Totoro. Random, they know, but what else could you expect from Hizashi the cinephile? With an endless supply of popcorn and slushies, none of the students, adults, or even Midoriya the perpetually anxious over-thinker, thought anything could go wrong.

Unless, of course, you’re Hizashi, and you clumsily mistake the flash drive full of select movies with the flash drive of video clips that should never see the light of day ever again.

“Shit,” the blonde man muttered in English as he frantically shut pressed buttons on his computer to pause the recording before it played, “S-sorry listeners! Just a little malfunction haha!” Nemuri sighed.

“Did you bring the wrong flash drive?” She asked, earning a sheepish nod from Hizashi and several groans from those listening in. The loudest one from Bakugo Katsuki, who was forced to skip his bedtime for this by Kirishima.

“Yeah, but it’s fine! I’m pretty sure I can find a website with the movies we need anyway, just gotta ignore the VPN pop ups and porn ads.” Nemuri took a step closer to stare at the flash drive with curiosity.

“Hey… what’s on that thing anyway? I always see it around your house but I’ve never seen the contents.”

“Oh… Uh, nothing much, really. Just spreadsheets, and assignments, and paperwork, and stu- AHH!” Hizashi yelped as he was shoved aside.

Nemuri leaned closer to the screen to read the information of the flashdrive. It contained 30 videos, lasted about 3 hours in total, and was divided into three sections. First month, second month, and third month. The R-rated hero was just about to ask what years this was referring to when her eyes caught the title of the flash drive: UA Documentary Project.

#i don’t know i’m so bored #i just love fics like these #with reactions and shit #and there will probably be more parts #all of which are aizawa centric and self indulgent because why not #bnha #mha #fanfic #fic #fanfiction #bnha fic #mha fic #shota aizawa #yamada hizashi #nemuri kayama

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lastsonlost · 7 years ago

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Evergreen State College has settled a tort claim against it from embattled Professor Bret Weinstein and his wife, Professor Heather Heying, for $500,000, according to an email sent to faculty Friday evening.

“They have resigned from their faculty positions at Evergreen, effective today. The college will pay them a total of $450,000 and contribute an additional $50,000 toward their attorney fees,” according to the email, sent by John Carmichael, chief of staff and secretary to the board of trustees.

“In making this agreement, the college admits no liability, and rejects the allegations made in the tort claim,” Carmichael wrote.

Weinstein and Heying, both biology professors, had originally sought $3.85 million in their claim, filed July 5. It alleged that the public university “permitted, cultivated and perpetuated a racially hostile and retaliatory work environment.”

“Through a series of decisions made at the highest levels, including to officially support a day of racial segregation, the college has refused to protect its employees from repeated provocative and corrosive verbal and written hostility based on race, as well as threats of physical violence,” the claim alleged.

Back-up documents in the claim, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix, detail a long and divisive battle between some faculty at the school seeking to install race-based equity plans and conscientious objectors such as Weinstein and Heying who voiced concern about the plans and supported colorblind policies.

The couple, and especially Weinstein, was frequently called racist by peers in emails. Colleagues were upset the couple would not support the plans to elevate faculty on the basis of race, or support the “Day of Absence,” in which white people were asked to remain off campus for one day in April so students and faculty of color could commiserate about oppression and similar topics.

Weinstein and Heying could not immediately be reached for comment late Friday by The College Fix.

In his email alerting faculty to the agreement, Carmichael denied that the Day of Absence was discriminatory, and added college officials “took reasonable and appropriate steps to engage with protesters during spring quarter, de-escalate conflict, and keep the campus

His memo does not address how Weinstein was cornered in May in a campus building and blocked from leaving by rowdy student protesters furious he did not support the Day of Absence, videos of the incident show. Nor does it mention how Evergreen’s then-chief of police subsequently told Weinstein his safety on campus could not be guaranteed, and that it appeared student agitators were looking for him, forcing Weinstein to hold his class in a park.

According to the tort claim, at a campus meeting to address the racial unrest, Weinstein was also scared for his personal safety, that the meeting “became heated and threatening at times. There was only one exit, and it was completely blocked by protesters.” Campus officials had also instructed university police to attend the meeting unarmed, according to the claim.

“Meanwhile, protest organizers announced that chairs and food in the room were for ‘people of color only.’ When they noticed there were sufficient chairs, organizers announced that white people had to sit in the back of the room. Administrators, including President Bridges, did nothing to prevent this,” the claim added.

The claim also included emails and screenshots of social media comments from Evergreen Professor Naima Lowe toward Weinstein and Heying that were hostile in nature. One example included a Facebook post in which she wrote: “Oh lord, could some white women at Evergreen come and collect Heather Heying’s racist ass. Jesus.”

“This post prompted other faculty to call Professor Heying a racist as well,” the claim added.

In an email included in the claim from Lowe to Weinstein, she did not deny her words. Wrote Lowe: “I said ‘collect’ because I think that white people are responsible for dealing with other white people when they are doing racist things. Your wife was doing a racist thing. You are doing many racist things. One of the most racist things that you are doing is insisting on a victim narrative about this situation and sharing that with alt-right media darling Tucker Carlson.”

Lowe was not alone in her beliefs. In late May more than 50 professors at the college–nearly a quarter of faculty–signed a statement calling themselves “angry and frustrated and concerned” by the backlash against the school–and blamed Weinstein for it, demanding he be punished.

“On its official website, the college asserted that it had never asked whites to leave campus on the Day of Absence—a demonstrably false statement. It also asserts that ‘demonstrations were nonviolent and took place…in isolated areas of the college,’ which is also false,” the claim alleged. “In doing so, [Evergreen College] continued to support its facially discriminatory conduct, publically rejecting Professor Weinstein’s complaints of racial segregation for which he has been repeatedly excoriated, threatened, attacked, and wrongly accused of being a racist in the workplace, for months.”

In his memo announcing the settlement, Carmichael stated the decision was made in part to avoid a long and ugly court battle.

“This agreement is in the best interests of Evergreen,” Carmichael stated in his memo. “Years of expensive and time-consuming litigation would not help us achieve our mission.”

<YEAH I DON’T THINK HE SHOULD HAVE SETTLED. I ALSO THINK THE STUDENTS SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUED TOO.

#evergreen state college

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disappearingground · 5 years ago

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Something Borrowed, Something New: The Perfect Union of Jenny Lewis and Elvis Costello

Filter Magazine November 22, 2008

Something Borrowed, Something New: The Perfect Union of Jenny Lewis and Elvis Costello

By Chris Martins

He strides into the room seeming impossibly tall and endlessly poised. In a silk scarf and all black, he looks as sharp as his wit has ever been, and downright Dickensian, as if the word “doff” was invented solely for use in reference to the hat sitting on his head. At 54, he’s got the perfect dappling of salt-and-pepper scruff, which frames a pair of lips in a perpetual mischievous grin, ever the unambiguous counterpoint to those trademark square-framed specs. Elvis is in the building—Costello, of course—and it’s enough to keep Jenny Lewis on her toes.

Well, somewhat. She’s sitting, currently, getting a light dusting of blush before the next round of photographs with her avuncular counterpart, but her dainty feet are neatly propped by a pair of light brown pumps. Los Angeles’ favorite daughter, our eternal indie darling regardless of her record label, is rightly stunning in a red dress and feathered cap, and as Lewis moves through the room, she hardly disturbs the air. Whether this is out of respect to the dust or due to an innate grace is unclear, but to not stare—at either of this pair—is to miss history in the making.

The duet is nothing new to music. Neither is the appearance of an elder statesman on the album of a young star for posterity, nor the reverse for the sake of a little shined-up sparkle. But when a legend with three decades and 34 albums to his hallowed name is coaxed out of retirement by the sheer energy experienced in a day of studio time with an inspired young songwriter, momentousness abounds. Last October, Costello told MOJO magazine he wasn’t “of a mind to record any more,” that the MP3 had “dismantled the intended shape of an album” and that fans could hear him live or not at all, essentially.

But on April 22, Costello sneaked out his 35th album, and a few days later issued the following via his website: “Some of you may have heard rumours of an album called Momofuku… [which] came about because of an invitation I received from Jenny Lewis to sing on her upcoming record.” He’d changed his mind. “That’s what I do,” he added. “The record was made so quickly that I didn’t even tell myself about it for two weeks.” His story only added to buzz surrounding an unnamed Lewis solo album reportedly recorded in organic and speedy contrast to Rilo Kiley’s 2007 LP, Under the Blacklight. Costello’s record was effectively a carry-over of Lewis’ January session, and he’d named it after the inventor of Cup Noodles because “all we had to do… was add water.”

Acid Tongue is now out, and it could be Lewis’ most immediate work yet. An all-analog rock and roll record that sears as much as it sways, the follow-up to 2006’s Rabbit Fur Coat trades in the alt-country scenery for further breadth and depth. Its sound is richer—a soulful mix of Southern-Gothic stomp, saturated balladry and campfire strum—and its inspiration digs deeper, with Lewis putting her pretty croon to use against the messy topics of sex, drugs, love, travel, illness and family. Sometimes she sings in character; in other moments, she’s addressing the very people recording with her: live-in beau Johnathan Rice, who co-wrote much of Acid Tongue; or her father, Eddie Gordon, a harmonica virtuoso estranged from Lewis until his recent cancer diagnosis reunited them.

Likewise, Costello’s Momofuku sounds refreshed, thanks in no small part to Lewis’ rag-tag gang. Though a few of her guests (Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward, and Rilo’s Jason Boesel among them) had evacuated Van Nuys’ Sound City Studios by the time Costello arrived, the “vocal supergroup” that lent his record so much of its particular vigor is also the core lineup behind Acid Tongue: Lewis, Rice, Dave Scher (Beachwood Sparks), and Jonathan Wilson (formerly of Eisley), along with Costello’s bassist Davey Faragher. Momofuku is another sound entry in Costello’s post-millennial rock catalogue, seething with the attitude and urgency he’d rediscovered with 2002’s When I Was Cruel. His own band, The Imposters, might have something to do with that as well: keyboardist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas have been playing with Costello since 1978—though not without the occasional break or falling out.

Truth be told, Costello has been threatening retirement since he was 26, according to his own liner notes for the Rykodisc reissue of 1981’s Trust (though when asked about it today, he asks back: “Did I say that?”). And more than their mutual passion for detailed narratives, heartful ballads and, now, double drummers (read on), Costello and Lewis share the kind of creative restlessness that can make or break a career. They approach each record anew, band members be damned; she pushed on by the persistent fear that one day her well will run dry, and he without enough time in the day to tend to the flood.

Will Costello quit? Not likely. He’s touring like a teenager these days, has a variety show debuting on Sundance Channel, and is finishing up a new album with T-Bone Burnett. Will Rilo Kiley split? It doesn’t matter. Lewis remains, and anyway, that’s a subject for another article at another time.

As we sit down to talk in one of the odd little atriums that dot a large woodsy yard, Elvis Costello removes his hat, while his unflagging cool and smirk remain. At his left, sharing a small divan, Jenny Lewis appears more petite than usual and a little bit nervous, despite the fact that she’s directly responsible for Elvis’ return to the studio. It’s hard not to marvel at the sight.

A conversation with Elvis Costello and Jenny Lewis

The beginning is a fine place to start… How did you two meet? Elvis Costello: It was mainly the doing of Tennessee Thomas [drummer for The Like]. The Imposters and I were down in Mississippi recording The Delivery Man, and Pete Thomas said his daughter had hipped him to [Rilo Kiley’s 2004 album] More Adventurous. He played me the record and I thought it was fantastic. [To Lewis] I think I got your number and called you.

Out of the blue? Jenny Lewis: Oh, yeah. My phone rang and I didn’t recognize the number. I picked it up and it was Elvis. I truly thought it must have been some sort of mean prank. Costello: I was in this cottage I was renting right by the woods where Faulkner used to walk. It was quite a good spot and I had a lot of time to listen to records. I became a fan, and when Jenny made her first solo record…it was a different world. The storytelling on that album is amazing.

So you instantly thought, “This young talent needs to be in my new music video.” Costello: [Laughs] We filmed the “Monkey to Man” video in L.A., at the old Ambassador Hotel, and I thought it’d be funny if Jenny walked across the set like she’d gotten lost while on a Universal Studios tour. Lewis: The awkward walk-by. Clutching my purse. Sweat on my brow. Costello: We’d decided the video would be populated by girls in bikinis and people in monkey suits. It was very tasteful; we were going for the feminist vote.

…And then one day in January, Jenny called you? Costello: And then it was fun for the whole family. I was at home in Vancouver and The Imposters’ bassist Davey Faragher—he lives in Southern California and was in the studio with Jenny—called and asked if I would sing a song on her new record. Lewis: And I emailed you a clip of myself, Johnathan Rice and a puppet doing “Carpetbaggers.” Costello: Obviously, I was being asked to do the puppet’s part. I told ’em I loved the song, but I thought I would sing it differently than the puppet.

So you flew out to record. At what point did you decide to stay and make a record? Costello: I didn’t stay actually. We cut “Carpetbaggers” in three takes, and the band didn’t have anything planned for the rest of that day. So I said, “Maybe we can cut something of mine.” I had two songs—“Go Away” and “Drum & Bone,” which I’d written literally the night before—and we just laid them down, Jenny and I in that little vocal booth, I’m playing rhythm guitar with a line out to the hallway, she’s reading the lyrics off a piece of paper. And I couldn’t believe it—she nailed every line. Lewis: I was thinking, “This is your big shot, kid, don’t blow it.” Costello: I had decided I was done with recording. Everything I’d have to do after the release of a record was making me miserable, but working with them reminded me of the bits that I liked. A week later, back in Vancouver, I called everybody up and said, “That was too good—let’s do it again.” That’s when the vocal group came together. Davey is the only person in The Imposters who can sing, and with The Attractions, I used to track myself for all the vocals. These guys were coming up with killer parts, and the will to do them, at 11 p.m. We made the record in six days, with the same live feeling as Jenny’s. Lewis: I was so impressed with your pace. Is that how you’ve recorded in the past? Costello: I think bands make more of a meal of it now because they can. We’re all guilty of it. I recorded Spike [1989] in four cities [Dublin, London, New Orleans, Los Angeles]; I had a ridiculous budget. But it’s gone around in one big circle—my first record [My Aim is True] was made in just 24 hours of studio time. The second album [This Year’s Model] took 11 days. We thought we were being decadent taking three weeks for Armed Forces, and with Imperial Bedroom, we were making our big statement in the studio, hiring harpsichords and glockenspiels: “Let’s take six entire weeks!” Now you hear of bands spending six months on a single.

Acid Tongue was done at an impressive clip as well, Jenny. What inspired you to make that record in only three weeks’ time? Lewis: I think everything I do is a reaction to the thing before it. Having come out from under the polished intention of Under the Blacklight—which took quite a bit longer—I just wanted the vibe to run the show. I was finally able to connect with a band and have it go down like a live performance. It was really liberating. Costello: There’s nowhere to hide in that room. When you listen to Acid Tongue, there’s nothing there. It’s just a voice and a couple of instruments, and it works perfectly. The more you went on with the record, the more confidence you seemed to gain. To open with “Black Sand”… it’s the kind of confidence that marks great records. You know, “How could they open with that? That’s ridiculous!” But soon you can’t live without it.

You’re both artists who have continued to surprise us over the years, approaching each album with different angles, different sounds and, often, different bands. Is creative restlessness part of what makes a great—or at least an enduring—artist? Costello: I think too much is made of it—like it’s some sort of puzzle where eventually the pieces will all fit and there’ll be this big, smiling picture of Jenny going, “I told you so.” The reality is: that was just the way the artist was feeling at that moment, and now you’re in danger of missing what’s actually being said and the genuine feelings that are in those songs. It’s a trap that journalists fall into, which funnily enough never comes up with groups that have a strong, signature sound. It just doesn’t occur to anybody to compare their records: “This one’s got all those things that we already love!” Lewis: All I know is that I just tend to get a little bored and I like to try new things. And, really, anything is good subject matter for a song. But I don’t think that quality is exclusive to “the good artist.” Costello: Van Morrison has a signature sound, for instance, but he’s a singular artist. I don’t know that there’s one better way to do it. When I was younger, I was guilty of being more confrontational for the sake of getting attention, saying things like, “We’re here to completely ruin your life!” [Laughs] It’s true there was some dull music out there and we were coming along with a bit of attitude—trying to get it right, where just playing was really the thing—but tearing others down wasn’t the intention.

Neither of you have shied away from expressing the deeply personal on record, and you’ve dealt with an array of reactions to your public persona, from fan adoration to being dissected by the press. How does one stay level through all this? Costello: It’s true that since the mid ’60s, people have based their songwriting more overtly on their life’s experience than, say, Ira Gershwin did. In his day, they wrote songs that faded to black when the stickier subjects of love—physical love in particular—came up. But with people like Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, that started to change. That was passed on to the next generation, then the next generation, then to me, then to Jenny, and we’re writing about these things that are increasingly raw. Fair or not, people associate you with these songs, and to whatever extent that you’re putting your experiences in there, your mistakes are in public view. Your heart is broken, the band splits, you find a new way to go in life, you have a drug problem, you sober up. There’s a fascination with human frailty and an entire industry that makes entertainment out of it. I got disenchanted when I was younger, but then I realized that’s just show business, and show business is based on the Menudo principal: They kick you out of the band when you’re 18 and get someone else to appeal to the 11-year-old girls who, in turn, hit 15 and peel off to go to the new thing. That’s not real life. Lewis: I’ve just started, over the last couple of years, to receive feedback in that way, as well as from people that assume songs are about them, and it’s all very uncomfortable. I still don’t know what to make of it, and I try not to acknowledge it. I’d rather just write songs without having to think about where they’ll end up or who will be offended. Costello: I’ve gone through my less glorious periods and other times where I’ve felt on top of the world, but it’s important to remember: You’re not living in real time by writing songs. Even if you think you’re writing the honest diary of your love affair, you’re not—you’re writing an edited version of it. Otherwise the album would be 20-years long.

So, 2003’s North, for instance… Costello: North is a very specific album about recognizing the end of one way of living and the beginning of another, but it’s a song-written explanation of what it felt like to go through that. It’s not the same thing, and it certainly doesn’t take into account the feelings of the other people involved. Art is selfish; it’s not a democracy, not even in a band. But if you’re smart, you take the best of what people bring you—to a collaborative form like recording, for instance. I was just the beneficiary of that, when Jenny said, “Why don’t we get Tennessee in here to play with Pete?” Lewis: The fantastic father-daughter drumming duo. Costello: I never knew that was going to sound so good. Next thing I knew, we had a record. And you know, Tennessee joined us onstage at the El Rey in Los Angeles after we played the Hollywood Bowl with The Police. I’ve been turning around to see Pete playing behind me for 30 years, and I look back that night and see him and his daughter. I’ve known her since she was born but, more than being a matter of pride, it just sounded fantastic. [To Lewis] Thank you for that.

Which is your favorite song from each other’s new album? Lewis: “Go Away,” because it was the first. Costello: “Godspeed,” because it’s got such beautiful melody and mood. I was startled the first time I heard it. I also love the long, multi-parted songs like “The Next Messiah,” and I think “Sing a Song for Them,” the up-tempo one at the end of the album, is tremendous. And of course, “Carpetbaggers,” because we got to do that together. I also like the other version of it that we cut—a live take with the double drummers …

So basically, you like everything, including the outtakes. Costello: “Godspeed” is definitely my favorite, but I’m attracted to ballads, so you’re asking the wrong guy. I mean, I really love ballads—more than any other kind of music. Lewis: I actually wasn’t going to include “Trying My Best to Love You” because I was worried about Acid Tongue being too ballad-heavy—I wanted it to rock more than Rabbit Fur Coat—but Elvis was so set on it being on the record that I included it.

Elvis, were you impressed with Jenny’s use of double entendre for the album title? Costello: [Laughs] Old habits die hard. F

#publication: filter mag #album: acid tongue #person: elvis costello #song: carpetbaggers #mention: songwriting #Year: 2008 #song: trying my best

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smartoptionsio · 6 years ago

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A Pretty Boring ByBit Review

The Bulls are back (a bit) and the ref-shillers are heating up their game. ByBit, Deribit, BitMAX reviews everywhere you look. Everyone shills a ref-link here a real “review” there. But damn! Did you ever look at the UX of BitMAX? Do you think this is a website that could be ever successful and does you really believe that it outranked each and every other exchange with that insane volume numbers? OK. I admit, I did not do my research here, this is just a baseless rant. I visited the site, it put me instantly off and I went away. Similar thing with ByBit and all the other shrooms which are popping out of every cowpat. I get hammered with ByBit affiliate links on Twitter, on Telegram, needless to say, they are emailing us often to promote them (because they follow us on Instagram, and love our content there – thing is only we aren’t there). OK, here is the boring ByBit review like on any other crypto site so we can finally put a lid on it. In a nutshell: A few differences, but basically BitMEX with a Binance theme.

In 2018 the Security Exchange commission blocked several Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) citing that the risk to investors would be potentially too high. While the SEC did not entirely dismiss the idea of Bitcoin ETFs in the future they argued the market was yet to mature enough for ETFs. After the stalling of Bitcoin ETFs albeit momentary, cryptocurrency derivatives are increasingly coming to the fore. One of the companies that are strongly involved in this evolution is BitMEX and therefore other derivatives exchange pop out everywhere trying to copy their successful model. In this article, we conduct an in-depth review of the features and workings of the ByBit derivatives exchange as an example for all the other ones flodding to the market recently.

What is ByBit?

ByBit is a worldwide platform that allows retail traders, professionals, investment institutions and enthusiast to participate in cryptocurrencies derivatives trading. The platforms aim at combining the best of traditional assets and digital assets to create a safe, reliable, fair and user-centric exchange for crypto-derivatives. The exchange largely focuses on trading the pairs of BTC/USD and ETH/USD. The platform is one of the most robust networks with an impressive rate of 100,000 transactions per second.

Claim: Handles a massive amount of transaction per second. BitMEX Comparison: This would basically mean no Overload issues like on Mex, which would be neat of course. Reality: I doubt ByBit really expecierenced the traffic and server load BitMEX did. So this has yet to be proven.

ByBit is registered as a cryptocurrency exchange in the British Virgin Islands and its headquarters are based in Singapore. The founding and management teams are comprised of financial executives and blockchain investors.

Claim: The project also boasts of highly competent professionals who are in charge of research and development within the company. BitMEX Comparison: Hey, we have Arthur here. Frankly, I prefer to have money on a BVI based exchange, than on the Seychelles. Reality: The company registration is OK. The team can be checked on LinkedIn. However, this information has to be verified.

In her bid to standardize financial regulations in the crypto-space, ByBit is driven by three major core values of promoting: transparency, innovation, and user support. So far, the innovation point is not yet clearly visible to me, but let’s check for the features.

The Features of ByBit

Perpetual contracts.

Perpetual contracts are financial derivatives that are designed to be a compromise between spot contracts and future contracts. On one hand, spot contracts require immediate settlement, while on the other hand, future contracts are settled on a specific date in the future, like for example TRX or CARDANO on BitMEX. Perpetual contracts adopted by ByBit, therefore provide a simple and efficient trading option for traders to hold positions for as long as they desire. This results in more opportunities for financial gain. However, just as known, funding rates apply.

BitMEX Comparison: ByBit covers only Bitcoin and Ethereum perpetuals and no further altcoin futures like BitMEX. Funding rates apply on perpetual contracts like on ByBit.

Dual-price mechanism.

The crypto-space has been constantly facing accusations of price manipulations, where exchanges have often resulted in intentionally deflating or inflating prices for malicious gains. To counter this, ByBit uses the dual-price mechanism to protect investors from manipulation and uses mark prace AND last traded price. For instance, if the price of ETH plummets from $180 to $40 as a result of attempted manipulation, the Mark Price will remain at $180, effectively protecting the traders from liquidation since the mark price is the sole trigger for liquidation.

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Claim: Basically, this would mean you get less wicked out. Reality: Could not find any user feedback until now. To be observed.

Mark to Market.

On ByBit a contracts prices are usually tethered to the last traded price using a mechanism called funding. Funding is exchanged between long and short positions every 8 hours, thus making the last traded price marked to market every 8 hours.

BitMEX Comparison: Exactly the same.

Leveraged Trading.

ByBit offers up to 100 times leverage on perpetual contracts, this is way above the 3-5x and 5-20x leverage offered on spot trading and future trading respectively. Traders are also able to adjust the leverage and margin of an open position, hence increasing flexibility. However, while leveraged trading can lead to massive returns it can also lead to equally massive losses. ByBit offers 100x Leverage on both perpetual contracts.

BitMEX comparison: OMG! A Difference: On ByBit you can use 100x Leverage on ETH (BitMEX has a maximum on 50x for ETH))

Comprehensive contract loss mechanism.

With comprehensive contract loss, ByBit is able to determine who bears what cost when positions cannot be liquidated at bankruptcy. Unlike socialized loss systems where all profitable traders share the loss, ByBit uses the deleveraging system. Users are ranked according to profit ratio and effective leverage and the more profitable and higher leveraged traders(risky traders) are de-leveraged first.

BitMEX comparison: Mirror, Mirror on the wall. We have a twin here.

ByBit Fees, Deposit and Withdrawal

Every trade on ByBit has two main parties a marker who places the order and the take who takes the markers order. Takers are charged 0.075% on each order, makers on the other end receive 0.025% on each trade. However, in comparison with BitMEX which also offers derivative trading one can argue that the fees are fair since the fees are identical.

BitMEX Fee Structure

When withdrawing BTC from the ByBit trading platform, you will have to pay 0.0005 BTC. This is 40% lower than the global industry average BTC withdrawal fee (0.0008 BTC) and thus also a very competitive withdrawal fee.

ByBit does not accept fiat deposits and hence first-time cryptocurrencies holders ought to first buy either BITCOIN or Ethereum from entry-level exchanges like Coinbase.

BitMEX Comparsion: Innovation! You can deposit/withdraw in ETH. At least something new!

How to register on ByBit.

If you are not bored to death by now by the copycats of ByBit, or you finally found a use case for your ETH, you might consider registering. ByBit is also very easy to satisfy when it comes to customer data – there is almost none needed. You can register either using your email or phone number. Your phone or email will then be verified via either a text, call, or email and you are now ready to set up. Upon filling all the required fields you are now free to begin trading.

It is important to note that ByBit does not accept traders from the US. This is largely a result of stringent regulatory requirements by the SEC. The SEC imposes strict obligations on any companies that wish to accept funds from US-investors.

BitMEX Comparison: Same same, no different.

Order Types & Trading

ByBit – BitMEX with a Binance Theme

If you ever wished for BitMEX with a Binance theme, ByBit is your way to go! Very funny mashup, that might confuse you in the first place, when you are used to using both of the other exchanges on a regular base. ByBit offers the usual three order types that traders can choose according to their trading needs. Like on the most exchanges you can choose from limit order, market order, and conditional orders. The friendly interface allows users to adjust leverage, commission price, and a number of contracts. Orders can also be executed until close, immediately canceled or canceled completely. The platform also allows users to take profits or stops loss at certain positions of the trade.

Interesting spots: Truly interesting are two things here, which sets ByBit apart from BitMEX. On one hand, you have a currency dropdown in the upper right area, which lets you choose between BTC and ETH for your trade. The second and even more interesting difference is the conditional order. On BitMEX you have these kinds of orders only for stops. If you’d place the same orders without the conditional order engine on BitMEX they would execute against the market order book, on ByBit they become active once certain price conditions are met.

EXAMPLE: Let’s say ETH is at 155 USD and you want to place a short once support at 142 is broken. You cannot place a short order on BitMEX while we are above 142 for 142 and below. On ByBit you can say if the conditional price of 142 is reached, place a limit or market order at 143 short. Finally something new.

Yet another boring Conclusion

Overall, ByBit seems like a really reliable and robust platform for conducting derivatives exchanges. The platform not only has unique features that are not available with many exchanges but also has a vibrant and committed community behind it. As the need for cryptocurrency derivatives continue to rise the popularity of the exchange is also going to increase.

This is the conclusion your average blog would write to lure you into doing the clicky-clicky thing with their affiliate link. The real conclusion is: It is basically the very same offering as BitMEX in a Binance dress. Are there really less “wick-quidations“? It will show if you use it for a while. Is the exchange liquid enough to make trading possible? It seems like, yeah. Do we really need an option to go 100x into ETH? At least the deposit and trading in ETH is something new. But the real deal with ByBit are the conditional orders – that’s a great feature for sure, and we would love to see it on other exchanges as well.

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filmardotcom-blog-blog · 5 years ago

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Don't be SCAMMED this is important

Don't be SCAMMED this is important Have you ever received an email like this: "Dear Traders, Beware of . When you buy from them and send them money, you’ll never get your products and then suddenly can’t contact them anymore. Then they won't answer your emails or take your calls. Soon, you lose all your money. Please share this information with your customers." Or this: "It has been brought to our attention that there may be individuals operating in the marketplace impersonating in order to perpetuate fraud." You’d be surprised how often I get these emails. This next one is especially tricky because it could be legit, depending on your business. “The customer is willing to place a big order but needs sample units first and is not willing to pay for the samples upfront. This is going to be an issue because the sample units are going to be quite expensive.” Whatever your business and wherever you live, scam artists are out there, waiting to take advantage and siphon away your hard-earned revenue. They regularly change their alleged business names, aliases and even their scamming methods to avoid getting caught. But I’ve learned a few tricks in my years about spotting scam artists and I want to provide you with the knowledge and confidence you’ll need to remain scam-free. Below are some tools, tips and resources to help you curtail any future losses. Here are a few more common scams: You pay someone and then don’t receive anything. You buy AC adapters or batteries that turn out to be counterfeit. A product’s condition turns out to be misrepresented. For instance, you were promised Grade A or B, but what you got was junk. The deal you signed up for turns out to be significantly not-as-described. You try to remedy it with the seller but they stop answering your phone calls and responding to emails. Scammers often purchase a domain name similar to yours. They might even take your exact same name but use a .net, .org, or .us, instead of .com. A scam site might link its reviews to your site to make it seem legit. Then when customers Google your company, your reviews will come up. The customer feels comfortable even if the deals seem too good to be true, so they start placing orders on the fraudulent site. The scam site takes the order, but nothing ships out. Soon you start getting calls for order statuses you can’t locate. Read more details of the scam here. This next scam is the most popular one. You order all “Grade A,” “New,” or “Refurbished” products, but when they show up at your dock, they’re all wrong, or it’s all junk. I won’t say you should have gone out and inspected the products yourself, because I‘ve hand-tested each product in an order, then had the boxes swapped during shipping. I probably missed a few but if you come across any other scams, let me know so we can protect other traders. You might not have come across these issues yourself, but it could be worth your while to have some contacts and tools at your disposal when scoping out new customers and vendors. I also have more tricks in my E-book to help you circumvent cheating and get inspections performed on the cheap. The evolving scam Scam deals typically start with a phone call or email. Look closely at the email and the associated domains to get a sense of how serious the request is. Keep in mind, scam artists are going to be slippery. They love to use tricky domain names and fake social media accounts. They’ll even build websites to try to convince you they’re legit. When you talk on the phone with a possible scammer, it’s a good idea to jot down the number they called from. Reverse phone lookups and simple Google searches can help fill in missing information to verify a company. When determining if a buyer is safe or a scam, consider if their reviews are real or fake. Scamadviser.com is a good tool for assessing the risk of third-party websites. This tool saves you time authenticating domains. Scamadviser uses an algorithm to authenticate reviews, as well as determine if a website is legit or a front for phishing, and if a seller is peddling fake products. Two important things to consider here are 1) was the domain name registered recently? 2)how long until the domain name expires? Scammers are not going to register a domain name years in advance. Scam domains are usually registered recently. Next, look closer at the email. Does it have a signature, address, phone number, fax? Try to verify some of those details on your own. If they have Skype, WhatsApp or social media contacts, check them out and connect with them. Do those accounts look legit? When did the user last write a post? Use Google Maps to verify addresses, and zoom in using Street View to check out the building. Another verification hack I’ve found useful is calling neighboring businesses and asking about a business I’m suspicious of. How long have they been there? What type of unit are they in? Ask if trucks roll in and out of the location. You’d be surprised how much info people give out to strangers. Counterfeit products are another big problem in our industry — everything from batteries to AC adapters. Some of you probably know this a big problem and don't care because counterfeiting means cheap products. But counterfeit products can cause an end-user’s computer to fail, catch fire or worse, explode. Needless to say, this can lead to very high return rates for you and your resellers. Detecting counterfeit products or fakes can be difficult. RAM modules, hard drives, power adapters and batteries can be verified with the manufacturer, though it’s a time-consuming process. And checking with a manufacturer is really only feasible if you have a very specific need and must be 100% sure an item is legit. So here’s a quick hack to find out if your adapter or battery is legit. Get out a scale and weigh the original and the potential fake. The fake will always weigh less than the original. Here’s a video showing the obvious difference in weight. Payment time So you’re ready to pay and you’re feeling good about the deal. Now comes time to pay. I know what you’re going to say: wire transfer only. But I want to tell you that if the funds were obtained and transferred illegally, they can be reversed by your bank or the originating bank for up to one year. Wire transfers seem to be the favorite method for scammers these days. Good companies take credit cards and charge fees to do so. If a seller insists on wire-only, further investigation on your part is needed. There is too much material to go over in one blog post, but I go over ACH payments, Paypal and credit card payments scams in detail in my E-book (which I highly recommend reading because there is a lot to learn about ACH and the capabilities of reversals and chargebacks). Who can help me? Depending on the type of scam and the legalities of your county, state or country, I would contact a few agencies along with your local police. But first, I recommend consulting with your attorney to see what your options are. You must find a good attorney. If you need help finding an attorney anywhere in the globe, download my E-book. I’ll show you where to find them and how to keep them accountable as you track down buyers and sellers. Here are some other tools and processes you should put in place to avoid becoming a victim yourself. According to the Better Business Bureau’s investigative project Scam Studies, millions of people fall victim to scams each year. Take some time to check out the content there, which is very informative and should keep you updated on the latest scamming techniques. Also, check out the BBB’s Scam Tracker, where you can see all its reports. There are some methods to slow down a scam, but it will take hard work and it’s best to get ahead of the problem. So here are two tips to help make your online presence a little more bulletproof: Register all variations of your domain name — .net .org, .us, with dashes and without. Trademark your domain name. That way you can get the domain’s registrar to take down any infringing domains. I’m sure I missed a scam or two but I’ll leave you with a starting point and some additional links and search tools. Come back often because I’ll be updating this list and adding some content to make sure you’re aware of future cons. MANTA Company Lookup Hoovers Company Search California Secretary Of State Delaware State Divisions of Corporations Florida Department Of Division of Corporations Georgia Corporations Division Iowa Secretary Of State Kansas Business Center Massachusetts Michigan Corporations Division Business Entity Missouri Nebraska Secretary Of State New Hampshire Corporation Division New Jersey New York Corporation and Business Entity Database Ohio Secretary Of State Oklahoma State Corporation Entities Pennslyvania Department Of State Rhode Island Texas Secretary Of State Canadian Govt Corporate Records Search. Duedil.com: UK/Ireland Company Background Search Companies House UK Company Check UK CD Rex Check Website and Email Domain Owners Guidestar.org - US non-profit look up tool Arizona Corporation Commission Glassdoor Company Reviews (UK) North Carolina Department Of The Secretary Maryland Department Of Assessments & Taxation Virginia State Corporation Commission Illinois Secretary Of State Minnesota Secretary Of State Utah Divisions Of Corporations European Commission VAT verification Danish Business Authority Database British Columbia Registry Services Nevada Secretary Of State Charitable Organizations within Quebec Hong Kong Washington State Corporation Ministry of Corporate Affairs India Microsoft Refurbisher Directory Dun & Bradstreet State of Colorado B2B Yellow Pages Merchant Circle UK Company List kompany Tennessee Business Entity Search Hong Kong DIR Hong Kong Company List New Zealand Companies Office New Mexico Secretary of State Bizfile Kentucky Secretary of State Online Resources Bizearch Connecticut Secretary of the State FBR Pakistan ESC Corporate Services SERI Washington DC Business Verification Belgium Business Database Maine Department of the Secretary of the State e-information of Hungary Companies System for Award Management Shenzhen Credit Org Oregon Business Directory California Board of Equalization Idaho State Business Directory Mississippi Secretary of State United Arab Emirates Government of Pakistan - Federal Board of Revenue Registraire des entreprises Quebec Find the Company | A Company Research Engine Kyckr EU Business Lookup Open Corporates Netherlands Business Directory NY State Tax Vendor Lookup UAE TRN Number Verification IRS - Exempt Organizations Check Tool Texas TaxPayer Search Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions Ireland - Companies Registration Office Italian Business Register Vietnam Business Registration Portal Malaysia Registration Search Nigeria Corporate Affairs Commission Arkansas Secretary of State Germany - Unternehmensregister Bloomberg San Jose Business License Lookup Wyoming Secretary of State Kenya Revenue Authority Zoominfo Argentina - CUIT (Tax Lookup) e-Information on Hungarian Companies France - sirene.fr Social Media Facebook LinkedIn Twitter Alibaba eBay Seller Profile Google + Amazon Foursquare Pinterest Newegg Seller Profile Panjiva - Global Trade Insights Other Company Directory Listing Online Review Sites Ripoffreport.com Reseller Ratings Scambook Better Business Bureau Yelp Google Reviews Yahoo Local eBay Feedback Profile Angie''s List HomeAdvisor Environmental, Health, and Safety Compliance EPA - Enforcement & Compliance History Online US Dept. of Labor - OSHA enforcement inspections ISRI SREA Reasonable Care Compliance Program NJ Dept. of Environmental Protection CA.gov Envirostor Texas Commission on Environmental Quality SERI e-Stewards Directory There is a lot here and if you think I missed one leave a comment below and we can add it. At Filmar.com I Buy Sell End of Life Corporate IT Assets is an expert on the secondary market of IT products. Specialties include used and off-lease refurbished computer products, laptops, computers, LED LCD TVs, digital cameras, electronics, unlocked phones, tablets and enterprise IT equipment. These are my observations and my opinions but I would love to hear more about your frustrations Read the full article

#fraud #scam #technews

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bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

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Trump’s Twitter War Room Aims Its Punches at Decorated Colonel https://nyti.ms/2Nr2UOq

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Donald Trump Jr is trying to intimidate the whistleblower by tweeting about their identity👇👇🤬🤬🤬

🔥It is a federal crime to intimidate a witness

🔥Donald Trump Jr broke the law yesterday

“Asked by Yahoo News about his decision to tweet the whistleblower’s name, Donald Trump Jr. emailed a response. However, he asked for his response to be ‘on background,’ in other words, anonymous.”

Whistleblower Attorneys Fear For Their Client's Safety As Trump Allies Try to Out Him

By Jenna McLaughlin, Hunter Walker | Published November 7, 2019 5:00 AM ET | Yahoo News | Posted Nov. 7, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — On the evening of Oct. 2, Mark Zaid, one of the attorneys representing the anonymous official whose whistleblower complaint sparked the impeachment probe into President Trump, received an email with the subject line: “a bullet in your head.”

Zaid reported the email to the FBI, which investigated and determined the threat wasn’t credible, but that message was just one of the dozens received by the whistleblower’s attorneys from individuals ranging from the merely critical to downright threatening.

On Wednesday morning, a person using the encrypted email service ProtonMail told Zaid to “DIE you piece of FILTH,” and another emailed the legal team repeatedly, in one message saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin “would have already shot scum like this,” referring to the whistleblower. A third told Andrew Bakaj, the whistleblower’s primary lawyer and head of his own law firm Compass Rose Legal Group, that someone would “come up to [him] on the street” when he “least expects it,” hinting at violence.

Others are less threatening but still critical, like a man going by the name Jeb Stuart, who called in to insist the whistleblower come forward with their complaints publicly.

A review of a trove of voicemails, emails and messages on social media provided to Yahoo News by the whistleblower’s legal team demonstrate the effects of efforts by Trump allies to vilify the whistleblower and those testifying against the president in the impeachment inquiry. That campaign consists of a blend of talking points promoted by key conservative figures and those originating from Trump or his allies themselves.

The results, according to the whistleblower’s lawyers, has been a campaign of harassment that makes them fear for their client’s personal safety.

“My legal career has been spent fighting to uphold First Amendment protections, but sadly, many do not realize that the Constitution does not give them the right to harass or threaten private citizens,” Zaid told Yahoo News. “Regardless of their taunts, it will not deter us from fulfilling our ethical and professional responsibilities to our clients, nor will it intimidate us either.”

However, the efforts to expose and delegitimize the whistleblower have expanded over the last week beyond everyday citizens to Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, culminating Wednesday morning when the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., tweeted a name circulating in right-wing media circles as the whistleblower.

While not all of the individuals calling in to the lawyers are threatening, most have a common agenda: exposing the whistleblower’s identity.

On Oct. 6, a man going by the name of Jeb Stuart called the lawyers representing the whistleblower whose complaint ignited an impeachment inquiry that threatens to derail Donald Trump’s presidency and left a joking voicemail, later following up about a month later with a more serious email demanding they bring their client “in front of Congress and answer all their questions.”

Contacted by Yahoo News, Stuart, who would not say if he was using his real name but happened to share it with a famous Confederate military officer from Virginia, described himself as a retired Marine living in Florida. He told Yahoo News that he believed the whistleblower was surely “put up to it” and that “impeachment is a trial, whether we admit it or not,” and President Trump deserves the right to “face [his] accusers.”

He says he doesn’t trust the media, but found out details about the whistleblower from conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, and that his beliefs “[have] nothing to do with reporting” from established news outlets.

Stuart is one of dozens who have inundated the whistleblower’s legal team, often parroting talking points from conservative media and right-wing corners of the internet. His complaints, and his commentary, were some of the tamest. Others screamed profanity at Zaid and insisted the whistleblower and those who defend him are a threat to the United States, and called or emailed the legal team repeatedly, some with sexually explicit language.

Those messages were emailed through the attorneys’ websites, left on voicemail inboxes, direct messaged on Facebook and Twitter and even sent from people’s professional LinkedIn accounts.

Some of them, like Stuart, appeared open to questions about their support for President Trump and what they want to see happen in the impeachment inquiry; they don’t view their messages as harassment. Others insisted on lashing out without explanation, or even denied calling and leaving harassing voicemails in the first place. One even insisted that Yahoo News must have “purchased” his contact information, though he sent emails to the lawyers.

The lawyers, for their part, are vehemently against attempts to expose their client. Bakaj on Tuesday night stated that “if the President or any Member of Congress engages in rhetoric or activity that places my client in danger, they will be held personally responsible,” hinting at potential legal consequences.

“Andrew knows first-hand what it’s like to be a whistleblower, and Mark’s been in the spotlight for a number of high-profile cases across the political spectrum,” said Irvin McCullough, a national security analyst for transparency nonprofit the Government Accountability Project. “At the same time, it’s troubling that powerful people are cheering on the harassment they’re facing. ... Some of the President’s defenders are trying to shoot the messengers’ messengers, but these two are bulletproof.”

The callers, when reached by Yahoo News, uniformly insisted that the whistleblower was in no danger of physical harm. “I think it’s a myth that the left perpetuates that we have to protect these people because angry Trump supporters are going to take him out in the woods and tar and feather him,” said Ronny Brienes, who identified himself as a retired military officer living in Florida.

Exposing the whistleblower has been fundamental to the strategy of Trump’s allies.

On Oct. 30, the day before Democrats voted to formalize the impeachment proceedings, one source close to Trump predicted the president’s backers would increasingly need to focus on the whistleblower’s identity as impeachment became more public. “Unmasking the whistleblower is ultimately fair to President Trump, because he has a right to confront his accuser,” explained the source.

Three days later, Trump himself took to Twitter to complain that the whistleblower had “disappeared.” “Where is the Whistleblower?” he asked.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about the apparent campaign to identify the whistleblower.

Conservative media outlets, however, have already published articles purporting to name the whistleblower. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill also joined the push for unmasking. On Monday, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul stood on stage with the president at a rally in his home state and declared, “The whistleblower needs to come before Congress as a material witness.”

“I say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name,” said Paul.

On Wednesday, the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., endeavored to do exactly that. Don Jr. tweeted a Breitbart headline that purportedly named the whistleblower.

Trump supporters argue that the case for outing the whistleblower is, in part, based on allegations the official worked with Joe Biden while the former vice president’s son was being paid by a Ukrainian company. As a member of the National Security Council, the whistleblower would have worked closely with the administration of President Barack Obama as they did with Trump’s White House.

Jason Miller, the senior communications director for the president’s 2016 campaign and a co-host of the daily pro-Trump podcast “War Room: Impeachment” argued that the president and his supporters have a right to know the whistleblower’s “political affiliations” and details of any work they did with Democratic officials.

“There’s no such thing as a completely 100 percent unbiased person in this process,” Miller said, adding, “These are all things that the American public deserves to know before the whistleblower’s comments are etched into a tablet and presented … as truth from up above.”

Miller, who is regularly in touch with the White House, has made the case for outing the whistleblower on air. On Tuesday, he said his podcast featured a lawyer who argued that the Whistleblower Protection Act doesn’t contain anything about “being able to remain anonymous.” After Don Jr.’s tweet, Miller dismissed the potential for threats against the whistleblower as “a red herring to distract from the fact that the whistleblower and his lawyers know they are not afforded anonymity by the whistleblower act.”

“This whistleblower knew exactly what he was getting into,” Miller said.

Yet the harassment has also gone beyond the whistleblower and affected at least one witness in the impeachment trial. Fiona Hill, President Trump’s former top adviser on Russia at the National Security Council, appeared rattled and upset when met at her home by two Yahoo News reporters. She said she had to tape her mailbox shut and closely monitor for threats. She referred all questions to her lawyer.

Trump’s allies and the conservative media, however, are focusing on the whistleblower. Asked about the possibility that Don Jr.’s tweet could spark more harassment, Miller pointed to conservative media coverage that attempted to out the whistleblower as justification.

“It’s been out there in so many different news reports,” Miller said. “In a million different places.”

Those websites printing the name, however, appear to be primarily right-wing outlets, or sites that aggregate from those organizations.

Brienes, who left Zaid a message calling the whistleblower “a rat,” told Yahoo News he got a lot of his information from Twitchy.com, a website founded in 2012 by Michelle Malkin, a conservative blogger, and also mentioned Rush Limbaugh.

When asked how he thought he knew the whistleblower’s identity and background, he said, “It’s just kind of out there” and noted that Realclearpolitics.com, a Chicago based news aggregator, “had articles about it.” However, he said that he relied a lot upon his own ability to “know a scam when I see one.”

A woman who called Zaid from a Connecticut number, but did not identify herself over the phone when reached by Yahoo News, said that “there is a place where you can find the truth on the internet. … If you really want the truth, you can find it,” when asked where she was getting her information.

“I’m an American citizen who’s a patriot who wants to know the truth,” she said. “I don’t trust the mainstream media at all,” she added, before hanging up.

A 67-year-old man who asked not to be named, but described himself as a “crusty old retired warrant officer,” said he didn’t remember calling Zaid, but has been watching ”congressional hearings and interviews,” including those featuring House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. The man said he can “read [Schiff’s] eyes, I can read his expressions” and know that he’s “lying again.”

Yahoo News spoke or corresponded with more than a dozen people who contacted Zaid’s office, and the complaints that surfaced again and again were that the whistleblower needed to come out publicly, and that the anonymous official had worked with prominent opponents of Donald Trump, including former CIA Director John Brennan and former Vice President Joe Biden, rendering him not credible.

“This whistleblower is a joke; he worked for Biden,” said Terry Doran, a 64-year-old who owns a video production company in Westchester, Pa. (The whistleblower has reportedly served multiple presidents analyzing Ukrainian issues at the National Security Council.)

Doran, like some of the other people who called the lawyers, went as far as suggesting that the whistleblower doesn’t exist at all, but is a fabrication created to destroy the president.

“The whole thing is made up, anyway,” Doran continued.

Whether the whistleblower manages to maintain at least nominal anonymity may depend on whether those around the president — and even the president himself — refrain from naming the purported official.

Asked by Yahoo News about his decision to tweet the whistleblower’s name, Donald Trump Jr. emailed a response. However, he asked for his response to be “on background,” in other words, anonymous.

Alexander Nazaryan and Suzanne Smalley contributed reporting.

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When you have only one tool - smear any truth teller - this is what you get. Trump and his disgusting mob are attacking a guy who shows up to work every day just down the hall. Rather than actually talk, spew on Twitter.

Trump’s Twitter War Room Aims Its Punches at Decorated Colonel

By Mike McIntire and Nicholas Confessor | Published Nov. 6, 2019 | New York Times | Posted Nov. 7, 2019 |

Days after a decorated Army lieutenant colonel offered damaging testimony about President Trump’s conduct on a July phone call with Ukraine’s leader, Mr. Trump stood on the South Lawn and issued a vague but ominous warning.

“You’ll be seeing very soon what comes out,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday, referring to the officer, Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman.

Mr. Trump was not more specific. But an attack on Colonel Vindman’s character and motives was already making its way from the dark corners of Mr. Trump’s social media following to the front lines of the impeachment battle.

One day earlier, the right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec had retweeted a lengthy thread by a Florida man — a fan of QAnon, a fringe conspiracy about the “deep state” — claiming to have witnessed Colonel Vindman “bash America” in conversation with Russian officers during a joint military exercise in Germany in 2013.

That accusation was unsubstantiated and has been rejected by some of the colonel’s colleagues. Even so, Mr. Posobiec’s post was retweeted by Mr. Trump’s son and chief defender, Donald Trump Jr., driving it through conservative social media circles and onto pro-Trump websites, whose stories the younger Mr. Trump promoted to his four million followers.

“Anyone who’s been watching for the past three years is not at all surprised that this would be their ‘star witness,’” Donald Jr. posted about Colonel Vindman, who had testified that he was concerned about the United States’ linking of military aid to Ukraine with an investigation of Mr. Trump’s political rival.

While the White House has scrambled to mount an organized response to the House impeachment inquiry — there is no consistent message from Mr. Trump’s team and little formal guidance to surrogates — Twitter has become the Trump war room. The president and his supporters, including his family, have used Twitter to frame his defense, torch his Democratic inquisitors and try to undermine public officials, like Colonel Vindman, who have testified against him.

It is hard to discern how the six-year-old comments attributed to the officer affect the veracity of his testimony on Capitol Hill, which aligns with that of numerous other witnesses. But by questioning the colonel’s loyalties, partisans who are spreading the story uncritically to millions of Americans leave the impression he is somehow not to be believed.

The attack emerged late on Halloween night, when a retired Army officer, Jim Hickman, claimed he had overheard Colonel Vindman — a major at the time who was chatting with Russian soldiers during a military exercise — laugh “about Americans not being educated or worldly” and talking up “Obama & globalism to the point of uncomfortable.” Mr. Hickman said he took the major aside and reprimanded him.

Through his lawyer, Michael Volkov, Colonel Vindman declined to comment.

Mr. Hickman, a former lieutenant colonel whose service record indicates he served in Afghanistan and earned a Purple Heart, at some point took an interest in QAnon. A review of his past tweets found more than 100 in which he recirculated or commented on QAnon-related theories, including hoaxes about Satanism and pedophilia, and until recently he had the hashtag #Q in his profile. Reached for comment, Mr. Hickman said he did not believe in QAnon but found it “interesting.”

“I do think it’s actually been pretty accurate on predicting a lot of things,” he said.

He has also tweeted strident pro-Trump, anti-Democratic themes, writing, “It’s incredible how evil the Democrat party is.” A week before going public with his story about Colonel Vindman, he retweeted a Trump supporter urging: “STOP IMPEACHMENT! STOP THIS COUP!”

In a Twitter thread, Mr. Hickman, who said he was disabled from combat injuries and living in Florida, said he had helped manage joint exercises in Germany involving United States and Russian soldiers. He met Colonel Vindman there in 2013, he said.

Colonel Vindman referred to himself as a patriot during closed-door testimony in the House last month, and said he had reported concerns about the president and his inner circle’s conduct out of a “sense of duty.” The colonel received a Purple Heart after being injured by an improvised explosive device in Iraq.

Several officials have publicly defended the colonel since his testimony emerged. General Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has called the colonel “a professional, competent, patriotic and loyal officer.” Michael McFaul, the former ambassador to Russia, has said he had worked with the colonel “and interacted with him in front of Russian officers. He never once said anything near what this ‘retired Army officer’ claims.”

Mr. Hickman appears to have first shared his story in a private “DM room” on Twitter, where people can send direct messages to one another. He said in a tweet that he had forgotten about the encounter with Colonel Vindman, but that his Army friends “reminded me of what happened and it all came back,” adding “Damn TBI,” a reference to traumatic brain injury.

As the tale gained attention on Twitter, and received pushback from some who questioned it, a new Twitter account popped up with the name Thomas Lasch, tweeting that he had worked with Mr. Hickman and remembered the 2013 episode.

Mark Hertling, a retired general who was suspicious of the pair and contacted them through direct messaging, later tweeted: “They are who they say they are.” But he added that “LTC Hickman and I agreed to disagree on LTC Vindman and many other things.”

In an interview, General Hertling, who commanded the United States Army in Europe, said that a number of things about Mr. Hickman’s recollections did not add up, including his claim of hearing what Colonel Vindman, who was born in Ukraine, said to Russian soldiers.

“Vindman would’ve been speaking to Russian soldiers in Russian, not English,” he said. “Russians, when they come to these exercises, they don’t speak English — they take pride in it.”

General Hertling added: “I asked Hickman about that, and he said, ‘Well, they were going back and forth between Russian and English.’”

An effort to reach Mr. Lasch was unsuccessful. At his home in Homosassa, Fla., Mr. Hickman said, “All I want is the truth to get out.”

Within a day of Colonel Vindman’s testimony, conservative media figures on Fox News and elsewhere, as well as Republican surrogates like Rudolph W. Giuliani, raised questions about whether the Ukrainian-born colonel had “dual loyalties.” Some even pushed the innuendo that he could be some sort of spy for Ukraine.

On Monday, Mr. Hickman’s tweets were picked up by a pro-Trump web magazine, American Greatness, in an article that was promoted by Mark Levin, a talk radio host and vociferous Trump defender. On Wednesday, Pete Hegseth, a host on the Fox morning show “Fox & Friends” — arguably the president’s favorite cable news show — also tweeted the article.

“Guys I’ve served with — and trust with my life — served with LTC Vindman and saw the same thing,” Mr. Hegseth said. “He’s been a partisan from the beginning.”

But those who know and have worked with him Vindman have provided a different account. They said that Colonel Vindman, then a military attaché, was assigned to meet with Russians and gather whatever intelligence he could.

He spoke to the Russians in Russian, did not denigrate the United States and reported everything he heard, according to a person briefed on the episode, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the colonel had not publicly testified. Colonel Vindman did not have dealings with Mr. Hickman in relation to his work during the exercise, the person said, and was not reprimanded for it.

Peter B. Zwack, a retired brigadier general who was Colonel Vindman’s commanding officer during the joint exercise, said he was skeptical of Mr. Hickman’s account.

“If there was something egregious that occurred, believe me, we would have had our ears rapped in Moscow,” said General Zwack, who served as the United States’ senior defense official and attaché to Russia.

“The bottom line is, where there are Russians in an exercise in and among our units and people, we have an attaché that coordinates with them,” the general said. “It’s all just a part of an attaché’s job.”

Attachés are expected to overtly collect information on what is happening in the country in which they are posted, as well as collect information from unsuspecting foreign officials through casual conversation. The allegations made by Mr. Hickman may simply describe Colonel Vindman playing his assigned role.

In trying to undermine the impeachment inquiry, the president and his allies have repeatedly called witnesses “Never Trumpers,” spread rumors and conspiracy theories and described the process as a coup.

In more than 55 tweets over 47 days, The New York Times found, Mr. Trump claimed falsely that elements of the original whistle-blower’s account had fallen apart or proven incorrect. The president has also encouraged reporters to reveal the whistle-blower’s identity, without doing so himself.

His son has been less discerning. On Wednesday morning, Donald Trump Jr. tweeted out an article purporting to name the whistle-blower.

He later denied coordinating with the White House.

______

Reporting was contributed by Larry Buchanan, Amaris Castillo, Maggie Haberman, Danny Hakim, John Ismay and Karen Yourish.

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Behind the Deal That Put Giuliani Together With a Dirt-Hunting Partner

Rudy Giuliani wanted $500,000 to help a venture started by a man who would go on to help him in Ukraine. A Republican donor from Long Island put up the money.

By Kenneth P. Vogel, Ben Protess and Sarah Maslin Nir | Published Nov. 6, 2019 Updated Nov. 7, 2019, 7:34 AM ET | New York Times | Posted Nov. 7, 2019

WASHINGTON — It has been one of the enduring mysteries of the impeachment drama: Where did a cash-strapped Ukrainian-born American businessman get $500,000 to pay President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani?

It turns out that the money came from a Long Island lawyer named Charles Gucciardo, a Republican donor and supporter of Mr. Trump. The payment was part of a deal in which Mr. Gucciardo would become an investor in a company started by the businessman, Lev Parnas, according to Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Gucciardo’s lawyer and other people familiar with the arrangement.

The money, paid to Mr. Giuliani’s firm in September and October 2018, cemented a relationship between Mr. Parnas and Mr. Giuliani. Within months that relationship would evolve into a critical front in the campaign by the president and Mr. Giuliani to pressure the Ukrainian government to start investigations that would benefit Mr. Trump politically.

Mr. Gucciardo, 62, a plaintiff’s lawyer, has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, and there is no evidence that he was involved in the Ukrainian pressure campaign.

Mr. Gucciardo’s lawyer, Randy Zelin, said Mr. Gucciardo invested in the company because of Mr. Giuliani’s involvement.

“He understood that he was investing in a reputable company that Rudolph Giuliani was going to be the spokesman and the face of,” Mr. Zelin said, comparing Mr. Giuliani’s role to the one he had played for the personal data-security company LifeLock, which ran commercials featuring Mr. Giuliani. “When you think of cybersecurity, you think of Rudolph Giuliani,” Mr. Zelin said.

The company being promoted by Mr. Parnas, Fraud Guarantee, was billed as a way for investors to get insurance against the risk of being defrauded. Mr. Gucciardo’s money was a loan that could be converted into a stake in the company, according to people familiar with the deal.

But it is not clear the stake would have any value, since Fraud Guarantee does not appear to have any customers. Mr. Giuliani did not make any commercials for the company or otherwise engage in any public marketing for it. Mr. Parnas, who was arrested last month on federal campaign finance charges, has opened talks with congressional impeachment investigators about his role in the Ukraine pressure campaign.

The disclosure that Mr. Gucciardo provided the money that put Mr. Giuliani in business with Mr. Parnas fills in some blanks in a story that has left Mr. Giuliani under federal investigation for possible foreign lobbying violations, and Mr. Trump facing the likelihood of impeachment by the House.

The payment is another example of how Mr. Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York mayor who is facing the prospect of a potentially costly divorce, capitalized on the spike in demand for his services after he signed on as Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer in April 2018.

And it helps explain how Mr. Parnas came to suggest that he and another Soviet-born South Florida businessman, Igor Fruman, had the blessing of a lawyer for the president of the United States as they pursued business and political ventures around the world, including in Ukraine.

In an interview, Mr. Giuliani called the arrangement a “perfectly legitimate payment” for which Mr. Gucciardo received “promissory notes that were convertible into a percentage of the company.”

Mr. Giuliani said he “verified the stock agreement” and “felt comfortable getting it from somebody as reputable as him,” adding that, after the payments, “I’ve gotten to know Charles very well. He’s a very honorable man, a very good man.”

Mr. Zelin said Mr. Gucciardo did not pay Mr. Giuliani personally, but rather made his investment by paying one of Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firms, Giuliani Partners. Mr. Gucciardo was “simply one of numerous other investors in the company and is nothing more than a passive investor,” Mr. Zelin said.

Mr. Parnas and his co-founder in Fraud Guarantee, David Correia, as well as Mr. Fruman and another associate, Andrey Kukushkin, were arrested last month on campaign finance charges that included accusations that Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman made illegal donations to a member of Congress allied with them in efforts to remove the United States ambassador to Ukraine.

In an interview last month before he was arrested, Mr. Parnas said Mr. Giuliani “offered some advice on” Fraud Guarantee. He said his efforts to help Mr. Trump in Ukraine were self-funded and “have nothing to do with our business.”

Joseph A. Bondy, a lawyer for Mr. Parnas, declined to comment, as did a lawyer for Mr. Correia, Jeff Marcus.

In 2016, Mr. Gucciardo donated $2,000 to Mr. Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, and spoke at an event that appears to have taken place at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

In the speech he accused Mr. Trump’s Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, of “perpetrating a fraud on the American people,” while saying Mr. Trump had “made more people, more workers, more money than anybody on Capitol Hill here.”

In 2018, he made his biggest donation on record to date — $50,000 to the pro-Trump super PAC America First Action — and attended an event for major donors at the Trump hotel featuring appearances by the president and Donald Trump Jr.

It was there that he met Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman, who had recently co-founded a company called Global Energy Producers that donated $325,000 to the PAC.

The next month, Mr. Parnas, Mr. Fruman and Mr. Gucciardo all went on a group trip to Israel, according to people who traveled with them.

“Those two guys were operators and they were definitely trying to rope people into their game, whatever their game was,” said Anthony Scaramucci, who was briefly the White House communications director for Mr. Trump and who was on the Israel trip. He said Mr. Fruman and Mr. Parnas often cited their connections in Mr. Trump’s orbit, and particularly to Mr. Giuliani.

Around the time Mr. Parnas returned from the trip, he promised to pay Mr. Giuliani $500,000 to provide what Mr. Giuliani described as “a combination of business advice and consulting, consistent with what my company does, and legal advice.”

But Mr. Parnas, whose business ventures had left him with a trail of debts and lawsuits, did not have the cash and feared that if he did not come up with it, he and Mr. Fruman might lose their access to Mr. Giuliani, according to people who know the men.

In September 2018, Mr. Gucciardo stepped in, paying Mr. Giuliani $250,000 on behalf of Fraud Guarantee, according to people familiar with the arrangement. Mr. Gucciardo paid the second $250,000 the next month, not long after he saw Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Parnas in Boca Raton, Fla., at a bris ceremony for Mr. Parnas’s son, for whom Mr. Giuliani had agreed to serve as the godfather.

By January, Mr. Giuliani had enlisted Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman to collect information and make connections in Ukraine that could be used to damage Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic presidential contender, and to undermine the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

🍁🍞🍂☕🍁🍞🍂☕🍁🍞🍂☕🍁🍞

Attorney General Declined Trump Request to Declare Nothing Illegal in Ukraine Call

President Trump asked Attorney General William P. Barr to hold a news conference stating that no laws were broken in his call with Ukraine’s president. Mr. Barr declined.

By Michael D. Shear, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman | Published Nov. 6, 2019 Updated Nov. 7, 2019, 8:16 AM ET | New York Times | Published November 7, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked that Attorney General William P. Barr hold a news conference to declare that he had broken no laws in a telephone call with Ukraine’s president that is now at the heart of the Democratic impeachment inquiry, but Mr. Barr declined, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Mr. Trump’s request came shortly after the White House released a reconstructed transcript of a July 25 call in which the president pressed President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine to launch investigations into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and other Democrats. An intelligence whistle-blower pointed to the call as evidence that the president had tried to enlist a foreign power to help him in the 2020 presidential election, and House Democrats started an impeachment inquiry into whether the president’s conduct warranted his removal from office.

Mr. Trump, who has aggressively pushed Republicans and administration officials to say he did nothing wrong, has repeatedly said the call was “perfect.” In the days after the reconstructed transcript was released to the public, the White House told the Justice Department of Mr. Trump’s desire for Mr. Barr to appear publicly, according to the person who was told of it. The request was first reported by The Washington Post.

Mr. Trump on Thursday denied that Mr. Barr had declined to speak publicly about the phone call.

Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump

Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an “anonymous” source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!

7:28 AM - Nov 7, 2019

His mention of the Justice Department in his Twitter post appeared to be referring to a decision rendered in early September after a review of the whistle-blower complaint between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky. The department found that Mr. Trump did not violate any campaign finance laws when he pressed the Ukrainian president to coordinate with Mr. Barr on investigations into his political rivals. The Justice Department did not consider or rule on whether the call was good or bad. At the time, the Justice Department also found that the complaint did not need to be shared with Congress.

The president also wrote that “the Justice Department already ruled that the call was good.” His mention of the Justice Department in his Twitter post appeared to be referring to a decision rendered in early September after a review of the whistle-blower complaint between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky. The department found that Mr. Trump did not violate any campaign finance laws when he pressed the Ukrainian president to coordinate with Mr. Barr on investigations into his political rivals. The Justice Department did not consider or rule on whether the call was good or bad. At the time, the Justice Department also found that the complaint did not need to be shared with Congress.

The president wanted Mr. Barr to personally deliver the message to the news media that Mr. Trump had done nothing wrong, much as he did in a news conference he held shortly before the release of the report by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections, according to a person with knowledge of the events.

It was hardly the first time that Mr. Trump has sought to pressure his chief law enforcement official to defend him more aggressively in the face of what he considered an existential crisis. The president never got over his rage at Jeff Sessions, his former attorney general, for recusing himself from Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and tried repeatedly — and unsuccessfully — to get Mr. Sessions to insert himself into that inquiry on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

And to people close to Mr. Trump, the request was also reminiscent of what he wanted James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, to say publicly about whether the president was personally under investigation as the bureau looked at a possible conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russian officials in 2016. Mr. Comey had told the president that he was not personally under investigation, but Mr. Trump wanted the F.B.I. director to publicly clear his name. Mr. Comey declined, which he has said was because he did not want to have to take that declaration back if circumstances changed.

That refusal by Mr. Comey was part of what soured his relationship with Mr. Trump, and he was fired in dramatic fashion in May 2017.

After the release of the whistle-blower complaint about the Ukraine call, a Justice Department spokeswoman put out a statement saying that the criminal division had reviewed the official record of the conversation and determined that “there was no campaign finance violation and that no further action was warranted.” That satisfied Mr. Trump, according to one of the people with knowledge of what took place, and aides were able to redirect his concerns.

Mr. Barr had been involved in the decision to release the transcript of the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky, according to multiple White House officials, and a Justice Department official said at the time that he supported the idea of being transparent. But Mr. Barr decided against holding the news conference.

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department declined to comment.

Hogan Gidley, a deputy White House press secretary, said, “The president has nothing but respect for A.G. Barr and greatly appreciates the work he’s done on behalf of the country, and no amount of shady sources with clear intent to divide, smear and slander will change that.”

At various points since the impeachment inquiry began, Mr. Trump has complained that people in his administration have not done more to defend him, multiple people close to the president said. The president’s complaint prompted Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, to try to defend Mr. Trump at an appearance in front of reporters last month.

During that briefing, Mr. Mulvaney initially acknowledged the existence of a quid pro quo linking military assistance for Ukraine to the country’s willingness to start investigations Mr. Trump demanded, before insisting several hours later that he had not said that.

Democratic investigators in the House have spent the past several weeks methodically trying to build a case for impeachment that goes well beyond the July 25 call, interviewing current and former administration officials who have testified to the existence of a shadow diplomatic effort aimed at pressuring Ukraine.

But Mr. Trump’s telephone call with Mr. Zelensky remains the most direct evidence of the president’s involvement. During the call, Mr. Zelensky thanked Mr. Trump for delivering military aid to help in their fight against Russian aggression, including anti-tank weapons.

“I would like you to do us a favor, though,” Mr. Trump responded, shifting the conversation toward investigating Democrats and urging Mr. Zelensky that he work with Mr. Barr and Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

Mr. Barr has been investigating the origins of the Russia investigation that Mr. Trump has long called “a hoax.” The attorney general appointed the United States attorney John H. Durham to look in to how the Mueller inquiry began and whether the intelligence community did anything improper related to collecting information about the Trump campaign.

The president has repeatedly called for an inquiry into the Russia investigators, and Mr. Barr’s willingness to pursue it over the past several months has pleased Mr. Trump and helped cement what people close to the two men say is a good relationship between them.

But critics of Mr. Barr have accused him of lacking the independence from the White House that is traditional for the nation’s top law enforcement official.

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