#file this under: things i do during my history elective instead of taking notes

[cocochannel00]

The Azoff Family: A Case Study on one of the Music Industry’s Most Connected Families

(ft. a breakdown of the Grammy voting process and problems)

This is very long so I will try and split it up into categories for everyone (sorry I got carried away- I spent like 2 hours writing this) but enjoy!

*Disclaimer: I want to preface while the majority of this is based in research, some parts may be speculation. I don’t know the family personally so I can’t tell you what goes on behind closed doors but I can tell you how parts of the entertainment/music industry work. I’ve had 5 internships in the industry (one in marketing at one of the big record labels) and the rest of my work is publicity (what I enjoy) and events and a former advisor used to run in the same circles as Irving Azoff (and he spilled some tea last year) I’m not out here to diminish the hard work of any artists or their teams, I’m simply here to showcase parts of the industry that aren’t always shown.*

Please also see: Story Time: How Fan Pages Directly Impact Columbia Records Decisions and Harry Styles Image

IRVING AZOFF: NEVER STOP THE GRIND

Let’s begin with the great business man himself Mr. Irving Azoff Irving Azoff is the literal posture child for connections and power in the music industry (he was also inducted into the 2020 rock and roll hall of fame class which is like a huge fucking deal for a manager to be inducted so you know he's the real deal)

In conclusion, I love Irving Azoff and his drive.

Irving Azoff: Early Years Run Down:

He came up middle class (dad was a pharmacist, mom a bookkeeper) in Danville, Illinois

He dropped out of college to run a small Midwestern concert-booking empire and managed local acts in the era

Opportunity came knocking and he got the chance to manage the Eagles and the rest is history

He's one of the best negotiators and has negotiated business on behalf of stars like Stevie Nicks, the Eagles, and Jimmy Buffet

Azoff has been an incredible manager and his drive to always advocate for his clients while basically not giving two sh*ts about what people think of him has gotten him the incredible reputation he has today.

All of Irving Azoff’s Major Job Positions:

Former President MCA (major label)

Former CEO of Ticketmaster and executive chairman of Live Nation Entertainment, the behemoth formed from Ticketmaster’s merger with Live Nation.

In 2013 he and Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO and New York Knicks owner James Dolan formed a partnership, Azoff MSG Entertainment (Currently still CEO)

----> Azoff also ran the Forum in Inglewood under Azoff MSG Entertainment after MSG purchased it in 2012 (it was sold in 2020 to the owner of the Clippers) — why do you think Harry played the forum for the Fine Line show? Azoff connection

Azoff MSG Entertainment encompasses all of the other companies including Full Stop Management, Global Music Rights (performance-rights org), and the Oak View Group (arena developing company)

He also is the co-founder and manager of the lobbying group Music Artists Coalition, a group that helps lobby for artists-rights issues such as royalty rates, copyright issue and healthcare insurance (see he's not all bad)

Essentially what I'm getting at is this man knows anybody who's anybody. He's the man you want on your team to help promote your music, plan your tour, and get you on that Grammy nom list.

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JEFFREY AZOFF: THE CHILD OF NEPOTISM

So for those of you that don't know, Jeffery Azoff is Harry's current manager and the son of Irving Azoff (the third of four kids). He's currently a partner at Full Stop Management, the company owned by Irving and the one artists such as Harry, Haim, the Eagles, Kings of Leon, and Meghan Trainer are signed to.

Jeffrey graduated from the University of Colorado's Leeds School of Business and started working fresh out of college at his father's old Management company (Frontline Management) working under Maroon 5's manager Jordan Feldstein (the only way you get that kind of internship/job as a 21 year old fresh out of college is if your family or family friends gives it to you). He worked here for 5 years.

Direct Quote from Irving Azoff to Jeffrey (really tells you a lot): "Listen carefully, because I’m going to say this one time. You have a phone and you have my last name. If you can’t figure it out, you’re not my son."

After working for his father, Jeffrey moved on to the talent agency CAA (Creative Artist Agency) where he worked for roughly 3 and half years before joining his dad in forming Full Stop Management in 2016.

While he was at CAA, Irving moved over clients like Christina Aguilera and the Eagles to the talent agency to help with tour booking instead of doing it internally through LiveNation (he was CEO).

Even though I'm sure Jeff has had to work somewhat hard to get to where he is (or at least to mess up his dad's work as he doesn't seem like the type to take laziness well), the door into the industry and every job was basically handed to him on a silver platter.

Not to mention if you watch episodes of keeping up with the  kardashians (like myself) you can actually see Jeff hanging out with kendall and the rest of the fam at their Palm Springs house (you know you're a nepotism kid if you have an in with the Kardashian crew). Invite me next time Jeffrey!!!

Think of the Azoff's as the mafia family of the music industry, you don't mess with the mafia

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THE GRAMMY AWARDS: STUDENT COUNCIL ELECTIONS ON STEROIDS

Ok so here's where we’re going to get into a bit more of the speculation/grey area. I don't need to tell you that award shows are corrupt (See the Golden Globes Emily in Paris scandal) and the Grammys are not an exception. Think of the Grammys as one big student council/government elections where despite the fact the teachers tell you six times to vote for the best candidate, you're still going to vote for your friends even if they aren't the best.

A simplified break-down of Grammy voting:

1) Recording Academy voting members (artists, producers, musicians- anyone involved first hand with the creation of music; All voting members must have been producers, performers or engineers on six or more tracks of a commercially released album (or 12 or more digital tracks) and record labels will submit nominations in various categories to the grammys (songs need to be released commercially between October 1 of the previous year and September 30th of this year). You can also become a voting member by either winning a grammy or being endorsed by a current voting member (hint hint)

2) Once received, the recording academy with have the academy of trustees and its reviewers organize them and approve any changes to the 30 categories/fields (aka they can add new categories or remove old ones; so no best ukulele album of the year -- this is where things get funky)

There's speculation that during this stage when these special groups of 8-10 people are organizing genres, there's an "unwritten rule" that you need to be careful what album you green light (especially for famous artists) if you don't want them to win) (Rob Kenner said this- he used to be on one of these committees). Famous people tend to get more votes from clueless or lay Academy members that don't know the specialized categories or don't care enough to listen to songs that aren't radio trending.

3) After the nominations occur, Voting members begin their first voting. Members can vote for the four general categories of record of the year, album of the year, song of the year and best new artist and a maximum of 15 categories, all within their areas of expertise. Now the interesting thing is that while these are the guidelines there is literally nothing stopping them from voting in whatever categories they want (i.g. a rapper voting in the opera category despite not listening to opera). Theses ballots are all tallied and the top 20 entries are determined in each category (funky moment #2)

In 12 of the 84 categories those top 20 go to the ballot and it's done; for the rest it’s not like that. 59 categories including the big four go to a "nomination review committees" (identities are protected so they can't get lobbied... sure) who take a look at the top 20 and narrow it down to 7 or 8. (these are the special committees the Weekend talked about when he was snubbed). They're supposed to choose the nominees "based solely on the artistic and technical merits of the eligible recordings" which lets be real if that was the case Watermelon Sugar (along with most of the others in the category) I don't think would have been nomimated as they are very generic pop (none of them are special... sorry to the WM lovers out there).

This committee is basically held to THE HONOR CODE SYSTEM... I mean tell me when the last time the honor code system worked in literally any scenario (literally wtf). Don't take my word for it though the former CEO of the Academy Deborah Dugan (a queen) filed a complaint against the Recording Academy basically claiming that the nomination review process was rigged (she was fired after 5 months on the job).

Quote from Deborah Dugan "Members of the board [of trustees] and the secret committees chose artists with whom they have personal or business relationships... It is not unusual for artists who have relationships with Board members and who ranked at the bottom of the initial 20-artist list to end up receiving nominations."

These review committees can also exploit there power by adding up to two nominees that don't appear on the top 20 list to the final voting ballot (except in the 4 big categories - which watermelon sugar that one wasn't nominated for)

They also have craft committees for like non performance stuff (like album notes, engineering and arranging) that don't even get voted on by the academy voting members

4) After all of that fucked up mess, the grammy's decided is ok, the ballots go back to the voting members for the final vote. Deloitte (an accounting firm) then counts all of them, seals them in envelopes, and delivers them to the Grammy award show.

** The Grammy's just announced this year they're removing the "secret committees" so let's see how things shift in the next couple of years**

So obviously I'm not saying this to discredit Harry's nomination or his win as Fine Line was in the US top 20 albums for the majority of 2020, however, we must acknowledge privilege. Harry has a big name to him and a huge following, and while all of that shouldn't be taken into account, it does. He also has the Azoffs, a very well connected family with friends in lots of places that would be able to put in a good word here and there to get support behind Harry. Harry won best pop solo performance for Watermelon Sugar in a category with Doja Cat, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and Dua Lipa. Look at the names there, the songs (ya'll can try and remember them cause I'm too lazy to write it out) and tell me that those top names with all of the music produced didn't get there through some connections.

Do with all this information what you will and if you are interested in learning more about the entertainment industry on your own Endeavor (owners of WME, a big talent agency like CAA) is hosting a free online program called the Excellence Program to help guide the future generation of industry executives. The program is a-synchronous and starts on July 12th. Highly recommend giving it a go if you're interested!!!

Alright ya'll that's it. Feel free to message me with your thoughts!

Extra Sources if you'd like to read:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkdndn/how-grammys-voting-actually-works-and-where-the-alleged-corruption-lies

https://www.grammy.com/grammys/awards/voting-process

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-11-05/irving-azoff-eagles-manager

https://celebrityaccess.com/caarchive/jeffrey-azoff-exits-caa-to-launch-new-management-company/

https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/grammy-awards-secret-committees-945532/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/grammy-awards-eliminate-secret-committees-voting-changes-1163887/

[phroyd]

Steve Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after 30 years of running and managing Russia operations, said that the substance of the lies and alleged false statements documented by Mueller paint a broad picture with serious implications.

“In my view, those lies — what was lied about and under what condition the lies were told — contribute to a counterintelligence pattern that has begun to emerge pointing to senior members of the Trump team being involved with the Russians,” he said.

They lied to the public for months before Donald Trump was elected — and then repeatedly after he took office.

They lied to Congress as lawmakers sought to investigate Russia’s attack on American democracy in 2016.

And they lied to the FBI, even when they knew lying was a crime.

In indictments and plea agreements unveiled over the last 20 months, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has shown over and over again that some of President Trump’s closest friends and advisers have lied about Russia and related issues.

On Friday, Mueller laid out a new allegation: that longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone lied to Congress and obstructed its probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 campaign.What Roger Stone’s indictment means for the Russia investigation

Trump and his associates have dismissed the serial deception as a sideshow that has little to do with the central question of the Mueller investigation: whether his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia.

Following Stone’s indictment on Friday, Trump attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani scoffed, “Another false-statement case? God almighty.”

But it is unclear if the special counsel shares that view. While Mueller has not accused any American of criminally coordinating with Russia, the lies meticulously unspooled by his prosecutors over 20 months have not been mere quibbles.

They have documented various falsehoods by Trump advisers that masked efforts by people in his orbit to develop inroads with Russia and leverage that country’s hacking of Democratic emails.

The remaining question — for both Mueller’s team, as it works on a final investigative report, and for the American people — is why.

Did the president’s men lie to protect a still-hidden dark secret about the campaign’s interaction with Russia, engaging in a broad effort to obstruct the probe — one that included perhaps even Trump?

Did they lie to avoid diminishing Trump’s victory by acknowledging Russia played a role in his election?

Did they each lie for their own reasons, taking their cue from the president — who has told many whoppers of his own, including about Russia?

Trump’s former campaign chairman, deputy campaign manager, former national security adviser, personal lawyer and a campaign foreign policy adviser have all been accused of lying to investigators exploring Russia activity.

In their new indictment against Stone, prosecutors said he lied to Congress about his efforts to learn about WikiLeaks’s plans in 2016 as the group was publishing Democratic emails allegedly stolen by Russian operatives.

Stone falsely told Congress that he never discussed his efforts with the Trump campaign and never asked intermediaries to communicate with WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, Mueller’s team alleges.

Stone has denied the charges and promised to fight in court. “Perjury requires both materiality and intent,” he said on CNN Friday night. “There is none.”

“Secondarily, where’s the Russian collusion?” Stone added. “Where is the WikiLeaks collaboration? Where’s the evidence that I received anything from WikiLeaks or Julian Assange, and passed it on to Donald Trump or the Trump campaign?”

Trump echoed that message himself.

“Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION!” the president tweeted after Stone’s arrest.

Legal experts noted that the alleged lies are significant in their own right.

“Time and time again, elected officials and government officials have exhibited a belief they simply can say what they want in a high-profile investigation, and do so with impunity,” said Jacob S. Frenkel, a former attorney in the independent counsel’s office now in private practice at Dickinson Wright.

Some Trump friends said they are confounded by Stone’s alleged actions.

“If he had told the truth as alleged, there wouldn’t have been an underlying crime,” said Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of Newsmax. “There would have been no crime. They would have had to try and find other stuff.”

The Stone indictment does provide new details that nod at one of Mueller’s central inquiries: trying to determine whether anyone in Trump’s orbit coordinated with Russia or WikiLeaks.

In Friday’s filing, prosecutors lay out efforts by both Stone and Trump campaign officials to learn more about what WikiLeaks had in its cache in the summer of 2016 — actions that occurred after Russia had been fingered as a likely culprit behind the theft of the Democratic Party emails that June.

Still, the mounting false statements charges collected by Mueller do not speak to the question of criminal coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia, some analysts noted.

“I think there is some theory under which you could include them in such a conspiracy, and I wonder why not,” said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney. “Is it that they don’t think the evidence goes that far? Is it that they think this conduct does not amount to a conspiracy to defraud the United States and it is instead dirty, political tricks?”

Steve Hall, who retired from the CIA in 2015 after 30 years of running and managing Russia operations, said that the substance of the lies and alleged false statements documented by Mueller paint a broad picture with serious implications.

“In my view, those lies — what was lied about and under what condition the lies were told — contribute to a counterintelligence pattern that has begun to emerge pointing to senior members of the Trump team being involved with the Russians,” he said.

Hall said the country needs to take step back from a narrow conversation about the political and even criminal ramifications of each Mueller indictment. “We’ve got to be looking beyond who gets a parking ticket or even a few years in prison,” he said. “What about the bigger picture? This was Russia, attacking the United States.”

The deception by Trump advisers that has led to guilty pleas so far does have a common throughline: Much of it centers on their interactionsabout Russia.

Trump’s longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen admitted lying to Congress about efforts to build a Trump real estate project in Moscow during the campaign — at a time when then-candidate Trump claimed he had no business ties to Russia.

Cohen also lied about seeking help on the lucrative project from one of Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s closest advisers. Trump had said no one in his orbit had contact with the Russian government.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn admitted he lied — first to Vice President Pence, then to the public and finally to the FBI — about whether he had spoken to a Russian envoy in December 2016 about sanctions imposed by President Obama as punishment for Russia’s campaign interference.

That lie came as investigators were working to understand why Russia, whose top foreign policy goals include undoing U.S. sanctions, fought so hard to help elect Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos has admitted lying about his contacts with a professor who gave him early warning in April 2016 that Russia held thousands of Clinton emails.

Prosecutors have said former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort has continued to lie even after pleading guilty to two conspiracy charges, which included lying to the Justice Department. His latest lies, they have said, involved details of his campaign interactions with a Russian employee who the FBI has assessed has ties to Russian intelligence.

As they wait for Mueller to finish his investigation, Democrats in Congress are likely to focus on the president himself and what he knew of the lies.

On Friday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted: “Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn . . . What did the President know and when did he know it?

Some legal analysts said the charges do not appear to be building to a criminal case against the president.

The lying “certainly alerts you to the possibility of kind of obstructionist conspiracies,” said James M. Trusty, a former Justice Department organized crime chief now in private practice at Ifrah Law. But, he added, “at the end of the day, it looks like people are making independent, individual choices that are landing them in hot water. I think it’s the kind of thing that the Mueller probe doesn’t want to ignore . . . but the indictments themselves aren’t moving the case forward.”

The number of lies documented by the special counsel could also undercut Mueller’s efforts to make a broader case by hampering the effort to sort truth from fiction, some longtime Trump associates said.

“In Trump world, everybody lies. Everybody doesn’t tell the truth. At the end of the day, they are all lying. I don’t know how Mueller can believe anybody,” said Louise Sunshine, a longtime executive with the Trump Organization.

Trump allies say the president knows that many of the people around him are not trustworthy — and believes he can use that to his advantage if any of his onetime aides attempt to pin their wrongdoing on him.

He has instructed Giuliani and his other lawyers to question the credibility of anyone who attacks him, according to White House aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. After Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney, pleaded guilty, the president on Twitter called him a “rat” who “makes up stories.”

Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide, said he believed that people around Trump lied to investigators because they were trying to make sure their version of events lined up with lies the president was telling to the American people.

“They all conspired,” he said, “against themselves.”

Phroyd

[patriotsnet]

Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Trump

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-are-republicans-so-afraid-of-trump/

Why Are Republicans So Afraid Of Trump

Officer Goes From ‘sadness’ To ‘rage’

Why Are Republicans Still So Afraid Of Trump? | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

Sicknicks partner on the Capitol police, Sandra Garza, wrote an essay about the attack and the aftermath in which she said in part, I saw officers being brutalized and beaten, and protesters defying orders to stay back from entering the Capitol. All the while, I kept thinking, Where is the President? Why is it taking so long for the National Guard to arrive? Where is the cavalry!?

She added, As the months passed, my deep sadness turned to outright rage as I watched Republican members of Congress lie on TV and in remarks to reporters and constituents about what happened that day. Over and over they denied the monstrous acts committed by violent protesters.;

For example, when Gosar called the Jan. 6 attackers peaceful patriots.

During the Benghazi hearings, Republicans were laser-focused on trying to place blame on then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But after four years of investigations, most of them purely partisan affairs, they found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on her part.

Republicans dont want anything close to that type of scrutiny on the Capitol attacks of Jan. 6. In fact, they dont seem to want any scrutiny at all.

Almost as if they know what will be found.

Almost as if I didnt have to use the word almost.

Reach Montini at .

Trump Is Here To Stay And Republicans Should Be Worried

There are Republican office holders who genuinely embrace Trump. For other leading GOP politicians and strategists, it’s a calculation: placate Trump and his crazy stuff now, win the Congress next year and start to move on.

That’s a fantasy.

The narcissistic former president is incapable of just going away. The Trump brand hardly suffers though it seems every week a new book comes out on his tragic governance and those from people without subpoena power.

Start with the 2020 election, which should be history; Biden won the popular vote handily and the electoral college with several states to spare. That has been validated by Republican state officials, dozens of court cases, Congress and Trump’s own attorney general and vice president. It was more clear-cut than Trump’s victory four years earlier and two other presidential elections in this century.

Time to move on, right? Trump won’t allow it.

Trump is an effective demagogue. Six years ago, he had many Republicans questioning whether Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaWhere is Joe Biden’s ‘red line’?Newsom recall spurs unprecedented turnout campaignBiden is steering America to lose asymmetric warsMORE really was born in the United States, even though Obamas 1961 birth in Hawaii was in the newspaper.;

Actually, the former president could take credit for the rapid development of the extraordinarily effective vaccines but this might help Biden, avoiding which apparently motivates Trump more than the lives he might save.

Todays Republicans Really Hate Democrats And Democracy

1) Trumps supporters have embraced anti-democratic ideas

This chart shows results from a two-part survey, conducted in late 2020 and early 2021, of hardcore Trump supporters. The political scientists behind the survey, Rachel Blum and Christian Parker, identified so-called MAGA voters by their activity on pro-Trump Facebook pages. Their subjects are engaged and committed Republican partisans, disproportionately likely to influence conflicts within the party like primary elections.

These voters, according to Blum and Parker, are hostile to bedrock democratic principles.

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John Kasich Says Republicans Are ‘afraid’ Of Trump

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Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks with NPR’s Leila Fadel about the GOP’s unwillingness to stand up to President Trump, who still refuses to accept the results of the presidential election.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Last night, President Trump received another loss in court. A federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed the campaign’s attempts to stop the certification of Pennsylvania’s votes. This is just the latest of more than two dozen failed challenges brought by the Trump campaign to overturn the election results. President Trump refuses to concede, and for the most part, his party has supported his efforts to pursue legal challenges based on false allegations of widespread voter fraud.

Very few high-profile Republicans have publicly acknowledged Joe Biden as the winner, but one of them is John Kasich. He’s the former governor of Ohio and a 2016 Republican presidential candidate, and he joins us now.

Governor Kasich, welcome.

JOHN KASICH: Thanks, Leila. Glad to be with you.

FADEL: So you endorsed President-elect Joe Biden. He won this election. What do you make of President Trump’s attempts to overturn the results?

KASICH: It’s just absurd. The whole thing is – it’s just – it’s ridiculous. I mean, he has clearly won this election. And it is just sort of amazing to me that Republicans just keep sitting on their hands. It makes no sense.

FADEL: That was the former Republican governor of Ohio, John Kasich.

Governor Kasich, thanks for speaking with us.

Republicans Still Scared To Death Of Trump

Trump went on yet another unhinged rant this weekend during a speech to donors in Florida, attacking Mitch McConnell as a “stone cold loser” for refusing to go along with his attempt to steal the election, but you won’t find any profiles in courage in the GOP willing to stand up to him.

Case in point, on this weekend’s Fox News Sunday, South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune was asked about Trump calling him “weak and inneffective RINO” earlier in the year and saying he might back a primary challenger to Thune. Thune responded telling host Chris Wallace that “I’ve been through wars in South Dakota, political wars, with my own party when I ran the first time, with the Democrats in a couple of hotly contested Senate races, so being afraid of a fight or somebody coming after me is not something that’s going to influence that decision,” but Thune refused to admonish Trump for his rhetoric, and refused to stand up for McConnell when asked about him as well.

Which is pretty much the equivalent of “I support Trump, but I really don’t like the tweeting” that we heard from so many of them over the last five or six years.

As the Fox article discussed, Trump called Thune “Mitch’s boy” when urging Gov. Kristi Noem to challenge Thune in 2022, but no amount of insults are apparently ever breaking point for these jellyfish.

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Why Republicans Are Scared Of Texas New Abortion Ban

For years, conservative legislators have passed increasingly restrictive abortion laws, knowing theyd be struck down by the courts. Now, Republicans are going to have to defend their views at the ballot box. And that might not go well for them.

At a pro-choice rally in Texas in 2013, one sign reads “Republicans, your seats aren’t safe.” | AP Photo/Eric Gay

09/18/2021 08:41 AM EDT

Link Copied

Sarah Isgur is a graduate of Harvard Law School who clerked on the Fifth Circuit. She was Justice Department spokeswoman during the Trump administration and is the host of the legal podcast Advisory Opinions for the Dispatch.

When the Supreme Court allowed Texas 6-week abortion law to stand earlier this month, it was presented asa major victory for anti-abortion conservatives. After all, Republican state legislators in deep red states have long been passing increasingly restrictive abortion laws, only to see many later get struck down in the courts. Finally, one law got through .

Whats going on? When considering the political ramifications of the Texas abortion law, Ian Malcoms famous line from Jurassic Park comes to mind, with a little social-wars twist: Your were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didnt stop to think if they should.

So the more relevant question is whether the abortion issue motivates voters in both political camps and which side it motivates more.

Filed Under:

As Gop Makes It Harder To Vote Few Republicans Dissent

ATLANTA In Arizona, a Republican state senator worried aloud that his partys proposed voter identification requirements might be too cumbersome. But he voted for the bill anyway.

In Iowa, the states Republican elections chief put out a carefully worded statement that didnt say whether he backs his own partys legislation making it more difficult to vote early.

And in Georgia, Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan left the room as Senate Republicans approved a bill to block early voting for all but the GOPs most reliable voting bloc. Duncan instead watched Mondays proceedings from a television in his office to protest.

This is what amounts to dissent as Republican lawmakers push a wave of legislation through statehouses across the nation to make voting more difficult. The bills are fueled by former President Donald Trumps false claims of widespread voter fraud and many are sponsored by his most loyal allies. But support for the effort is much broader than just Trumps hard-right base, and objections from GOP policymakers are so quiet they can be easy to miss.

Its a startling shift for a party whose voters in some states, such as Florida and Arizona, had embraced absentee and mail voting. Several Republican strategists note the party may be passing laws that only box out their own voters.

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An Effort To Investigate Was Blocked In The Senate

Its different with the Jan. 6 insurrection. After Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill to investigate, the House decided to investigate on its own.

This time around, however, all but two Republicans in the House Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Liz Cheney of Wyoming voted against setting up a committee to find out what happened on;Jan. 6.

All of Arizonas Republican representatives voted no.;This would include Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar. You may recall that right-wing political activist Ali Alexander claimed that these two Arizona representatives worked with him to plan pro-Trump rallies, including the one that ended with an attack on the Capitol.

That kind of connection to the Capitol riot seems to be what Republicans are worried about. They;fear the exposure of possible;links between the rioters and Republicans, and the implications that may have for former President Donald Trump.

Gladys Sicknick, the mother of Brian Sicknick, said of the Republicans who voted not to investigate the event, I just dont believe anybody could vote no, it doesnt make sense.

Republicans Can Govern Without Winning A Majority That Threatens Our Democracy

âRepublicans Are Afraid Of Donald Trumpâ Despite Election Loss, Kasie Hunt Says | TODAY

So, lets talk about why Cheney is once again on the chopping block and what that means for the Republican Party moving forward that is, can we finally stop debating whether the GOP is Trumps party now?;

But first: the role of the Big Lie. For a while now, refusing to accept the results of the 2020 election has proven a fealty test of sorts to Trump, and its one Cheney has refused to take. How much of that is responsible for Cheneys current situation versus her politics being increasingly out of step with the rest of the party?

related:Bidens Push For Big Government Solutions Is Popular Now But It Could Backfire Read more. »

nrakich :Its the entire reason for her current situation, Sarah.

Ideologically, Cheney is a faithful conservative at least as conservatism used to be defined. According to DW-Nominate, which uses voting records to quantify the ideology of every member of Congress on a scale from 1 to -1 , she has a score of 0.515.

And according to FiveThirtyEights Trump Score, she voted in line with Trumps position 93 percent of the time. Instead, her main transgression appears to be not going along with the Big Lie .

micah : Yeah, agreed. The idea that Cheneys troubles are about policy the argument that her hawkish foreign policy views or her free-trade-y views are behind her split with the bulk of the GOP is a bit silly?

Americans are living in two different realities right now.

micah: Yeah, agreed.

Thats scary!

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Is The Census Wrong

nrakich: I agree that its circular, Micah. The reason more Republican elites dont criticize Trump is that theyre afraid of his voters punishing them. But what they dont seem to realize is that they themselves also have power to shape those voters opinions! Theres a lot of evidence in political science that elites can shape public opinion.

sarah: Do GOP elites, though? So much of Trumps story in 2016 and 2020 was about the high voter turnout that he was responsible for driving. And although I think we should question how much turnout helped the GOP in 2020, there does seem to be an unspoken fear among GOP elites that these voters arent really Republicans now that is, they wont turn out for anyone other than Trump which is why so many GOP elites are scared to break with Trumps messaging.

micah: What do you all think would happen public opinion-wise if Republicans in Washington came out hard against the Big Lie but Trump and state-level Republicans kept it going?

nrakich: To be clear, it would be a political risk for Republican politicians to come out forcefully against the Big Lie. A solid chunk of the party would likely stand by Trump and continue to think the election was stolen. But it could lead to serious infighting within the GOP. At least, though, our democracy would be on a healthier path.;

But, hey, Im not staring down midterms.

micah: I think they are not long for this world.

I mean, how many are even left?

sarah: Or John Kasich.

Republican Party Faces Rage From Both Pro

By Peter Eisler, Chris Kahn, Tim Reid, Simon Lewis, Jarrett Renshaw

13 Min Read

WASHINGTON – After riots at the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trumps supporters, the Republican Party is facing defections from two camps of voters it cant afford to lose: those saying Trump and his allies went too far in contesting the election of Democrat Joe Biden – and those saying they didnt go far enough, according to new polling and interviews with two dozen voters.

Paul Foster – a 65-year-old house painter in Ellsworth, Maine – is furious at party leaders for refusing to back the presidents claims that the election was stolen with millions of fraudulent votes. The party is going to be totally broken if it abandons Trump, Foster says, predicting Trump loyalists will spin off into a new third party.

I just wish he would run away with his tail between his legs, Cupelo says.

Though Republicans have now lost control of the White House and both houses of Congress in just four years, Trumps base remains a potent electoral force in the party. That base helped him capture more voters some 74 million than any Republican in history. The vast majority of his supporters, including 70% of Republicans, remain loyal, according to new Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted days after last weeks riot at the Capitol, and many activists say theyre willing to abandon the GOP for any perceived slight against their leader.

Recommended Reading: Dinesh D’souza The Big Switch

Republicans Are Suddenly Afraid Of Democracy

Were not a democracy, Republican Senator Mike Lee tweeted in the middle of Wednesday nights vice-presidential debate. He was reacting to something hed heard onstage there, in his home state of Utah. Another tweet: The word democracy appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. Its a constitutional republic. To me it matters. It should matter to anyone who worries about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of the few. Hours after the debate Lee was still worrying the thought: Democracy isnt the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.

Why did Lee choose this momentless than four weeks before an election in which his party seems likely to suffer defeatto make the familiar, even pedantic, point that we live in a republic rather than a pure democracy? Why did he insist on the point so vehemently that he neglected to mention that power in the American system ultimately lies with the people, which means that our system could also be called a representative democracy? Did he mean rank as in foul, rancid, or outright? If the last, does that mean the tyranny of the majority leading to perverse rule by the few? What did this short, misleading course in Civics 101 have to do with anything?

Time To Reckon With Gop Radicalization

The lies about 2020 and the increasing dedication to destroying democratic institutions in the quest for power are inextricable from one another. As Jay Rosen says, the press is comfortable calling out the former it can be packaged as a fact check.” But being forthright about the latter requires depicting one party as far and away the only primary threat to our democratic stability. Thats accurate, but its uncomfortably adversarial.

Relatedly, describing Republicans as cowards who fear Trump casts their machinations as mere reluctant efforts to cope with externally imposed circumstances theyd prefer not to be dealing with. This lets Republicans off the hook in a very fundamental way. It risks misleading the country about the true depths of GOP radicalization and the real dangers it poses.

Read more:

Also Check: How Many Democrats And Republicans Are In The House

[omfgtrump]

The Tale of Two Viruses: Part 11

“Open Sesame” says the Very Stable Genie Genius Don. “Your wish is my command,” reply Republican governors, as they open their states for business, even though none of them have met the administration’s own guidelines for phase one opening up. ( A few Democratic states have opened as well.)

In a move so outrageous and unconscionable, he has not allowed a CDC report to be released that details specifically step by step actions to enable states to open up safely.

The Don believes his only chance for re-election is to return to the economic glory days of his administration (Read that as: the rich got richer ,and the rest…meh?). The problem is he is doing it the wrong way; his delusional nature, coupled with his inability to listen to the facts, will backfire on him. Anyone worth their two cents has made it clear that the only way to steadily and securely bring the economy back is to effectively deal with the health crisis first: more testing, tracking, isolating those exposed, and repeat!

Let’s face the facts, Don.

Businesses opening doesn’t mean customers will patronize them.

The most recent polls show 65% of the country against opening up too soon.

Customer 1: Mr. President, I think I’ll take a pass at getting that ice cream cone or new pair of Levis, as from where I sit it ain’t worth dying for.

As soon as someone goes into a business and there is a Covid infection reported, that business will become a pariah.

Customer 2: Hey, you can’t drag me out my own home and force me to go to the mall.

Customers 3-100: Oh shit, see that store over there, we are never going in that place again no matter how much they clean it.

For businesses to make money, people need money. 33 million people are now unemployed and that probably isn’t the true number because millions have not been able to file, not to mention the workers who have had their pay and hours reduced.

Customers 101-1000: I spent 3 hours in my car waiting for food from a food bank so I don’t think I’ll be buying new tires for my pick-up, Mr. President. And why won’t you increase food stamp allowance? Are you trying to starve us to death?

Fintan O’Toole from the Irish Times wrote: “The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful. Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful incident?”,

Say what about America the Great? Who ya callin pitiful? I am going to makes some calls and round up my posse and we are going to show Ireland what pitiful is. Them is fightin words and America will kick your ass for even thinking that.

But sadly, O’Toole is hauntingly correct.

Fact: In early March South Korea and the U.S. both had the same small amount of cases. As of a few days ago, South Korea had 250 deaths and we have over 70,000. Even if you multiply South Korea’s population by 7 (which would equal the U.S’s population) the total number of deaths would come to about 2,000. How did South Korea achieve this: testing, tracking and isolation of those exposed and repeat! (By the end of April, new cases in South Korea were down to less than 10 a day. In the United States at that time, the pandemic raged at a daily rate of more than 25,000 newly sick.)

So yes, The Don’s response has been pitiful, dreadful and “deadful.”

When asked about the impact of opening up too soon, The Don said:

“Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes, “but we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.

Wow, some will be affected badly. Is that bad like I got an F on a paper? Has it ever crossed your mind to equate bad and dead? Said like the true amoral creature (was going to use the word human) he is. It reminds me of the classic scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail where the night is having his limbs dismembered one by one and nonchalantly saying: “It’s just a flesh wound”.

Mr. Bone spurs encouraged Americans to be “warriors.”

How about this Mr. Wartime President: I’ll go in to the mall if you go? I’ll go to work at the meat plants if you go. So? Don’t think so, you pathetic pusillanimous pea-head!

And Mr. President, you would have to wear a mask. “Not for me”, you say.

“I didn’t even wear a mask when I went to the mask factory in Arizona. That’s what a warrior I am.”

That’s true. The Don and his feckless musketeers toured the factory without masks despite signs saying:

Please wear your mask at all times.

However, he did wear goggles, as he thought they were kind of cool. Made him feel like an Olympic swimmer.

Rumor has it that he had this conversation with an aide.

“Have I ever told you about how great a swimmer I was?

“But Mr. President, these are construction site goggles.”

“Nah, I saw Michael Phelps wearing them in the Olympics. How many medals did he win? He’s lucky I became a real estate billionaire or else the record would have been mine.”

“I don’t doubt it Mr. President. You were an amazing athlete. If I recall, the best baseball player in New York during the time of Mickey Mantle.”

“Very impressed you remember that. Come see me later I have a cabinet post for you.”

“Anyway, this mask thing is so silly. Maybe I would consider a Batman mask. Maybe this factory should be making those kind of masks. Make people feel more like warriors when they get out there and restore the economy. Batman is a hero. Maybe I’ll bring that up with the head of the plant. What a genius idea, don’t you think?”

“Like you, he is a man who saves people’s lives. But a couple problems with that kind of mask, sir.”

“What’s that?

“Well, the virus is thought to have come from bats, so wearing a Batman mask might not be the best look.”

“Um, and what’s the second problem?”

“The Batman mask doesn’t cover your nose or mouth.”

“And that’s important?”

“Mr. President, let’s keep this genius idea between you and me for now, as they are waiting for you to continue the tour.”

And to think the tour of the mask factory was accompanied by Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die.” Honestly, you can’t make this shit up.

Reigning in the pandemic is so old news and boring for The Don that he decided to disband the Coronavirus Task Force. After all, we are focused on the economy now, so who needs a bunch of people wasting their time trying to manage a pandemic that is now predicted to take 130,000 lives? We are witnessing what I am calling a genocide of neglect. There is no outrage that more will die; there are no tears. Instead we have a malignant narcissist akin to Hitler himself who is annoyed that people don’t want to go shopping at malls and forcing people to go to work where there is a chance they could die. Hannah Arendt called this The Banality of Evil.

After pronouncing the end of the task, The Don received feedback from some of his people that it might be bad optics to shut it down. Some were saying that people might get the impression that he really didn’t care about people dying, that the virus was just a bug he could just ignore without a plan to get rid of it. So he changed his mind.

“I thought we could wind it down sooner,” Mr. Trump told reporters as he hosted nurses in the Oval Office to sign a proclamation honoring National Nurses Day. “But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday. When I started talking about winding it down, I got calls from very respected people saying, ‘I think it would be better to keep it going.’”

Once again, The Don is all about ratings. Like a terrible TV show with a cult following the producers convinced the network to create more episodes. The new iteration may have new characters. Perhaps they will kill off some current cast members. You know, the ones who try to tell the truth. (Watch your back Fauci, there may be poison in your club soda!)

And in a cruel twist in “Survivor,” The Don will continue trying to toss out all of the Affordable Care Act, even as some in his administration, including Attorney General William “Lower the Barr” have privately argued parts of the law should be preserved amid a pandemic.

“We want to terminate health care under Obamacare,” said The Don. Rumor has it that he whispered to an aide : “I don’t care how many people have to die because they lose their healthcare as long as I kill everything that is connected to that black president.”

And on a positive note, Joe Biden is leading The Don by 10% points among older voters. At this point, Hillary was down by 5%. If this disparity continues The Don can’t possibly win his re-election.

The Don didn’t take this news well. He was perplexed that the most vulnerable population might be concerned about his handling of the pandemic. So The Don’s people came up with a strategy.

Standing in the ornate East Room at the White House earlier this month, for instance, Mr. Trump surrounded himself with health officials as he signed a proclamation declaring May to be “Older Americans Month.”

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[buzzdixonwriter]

Writing Report June 11, 2021

“Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”  ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

. . .

This one goes in the “how this writer’s mind works” bin.

. . .

I’ve long been a fan of the Beats.

I’ve also long been of fan of old half-hour mystery dramas like T.H.E. Cat and Johnny Staccato.

Many decades ago -- perhaps as early as 1978, certainly no later than 1980 -- I wrote (for my own amusement) a pilot for a faux-1950s half-hour crime show called Too Cool For Comfort.

The protagonist was a Beat Generation (not a beatnik!) photographer who got mixed up in a murder when he took a gig to document a cheating spouse for a divorce lawyer.

He had a live-in Gal Friday / model who wasn’t a romantic interest, though today we’d call it friends-with-benefits.

Once I finished the script and got it out of my system, I filed it away and forgot about it.

(It’s not a bad little piece of work, nothing great, but entertaining enough; someday I’ll post it here so you can take a look.)

. . . 

I’ve long been interested in the history of Hollywood, both at the macro and micro levels, what “officially” happened, what actually happened, but especially Hollywood folklore as documented by Kenneth Anger in his Hollywood Babylon books.

(Don’t ever mistake Anger’s books for well documented factual accounts -- they ain’t -- but they are fascinating glimpses of the stories and lies and gossip Hollywood loves to tell about itself.)

Decades ago -- not as far back as Too Cool For Comfort -- I came up with an idea for a novel about the early days of Hollywood before WWI when the last of the real cowboys found themselves stuck in a small Southern California town that looked on them to recreate the myth of the recently vanished past.

Still wanna do that book.

That’s been a back burner one-of-these-days projects ever since.

. . . 

After leaving Stan Lee Media in the early 2000’s, I developed several graphic novel concepts for the Christian tween-to-teen female audience.

One was about a young woman who comes to Hollywood hoping to be an actress, and the struggles and conflicts she faces trying to balance her career ambitions with the Hollywood way of doing business.

While I had success with other ideas I’d generated at that time, this one never found a slot on the schedule, so while it’s not a bad idea, it remained an unfulfilled one.

Then I got this idea where I could combine her story with the pre-WWI Hollywood idea, a multi-generational look at Hollywood dropping in on every decade from the 1910s to the 1960s.

I recognized I needed a linking theme to bind all the books together, and the idea of a religious cult (and lordie, does Hollywood ever have a lot of those!) engaged in generations of nefarious doings sprang to mind…

…but it didn’t quite jell.

It would be okay for maybe one book in the series, but all of ‘em?

Nah.

Then I reconsidered the multi-book idea as focusing on one person as the series’ antagonist, a movie mogul who rises from entry level to running a big studio, and how his evil desires keeps everything stirred up.

Hmm, better, but still not good.

While jotting down notes for over a decade and doing research, I never got any traction on what the real story should be.

. . . 

I come up with a lot of story ideas, some only suitable for short stories, others for longer works.

One idea was a modern day variant on the old honey trap / badger game con games.

Cute idea, but in and of itself not enough to support a story.   

I noodled around a couple of additional complications that could occur and again filed this in the one-of-these-days bin. 

. . . 

Among the many ideas I’ve toyed with but never put any effort into working on was an epic covering the social history of the 1960s, from JFK’s election to Nixon’s resignation. 

There’s a wealth of material there, so be sure, but never an obvious angle of approach for me.

I’ve stockpiled a few books, bookmarked a few websites, but really haven’t put any effort into this.

. . . 

Read about a legendary hippie commune, a cannabis Camelot that lasted for the better part of a decade until Bastards With Money decided they didn’t want their property values dragged down by their free lovin’ neighbors so they waged a legal war on them to drive them off and take over the property.

Same old sad story.

Interesting…but nothing there.

Filed it away in the back of me widdle head…

…and forgot about it.

. . . 

The history of Bryanston Films always struck me as hilarious, and while I never attempted to tell the story in fictional form, I’m fond of relating it to others.

. . . 

And there’s tons of other stuff – people I’ve met / things I’ve seen / lies I’ve been told; ideas and concepts and flotsam and jetsam and trivia and factoids and rumors and all kinds of junk -- that I’ve encountered over the years and never did anything with except file them away in the grey cells of my brain.

. . . 

Had a dream a couple of weeks ago.

A really good dream, very detailed, and with an actual beginning / middle / end story to it.

It’s a comedic crime story, an overly complicated caper that goes awry in the worst ways possible dues to the crooks’ inability to follow instructions trust or one another.

This one I plan to do, fleshing it out as I go.  Out of necessity it needs to be a period piece, set no later than the mid-1970s, or else the cape can’t work.

A minor sub-plot involving a Mafia-run film distribution company ala Bryanston also figures into the story, and should be fun.

. . . 

The legendary commune drifted onto my radar screen again a couple of days ago.

I read the post, clicked on a couple of links, saw nothing really new or that I hadn’t been aware of before…

…then I remembered a couple of the people at the commune had been Vietnam war vets too stressed out to go home again, who calmed their hearts and souls and minds by living as close to nature as possible…

Then it struck me:  What if one of them was an 84-Charlie? (i.e., US Army military occupational specialty 84C:  Motion picture camera man.)

Holy cow…that’s not too far from my Beat photographer in Too Cool For Comfort, is it?

This guy comes back from the war burned out, can’t fit in back home, the only thing he knows how to do is shoot 16mm film…

Who was using 16mm film back in the 1960s?

Technical and educational film companies -- but they’re too straightlaced, he’s too frazzled to work there.

Underground movies?  There’s your counterculture.

Cheap TV shows and low budget exploitations?  There’s your gutter level Hollywood.

Porn?  There’s the overlap between crime and the counterculture.

Instead of half a century of Hollywood history, condense it down to the mid to late 60s, from 1965 to 1969.

Show how the changes that affected the rest of the nation, the rest of the world played out on Hollywood Boulevard.

The legendary commune?  This is a work of fiction, leave the real commune where it was actually located, create a fictional one that mashes up a bunch of groups and movements and places in California during that era.

The aforementioned religious cult?  Makes a lot more sense, seems a lot more plausible set in those five years than in fifty.

The honey trap / badger game?  That can figure into things by lacing several different elements together.

The moralistic actress?  She’s part of this story, struggling to keep her head and heart above water.

The Hollywood mogul antagonist?  That can be two or three characters now, each with a different area of influence, perhaps working together, perhaps in competition.

I’ve always been a fan of Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe books and how he made Los Angeles a character in the series.

Well, here’s an opportunity to do the same thing with Hollywood.

The pre-WWI Hollywood story and the 1970s bungled caper stories?  Still viable, and they can link up to this story without actually having to be a part of it.

I say “story” because I see this as focusing on what happens to my camera man character over the course of five years but I also see this as being several individual books, each covering roughly a year in his life and Hollywood history.

(And they won’t all have to take place in Hollywood; I can envision a sojourn to NYC to get involved in the world of grindhouse film making.)

There’s a rich tapestry waiting to be woven here.

  © Buzz Dixon

[dustinczarny]

Sunday Thoughts:  New York’s path to Vote by mail will take several years, but can start this year.

The COVID-19 scare has reshaped how we think of just about everything in normal life. Elections are of course part of this re-imagining of American life.  Large gatherings with at-risk elderly poll workers is a nightmare scenario for the current pandemic.  We have had states postpone elections hoping the pandemic will abate later this summer.  The Wisconsin election of early April and the dozens of COVID-19 cases and long lines of voters because of lack of poll workers is the other end of the spectrum.

Many states are starting to expand their vote by mail options.  This, as all things with elections, has become hyper-partisan, and in my opinion needlessly so.  Many primaries such as Ohio and Maryland have moved to all mail in options.  This week California became the latest state to take the jump into vote by mail.  Governor Gavin Newsome has announced that every voter will receive a ballot in the mail for the fall elections joining Colorado and Oregon to take the jump to full Vote by Mail.

The most frequently asked question I get is why New York can’t also take the plunge into Vote by Mail for the primary and fall elections.  The simple answer is Vote by Mail in its purest form, where ballots are mailed to all voters, may be prohibited by our NYS constitution.  The constitution requires an excuse to vote by absentee, the only mail voting option available under current NYS law.  There is some disagreement over whether there is authority to actually send ballots to voters without them applying for an absentee and declaring an excuse.  In fact when Governor Cuomo was rumored to be considering issuing an executive order NYS GOP chair Nick Langworthy had a twitter meltdown threatening to sue.

Governor Cuomo has done the next best thing.  He has loosened up the excuse requirement allowing for COVID-19 to be a covered excuse under temporary illness.  He has also ordered Boards of Elections to mail an absentee application to every eligible voter for the June primary election with a postage paid return envelope. Furthermore he has allowed all voters to apply by email and phone in addition to the mail and fax that was previously allowed.  He also ordered that all absentee ballots sent out must have postage paid return envelopes.  It is important to note these changes are only for the June primary, mainly because it was done with Executive Order.  The legislature needs to act to codify these orders so it can be implemented for the November election.

Voters eligible for the primary will either get their ballots or applications starting this week.  However looking towards the future, what will it take for New York to make vote by mail a reality for its citizens.  Unfortunately this is not something that will be a quick process.  Most likely the first year where Vote By mail can be a reality is 2022.  However to be ready to do it, we need to do the following changes:

Change NYS Constitution to remove the excuse for absentees

The first step towards Vote by mail has already been done.  In fact it was done in January of 2019.  On the first day of session NYS Democrats, having newly took over the state legislature, enacted long held up voting reforms.  This included Early Voting, a unified primary, universal transfers of registrations, and constitutional amendments to remove the excuse from absentee voting and allow for same-day registration.  It should be noted that the GOP Senate for years wanted no excuse absentees as an alternative for Early Voting, but never actually passed an amendment and then many voted against it when it was finally passed by the Democrats.  

The constitutional amendment process is long and arduous.  First an amendment must be passed in two separately elected legislature.  It was passed in 2019 and if Democrats retain control of the Senate and Assembly it will most likely be passed first day of session in 2021. Then it will be put before the voters of the state by referendum in the November election in 2021.  Finally if it is passed enabling legislation will be passed in 2022.  That enabling legislation can include a mandate to skip the application process all together and send ballots directly to all registered voters.  This is how it happens but other legislative changes need to be taken before then as well.

Update our Voter Registration system with Online, Automatic, and Same Day registration.

Part of the issue with vote by mail is New York’s voter registration system is just not ready to mail ballots to all of our voters.  We currently have 1.2 million voters in “Inactive” status in New York. The most common reason for this is because we received a piece of mail back from the annual mail check cards that they no longer live in the address on file.  We must reduce that number by upgrading our registration system.  Some upgrades have happened.  In 2016 the DMV instituted an online registration system through the MY DMV system and this is where most of our registration forms now come from.  In 2019 online voter registration was passed which will allow Boards of Elections to institute a similar systems by 2021.  In addition the constitutional amendment for Same Day registration was passed in 2019 and follows the same constitutional timeline as No fault absentees.

One other registration fix the legislature can pass this year is Automatic Voter Registration.  This popular piece of legislation will automatically update voter rolls when people come of age, move, or die.  The New York State Senate already passed a version of it this year and we are awaiting the assembly to do it.  Passing it now will allow the State Board of Elections to pair it with the development of the online voter registration system it is developing and have it in place for the start of any VBM system.

Change the way we count and when we count Absentee votes.

There is a myth that we only count absentee ballots when a race is close.  That is simply not true.  We count every ballot every year in every race.  However absentee ballots are usually not canvassed until 7-14 days after Election Day.  This is for two reasons:  Ballots have until 7 days after Election Day to arrive at the BOE offices (as long as they are postmarked the day before Election Day) and Voters can choose to vote in person on Election Day (or during Early Voting) and that will pull replace their absentee ballot.  In fact that is what is required by law if you are able to vote on Election Day.  This means Boards of Elections cannot even begin to start to count ballots until days after the election when voter history can be properly addressed as well as ballots received.  With a larger percentage of absentees being cast, results on Election Day will become less reliable.  Furthermore we give more scrutiny to absentee ballots.  Ballots can be discarded if not postmarked on time as well as marks on the ballot or failure to file out the signature portion and a voter will have no opportunity to correct any default nor any notice that the ballot was rejected.

Once the excuse portion of the constitution is changed we can then alter the absentee ballots that make that ballot cast as soon as it is processed and received by the Board of Elections.  This will allow Boards to canvass absentees as they come in.  Like Early Voting ballots the results will not be tabulated until Election Day.  This will make the results reported on Election Day more complete.  We will also be able to canvass ballots without needless challenges from campaigns in close races as the results will be reported on Election Day eliminating the temptation to challenge every ballot of the opposite party post-Election Day.  Voters could also get a chance to cure any deficient ballots if they are ruled on daily by BOE officials and notices sent.  Finally we should move the postmark date to Election Day instead of the day before.  This will eliminate hosts of ballots that are postmarked on Election Day or not postmarked at all but received by the Board before Election Day.

Expand Early Voting options and use them as designated ballot drop off points.

While Vote by Mail will reduce the need for in person voting options on Election Day and Early Voting it won’t eliminate it.  We will still need those options for persons with disabilities who cannot vote on a paper ballot.  We also will have a greater need for points to drop off absentee/vote by mail ballots. Many voters would refer to vote at home but drop off the ballots at designated location rather than risk ballots not being delivered or delivered late.  Also expanding Early Voting sites will reduce the Election Day populace, which will allow Election Boards to along with Vote by mail, eliminate staff and sites on Election Day and reduce costs.  The earlier we get people to vote either by VBM or Early Voting the quicker we can rectify problems and help voters cast their vote properly and securely.

The path to Vote by Mail in New York requires a great deal of legislation before it can be a viable reality.  The legislature can start to take some of these steps this year to expand absentees and start working toward a goal of a mostly vote by mail system by the 2022 midterms.

[lodelss]

Amos Barshad | An excerpt adapted from No One Man Should Have All That Power: How Rasputins Manipulate the World | Harry N. Abrams | 17 minutes (4,490 words)

  In the lobby of a heavy-stone building in central Moscow, I’m greeted by a friendly young woman in a pantsuit who, she explains, is working “in the field of geopolitics.” She takes me to the security desk, where my passport is carefully, minutely inspected before I’m granted access. As we head upstairs the woman slowly whispers a joke: “This is what will save us from the terrorists.”

We walk down a long, high hallway that looks or bare or unfinished or forgotten, like maybe someone was planning on shutting down this wing of the office but never got around to it. There are linoleum floors, cracking and peeling, and bits of mismatched tile in the style of sixties Americana. Rank-and-file office clerks shuffle through, and no one pays attention to a faint buzzing emanating from somewhere near.

We stop in front of a heavy wooden door. Inside is Aleksandr Dugin.

The man is an ideologue with a convoluted, bizarre, unsettling worldview. He believes the world is divided into two spheres of influence — sea powers, which he calls Eternal Carthage, and land powers, which he calls Eternal Rome. He believes it has always been so. Today, those spheres are represented by America, the Carthage, and Russia, the Rome. He believes that Carthage and Rome are locked in a forever war that will only end with the destruction of one or the other.

In Western media, he’s become a dark character worthy of obsession. He quotes and upholds long-forgotten scholars with anti-Semitic leanings like Julius Evola, who critiqued Mussolini’s Fascism for being too soft. (Evola is a deep-cut favorite of Steve Bannon’s as well.) He’s been linked with ultra-right movements internationally, from supporters of Marine Le Pen in France to supporters of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. Some read his writings hoping to suss out some linchpin of Russian domestic and foreign policy.

As the Russian American journalist Masha Gessen wrote in The Future Is History, her celebrated 2017 examination of modern Russia, “Dugin enjoyed a period of international fame of sorts as a Putin whisperer — some believed he was the mastermind behind Putin’s wars.” Others called him “Putin’s brain,” or even “Putin’s Rasputin.”

Local Bookstores Amazon

He sits at a plain desk, thick texts piled up in the bookcases behind him. His hair is brown and streaked with gray and parted floppily down the middle. He wears a dark-blue suit, no tie, and a lightly pinstriped shirt. There is a mole just to the left of his nose. His lips are buried in a big, bushy gray beard that, as Bloomberg once happily noted, “gives him a passing resemblance to the Siberian mystic who bewitched the last Tsar’s family.”

As the manifesto from one of the many political organizations he’d founded over the years once put it, Dugin’s worldview is “built on the total and radical negation of the individual and his centrality.” As one of his young followers once said, “Obedience and love for one’s leaders are traits of the Russian people.” And as Dugin himself once said, “There is nothing universal about universal human rights.”

From the second I walk in the door, he is locked and ready to engage. “Western Christianity and Western modernity and Western global elites try to oppose artificial intellect over the natural human liberty — that is a kind of a doom of the West that we rejected always.” He speaks in entrancingly accented, rapid English full of strange, unlikely phrasings rooted equally in the language of academia and his own far-flung and oblique obsessions — the occult, black magic, the hidden forces of history. He’s also really hung up on the West’s promotion of artificial intelligence. (Looking back now, I like to imagine that he was trying to tell me, if I’d only listened, that Skynet — the evil sentient world-destroying computer network from the Terminator series — was real.) If I let him, he’ll go on all day.

But I’m not here to get the stump speech, the full spiel. I want to know: How has he spread his message? How has he infected President Vladimir Putin — and Russia at large — with this worldview?

*

Aleksandr Dugin believes his influence is of a divine kind. And so he happily accepts the accusation of influence.

When I first ask him the question on influence he cuts me off, brusquely. I worry at first he’s going to end this conversation prematurely. Instead, he immediately monologues on the topic; it turns out he was cutting me off so that he could get to his turn to speak faster. “I could recognize that I am responsible for imposing my world vision over others,” he tells me. “And what excuse do I have for that? My excuse precisely exists in my own philosophy. I am not creator of the thought. It is a kind of angelic or demonic dialect that I’m involved in. I am but transmitter of some objective knowledge that exists outside of myself — beyond myself.”

The arc of Dugin’s life has been unlikely. In the eighties, he was an obscure, mild anti-Soviet dissident. In 1983, USSR authorities noted the trifling incident of Dugin playing the guitar at a party and singing what were, in his own words, “mystical anti-Communist songs.” He was deemed a real threat by no one. But in the nineties, after the fall of the USSR, he became a national figure.

His writings began to gain currency, primarily his major work, The Foundations of Geopolitics, which became particularly popular with military elites. In 1993, he hosted the television program The Mysticism of the Third Reich, during which, as Gessen writes, he “hinted at a Western conspiracy to conceal the true nature of Hitler’s power.”

In The Future Is History, Gessen charts the rest of Dugin’s rise. How Moscow State University’s sociology department brought Dugin on board, implicitly legitimizing his theories with an elite institution’s stamp of approval. How every one of Russia’s national and international crises seemed to bolster him further.

Dugin believes his influence is of a divine kind. And so he happily accepts the accusation of influence.

In the summer of 2008, Russia invaded neighboring Georgia. Ostensibly, they were supporting South Ossetia and Abkhazia, two Russian-leaning Georgian enclaves with long-held dreams of independence. Effectively, Russia had invaded a sovereign state. For years, government officials had been issuing Russian passports to Abkhazians and South Ossetians; now Russian forces had advanced deep into Georgian territory. This was the real deal, the Dugin-encouraged expansionist destiny. Russia once again had its guns cocked.

Dugin shined. Photos of him in South Ossetia circled. He stood in front of a tank, an AK-47 in his hands. As Gessen writes, that summer also “marked the first time he had seen one of his slogans catch on and go entirely mainstream, repeated on television and reproduced on bumper stickers. The slogan was Tanks to Tbilisi,” the Georgian capital. “Dugin had written ‘those who do not support the slogan are not Russians. Tanks to Tbilisi should be written on every Russian’s forehead.’”

From 2011 to 2013, the “snow revolution” — a series of peaceful protests against Russian election fraud — burbled in Moscow. The Russian government’s position was that the activists were paid agitators being supported by the US State Department. (As Putin declared in the early stages of the protests, “We are all grownups here. We all understand the organisers are acting according to a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests.”) In the winter of 2013, Dugin spoke at a massive government-organized counter-protest in front of a crowd of tens of thousands.

“Dear Russian people! The global American empire strives to bring all countries of the world under its control,” he bellowed. “To resist this most serious threat, we must be united and mobilized! We must remember that we are Russian! That for thousands of years we protected our freedom and independence. We have spilled seas of blood, our own and other peoples, to make Russia great. And Russia will be great! Otherwise it will not exist at all. Russia is everything! All else is nothing!”

Internally, Putin answered the snow revolution with a crackdown. Externally, he answered with a show of force.

In 2014, again ostensibly answering the call of popular will, so-called “little green men” — Russian soldiers with no identifying insignias — took over the Crimean peninsula in the name of the Russian government. Crimea was a quasi-independent entity of Ukraine with a prominent ethnically Russian population. In the eyes of the international community, it was a brazenly illegal act. Once again, Russia was practicing expansionism.

Dugin was overjoyed. He had been pushing for a Crimean takeover since the nineties. He believed that it was just the beginning. Russia should go further and co-opt Eastern Ukraine (the traditionally Russian-speaking half of the country) as well. But for now, it augured great things. He saw it as a bolstering of the Russian sphere of influence. Eternal Rome was again strengthening itself.

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During one major televised interview, Putin explained the Crimean invasion by saying “a Russian person — or to speak more broadly, a person of the Russian World — thinks about the fact that man has a moral purpose. These are the deep roots of our patriotism. This is where mass heroism comes from in war.”

Now even Dugin’s literal phrasings were being echoed back to him. As Gessen writes, “The phrase ‘Russian World’ — the vision of a civilization led by Russia — was Dugin’s.” This was, effectively, the real-life execution of Dugin’s worldview.

Dugin did not talk to Gessen for her book. Possibly, he was familiar with Gessen’s place as an outspoken Putin critic and decided to stay away. I can only assume that Dugin agreed to an interview with me because he’d never heard of me before. I assume that he felt comfortable he would dominate the interaction.

*

“I believe in ideas that could well exist without man,” Dugin tells me. “Angels are ideas without bodies. I’m a believer. I believe in angels. I believe in God. I believe in Revelation. I’m Christian Orthodox. And for me, the existence of angels, as well as the existence of ideas, is the fact of experience — not only narrative.”

As Dugin sees it, he has stayed put, espousing these ideas that were given to him by the Lord. It’s the world that has moved around him. Sometimes it’s drawn to him. Sometimes it’s repulsed. “I put myself in the center of all the society of history. It’s not egocentric. It’s completely opposed to egocentrism. I put myself in the center of the world by precisely liberating myself from the individual. It is some other in myself that is the center.”

Are you following? He is at the center because his truth is the true truth. But he is also opposite the mainstream. He stands, alone, against a great force. “Mass media, education, politics, social relations, class, economy — that is society,” he says. “It is mechanicalized. A kind of social mechanics.”

Dugin, however, is part of something else — the “revolutionary elite that is coming to replace the elite.” He is counter-elite. And not only in Russia, but “on a global scale — I awaken these peoples. I’m awakening these collective consciousnesses. Using the term of Carl Gustav Jung, I transform these peoples from the sleeping mode to the waking mode. From the drunken mode to the sober mode.”

(He really does say the whole name: “Carl Gustav Jung.” In the course of our conversation, he also name-checks Vilfredo Pareto, Louis Dumont, Hegel, Heidegger, and Charles Krauthammer, almost always quoting them directly, almost always prefacing said quote with some variation of the phrase “In the words of . . .”)

He goes on: “That is the operation that I am leading. My influence is very special. I would say, a revolutionary kind. That is why I am called, by some American figures, the most dangerous man in the world. I would gladly accept that as labeled. I hope that it is true.”

His power and influence, he says, are of a slippery kind. “We could not measure for example, who is more popular, Michael Jackson or myself,” he says, chuckling softly.

I begin to believe that if I stay here long enough, he’ll keep inventing ways to emphatically gesticulate forever.

Because Michael Jackson, or pop music as a whole, exists in the mainstream — inside the traditional flow of information. And despite his history of television appearances, Dugin claims that “the traditional ways to promote ideas are completely closed” to him “and were closed from the very beginning.” Therefore, “in order to exercise, to fulfill this influence, I am obliged to seek, to search new ways. So I’m a kind of a, mmmm, metaphysical hacker. I try to find the backdoors of the program of globalization in order to make it explode.” His work, he says proudly, is a “a kind of terrorism.”

And despite this self-perceived singular place in the center of history, he says, “I’m not lonely Russian stranger. I am the most Russian man that we could imagine. I am Russia spirit. I am Russia!”

In conversation, as he makes his points, Dugin’s hands move constantly. Not just one or two swipes; it’s a wild, unceasing symphony of gestures. He swings an open palm, slams fingertips straight down on the tabletop, points an index finger in the air and his other hand’s middle finger straight down. The fingers and palms move in synchronicity and also alone, every single one on a mission. He interlocks and breaks apart and throws out his hands and brings them back together. Some of the moves he repeats. Some come just once. I begin to believe that if I stay here long enough, he’ll keep inventing ways to emphatically gesticulate forever.

His is a kind of intimate, anti-charisma. I realize that it’s the surety of his purpose that compels. As in so many other situations, pure, unadulterated bluster is carrying the day for Dugin.

“People like myself reflect the liberty of mankind. Man is an entity that always can choose. It can say yes to globalization and to this artificial intelligence, to the so-called progress, to the individualization — yes to the global agenda. But the man can say, ‘No, no! It’s not me!’ And that is the salvation of mankind. We need to liberate everybody. We need a global revolution. And I am conscious that I am fulfilling this role.”

*

I ask Dugin about a man he’s friendly with, to whom he’s often been compared: Steve Bannon. Is it correct? Are they some kind of analogs?

“As long as I understand Bannon, I think that the comparison could be legitimate,” he says. “Bannon suggested to Trump how to find the backdoor in the system. Absolutely, to be a kind of revolutionary — not from the right or the left, but a revolutionary against this world.” But “Bannon is a PR specialist dealing in ideology. I am a philosopher, trying to transmit through art, special art, my historical mission in front of Russian people.

“Maybe the difference exists precisely in the different nature of our societies. American society is much more based on public relations. Pragmatism. If something works, it is already accepted. Technical efficacy is much more appreciated than, for example, ideological coherence or truthfulness. In the political public relations, the propaganda is a means to trick people. I am not using ideology. I am used by ideology.”

Dugin is skeptical that Bannon ever had the mandate to be a true, pure ideologue. He recalls Trump once, way back on the campaign trail, skewering Bannon for reading too much. “I think that you cannot read too much. If you understand the weight of ideas, this accusation is a proof of some limited mind.”

Arguing his point, Dugin falls into a minor reverie. “So many beautiful texts!” he says. “So many profound authors and philosophers . . . so many languages! The real richness, the real treasury of human wisdom amassed is infinite. The only blame should be, you are reading not enough. If you always, reading, reading, reading, it’s nothing at all. Everybody of us should read more. More and more! If you think you read enough, you’re wrong! You don’t read nothing!” Before his fall from relevance, Bannon and Dugin did have interesting parallels. Like Bannon’s now-squandered power, Dugin’s lies in his ability to portray all world events as part of a plot he’s already seen. The sheer grandiosity of his speech is calculated to overwhelm. I know it all, he insists again and again, until the listener either accepts him as ridiculous or sublime.

But Bannon never had Dugin’s air of historicity. Intentionally or otherwise, Dugin has been able to cloak himself in dark mystery. Perhaps Dugin would prefer an example closer to home, then — Grigori Rasputin?

He’s not offended. Not in the slightest. Soberly, he analyzes the pairing.

“So. The figure of Rasputin is misunderstood. He had influence over our tsar, personal influence. He was against the modernization and Westernization. He was in favor of Russian people instead of the corrupted Russian elite.” So far, more than a few points of overlap between Aleksandr and Grigori. Certainly, Dugin is Rasputinesque.

But! “Rasputin wasn’t philosopher. He didn’t conceptualize anything. He’s a kind of hypnotizer, a kind of a trickster, something like that. So the comparison is a little bit limited. He built his influence on the personal charm and on his individual influence on the tsar. That was a very special case. This was person-to-person, without some ideology. Some philosophy.”

Who, then, is a closer peer or antecedent? For an answer, Dugin has to go beyond contemporary politics, beyond Russian history — and into the realm of the fantastic. “I compare myself much more to Merlin.” The great wizard Merlin, the mythical one, the son of an incubus. King Arthur’s advisor. “The image of the intellectual that is engaged in supra-human contemplation, in the secrets, that tries to clear the way for the secular ruler to create the great empire. “Merlin. The founder of King Arthur’s empire. That is my archetype, I would say.”

*

I ask Dugin, “What comes next?”

“Some of the ideas that I defended from the ages — they have won. They are accepted by the government and realized in the Eurasian union and Russian foreign policy and military strategy. The anti-modern, anti-Western, anti-liberal shift of Russian politics and ideology has been realized.”

But “the other half is not yet fulfilled. That is the problem. The second part of my ideas, of my projects, of my visions of the Russian future is still waiting. It is suspended, I would say. It waits it’s own time.”

The problem, says Dugin, is that Putin has not institutionalized the bits of Dugin that he’s borrowed. The Dugin worldview has not reached the point of “irreversibility.” Here, Dugin is critical of Putin: “He pretend to be the ruler, pragmatic and not controlled by nothing, including ideology. He pretend to be the absolute sovereign instead of being the sovereign fighting for the mission.

“It is a kind of simulacrum,” he says. “It is a kind of imitation. It seems more and more that it is a kind of very dirty play. A game they try to hijack. The real tradition, the real conservatism — they try to use that as tools and means for their rule.”

Where does the Rasputin end and the Rasputin’s subject begin?

He’s careful not to point fingers too directly. This is modern Russia, after all. “Maybe not Putin himself,” he says, “but the people around Putin.”

Fundamentally, Dugin’s disappointment is that Putin did not go far enough. That he did not push past Crimea and into Ukraine with the Russian Army. That he is not creating a “Russian world” beyond the borders of modern Russia — that he’s not birthing a new Russian empire. In Gessen’s analysis, this revealed the true nature of Dugin’s influence. Putin wasn’t being manipulated by Dugin’s ideology; Putin was borrowing it, for his own ends.

So was Dugin influential? Or was he a stooge? Again, that old question: Where does the Rasputin end and the Rasputin’s subject begin? Where do Putin’s own volitions end and where do Dugin’s prophecies begin?

One neutral observer might observe that Dugin’s dark influence was great once, but has waned now. Yet another might observe that it was always transactional.

But Dugin doesn’t have to control Putin, only and directly, to have influence on the culture. Igor Vinogradov, the editor of the magazine Kontinent, once said of Dugin and his disciples, “They are undertaking a noisy galvanization of a reactionary utopia that failed long ago — for all their ineptitude, they are very dangerous. After all, the temptation of religious fundamentalism . . . is attractive to many desperate people who have lost their way in this chaos.” That was in 1992. Since, Dugin has published endlessly and spread his missives incessantly. Both in English and in Russian, the Internet is rife with his manifestos.

Andreas Umlaund is a Ukrainian political scientist who has studied Dugin at length. Perhaps inevitably, Umlaund’s research into Dugin made Umlaund a target. As he explained to me in an interview from his home in Ukraine, Dugin’s minions write articles that allege that he is “an anti-Russian agent paid by the [US] State Department” and that he’s been “kicked out of universities for [sexual] harassment.” According to these reports, Umlaund says, “German officials were looking for me because I was involved in child pornography. Allegedly, I’m a pedophile!”

Umlaund’s greatest sin, in Dugin’s supporters eyes, was exposing Dugin’s explicit Nazi leanings. “I digged out these old quotes where he praises the SS and Reinhard Heydrich, the original SS officer responsible for the organization of the Holocaust. And they didn’t like that, because by that time Dugin had already become part of the Russian establishment. And these old quotes, from when he was still a lunatic fringe actor, were an embarrassment.”

I ask Umlaund what it’s like, being targeted as the number one nemesis of a man like Dugin. With historically informed equanimity, he shrugs it off. “This is not an unusual campaign,” he says. “Also in Soviet times, they were using pedophilia allegations against dissidents and of political enemies. It’s from the KGB playbook.”

Umlaund has continued his work, writing that the explosion of Dugin content, which begins around 2001, “has become difficult to follow. The number of Dugin’s appearances in the press, television, radio, World Wide Web, and various academic and political conferences has multiplied.” Dugin’s aim, Umlaund argues, is to “radically transform basic criteria of what constitutes science, what scholarly research is about, and to permit bodies of thought such as occultism, mysticism, esotericism, conspirology, etc. into higher education and scholarship that would bring down the borders between science and fiction.”

There’s a classic Simpsons episode that I love, “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment.” It’s from 1990, the early golden era of the show. It starts off with Homer spotting Flanders fussily rejecting a cable guy’s illegal, tantalizing offer: fifty dollars for bootleg cable. Sensibly, immediately, Homer drags the cable guy over to his own home and readily accepts. But as the man is finishing up his installation, Homer has a twinge of morality.

“So . . . this is OK, isn’t it?” he asks. “I mean everybody does it, right?” Coolly, the cable man hands him a pamphlet full of justifications for his actions (“Fact: Cable companies are big faceless corporations”). The evocative title: “So You’ve Decided to Steal Cable.”

It’s a wild oversimplification, to be sure, but the danger of someone like Dugin (and Bannon before him) is wrapped up in that pamphlet. You can make someone hate. But it’s easier to find someone who already hates, and to give them justification — historical, epic justification — for their hate. People naturally drift toward doing bad things. But they’d also love a pamphlet explaining why it’s all OK.

*

As Bloomberg has pointed out, in 2014, Dugin lost his place at the Moscow State University “after activists accused him of encouraging genocide. Thousands of people signed a petition calling for his removal after a rant in support of separatists in Ukraine in which he said, ‘kill, kill, kill.’” But he no longer needed an institution like Moscow State to have influence — he’d already become a prominent enough member of the establishment on his own.

During his time in the center of Russian politics, while the vagaries of the real world turned, Dugin tended to the ur-mission. Now, perhaps, he’s back on the outs of his country’s mainstream political thought. But his words have left his mouth and have been received. And he will continue talking and talking because he is playing a long, long game. “Some things are being realized that I have foreseen and foretold thirty years ago,” he tells me. “Now I am foretelling and foreseeing what should come in the future.”

As Dugin sees it, “The most highest point of American influence as universal power is behind us. Because America tries to go beyond the normal and the natural borders and tries to influence Middle East, Africa, Eurasia — and fails everywhere. America export chaos, bloody chaos. Everywhere America is, there is corpses. They have turned into a nihilistic force. The real greatness of America is not in continuation of this exporting of this bloody chaos.”

Dugin suggests that America ask itself some hard questions. Like “What is victory? What is glory? What is real highest position in history?”

Dugin’s vision is clear: America for Americans, Russia for Russians. And while Russia builds itself back up, it stays a closed society. “Being weak, we should stay closed from any influence,” he says. “From the West, from the East, from China or Islam or Europe or America or Africa, we should stay closed” — he bangs a fist on the table — “in order to return to our force.”

Through an open window, gray daylight pours in. Behind us, two women walk back and forth, mugs of coffee in hand, consulting texts and each other. They, presumably, are in the “field of geopolitics” as well. Here, in this room, in this massive building, Dugin quietly plots Russia’s revival and sends out his warnings to Russia’s enemies. The grand project rolls on.

America, declares Dugin, must follow the way of Trump into cynical and callow isolationism and avoid its once-upon-a-time fate as a shining beacon on a hill. Otherwise, Carthage and Rome will do battle. “When the United States tries to be unique, to be universal, a norm for all humanity — that creates the basis for inevitable conflict,” Dugin says. “Then the final war is inevitable.”

* * *

No One Should Have All That Power by Amos Barshad. Copyright © 2019 by Amos Barshad. Used by permission of Abrams Press, an imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. All rights reserved.

Amos Barshad was raised in Israel, the Netherlands, and Massachusetts. He’s a former staff writer at The FADER and Grantland and has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times, and Arkansas Times. This is his first book.

Longreads Editor: Dana Snitzky

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[thechasefiles]

The Chase Files Daily Newscap 5/4/2019

Good MORNING  #realdreamchasers! Here is The Chase Files Daily News Cap for Saturday 4th May 2019. Remember you can read full articles for FREE via Barbados Today (BT) or Barbados Government Information Services (BGIS) OR by purchasing by purchasing a Saturday Sun Nation Newspaper (SS).

DLP DEFENCE – The man who led the Democratic Labour Party’s (DLP) campaign in the last elections, which ended in a disastrous 30-0 defeat at the hands of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP), says his party does not owe the people of Barbados an apology for their ten-year stewardship of the country. As a matter of fact, former ambassador to CARICOM, Robert Bobby Morris is adamant, despite the resounding rejection at the polls, that the DLP should be lauded for miraculously keeping the Barbados economy afloat. His comments came a week after former Minister of Culture and Sports Stephen Lashley called on the party to humble itself before the people of Barbados and openly acknowledge its mistakes. “I don’t take these things personally; the people have spoken, and they are the voice of God. My one thing is this, I don’t think we have to apologize to anybody because I am not buying the other people’s narrative. There is one narrative that I have, which is that the economy was so bad that holding it together was a miracle, but the cost would have been heavy and therefore we got beaten,” said Morris, who was delivering the Astor B Watts’ Lecture at the DLP’s George Street headquarters. Noting that previous election results across the region suggested that the tide was against the DLP regaining the Government in 2018, Morris gave the assurance this afternoon that the “Dems will rise again”. “The Dems will soar again and all you have to do is keep united. Don’t go in public criticizing other people in the party. If you have a difference of opinion there are places where you can take that difference of opinion. You are looking for sympathy, I am not looking for sympathy from anybody,” said Morris. From the same podium last week, Lashley said the DLP administration was at times guilty of arrogance. He also expressed regret over the manner in which the party conducted the 2018 campaign, noting that it smacked of negativity and therefore urged the new party leadership to devise and publicise a code of conduct to govern future campaigns. When asked to reconcile his stance with the position put forward by the former minister, Morris made it clear that he failed to see the arrogance and suggested that Lashley’s analysis may have been driven by emotion. “Our perspectives may differ; it does not matter because we all have a right to be honest. We also have a second right to be clear that we are analytical, and analysis is not something that is driven by emotion. It is something that you have to be very dispassionate about. Where was the arrogance? That is something I would have to go through chapter and verse because sometimes people mistake arrogance for confidence, and confidence in what you believe in can smack of arrogance,” said Morris. The former DLP Member of Parliament made it clear that Lashley was not speaking for the party and even questioned if he had discussed the subject of his lecture with the party administration before taking the podium last Friday. “Lashley has a position in relation to this party and I don’t think he was speaking for the party. Quite frankly I think those were his personal views. I don’t know if he had any mandate from the party before he spoke. I know I spoke to the officials and told them what I had to say because I don’t want to disrespect my officials,” he said.  (BT)

COMMON ENTRANCE EXAM NEXT TUESDAY – Thousands of primary school students are expected to write the Barbados Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination (BSSEE) next Tuesday, May 7. A total of 3,382 students will sit this year’s examination, also known as the 11- Plus or Common Entrance Exam. That figure is down 44 students compared to last year. According to the Ministry of Education, Technological and Vocational Training, this number comprises 1,766 males and 1,616 females, who are registered to write the examination at 22 secondary schools across the island. This year, 14 students have requested permission to write the examination at an early age (that is at 10 years). The ministry has also reported that 103 students have made requests to be deferred from writing the BSSEE until 2020. Of those, 84 were granted permission to defer. Forty students have also been granted exemptions from writing the examination. Additionally, there have been 106 special requests made by parents on behalf of their children. These were mainly for extra time, enlarged print and breaks for snacks. The BSSEE will also be taken by 142 non-nationals, who have met the immigration requirements. As a result of the May 7 exam, the Ministry of Education has advised that there will be no classes for students who attend secondary schools on that day, as these facilities will be used as examination centres. The BSSEE will begin at 9:00 a.m. and finish at 1:00 p.m. (BGIS)

RE-OPEN ALMA PARRIS – Government Minister Cynthia Forde says it was a “stupid” idea to close off Alma Parris Memorial Secondary School and pump the students who developed late into other secondary schools where there are no properly-designed programmes targeting their needs. Forde who is asking her Government to act with haste to resume classes at the Speightstown, St Peter institution, closed in 2017, said there was diagnostic testing at the institution and students benefited from smaller classes. “It was constructed, or developed, because we had children in those six or seven composite schools who were moving all over the place like a wave, no sense of direction. That school was purpose built and established for those late developers to find a niche, and the principal was there at the inception for more than ten years. “And other principals who were there would tell you that more than 200 of those students who passed out have become their own entrepreneurs, managing their businesses, doing things with leather craft, painting, are into cultural activities, and so on, but they are not criminals today,” she said. Forde, Minister of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, added her voice to the call for Alma Parris to be reopened, as she delivered remarks during the recent launch of Child Month 2019 at Divi Southwinds Resort, Christ Church, where she also made the point that the school was critical for Barbados going forward. Forde said there was no point in schools, including Princess Margaret Memorial, St George Secondary, or Grantley Adams Memorial, bursting at the seams, because they were now required to take in additional students that should have been allocated to Alma Parris which was established on September 25, 1995. “Those were schools that were scaled down to 500 children the most at a point because Alma Parris pulled off the ones who would have scored under 30 per cent when they reached the 11-plus. And they were put into training specifically in the summer holiday of that year that they would have an extra year in school, and probably do the examination at 12 years old. “The history of Barbados must be piloted and chronicled so that people understand the background for Alma Parris. It didn’t just come out the sky, and the lady after whom it was named was one of the best Scout leaders in this country. I was trained under her, so I knew the lady as well. If it works well for us, why did you close it off?” (BT)

CHILD CARE BOARD APPEALS FOR MORE FOSTER PARENTS – Child Care Board chair Catherine Jordan wants more Barbadians to become foster parents in a bid to boost the numbers of registered foster parents by one-third. Jordan said although the Board holds the state responsibility to care for the nation’s children, every child deserves the opportunity to grow up in a normal environment. She made the call at the recent launch of Child Month at Divi Southwinds Beach Resort, Christ Church. “We want all Barbadians to assist our efforts to ensure the well-being of our nation’s children. So we invite you to partner with us in adopting or fostering a child to ensure that our children benefit from a loving, nurturing home. “Before you ask me what will happen to child care officers if we do too much adopting and fostering. The child care officer, instead of going into the homes, he would go into the community to see those children. Because we want to ensure that our children live in a normal environment as possible,” she said. Foster care offers family-based care for children who cannot stay in their original homes because they have been harmed or are at risk. In a partnership between the Child Care Board and an approved individual or couple, the board provides supervision and ongoing support to the child and foster parents. The child may receive short-term, long-term or emergency care. Foster parents may have to acquire additional parenting skills that will assist them in providing the care their ward may need. Senior Child Care Officer in charge of the Board’s adoption and foster care programme Colin St Hill told the launch that the board was hoping to move from 14 to 20 approved foster parents by the end of the year. “At present we have only 14 approved foster parents and obviously that is not enough,” St Hill said. “So we are looking to increase these numbers. I am hoping that by the end of the year we would have at least 20 foster parents. Residential care is really not the ideal place for children because it is a group setting. Children benefit more from individual attention.” The theme of this year’s Child Month is: Celebrating the Champion in You. Jordan said that throughout the month, all Barbadian children, not only those who are wards of the board, would be celebrated. She said she hoped that during this month, parents, teachers, the church and other organisations, redouble their efforts to ensure the total development of all children. “We all have an obligation to ensure that all children are raised in a nurturing environment. In an environment which sees them being developed in a holistic way; being developed physically, socio-emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. We must note though, that neglect of any one area will contribute to the development of an unbalanced child,” she said. Among several activities planned to commemorate the month are a National Children’s Service on May 10 at the New Dimensions Ministries, Barbarees Hill, St Michael. (BT)

MINISTER TOUTS ‘BUILDING BLOCKS SUCCESS – Declaring the first phase of the new Building Blocks youth entrepreneurship programme a success, Minister of Youth and Community Empowerment Adrian Forde has announced that work will soon begin on the project’s infrastructure. Once the approval process is finalized with the relevant regulatory agencies, Forde promised that communities known for negative behaviours will be transformed into attractive areas of business managed by young people making positive contributions to their personal, family and community development. Forde was speaking at the closing and awards ceremony of the Building Blocks Entrepreneurship and Life Skills Development Training course at the Parkinson Resource Centre, The Pine. Building Blocks is the youth ministry’s community-based social intervention that seeks to address rising youth unemployment with entrepreneurship training and technical assistance. The programme is intended to spur new venture creation among potential ‘blockenpreneurs’ from Bonnett’s, Ivy and The Pine, St Michael, and Silver Hill, Christ Church. The Minister noted that in a programme that was designed to accommodate an average of 25 people at each of its four locations, the fact that the project was able to attract over 145 participants, speaks volumes of the participants interest and in so doing, and dispels the myth that youth who congregate on blocks have no interest in development. “Let me assure you that we are moving steadfastly to expand the Building Blocks Project and as early as Wednesday next week, I will be joined by technocrats from my Ministry and other stakeholder agencies to examine additional locations where the project can be developed. “This process will continue until we have identified suitable locations in every constituency in Barbados. We will replicate the training model that was applied to the first four blocks and similar training will be provided to prospective beneficiaries at other locations.” Participation in the entrepreneurial and life skills development training is not restricted to youth who congregate on blocks, but is also opened to youth who have successfully completed training programmes offered by the Youth Development Programme and the Community Development Department and other agencies, he said. He stressed that the idea was to expose as many young people as possible to the opportunities afforded through self-employment and entrepreneurship, as to assist them in their personal development. “Indeed youth in this country will be seeing a resurgence of opportunities, a greater participation in national development initiatives, a renewed acceptance of their central position in the evolution of a new and caring society, access to resources to realise their dreams and ultimately a better quality of life themselves and their families,” Forde declared. Acknowledging that unemployment was the most pervasive feature of the youth experience, he said his ministry intends to work with the Ministry of Labour to identify skills gaps and target training in strategic areas.  (BT)

NOT SO FAST, BEC – The recent suggestion by the Barbados Employers’ Confederation (BEC) that the four public holidays over the last two weeks resulted in major losses to the Barbados economy, has attracted a major backlash from the labour movement. Opposition Senator Caswell Franklyn and head of the Unity Trade Union told Barbados TODAY that over the years, the business community has continually sought to encroach on the respite allocated to workers. He made it clear that at this stage the workers have no more to give. “This is exactly what is happening, they are throwing out scare tactics because they want the laws to change. Did they now all of a sudden realise that this is the case? Every business that is set up in Barbados knows that they have to make provisions for these holidays” said Franklyn, who charged that similar tactics were employed in the push for 24-hour work days. Recently, Sheena Mayers-Granville, Executive Director of the BEC suggested that the public holidays of Good Friday, National Heroes Day, Easter Monday and May Day had amounted in $48 million in losses to the economy of Barbados. She called for rationalization of public holidays, arguing that in some years business productivity would be hampered for seven days in the first five months of that year as a result of public holidays. However, Franklyn called on the BEC Executive Director to demonstrate how she would have arrived at these losses. “I want to know how they computed these losses because it seems to me that they are just pulling a number out of the blue,” he said while also asking the BEC to quantify the losses suffered by workers, who are not allowed adequate time with their families. Additionally, the outspoken Opposition senator dared the BEC to name which of the public holidays they would want to see dropped from the calendar, as the majority of them are religious while the others are major national hallmarks. “Look at the holidays that we have in Barbados. We have four holidays that are not religious. So which one of the four will the employers want to get rid of? This afternoon Democratic Labour Party (DLP) stalwart and longstanding trade unionist, Robert ‘Bobby’ Morris also expressed similar concerns, noting that a likely target would be Errol Barrow Day, which falls on January 21. He argued that given the fact that trade unions have made it clear that May Day is not to be touched, the day designated for the father of Barbados’ independence could be at risk. “I don’t think anybody in Barbados would even begin to think about getting rid of May Day but there is a strategy going on here and that is they want to move Errol Barrow[Day] as a national holiday and put him with Heroes’ Day. This is a kite flying exercise that we are watching right now to see how the wind is blowing,” he charged during the Astor B Watts’ Lunchtime Lecture. The issue has also attracted the attention of the Congress of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados (CTUSAB), who maintain that while financial losses will be suffered, “there can be no alterations to the observance of the annual religious holidays and such important national holidays as May Day, Independence Day and Kadooment Day.” However, in a media release this afternoon, the umbrella trade union body stated that “against the backdrop of our ailing economy, CTUSAB recognizes the importance of putting measures in place towards keeping persons employed, and in maintaining production levels and productivity.”  (BT)

$40 MILLION SCANNERS IN TWO MONTHS – The first of two new scanners for the Bridgetown Port will be in Barbados in two months. Attorney General Dale Marshall gave this update this morning while reminding Barbadians that Government will be beefing up security with the addition of the two new container scanners. Delivering remarks at the opening of the Caribbean Security Basin Initiative Commission meeting at Radisson Hotel, this morning, the AG said it was not good enough that only one scanner has been working at the Bridgetown Port over the last two years. The Attorney General said “In order to make sure that our environment is not compromised, we have decided to commit the sum of $40 million, to acquire two new scanners, the first of which would be delivered within the next six to eight weeks. The second will be delivered certainly before the end of this year to ensure that we can target as great a percentage of container traffic coming into Barbados for scanning. “And therefore the Advanced Cargo Information System (ACIS) is one that lends itself to Barbados, and it is one that would see our support. “A lot of what we are doing now though, had its genesis over ten years ago. It is ironic that the occasion for a lot of our security initiatives had to do with the sport that Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean enjoy so much, that being cricket. One would think that the cricketing environment is an occasion of festivity and laughter and revelry and celebration,” he said. The Attorney General noted that at the time when the Caribbean won the bid to host the largest cricket tournament in the world, CARICOM nations recognized that it in order to be a safe environment for visitors, security measures needed to be transformed.” In February this year, Minister of Maritime Affairs and the Blue Economy Kirk Humphrey while addressing Barbados Labour Party (BLP), St Joseph constituency branch meeting, indicated that an alarming number of shipping containers has been entering the country through the Bridgetown Port without being scanned by customs officer, leaving a gaping opening for the importation of illegal firearms. Humphrey said then that less than six per cent of the cargo leaving the port was being scanned.  (BT)

MORE KIOSKS COMING – Government is to triple the number of immigration kiosks at the Grantley Adams International Airport as the pilot project has yielded limited success in speeding up the border entry process, Minister of Home Affairs Edmund Hinkson has told Barbados TODAY. Declaring that the 16 kiosks in the arrivals hall are far from adequate, he said 32 more stations were on order. “This is an ongoing process. The kiosks were bought in 2016 and were never used until last year August when we started the project. You could appreciate that 16 kiosks are not enough, and the airport has ordered 32 more and when those arrive, we would have sufficient. This process had teething problems in all of the countries where they are now functioning fully and we will get there as well. “With only 16 kiosks and five planes on the ground from Britain and North America, especially on a Saturday and a Sunday, this is where we begin to see the problems because of the insufficiency of kiosks,” he said. The Minister added that while the plan is to phase out the immigration entry/departure forms, the current digital platform does not allow for the input of all necessary information, limit the garnering of requisite information on non-Barbadian arrivals and important tourism data. He said: “ Not all of the information that is on the front of the form is keyed into the kiosk. This is all right for Barbadians because as I have been telling Immigration for a long time, as a citizen you don’t need to know my address because the state has all that information already.” The Home Affairs Minister expressed confidence that with the additional kiosks, coming legislation and plans to expand the digital platform to allow for the input of more data, the airport’s efficiency will be vastly improved. “Right now, Barbadians can safely use these kiosks without filling out any E/D forms. The problem right now is that we need statistical information for our tourism, so we are in the process of getting that platform to continue after the removal of the E/D cards. “The last challenge relates to legislation because the European Union has strict laws as it relates to privacy for their citizens. Therefore, we will be bringing to Parliament very shortly the Data Protection Bill.” Hinkson urged Barbadians to be patient throughout the process, noting that Government is fully cognisant of the importance of getting this component of travel fully in place. “It is a process and as the Prime Minister [Mia Mottley] has said as recently as Monday, this is not an ‘abracadabra’ type of thing. We will fix it, there are no miracles involved here and we ask for patience because we will get there,” he stressed. (BT)

BWA BEGINS NIGHTLY SHUT OFFS - The Barbados Water Authority started nightly shut-offs from tonight in an effort to relive the customers in St Joseph. In a media release yesterday the BWA said the nightly shut-offs on the transmission mains between Bowmanston and Golden Ridge, as well as from Applewhaites to Golden Ridge in order to effect the recharge of the Golden Ridge Reservoirs. It is anticipated that this intermediate measure will allow the Golden Ridge Reservoirs to recover overnight to allow for longer hours of pumping to Castle Grant during the daytime. It advised its customers that the cut off will start from 9:00 p.m until 4:00 a.m until further notice.  (SS)

CHERRY RELIEF PLAN – Anderson Fat Child Cherry is assuring residents of Lower Estate, St George he is working on having a swift resolution to finally end the landfill impasse. Speaking to Barbados TODAY Cherry said he was in the process of removing scrap metal from the dump. That metal has to be cut and this is taking longer than anticipated. “We are still actively removing the metals. Most of the recyclables have been taken out and it is only metals that are still out there at the top of the quarry floor,” he said. The businessman said he was more concerned about the health and safety of residents as opposed to counting his losses with the closure of the landfill. “The loss of revenue is not important to me. It is the health and safety of the residents that are more important to me. I am concerned about the residents,” he said. However, spokesperson of the St George North Western Community Group Roger Craigg suggested that nothing has changed since the abatement notice was issued by the Ministry of Health in December 2017. He further noted that a few weeks ago residents in the Lower Estate Palms area complained they were having a foul odour emanating from the dump. Thus, Craigg wants to see the area restored to its former beauty. “We want our environment to return to a state of normalcy and that was established in our very first meeting when we had asked him to pick up his stuff, clean the quarry and go. That was our intention from the beginning. We need to have back our community the way it was,” he said. Craigg also noted his displeasure with the way in which the Ministry of Health and Wellness and the Ministry of the Environment handled the residents’ complaints. Referencing a letter dated November 27, 2017 which was sent to the Chief Environmental Officer and which to date has had no response, the spokesman offered this as evidence that the concerns of the residents of St George have fallen on deaf ears. “We have been crying out for a while and we are not getting the response from the Ministry of Health or the Ministry of the Environment as we think we should. They should make sure the quarry is cleaned up and that is the ultimate goal for all of us,” he said. Outspoken resident Ian Proverbs believed Cherry tried his best but needed assistance to properly handle the ongoing situation which has been plaguing the residents since 2017. “I am not going to say he has not tried because I would be misleading you if I said that because he has tried. The issue is beyond Mr Cherry and it needs further expert input and I think it is time the Government looks towards bringing some expertise into the area,” he said. Multiple calls to the Chief Town Planner at the Town and Country Planning Department remain unanswered.  (BT)

FIRE VICTIMS MAKE MATERIALS APPEAL – A member of the family of 12, whose St Philip wood and wall house was destroyed by fire on Monday, is asking for donations of building materials. Thirty-year-old Andre Howard, told Barbados TODAY that his family was struggling to come to grips with the massive loss, but noted that members of their Lucas Street, St Philip community were offering to lend a hand in the rebuilding process. He said the family would gladly accept building material to assist with rebuilding the house where he, his parents, siblings and their children, lived. “We are trying to rebuild at some point. But right now friends and other family members are trying to do some fundraising events to try to raise a bit of funds so we could get some material to rebuild. “Hopefully that goes well and hopefully before the end of the year we would start rebuilding. Everyone saying they would pitch in to see what they could do. “Truthfully, if we could get some assistance with building materials that would be grately appreciated. I am now working closely with some contractors who are willing to provide labour and some material. So getting building material is a major concern for us at this point,” Howard said. The young man explained that the house was uninsured because it was still under construction. “We were expanding it from what it was and it wasn’t finished so we never got it insured,” he said. Howard, who is staying with a family member, said though it was difficult not to look back at his beloved home where he lived most of his life before it was gutted by fire, he was trying to be positive and was looking forward to what it would be like when it is rebuilt. He was asleep when the fire started and was awakened by his niece who informed him that the flames were taking over their home. “When I do sit and think about it, it just gives me a headache. So I just try to look forward to getting back on my feet at some point. We lost pretty much everything. Yes I know that the clothes and those things are material things that can be replaced, but you know, I was pretty much born and raised in that house. “Usually when I leave home I have that feeling I am going to return to that home, but knowing now there is no home to go back to is a hard one.”  (BT)

PEDESTRIAN WHO DIED AFTER ACCIDENT IDENTIFIED – The man who succumbed to injuries after an accident along Vauxhall Road, St James has been identified. He is Shawn Anderson Blackman, 43 years, of Fairview, Christ Church. Blackman, a pedestrian, was involved in a collision with a minibus on May Day around 6:05 p.m. Police were not aware of his identity at the time because he said his name was Michael Blackman, Shawn Blackman and Charles Blackman. A public appeal was made to identify him. He was listed in critical condition at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, but passed away on Friday.  (SS)

CAR REQUESTED – Lead attorney of former calypso monarch Aziza Kebret Tsgaye Clarke has made an application in the Magistrates’ Court for her vehicle to be returned to her. Queen’s Counsel Michael Lashley made the submission before Magistrate Elwood Watts in the Oistins Magistrates’ Court today on the grounds that the vehicle MC92 was no longer of any use to law enforcement officers as they had already taken photographic evidence. After hearing Lashley’s arguments the matter was adjourned until May 16 when prosecutor Station Sergeant Rudolph Burnett will respond to the submissions. Magistrate Watts is also expected to deliver his decision on that date. The 23-year-old Clarke, of Unit 4 Bonnetts, Brittons Hill, St Michael, remains on $20,000 bail. Her substantive cases will continue in the Oistins Magistrates’ Court on August 13. Clarke is facing a number of charges which allegedly occurred on March 21 in Graeme Hall, Christ Church, including an indictable charge of assisting murder accused Hakeem Roberto Stuart, who was charged for the brazen daylight shooting of Damian Trotman at Sheraton Mall. Clarke is also accused of assaulting a police officer in the execution of his duty; resisting arrest and committing criminal damage. She pleaded not guilty to these three offences. Additionally, she was charged with failing to stop at the sound of the police siren; failing to register motor vehicle MC92 and using a vehicle without having it insured to which she also pleaded not guilty. (BT)

ADDICT HEADS BACK TO PRISON – Well-known offender Peter Sean Harding today admitted that his crimes over the years have been escalating due to his cocaine addiction. The 49-year-old of 1stAvenue, Jackson, St Michael gave a candid explanation of his situation in an address before Magistrate Douglas Frederick after pleading guilty to theft and apparatus possession charges. He admitted that he stole a laptop, an electronic scale rule, a laptop bag and a flash drive worth $3,000 belonging to Michael Brathwaite. He also acknowledged having cocaine paraphernalia – a small bottle used to smoke – in his possession between April 3 and May 1. “My history shows that most of my convictions are for apparatus and theft. Little crimes that do not have the potential for murder or aggravated burglary. Over the years I have seen that my crimes have been escalating because of the use of drugs . . . cocaine,” Harding explained. He went on to inform the District ‘A’ Magistrate that he had been good since his last prison stint but relapsed a month ago. “I got a chance at Verdun House but I got into a fight and that is on my file. I have been doing a concerted effort to change but I don’t think prison is the only way I can change me life, give me an opportunity at Psychiatric Hospital,” he added. The magistrate however informed him that he had been given opportunities to reform on many occasions. Harding was sentenced to nine months at Dodds on the theft charge and three months on the apparatus. The sentences will run consecutively. (BT)

King pleads not guilty - A 40-year-old man secured $3,000 bail today after a successful application in a Bridgetown Court. Antoine Mark King of Mountview Drive, St Lucy is accused of using the threatening words “I will blow up all of wanna. You see you Indian woman, I gine damage you,” towards Angela Clarke on March 5 and for also sending the threatening message “I will kill you and I will damage you” towards Clarke via a telecommunications network on March 15. He pleaded not guilty to both charges. Sergeant St Clair Phillips objected to bail based on the accused’s criminal record and the nature and seriousness of the charges and fears that King would re-offend. Attorney-at-law Shelly-Ann Seecharan who was holding a watch and brief in the matter also informed the court that King had antecedents under the name Antoine Niles. She further submitted that the complainants were volunteers at an organisation, which has had to close temporarily due to King’s threats. “The organisation is situated on the compound of a church and school . . . the threats extend not only to the complainant but to other persons,” Seechran said. However, in his application King, who stated that he had legally changed his name some ten years  ago told the magistrate it was easy for “anyone to say he threatened me.” “If I wanted to blow up something I would not be here today. It would be done blow up,” King said. From the lengthy application Magistrate Douglas Frederick summarised that the accused wanted to find out why it had taken a long time to charge him with the offences given the situation. However, the prosecutor was unable to give a satisfactory response, as he was unable reach the substantive investigator on the case. King was granted bail to return to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on September 25. In the meantime he was been warned to stay away from the complainant as well as the organisation. (BT)

CLOSER TO HOME – A Latin American man stranded here for months no longer appears to be stateless and is one step closer to returning to his reputed homeland. But Juan Abrahan Ramirez Rijo remains in custody at HMP Dodds as immigration officials seek to secure him a valid Dominican Republic travel document to repatriate him. The Immigration Department today revealed that it was now in possession of Ramirez’s birth certificate following in-depth investigations through local and international entities of his identity. The Dominican Republic has so far refused to accept his return without documentary evidence of his nationality. Speaking through an interpreter, Immigration Officer Terry Simmons told the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court: “We have in our possession a birth certificate for Mr Ramirez Rijo. Through the efforts and assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs we have submitted the documents through the Dominican Republic Ambassador for Trinidad. “Yesterday we, that is, the Chief Immigration Officer, myself, along with a representative from an international organisation visited Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds. “We had a conversation with the Ambassador and his assistant [and] the Ambassador and his assistant also communicated with Mr Ramirez Rijo,” The 35-year-old construction worker, whose address is listed as Calle Sanches, Casa 112, San Pedro, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, has been on remand at Dodds for the past 28 days after pleading guilty to criminal damage. He admitted to criminal damage at the Grantley Adams International Airport detention centre where he was being held initially. An external door, two door locks and hardware, a washroom doorframe and drywall were damaged as the stranded man became belligerent, the court had learned. Sergeant St Clair Phillips told the court that when the accused first appeared in court on April 6, an immigration department supervisor was informed that Ramirez had defecated in the room and placed some of the faeces inside a Styrofoam container and pushed it under the door.  He also held onto the door and shook it until it was damaged. His actions were caught on CCTV camera. Ramirez was one of 13 people rescued by the crew of a cruise ship en route to Barbados on December 20 from a small vessel, which was adrift 47 nautical miles from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico. The 13, including a pregnant woman, were medically examined, found to be in good health, and were housed here “in a secure location” until they were identified. They were also allowed to contact family and friends in an effort to return home. After being held here for two weeks, all but Rijo were returned to their homeland. But Simmons reported to Magistrate Douglas Frederick that his department had made progress with their repatriation efforts. The immigration officer said: “We had a conversation with the Ambassador and his assistant [and] they have given an undertaking to seek authorisation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Dominican Republic in order to prepare a travel document in order to facilitate Mr Ramirez Rijo’s repatriation to the Dominican Republic. “They have given us their commitment in bringing this matter to a resolution as quickly as possible. They have apologised for the delay. “The Immigration Department is optimistic that we should be able to have a resolution to this matter and we are hoping that this could be done within the next two weeks or so. “We have resubmitted a photograph of Mr Ramirez Rijo in order to assist in the preparation of the document. So we are awaiting a response from the Dominican Republic and we hope to have this matter resolve very quickly.” Through the interpreter, Ramirez told the magistrate that he understood what was happening even as he made a request to be sent back to the same airport facility that he had damaged. He submitted: “Since there is a solution so that I could get back to my country all I am asking you, sir, I don’t want to be in prison anymore. This prison is very, very bad… that is a death sentence. I promise you that within these two weeks I am going to behave well at the airport. The food can kill you over there [at Dodds], with the highest respects sir I am asking if you can help me in this regard.” But Magistrate Frederick denied his request, saying: “You were at a facility that was more accommodating and the persons there have reported that they are afraid of [you] and in the circumstances I have no choice but to keep [you] at [HMP Dodds] for this short period.” Ramirez responded: “Again in the prison is more suffering, all the time I am in prison it is sending me crazy and I have not even committed any crime. Your honour, no more prison, please! No more prison, please! But the stranded man’s plea fell on deaf ears  as he was again remanded to prison until May 20.  (BT)

ASSOCIATION OF CARIBBEAN MEDIA WORKERS WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY MESSAGE – The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) has called on journalists across the region to “embrace the tenets of good journalism by giving verified facts without the taint of bias.” In a message yesterday to mark world Press Freedom Day, being observed under the theme “Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation”, ACM President Anika Kentish noted that media remains the  cornerstone of any democratic society. “We bring governance issues to the forefront, expose flaws in the justice system, we are the whistle blowers when corruption looms and we are the window into the electoral process.  For us to continue to be that key player in the democratic process, we must ensure that information is relevant, timely and, most importantly, accurate.” She added that if  elections are to be free and fair, journalists must understand that the coverage of elections is not like a regular beat. “It is tracking a complex system with several moving parts and many opportunities for operatives to pervert the process in hopes of swaying the results in their favour. Disinformation poses a very real threat to the electoral process, so verification of facts is paramount to a free and fair electoral system.” The ACM President recognised there is a global trend of foreign interference in the electoral process “and while this kind of meddling may seem like a distant reality, we must recognise that we in the region are not immune from similar intrusions by geopolitical or commercial interests.” “The challenge is that despite having more access to information than ever before, disinformation is more rampant than ever,” she said. Meanwhile  Prime Minister Dr Timothy Harris  of St Kitts Nevis, has reaffirmed his  support and respect for the free press, which he says  is “an enduring and unshakeable institution that is essential to maintaining a strong democracy here in St Kitts and Nevis and, indeed, everywhere.”“Here in St Kitts and Nevis, my Administration and I take our responsibility to inform the public very seriously.  The Government frequently shares important information with the press and public, providing an open environment in which they can present and debate effectively the issues and concerns that matter most to voters – and to the future of this great country – and also assess the performance of their elected representatives,” the Prime Minister said. (SS)

MOE: FREE AND RESPONSIBLE PRESS – Minister of Information, Broadcasting and Public Affairs, Senator Lucille Moe, has called for society to use social media for good and not abuse it. In a statement to mark World Press Freedom Day 2019 today, Moe acknowledged social media had allowed credible journalists to share their stories and for “diverse voices to have their issues heard”. It had also given rise to citizens journalism with internet-ready devices, but cautioned:  “. . . the hard fought right to exercise journalistic freedom in a fair and democratic society is in some ways devalued by those who, because the internet and social media are still largely unregulated, escape controls pertaining to libel, decency and  good order”. Moe called for us to “find ways to maximize the constructive features of this phenomenon while reducing scope for it to be abused and misused”. (SS)

US EMBASSY MARKS WORLD PRESS DAY – The United States Embassy in Barbados marked this year's World Press Freedom Day by hosting an interactive webchat event on Thursday entitled Reporting for Democracy: The Role of a Free Press in Elections.  The worldwide event, organised by the US Department of State, focused on the essential role that media plays in supporting elections and democracy, especially in the face of the increasing challenges of disinformation, declining trust in news media and intimidation and violence against journalists.  In keeping with the theme of World Press Freedom Day 2019, panel members Lucinda Fleeson and Peter Clottey discussed several topics including how the digital transformation of media is affecting election reporting and how increasing pressures on a free press undermine democracy. Several members of the local media joined Embassy staff in participating in the global discussion. (SS)

For daily or breaking news reports follow us on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter & Facebook. That’s all for today folks. There are 241 days left in the year. Shalom! #thechasefilesdailynewscap #thechasefiles# dailynewscapsbythechasefiles

[cryptswahili]

QuadrigaCX and the Million Dollar Questions: What We Do and Don’t Know

QuadrigaCX Exchange’s founder, Gerald Cotten, passed away more than two months ago, and with his death, the keys to the exchange’s cold storage allegedly went to the grave with him.

This is the story that QuadrigaCX is sticking to in the posthumous mess that has followed its founder’s death. The situation has been likened to a second Mt. Gox, with some of the biggest differences being that we don’t know whether or not QuadrigaCX is solvent and there’s no hard evidence of foul play on behalf of the exchange. But there are also more questions than answers, and lack of hard evidence or transparency in the situation (including, whether or not there are cold wallets and whether or not QuadrigaCX is being honest about not having access to them) is the exchange’s closest resemblance to Mt. Gox: no one’s completely sure of what happened and what’s going on.

This has led media, social media commentators and other community voices to see the facts of the case through different lenses. Some have argued that QuadrigaCX has no cold wallets, others have said they must be lying about not having access to these funds. One bold camp has even called the likelihood of Cotten’s death into question. This conspiracy is tenuous, as death certificates are public (even if Cotten’s name is misspelled as “Cottan” on the certificate, likely an honest mistake made by crossing the language barrier); Globe and Mail reporters even traveled to Jaipur and spoke with doctors who verified his death.

Those doctors, the accounts recall, also signaled that Cotten’s death was unconventional, as was how the body was handled — but more on that later.

QuadrigaCX would keep Cotten’s death from the public and its clients for about a month, enough time for his widow, Jennifer Robertson, to transfer the contents of her husband’s estate as set out in his will — a document updated two weeks prior to his death — into her name. All the while, customers complained about their perpetual struggle to withdraw cash and coins from the exchange. It has since ceased operations due to its self-proclaimed inability to access cold wallets to address these liquidity issues.

Plenty of affected users think the funds are gone and the wallets don’t exist, and evidence — some hard, some soft — is piling up to suggest that there’s something amiss with how things stand now.

After corresponding with multiple persons who either knew Cotten well, were QuadrigaCX customers or who were associated with the exchange’s business, Bitcoin Magazine learned that questions have surrounded QuadrigaCX's operations for some time — enough to warrant skepticism about the story it’s been presenting.

This account will give an overview of what we know so far. It attempts to be thorough but not exhaustive and to treat conspiracies with skepticism while not ignoring them.

Trouble Brewing

Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly on December 9, 2018, while vacationing in India. His sudden death has been framed as the culmination of Cotten’s seven-year battle with Crohn’s disease, though Cotten’s death at the age of 30 is rare for people with the disease. He passed away while under care at Fortis Escorts Hospital in Jaipur, India, where he was reportedly honeymooning with his newly wedded wife, Jennifer Robertson, when he had some extreme gastrointestinal pain.

Though Dr. Sharma originally diagnosed traveler’s diarrhea on Cotten’s first visit to the hospital, Cotten’s condition quickly deteriorated. Twenty-four hours later, after being readmitted, Cotten died of cardiac arrest induced by septic shock when his intestines were perforated, the death report notes.

The doctor told the Globe and Mail that Cotten’s death was “medically unusual,” particularly the way his condition dramatically worsened so rapidly. He and his staff are even a bit “[unsure] about the diagnosis.”

No autopsy was performed, and the apparent mysteries surrounding Cotten’s death become more complicated as he was prepped for burial. Dr Semmi Mehra, an embalming specialist at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Hospital, whom Robertson attempted to employ for Cotten’s embalming, refused because the body came from the hotel the couple were honeymooning at instead of from the hospital where Cotten passed.

“That guy told me the body will come from the hotel. I said: ‘Why the hotel? I’m not taking any body from the hotel, it should come from Fortis’,” Dr. Mehra told the Globe and Mail.

She would direct them to a public medical college in the area who would ultimately embalm the deceased crypto tycoon, the Globe and Mail reports.

Cotten’s death left the company’s leadership without a clear successor, as Cotten left no directions for appointing a new CEO, an oversight that complicates the exchange’s apparent inability to access cold wallet funds. An emergency shareholder meeting was called on January 25, 2019, to appoint new directors. The meeting resulted in Jennifer Robertson, her stepfather Thomas Beazley and Jack Martel being elected to the board. The meeting supposedly took place over a conference call, according to a conversation Bitcoin Magazine had with Michael Patryn, the exchange’s co-founder who claims to have distanced himself from the exchange since March 2016.

Two sources who knew Cotten told Bitcoin Magazine that they were shocked to hear that Cotten hadn’t put contingency plans in place for his sudden passing, saying that this was out of character for a man who always had security at the forefront of his mind.

“This is the part that gets a little bit hairy,” Michael Perklin, Shapeshift CISO, told Bitcoin Magazine. “For a business to operate for six years and not have a business continuity plan? That’s reckless. I was incredibly shocked to learn that they couldn’t access the wallet. Gerry was a very smart man. It was inconsistent with his personality to not have a backup if he was hit by a bus. We’re definitely missing important pieces of this,”

He added, “Gerry updated his will two weeks before his death. That proves that he is thinking about these things.”

QuadrigaCX waited more than a month to make Cotten’s death public, and they waited longer still to admit that the company was having trouble mustering up the liquidity to honor withdrawals.

By the time the exchange shut down, Jennifer Robertson had gone through probate to transfer the assets in Cotten’s estate to her name. During this in-between period, she listed (and allegedly sold) Cotten’s sailboat/yacht and placed four properties in a trust called the Seaglass Trust, reportedly taking out a second mortgage on two of these. One of these properties, Cotten and Robertson’s former home at 71 Kinross Court, Nova Scotia, has been sold, while another property in Kelowna, British Columbia, has also been sold, an anonymous source told Bitcoin Magazine.

Liquidity Issues

Before Cotten’s death, users embattled in months-long withdrawal issues aggravated the exchange’s reputation and troubled history. Even as early as March 2018, bad press plagued the exchange for a delayed withdrawal of over $100,000. This issue could be the consequence of the exchange’s tenuous relationship with its Canadian banking partners, a struggle that culminated in November 2018 as the Canadian Supreme Court ruled to take control of $21.6 million after the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) froze accounts related to QuadrigaCX's business. It also lost a not-insignificant sum of ether to a smart contract bug in June of 2017, worth $17 million CAD at the time.

QuadrigaCX's banking difficulties have been a recurring theme in the exchange’s five-year history, according to multiple Bitcoin Magazine sources, all of whom asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the ongoing case.

One long-time QuadrigaCX user filed a ticket on August 14, 2018, after attempting to withdraw cash in late July. QuadrigaCX support’s initial reply oddly claims, “Both have been processed and arrive in a few years [sic].” After the user continued to complain about not receiving their funds, a follow-up email stated, “There is no issue, just ongoing issues … with the banks,” — the exchange’s familiar mantra in response to withdrawal issues.

After going round-for-round over email with QuadrigaCX support for weeks, this customer received his funds nearly two months after he requested them and a month after he opened a support ticket.

This experience seems par for the course, as another user complained that withdrawal requests for himself and others have been marked as complete after a similar, month-long, back-and-forth exchange with QuadrigaCX, but the funds have still not been deposited into their accounts.

“They stopped replying to my emails after January 11,” this user told Bitcoin Magazine. He said that he’d initiated a withdrawal request on December 8, 2018, which was marked as completed on December 22, 2018, despite no funds hitting the user’s bank account. This particular individual has $2,000 tied up. We’ve spoken to an individual with a similar experience who is missing $1,100 and another who has lost more than $1 million CAD after failing to have withdrawals satisfied.

A Canadian business strategies and best-practice professional, who asked to remain anonymous, also attested to Bitcoin Magazine that QuadrigaCX’s relationships with banks were a stressed and constant “struggle.” They even introduced Cotten and QuadrigaCX to a potential banking partner, but, after the company failed to provide “beneficial ownership information,” the bank refused to do business with the exchange (QuadrigaCX’s failure to provide this information, the source said, may have to do with the connections between Michael Patryn and ex-con Omar Dhanani, something we’ll go over more in the “Loose Ends” section of this article).

These issues, the source believes, are a plausible reason behind QuadrigaCX’s multiple shell companies (QuadrigaCX Fintech Solutions Corporation and Whiteside Capital Corporation).

The death of the exchange’s CEO seems to have either exacerbated these banking problems or exposed them to the public more thoroughly. And while Perklin called QuadrigaCX ’s money transfer issues unsurprising, some aspects of the exchange’s withdrawal process were anything but — specifically, offering hard cash withdrawals in the mail or in-person as a preferable option.

Multiple clients have reported receiving thousands of dollars via Canada Post. Speaking to a few of these users, Bitcoin Magazine verified these reports: One of these individuals told us that, while the three packages they received listed QuadrigaCX, Vancouver, as the return address, Canada Post’s tracking information lists the packages’ origin as Richmond, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; and Sherwood Park, Alberta.

Besides using Canada Post, QuadrigaCX offered hard cash withdrawals via in-person pickups. This practice, while not totally unheard of in the cryptocurrency industry, is virtually non-existent for retail exchanges (Coinsquare, one of the only legitimate exchanges to have offered it, no longer does). More than just unconventional, the makeshift, lax nature with which the exchange went about processing these withdrawals is suspect.

One of Bitcoin Magazine’s sources recalled driving six and a half hours to the Laval pickup location in late January, after “getting the runaround” since November, wherein each attempt to transfer cash ended in its being processed and cancelled. This process went on for weeks; the client even attempted to transfer the money into ether to withdraw to another exchange but hit the same dead end. When the users tried to get answers, their queries were met by silence on social media, support tickets and calls to QuadrigaCX's offices.

“We had enough after Christmas and chose to pick up our cash at the location in Laval. They sent us an email confirming it was processed and would be available on Jan 21 at 10am,” the source explained. “We drove 6.5 hours to that location, only to find a nonexistent office suite with a mailbox drop there. No person. No one in the building knew of that company either. We called and left messages on that number provided and drove home. He finally called us a week later saying QuadrigaCX wasn't giving him the cash to hand out but if they did give him our cash (they were supposed to give him 5k) he would reserve our amount out of that and text us to come pick it up. Two days later he texted us and said they aren't giving him the money and he will be in touch.”

That was the last time they heard from QuadrigaCX’s cash lackey, who, judging by his responses, had little connection to the exchange besides being an intermediary for cash payments. Days later, the exchange would announce Gerry’s death and its likely insolvency.

As noted earlier, QuadrigaCX’s banking relationships were non-existent, and Robertson admits in her affidavit that the exchange “had no corporate bank accounts.” Cash would likely be hard to come by for an exchange with no corporate account with a licensed bank or fiduciary partner. Instead, the exchange had to rely on a patchwork banking system which consisted of nine or so payment processors, including the Canadian-based Bylls and Billerfy.

Billerfy CEO Jose Reyes was involved in the November 2018 proceedings that ended in the Canadian Supreme Court freezing $25 million CAD tied to the exchange’s business. According to court documents, he had three personal accounts frozen along with two corporate accounts for Costodian Inc., another payment processor QuadrigaCX used for its business, for which Reyes is the sole director and officer. Reyes had transferred some $1 or 2 million CAD to his personal account from Costodian’s corporate accounts, making it unclear to the court as to the ownership of the millions in deposits from 388 users.

“CIBC has not been able to determine to what extent the Depositors, Costodian, Reyes, QuadrigaCX and/or Billerfy Labs Inc. (“Billerfy”) are entitled to the Disputed Funds,” the court order states.

The $25 million is still stuck in limbo, along with $5 million more in CAD that the exchange holds in bank notes for funds held by other payment processors. Ernst & Young (EY), as monitor over the legal proceedings, has contacted the processors to collect this debt. In its second report, the monitor revealed that it had received $20 million in bank draft notes from Costodian, though it must wait for the approval of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to clear wires for the bank drafts to be deposited into a disbursement account that the monitor oversees.

In its second report, EY also indicated that Robertson and QuadrigaCX ’s litigation coffers are running low, insinuating that they are not far off from running out of funds entirely. If the RBC clears the bank draft wires into the disbursement account, this will keep the exchange’s legal operations afloat amidst the courtroom proceedings and restructuring.

Entering the Courtroom

After going offline on January 28, 2019, for reported maintenance, the exchange came out publicly to say that it did not have access to its cold storage, as Cotten had been the sole guardian of the wallet’s keys. In a sworn affidavit filing with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Cotten’s widow Jennifer Robertson said that the funds are likely lost.

“QuadrigaCX's inventory of cryptocurrency has become unavailable and some of it may be lost.”

On February 5, 2019, the exchange filed for investor protection with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. EY was appointed as monitor over the case, giving the firm legal rights to oversee a compensation account for QuadrigaCX users as well as monitor the exchange’s current cryptocurrency balances and any hardware that may contain company information (namely, keys/seeds for the alleged cold storage).

In its first report as legal monitor, EY reported that it had begun funding the debtors’ compensation account with $150,000 CAD which Robertson supplied out of her own personal finance. More notably, the firm reported that QuadrigaCX “inadvertently” sent some $460,000 CAD worth of bitcoin to the cold wallets its employees reportedly can’t access. Perhaps in response to this blunder, the firm has taken control of QuadrigaCX's remaining hot wallet funds, as well as the funds that were accidentally transferred, and placed them in their own cold storage, the monitor’s second report reveals.

As with other exchange scandals in the industry, it didn’t take long for QuadrigaCX to rack up an adversarial list of investor-led reclamation suits. With funds for more than 100,000 users so far unaccounted for, Canada’s premier law firms lined up to represent the thousands who have come forth to challenge the company in court. These lawyers had a court date on February 14, 2019, to determine who would win the right to represent aggrieved clients in the legal proceedings looming ahead.

After delaying the decision a week due to the strength of the competing firms, presiding Nova Scotia Court Justice Wood ultimately gave the bid to Miller Thompson and Cox & Palmer for its apparent expertise with the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), a piece of Canadian litigation that affects insolvency cases, and digital assets.

“Miller Thompson has additional depth in certain areas, including larger CCAA proceedings and cryptocurrency … The relationship between the two firms has been thought out carefully with a view to minimizing costs. Cox & Palmer will deal with their areas of expertise, including local litigation practice and court appearances. Miller Thompson will provide expertise in dealing with large creditor groups and cryptocurrency technology,” the judge wrote in a court order.

The case will re-enter the legal arena on February 22 for the next round of proceedings.

Where’d the Funds Go?

QuadrigaCX claims that the funds are inaccessible, but some creditors and blockchain professionals alike are starting to think the funds aren’t actually there.

For starters, QuadrigaCX has refused to attest to their cold storage reserves by making the public address for these wallets public. One Reddit user, dekoze, claims to have tracked funds from a hot wallet address listed in Robertson’s affidavit to five wallets that could constitute part of the exchange’s cold wallets. These wallets recently had 104.365 BTC sent and split between them, an amount nearly on par with the 103 BTC that QuadrigaCX “inadvertently” sent to its cold wallets on February 6, 2019.

Other blockchain transaction analysis suggests that QuadrigaCX has been cycling funds through competing exchanges, and they’ve also found little evidence that any cold wallet reserves exist.

James Edward (@ProofofResearch) first dropped this bombshell. Taking deposit addresses provided by QuadrigaCX customers, his transaction analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain found no trace of cold wallet reserves. Instead, it found a dizzying trail of transactions to and from popular exchanges like Kraken, Bitfinex and Poloniex, something he reinforced with later research using the wallets unearthed by dekoze (which Edward, in this newest research, actively disputes are cold wallets).

Taylor Monahan, the CEO of Ethereum wallet MyCrypto, corroborated Edward’s findings with her own analysis of the Ethereum blockchain. Like Edward, she found no convincing evidence that QuadrigaCX operated with cold wallet storage, and she also followed a tortuous trail of transactions that led to other exchanges like Bitfinex and, most notably, ShapeShift.

“It’s just bizarre,” she told Bitcoin Magazine.

“Totally hypothetical, it’s possible that QuadrigaCX has some hidden cold storage somewhere if, and only if, instead of going between a hot and cold wallet, they went directly from user deposit addresses to the cold wallet. Now, I went through their transactions for over three years, and it’s very hard for me to imagine that … with all the practices I’ve seen and how they operate and how often they move funds that they have a mechanism to put funds into the cold wallet that no one noticed.”

Hidden or not, she’s not convinced that the cold wallets are there, though, because she only found one instance of a cold wallet holding some 4,000 ether for more than a year, after which portions of these funds were sent to hot wallets for QuadrigaCX or competing exchanges. For the rest of the wallets that Monahan tracked, she believes that QuadrigaCX could have been market making to improve the appearance of exchange liquidity.

“This would mean having to source coins from an external source in order to fulfil withdraw requests because they’re playing with their own money,” she qualified. “Even if that’s the case, I cannot imagine why they would exchange ether through ShapeShift. This was something they did consistently over the years.”

Now, an exchange sending funds to another exchange isn’t anything new; exchange-to-exchange arbitrage and inter-trade is common in the industry. But QuadrigaCX ’s activity doesn’t make much sense, Monahan told Bitcoin Magazine, especially the millions in ether that was sent to ShapeShift, which charges higher fees than other exchanges for the convenience of instant cryptocurrency swaps.

The movement of funds could be customers depositing of their own volition, something that Monahan takes into account in her analysis. She says that those withdrawals are likely denoted by multi-numerical values, while funds QuadrigaCX was sending itself may be represented by rounded off numbers.

“When you look deeply into how an operation does something … everyone has their little quirks. For Quadriga, for example, they love to send exact amounts.”

The rationale for cycling funds through different exchanges amounts to a fractional reserve system, the same practice banks use today to shuffle credit. Basically, if QuadrigaCX did not have enough in their wallets to cover a massive withdrawal in bitcoin, they would send ether to something like ShapeShift to convert these funds to bitcoin to honor the withdrawal.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes this is the most likely scenario. In a Twitter thread, citing the exchange’s own internal transaction analysis, he speculates,“Patterns of sends from cold storage suggest they tried keeping [the] exchange afloat, and maybe attempted to trade their way out of a hole” — a hole that was in part dug by the exchange losing roughly 67,000 ether to a contract bug. That was in June 2017, after which time the exchange began draining their “cold wallets,” Armstrong holds.

Couple this with the 2018 bear market and you have a solvency crisis.

“This implies that at least a few people inside QuadrigaCX knew that they were running fractional. If so, then it's possible that untimely death of their CEO was used as an outlet to let the company sink,” he concludes.

In our conversation, Monahan noted decreasing transaction volumes following 2017, something that could either be attributed to Armstrong’s conclusion or to the anemic nature of the market in the bearish slump that began in 2018.

“You can definitely tell that the amount of money being moved around was very high in 2017 and has been dwindling, and previous to 2017, you see less activity. Whether that indicates something on QuadrigaCX's end is hard to say because every exchange is going through this [after the 2017 bull run].”

When asked about the strength of such transaction analyses, Perklin cautioned that “the only way to get a map of all of QCX movements would be to get all the deposit addresses.”

Loose Ends and Conspiracy Theories

For all that we do know about QuadrigaCX, there’s also plenty we don’t know — as well as lots of unsettling middle ground between the two.

Take, for instance, that a multitude of users who report receiving payroll deposits from RNC Inc., a company believed to be Robertson Nova Management Inc., a real estate management company registered in Robertson’s name. In the reply-to lines of emails confirming these deposits are listed one of two emails tied to Robertson. These deposits contradict Robertson’s sworn affidavit that she was not involved in the company’s business when Cotten was alive.

Questions also loom over the identity of Michael Patryn, QuadrigaCX ’s co-founder, who told Bitcoin Magazine that he cut ties with QuadrigaCX in March 2016. He left amidst a wider company exodus which gutted the shareholders sitting on the company’s board of directors. These directors, Patryn claimed, were upset with Cotten’s decision not to take the company public on the Canada Stock Exchange, a promise he made a year prior in 2015 which helped lead to the company raising $850,000 CAD in a private fundraising round. That same year, the exchange published its last financial audit, posting revenues of barely $80,000 CAD.

Patryn, who owns roughly 17 percent of the company’s shares, bought many of the shares off these individuals because “he wanted to make things right,” claiming that many of these shareholders were personal friends and invested because they “trusted” him.

Meanwhile, some skeptics don’t trust that Patryn is being honest about his identity. Critics and internet sleuths have argued that "Michael Patryn" is an alias for "Omar Dhanani," an ex-con from California who was pegged for identity theft and fraud in 2004 after a sweeping bust of members involved in the cybercrime syndicate ShadowCrew. Omar Dhanani allegedly began using the alias Omar Patryn in 2005, according to a forfeiture case, and he was deported back to Canada in 2008.

The connections between Michael and Omar rest on the shared surname, as well as the presence of Dhanani’s relative, Nazmin Dhanani, on a company filing for MPD advertising that Michael Patryn made in 2009. Michael Patryn would start the Midas Gold Exchange, an online e-currency exchange that had ties with the Liberty Reserve in 2009, a private e-currency enterprise that was shuttered in 2013 by U.S. officials for money laundering and whose founder was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Midas Gold racked up a notorious reputation for fraudulent activity during its short lifespan.

The conspiratorial web connecting Omar/Michael is documented elsewhere, so we won’t indulge it any further here. If the connections hold true, though, it paints a poor picture for the moral constitution of at least one of the company's founding members.

And it could explain the suspicious structure of the company’s operations. Amber Scott, the founder of Canadian Outlier Solutions, an anti-money laundering consulting firm, told Bitcoin Magazine, “QuadrigaCX was always ‘outside of my risk tolerance.’ Like many others in the community, I'm left wondering what I could have done differently to warn people when I saw red flags.”

A look into the company’s structure would be enough to give one pause. In her affidavit, Robertson revealed that, after 2016, “most of the business … was being conducted by Gerry wherever he and his computer were located.” The rest of the company’s employment base consisted of seven contractors, one of which, Alex Hanin, acted as the exchange’s sole developer, while the rest were a mixture of customer service representatives, social media managers and client verification employees.

One of these alleged employees hosted an AMA on the QuadrigaCX subreddit, which has since been deleted after the contractor reported that he was facing legal action from Jennifer Robertson’s legal council. Among other unverified claims, he alleged that QuadrigaCX was fraudulent from the start and that Jennifer and Gerry’s involvement from 2016 onward should be the chief area of concern for investigators, insinuating that Patryn and Lovie Horner, Patryn’s supposed partner, are no more than red herrings.

To attest to the veracity of his insider status, the contractor posted screenshots of the company’s Rocket Chat, as well as a photo of the funeral pamphlets used for Cotten’s funeral. Community members immediately raised questions as to why JA Snow Funeral Home, who hosted the burial, was misspelled as JS Snow on the pamphlet (though this could feasibly be a typo given the placement of “a” and “s” on a QWERTY keyboard).

A source with a computer science background shared an IP analysis of the image provided with Bitcoin Magazine, pinpointing the photo to a Halifax airport IP on the day following the funeral.

This IP tracking and the contractor’s testament is not conclusively hard evidence of foul play, but the threat of legal action and the deletion of the AMA and the contractor’s Reddit account adds to the pile of questions surrounding the case.

As legal proceedings progress, we will update this article with further information.

Reporter Jessie Willms contributed additional notes and research to this story.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

[Telegram Channel | Original Article ]

[ellahmacdermott]

QuadrigaCX and the Million Dollar Questions: What We Do and Don’t Know

QuadrigaCX Exchange’s founder, Gerald Cotten, passed away more than two months ago, and with his death, the keys to the exchange’s cold storage allegedly went to the grave with him.

This is the story that QuadrigaCX is sticking to in the posthumous mess that has followed its founder’s death. The situation has been likened to a second Mt. Gox, with some of the biggest differences being that we don’t know whether or not QuadrigaCX is solvent and there’s no hard evidence of foul play on behalf of the exchange. But there are also more questions than answers, and lack of hard evidence or transparency in the situation (including, whether or not there are cold wallets and whether or not QuadrigaCX is being honest about not having access to them) is the exchange’s closest resemblance to Mt. Gox: no one’s completely sure of what happened and what’s going on.

This has led media, social media commentators and other community voices to see the facts of the case through different lenses. Some have argued that QuadrigaCX has no cold wallets, others have said they must be lying about not having access to these funds. One bold camp has even called the likelihood of Cotten’s death into question. This conspiracy is tenuous, as death certificates are public (even if Cotten’s name is misspelled as “Cottan” on the certificate, likely an honest mistake made by crossing the language barrier); Globe and Mail reporters even traveled to Jaipur and spoke with doctors who verified his death.

Those doctors, the accounts recall, also signaled that Cotten’s death was unconventional, as was how the body was handled — but more on that later.

QuadrigaCX would keep Cotten’s death from the public and its clients for about a month, enough time for his widow, Jennifer Robertson, to transfer the contents of her husband’s estate as set out in his will — a document updated two weeks prior to his death — into her name. All the while, customers complained about their perpetual struggle to withdraw cash and coins from the exchange. It has since ceased operations due to its self-proclaimed inability to access cold wallets to address these liquidity issues.

Plenty of affected users think the funds are gone and the wallets don’t exist, and evidence — some hard, some soft — is piling up to suggest that there’s something amiss with how things stand now.

After corresponding with multiple persons who either knew Cotten well, were QuadrigaCX customers or who were associated with the exchange’s business, Bitcoin Magazine learned that questions have surrounded QuadrigaCX's operations for some time — enough to warrant skepticism about the story it’s been presenting.

This account will give an overview of what we know so far. It attempts to be thorough but not exhaustive and to treat conspiracies with skepticism while not ignoring them.

Trouble Brewing

Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly on December 9, 2018, while vacationing in India. His sudden death has been framed as the culmination of Cotten’s seven-year battle with Crohn’s disease, though Cotten’s death at the age of 30 is rare for people with the disease. He passed away while under care at Fortis Escorts Hospital in Jaipur, India, where he was reportedly honeymooning with his newly wedded wife, Jennifer Robertson, when he had some extreme gastrointestinal pain.

Though Dr. Sharma originally diagnosed traveler’s diarrhea on Cotten’s first visit to the hospital, Cotten’s condition quickly deteriorated. Twenty-four hours later, after being readmitted, Cotten died of cardiac arrest induced by septic shock when his intestines were perforated, the death report notes.

The doctor told the Globe and Mail that Cotten’s death was “medically unusual,” particularly the way his condition dramatically worsened so rapidly. He and his staff are even a bit “[unsure] about the diagnosis.”

No autopsy was performed, and the apparent mysteries surrounding Cotten’s death become more complicated as he was prepped for burial. Dr Semmi Mehra, an embalming specialist at Mahatma Gandhi Medical College & Hospital, whom Robertson attempted to employ for Cotten’s embalming, refused because the body came from the hotel the couple were honeymooning at instead of from the hospital where Cotten passed.

“That guy told me the body will come from the hotel. I said: ‘Why the hotel? I’m not taking any body from the hotel, it should come from Fortis’,” Dr. Mehra told the Globe and Mail.

She would direct them to a public medical college in the area who would ultimately embalm the deceased crypto tycoon, the Globe and Mail reports.

Cotten’s death left the company’s leadership without a clear successor, as Cotten left no directions for appointing a new CEO, an oversight that complicates the exchange’s apparent inability to access cold wallet funds. An emergency shareholder meeting was called on January 25, 2019, to appoint new directors. The meeting resulted in Jennifer Robertson, her stepfather Thomas Beazley and Jack Martel being elected to the board. The meeting supposedly took place over a conference call, according to a conversation Bitcoin Magazine had with Michael Patryn, the exchange’s co-founder who claims to have distanced himself from the exchange since March 2016.

Two sources who knew Cotten told Bitcoin Magazine that they were shocked to hear that Cotten hadn’t put contingency plans in place for his sudden passing, saying that this was out of character for a man who always had security at the forefront of his mind.

“This is the part that gets a little bit hairy,” Michael Perklin, Shapeshift CISO, told Bitcoin Magazine. “For a business to operate for six years and not have a business continuity plan? That’s reckless. I was incredibly shocked to learn that they couldn’t access the wallet. Gerry was a very smart man. It was inconsistent with his personality to not have a backup if he was hit by a bus. We’re definitely missing important pieces of this,”

He added, “Gerry updated his will two weeks before his death. That proves that he is thinking about these things.”

QuadrigaCX waited more than a month to make Cotten’s death public, and they waited longer still to admit that the company was having trouble mustering up the liquidity to honor withdrawals.

By the time the exchange shut down, Jennifer Robertson had gone through probate to transfer the assets in Cotten’s estate to her name. During this in-between period, she listed (and allegedly sold) Cotten’s sailboat/yacht and placed four properties in a trust called the Seaglass Trust, reportedly taking out a second mortgage on two of these. One of these properties, Cotten and Robertson’s former home at 71 Kinross Court, Nova Scotia, has been sold, while another property in Kelowna, British Columbia, has also been sold, an anonymous source told Bitcoin Magazine.

Liquidity Issues

Before Cotten’s death, users embattled in months-long withdrawal issues aggravated the exchange’s reputation and troubled history. Even as early as March 2018, bad press plagued the exchange for a delayed withdrawal of over $100,000. This issue could be the consequence of the exchange’s tenuous relationship with its Canadian banking partners, a struggle that culminated in November 2018 as the Canadian Supreme Court ruled to take control of $21.6 million after the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) froze accounts related to QuadrigaCX's business. It also lost a not-insignificant sum of ether to a smart contract bug in June of 2017, worth $17 million CAD at the time.

QuadrigaCX's banking difficulties have been a recurring theme in the exchange’s five-year history, according to multiple Bitcoin Magazine sources, all of whom asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the ongoing case.

One long-time QuadrigaCX user filed a ticket on August 14, 2018, after attempting to withdraw cash in late July. QuadrigaCX support’s initial reply oddly claims, “Both have been processed and arrive in a few years [sic].” After the user continued to complain about not receiving their funds, a follow-up email stated, “There is no issue, just ongoing issues … with the banks,” — the exchange’s familiar mantra in response to withdrawal issues.

After going round-for-round over email with QuadrigaCX support for weeks, this customer received his funds nearly two months after he requested them and a month after he opened a support ticket.

This experience seems par for the course, as another user complained that withdrawal requests for himself and others have been marked as complete after a similar, month-long, back-and-forth exchange with QuadrigaCX, but the funds have still not been deposited into their accounts.

“They stopped replying to my emails after January 11,” this user told Bitcoin Magazine. He said that he’d initiated a withdrawal request on December 8, 2018, which was marked as completed on December 22, 2018, despite no funds hitting the user’s bank account. This particular individual has $2,000 tied up. We’ve spoken to an individual with a similar experience who is missing $1,100 and another who has lost more than $1 million CAD after failing to have withdrawals satisfied.

A Canadian business strategies and best-practice professional, who asked to remain anonymous, also attested to Bitcoin Magazine that QuadrigaCX’s relationships with banks were a stressed and constant “struggle.” They even introduced Cotten and QuadrigaCX to a potential banking partner, but, after the company failed to provide “beneficial ownership information,” the bank refused to do business with the exchange (QuadrigaCX’s failure to provide this information, the source said, may have to do with the connections between Michael Patryn and ex-con Omar Dhanani, something we’ll go over more in the “Loose Ends” section of this article).

These issues, the source believes, are a plausible reason behind QuadrigaCX’s multiple shell companies (QuadrigaCX Fintech Solutions Corporation and Whiteside Capital Corporation).

The death of the exchange’s CEO seems to have either exacerbated these banking problems or exposed them to the public more thoroughly. And while Perklin called QuadrigaCX ’s money transfer issues unsurprising, some aspects of the exchange’s withdrawal process were anything but — specifically, offering hard cash withdrawals in the mail or in-person as a preferable option.

Multiple clients have reported receiving thousands of dollars via Canada Post. Speaking to a few of these users, Bitcoin Magazine verified these reports: One of these individuals told us that, while the three packages they received listed QuadrigaCX, Vancouver, as the return address, Canada Post’s tracking information lists the packages’ origin as Richmond, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; and Sherwood Park, Alberta.

Besides using Canada Post, QuadrigaCX offered hard cash withdrawals via in-person pickups. This practice, while not totally unheard of in the cryptocurrency industry, is virtually non-existent for retail exchanges (Coinsquare, one of the only legitimate exchanges to have offered it, no longer does). More than just unconventional, the makeshift, lax nature with which the exchange went about processing these withdrawals is suspect.

One of Bitcoin Magazine’s sources recalled driving six and a half hours to the Laval pickup location in late January, after “getting the runaround” since November, wherein each attempt to transfer cash ended in its being processed and cancelled. This process went on for weeks; the client even attempted to transfer the money into ether to withdraw to another exchange but hit the same dead end. When the users tried to get answers, their queries were met by silence on social media, support tickets and calls to QuadrigaCX's offices.

“We had enough after Christmas and chose to pick up our cash at the location in Laval. They sent us an email confirming it was processed and would be available on Jan 21 at 10am,” the source explained. “We drove 6.5 hours to that location, only to find a nonexistent office suite with a mailbox drop there. No person. No one in the building knew of that company either. We called and left messages on that number provided and drove home. He finally called us a week later saying QuadrigaCX wasn't giving him the cash to hand out but if they did give him our cash (they were supposed to give him 5k) he would reserve our amount out of that and text us to come pick it up. Two days later he texted us and said they aren't giving him the money and he will be in touch.”

That was the last time they heard from QuadrigaCX’s cash lackey, who, judging by his responses, had little connection to the exchange besides being an intermediary for cash payments. Days later, the exchange would announce Gerry’s death and its likely insolvency.

As noted earlier, QuadrigaCX’s banking relationships were non-existent, and Robertson admits in her affidavit that the exchange “had no corporate bank accounts.” Cash would likely be hard to come by for an exchange with no corporate account with a licensed bank or fiduciary partner. Instead, the exchange had to rely on a patchwork banking system which consisted of nine or so payment processors, including the Canadian-based Bylls and Billerfy.

Billerfy CEO Jose Reyes was involved in the November 2018 proceedings that ended in the Canadian Supreme Court freezing $25 million CAD tied to the exchange’s business. According to court documents, he had three personal accounts frozen along with two corporate accounts for Costodian Inc., another payment processor QuadrigaCX used for its business, for which Reyes is the sole director and officer. Reyes had transferred some $1 or 2 million CAD to his personal account from Costodian’s corporate accounts, making it unclear to the court as to the ownership of the millions in deposits from 388 users.

“CIBC has not been able to determine to what extent the Depositors, Costodian, Reyes, QuadrigaCX and/or Billerfy Labs Inc. (“Billerfy”) are entitled to the Disputed Funds,” the court order states.

The $25 million is still stuck in limbo, along with $5 million more in CAD that the exchange holds in bank notes for funds held by other payment processors. Ernst & Young (EY), as monitor over the legal proceedings, has contacted the processors to collect this debt. In its second report, the monitor revealed that it had received $20 million in bank draft notes from Costodian, though it must wait for the approval of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to clear wires for the bank drafts to be deposited into a disbursement account that the monitor oversees.

In its second report, EY also indicated that Robertson and QuadrigaCX ’s litigation coffers are running low, insinuating that they are not far off from running out of funds entirely. If the RBC clears the bank draft wires into the disbursement account, this will keep the exchange’s legal operations afloat amidst the courtroom proceedings and restructuring.

Entering the Courtroom

After going offline on January 28, 2019, for reported maintenance, the exchange came out publicly to say that it did not have access to its cold storage, as Cotten had been the sole guardian of the wallet’s keys. In a sworn affidavit filing with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, Cotten’s widow Jennifer Robertson said that the funds are likely lost.

“QuadrigaCX's inventory of cryptocurrency has become unavailable and some of it may be lost.”

On February 5, 2019, the exchange filed for investor protection with the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. EY was appointed as monitor over the case, giving the firm legal rights to oversee a compensation account for QuadrigaCX users as well as monitor the exchange’s current cryptocurrency balances and any hardware that may contain company information (namely, keys/seeds for the alleged cold storage).

In its first report as legal monitor, EY reported that it had begun funding the debtors’ compensation account with $150,000 CAD which Robertson supplied out of her own personal finance. More notably, the firm reported that QuadrigaCX “inadvertently” sent some $460,000 CAD worth of bitcoin to the cold wallets its employees reportedly can’t access. Perhaps in response to this blunder, the firm has taken control of QuadrigaCX's remaining hot wallet funds, as well as the funds that were accidentally transferred, and placed them in their own cold storage, the monitor’s second report reveals.

As with other exchange scandals in the industry, it didn’t take long for QuadrigaCX to rack up an adversarial list of investor-led reclamation suits. With funds for more than 100,000 users so far unaccounted for, Canada’s premier law firms lined up to represent the thousands who have come forth to challenge the company in court. These lawyers had a court date on February 14, 2019, to determine who would win the right to represent aggrieved clients in the legal proceedings looming ahead.

After delaying the decision a week due to the strength of the competing firms, presiding Nova Scotia Court Justice Wood ultimately gave the bid to Miller Thompson and Cox & Palmer for its apparent expertise with the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), a piece of Canadian litigation that affects insolvency cases, and digital assets.

“Miller Thompson has additional depth in certain areas, including larger CCAA proceedings and cryptocurrency … The relationship between the two firms has been thought out carefully with a view to minimizing costs. Cox & Palmer will deal with their areas of expertise, including local litigation practice and court appearances. Miller Thompson will provide expertise in dealing with large creditor groups and cryptocurrency technology,” the judge wrote in a court order.

The case will re-enter the legal arena on February 22 for the next round of proceedings.

Where’d the Funds Go?

QuadrigaCX claims that the funds are inaccessible, but some creditors and blockchain professionals alike are starting to think the funds aren’t actually there.

For starters, QuadrigaCX has refused to attest to their cold storage reserves by making the public address for these wallets public. One Reddit user, dekoze, claims to have tracked funds from a hot wallet address listed in Robertson’s affidavit to five wallets that could constitute part of the exchange’s cold wallets. These wallets recently had 104.365 BTC sent and split between them, an amount nearly on par with the 103 BTC that QuadrigaCX “inadvertently” sent to its cold wallets on February 6, 2019.

Other blockchain transaction analysis suggests that QuadrigaCX has been cycling funds through competing exchanges, and they’ve also found little evidence that any cold wallet reserves exist.

James Edward (@ProofofResearch) first dropped this bombshell. Taking deposit addresses provided by QuadrigaCX customers, his transaction analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain found no trace of cold wallet reserves. Instead, it found a dizzying trail of transactions to and from popular exchanges like Kraken, Bitfinex and Poloniex, something he reinforced with later research using the wallets unearthed by dekoze (which Edward, in this newest research, actively disputes are cold wallets).

Taylor Monahan, the CEO of Ethereum wallet MyCrypto, corroborated Edward’s findings with her own analysis of the Ethereum blockchain. Like Edward, she found no convincing evidence that QuadrigaCX operated with cold wallet storage, and she also followed a tortuous trail of transactions that led to other exchanges like Bitfinex and, most notably, ShapeShift.

“It’s just bizarre,” she told Bitcoin Magazine.

“Totally hypothetical, it’s possible that QuadrigaCX has some hidden cold storage somewhere if, and only if, instead of going between a hot and cold wallet, they went directly from user deposit addresses to the cold wallet. Now, I went through their transactions for over three years, and it’s very hard for me to imagine that … with all the practices I’ve seen and how they operate and how often they move funds that they have a mechanism to put funds into the cold wallet that no one noticed.”

Hidden or not, she’s not convinced that the cold wallets are there, though, because she only found one instance of a cold wallet holding some 4,000 ether for more than a year, after which portions of these funds were sent to hot wallets for QuadrigaCX or competing exchanges. For the rest of the wallets that Monahan tracked, she believes that QuadrigaCX could have been market making to improve the appearance of exchange liquidity.

“This would mean having to source coins from an external source in order to fulfil withdraw requests because they’re playing with their own money,” she qualified. “Even if that’s the case, I cannot imagine why they would exchange ether through ShapeShift. This was something they did consistently over the years.”

Now, an exchange sending funds to another exchange isn’t anything new; exchange-to-exchange arbitrage and inter-trade is common in the industry. But QuadrigaCX ’s activity doesn’t make much sense, Monahan told Bitcoin Magazine, especially the millions in ether that was sent to ShapeShift, which charges higher fees than other exchanges for the convenience of instant cryptocurrency swaps.

The movement of funds could be customers depositing of their own volition, something that Monahan takes into account in her analysis. She says that those withdrawals are likely denoted by multi-numerical values, while funds QuadrigaCX was sending itself may be represented by rounded off numbers.

“When you look deeply into how an operation does something … everyone has their little quirks. For Quadriga, for example, they love to send exact amounts.”

The rationale for cycling funds through different exchanges amounts to a fractional reserve system, the same practice banks use today to shuffle credit. Basically, if QuadrigaCX did not have enough in their wallets to cover a massive withdrawal in bitcoin, they would send ether to something like ShapeShift to convert these funds to bitcoin to honor the withdrawal.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong believes this is the most likely scenario. In a Twitter thread, citing the exchange’s own internal transaction analysis, he speculates,“Patterns of sends from cold storage suggest they tried keeping [the] exchange afloat, and maybe attempted to trade their way out of a hole” — a hole that was in part dug by the exchange losing roughly 67,000 ether to a contract bug. That was in June 2017, after which time the exchange began draining their “cold wallets,” Armstrong holds.

Couple this with the 2018 bear market and you have a solvency crisis.

“This implies that at least a few people inside QuadrigaCX knew that they were running fractional. If so, then it's possible that untimely death of their CEO was used as an outlet to let the company sink,” he concludes.

In our conversation, Monahan noted decreasing transaction volumes following 2017, something that could either be attributed to Armstrong’s conclusion or to the anemic nature of the market in the bearish slump that began in 2018.

“You can definitely tell that the amount of money being moved around was very high in 2017 and has been dwindling, and previous to 2017, you see less activity. Whether that indicates something on QuadrigaCX's end is hard to say because every exchange is going through this [after the 2017 bull run].”

When asked about the strength of such transaction analyses, Perklin cautioned that “the only way to get a map of all of QCX movements would be to get all the deposit addresses.”

Loose Ends and Conspiracy Theories

For all that we do know about QuadrigaCX, there’s also plenty we don’t know — as well as lots of unsettling middle ground between the two.

Take, for instance, that a multitude of users who report receiving payroll deposits from RNC Inc., a company believed to be Robertson Nova Management Inc., a real estate management company registered in Robertson’s name. In the reply-to lines of emails confirming these deposits are listed one of two emails tied to Robertson. These deposits contradict Robertson’s sworn affidavit that she was not involved in the company’s business when Cotten was alive.

Questions also loom over the identity of Michael Patryn, QuadrigaCX ’s co-founder, who told Bitcoin Magazine that he cut ties with QuadrigaCX in March 2016. He left amidst a wider company exodus which gutted the shareholders sitting on the company’s board of directors. These directors, Patryn claimed, were upset with Cotten’s decision not to take the company public on the Canada Stock Exchange, a promise he made a year prior in 2015 which helped lead to the company raising $850,000 CAD in a private fundraising round. That same year, the exchange published its last financial audit, posting revenues of barely $80,000 CAD.

Patryn, who owns roughly 17 percent of the company’s shares, bought many of the shares off these individuals because “he wanted to make things right,” claiming that many of these shareholders were personal friends and invested because they “trusted” him.

Meanwhile, some skeptics don’t trust that Patryn is being honest about his identity. Critics and internet sleuths have argued that "Michael Patryn" is an alias for "Omar Dhanani," an ex-con from California who was pegged for identity theft and fraud in 2004 after a sweeping bust of members involved in the cybercrime syndicate ShadowCrew. Omar Dhanani allegedly began using the alias Omar Patryn in 2005, according to a forfeiture case, and he was deported back to Canada in 2008.

The connections between Michael and Omar rest on the shared surname, as well as the presence of Dhanani’s relative, Nazmin Dhanani, on a company filing for MPD advertising that Michael Patryn made in 2009. Michael Patryn would start the Midas Gold Exchange, an online e-currency exchange that had ties with the Liberty Reserve in 2009, a private e-currency enterprise that was shuttered in 2013 by U.S. officials for money laundering and whose founder was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. Midas Gold racked up a notorious reputation for fraudulent activity during its short lifespan.

The conspiratorial web connecting Omar/Michael is documented elsewhere, so we won’t indulge it any further here. If the connections hold true, though, it paints a poor picture for the moral constitution of at least one of the company's founding members.

And it could explain the suspicious structure of the company’s operations. Amber Scott, the founder of Canadian Outlier Solutions, an anti-money laundering consulting firm, told Bitcoin Magazine, “QuadrigaCX was always ‘outside of my risk tolerance.’ Like many others in the community, I'm left wondering what I could have done differently to warn people when I saw red flags.”

A look into the company’s structure would be enough to give one pause. In her affidavit, Robertson revealed that, after 2016, “most of the business … was being conducted by Gerry wherever he and his computer were located.” The rest of the company’s employment base consisted of seven contractors, one of which, Alex Hanin, acted as the exchange’s sole developer, while the rest were a mixture of customer service representatives, social media managers and client verification employees.

One of these alleged employees hosted an AMA on the QuadrigaCX subreddit, which has since been deleted after the contractor reported that he was facing legal action from Jennifer Robertson’s legal council. Among other unverified claims, he alleged that QuadrigaCX was fraudulent from the start and that Jennifer and Gerry’s involvement from 2016 onward should be the chief area of concern for investigators, insinuating that Patryn and Lovie Horner, Patryn’s supposed partner, are no more than red herrings.

To attest to the veracity of his insider status, the contractor posted screenshots of the company’s Rocket Chat, as well as a photo of the funeral pamphlets used for Cotten’s funeral. Community members immediately raised questions as to why JA Snow Funeral Home, who hosted the burial, was misspelled as JS Snow on the pamphlet (though this could feasibly be a typo given the placement of “a” and “s” on a QWERTY keyboard).

A source with a computer science background shared an IP analysis of the image provided with Bitcoin Magazine, pinpointing the photo to a Halifax airport IP on the day following the funeral.

This IP tracking and the contractor’s testament is not conclusively hard evidence of foul play, but the threat of legal action and the deletion of the AMA and the contractor’s Reddit account adds to the pile of questions surrounding the case.

As legal proceedings progress, we will update this article with further information.

Reporter Jessie Willms contributed additional notes and research to this story.

This article originally appeared on Bitcoin Magazine.

from InvestmentOpportunityInCryptocurrencies via Ella Macdermott on Inoreader https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/quadrigacx-and-the-million-dollar-questions-what-we-do-and-dont-know/

[theconservativebrief]

Nike announced on Monday that the 30th anniversary of its “Just Do It” campaign would star Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who famously began kneeling during the national anthem in order to protest police brutality, igniting a national conversation about race, sports, and the meaning of patriotism.

The ad, which features a close-up of Kaepernick’s face and the tagline “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything,” was met with praise from fellow Nike athletes like LeBron James and Serena Williams, as well as former CIA Director John Brennan. That “everything” refers to Kaepernick’s professional football career — following his departure from the San Francisco 49ers, he was essentially blackballed from the NFL for his political demonstrations.

The ad was also met with backlash, including a boycott, a trending Twitter hashtag, and viral tweets of customers cutting the Nike swoosh off of their stuff. Meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called the campaign “an attack on the country,” while others took issue with the term “sacrifice,” suggesting instead that the campaign should have gone to Pat Tillman, the NFL player who left the league to enlist in the Army in 2002 and was killed in Afghanistan.

Nike’s decision to feature Kaepernick in its campaign is part of a larger trend: Since the 2016 US presidential election, brands — once terrified of controversy — are more and more likely to enter the realm of politics. There’s never been a more popular time to be a brand with an opinion.

And the Kaepernick ad seems to be the result of an essential lesson from the past two years of brands attempting to take a stand in their advertisements: It actually takes a stand.

2017 was the year of corporations taking a stance. By the time the Super Bowl came around, commercials from Coca-Cola and Airbnb were making loose references to the necessity of diversity (Coke’s ad featured voices singing “America the Beautiful” in a variety of languages; Airbnb’s was called “We Accept”), while at the Oscars, Cadillac ran an ad featuring footage of protests with a voiceover saying things like, “We are a nation divided.”

That’s not to say that all these forays succeeded. Later in the spring, there was that Pepsi commercial, which featured a rather milquetoast protest/march/street party full of attractive, racially diverse millennials. It was an aesthetic that many brands were (and still are) co-opting, but it went disastrously wrong when the ad ended up insinuating that police brutality can be solved by Kendall Jenner giving a cop a Pepsi. The Pepsi ad didn’t fail because it used #resistance optics; it failed because it completely undermined the message of the protests.

CEOs also started to seem less afraid — and at times appeared to feel as if they were obligated — to make public statements about political happenings and social issues. After President Trump’s comments on the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which he claimed that there were “some very fine people on both sides” and that “not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch,” Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier dropped out of the president’s American manufacturing council. He issued a statement that said, “As a matter of personal conscience, I feel a responsibility to take a stand against intolerance and extremism.”

Patagonia, meanwhile, which has long been associated with activism, went so far as to file a lawsuit against the Trump administration for reducing the size of two national monuments.

Apparel brands in particular have embraced politics through design. During New York Fashion Week in February 2017, the biggest trend was anti-Trumpism, with models walking down the runway in T-shirts that read, “Nevertheless she persisted,” and one show that began with a speech by the organizers of the Women’s March.

Nike’s choice to use Colin Kaepernick’s activism as the face of its campaign isn’t all that surprising — not only does activism often raise a brand’s profile (one study showed that about two-thirds of consumers thought it was at least somewhat important for brands to take a stand on social issues), but it’s well within Nike’s wheelhouse.

Journalist Jemele Hill — who, like Kaepernick, has been a target of Trump — noted that while Kaepernick is still a major draw in sports apparel despite not currently playing for an NFL team, Nike also has a history of working with black athletes, a move that, to some, was at one time considered controversial.

I’m just here to remind folks that last year Colin Kaepernick was in the top 50 in NFL jersey sales, despite not being on a roster. Nike made a business move.

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 3, 2018

Nike became Nike because it was built on the idea of rebellion. This is the same company that dealt w/ the NBA banning Air Jordans. They made Jordan the face of the company at a time when black men were considered to be a huge risk as pitch men. They aren’t new to this.

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 4, 2018

That’s likely why the brand figured that the backlash it would receive for choosing Kaepernick would be worth it in the end. And there certainly has been backlash: Some Nike customers responded by performatively burning their Nike apparel or cutting out the logos, which has long been a protest tactic particularly favored by conservative consumers.

First the @NFL forces me to choose between my favorite sport and my country. I chose country. Then @Nike forces me to choose between my favorite shoes and my country. Since when did the American Flag and the National Anthem become offensive? pic.twitter.com/4CVQdTHUH4

— Sean Clancy (@sclancy79) September 3, 2018

Chris Allieri, a brand expert and founder of the communications firm Mulberry & Astor, told Vox, however, that the average Nike customer will likely be supportive of the campaign. Of those who aren’t, he said, “Consumers are quick to outrage and quick to forget.”

“I think this is one of those decisions where [Nike] did look at positives and negatives and threw that out the window,” he added. “They wanted to be relevant and hit this controversy head on. They did that by putting Kaepernick at the center of the campaign.”

These days, an advertisement won’t make headlines simply for showing a diverse group of people at a vague protest-y setting or making loose claims about supporting diversity. The reason the Nike ad is even newsworthy in the first place is because it doesn’t fall into the trap of attempting to “unite” Kaepernick with the targets of his protests. It’s lionizing Kaepernick for the important work he’s done without flattening his message to align with corporate-speak.

Questions about whether the decision will “pay off” are twofold — there’s the question of how it will affect the Nike brand. Though shares fell more than 2 percent Tuesday morning and the hashtag #NikeBoycott trended on Twitter, that certainly doesn’t mean the ad is a failure. In fact, according to Apex Marketing Group, Nike has received more than $43 million worth of media exposure in the less than 24 hours since the campaign was announced, with the vast majority of coverage either “neutral” or “positive.”

But there’s also the question of whether a brand taking a stance on a social issue will have effects in the real world. When Dick’s Sporting Goods announced it would stop selling guns to people under 21 in response to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, other stores like Walmart and L.L. Bean followed suit. It’s the kind of trend that can lead to changing ideas about what constitutes common sense, which could end up helping make gun laws stricter.

With its campaign that stars an athlete who gave up his professional career to protest racial injustice in America, Nike could end up doing something similar for that conversation as well. Maybe it already has.

Original Source -> How Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad explains branding in the post-Trump era

via The Conservative Brief

[party-hard-or-die]

Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – In the first hours after the biggest political upset in Malaysia’s history, the chief editor of news site Malaysiakini gathered his team in their cramped newsroom in a shabby industrial estate on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

FILE PHOTO: Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak arrives to give a statement to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in Putrajaya, Malaysia May 22, 2018. REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin

Some journalists and volunteers brought in to cover this month’s election that ousted the Barisan Nasional coalition from power after 61 years shed a few tears of joy, recounted Steven Gan, the editor.

Others fretted that a government that had relentlessly harassed them, even blocking their site during the vote count on election night, may still try to cling to power.

With widespread distrust in the largely party-owned or pro-Barisan press that skipped stories of corruption and gave little voice to opposition parties, reporting from alternative news sources like Malaysiakini played a major role in rousing an electorate angered by endemic graft and rising living costs.

Remembering what he said to his staff that morning, Gan said it was no victory speech, but a simple message: “It doesn’t really matter who is in power, we as journalists will continue to do our job.”

Wall-to-wall coverage of the fallout from the election since then has given a sense that Malaysia’s media has been unshackled by the arrival of a new coalition that includes pro-democracy activists and has pledged to repeal anti-fake news legislation.

However, uncertainty remains as to whether the mainstream media, conditioned to be cautious because of the diverse religious and ethnic mix in the country, will keep its focus on politics when the election fever dies down.

Or whether the new administration led by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad – who intimidated and muzzled the media when he was prime minister from 1981 to 2003 – is really prepared to cede more power to the fourth estate.

“Mahathir is not known to be a democrat, so there is some scepticism,” said Gan. “We are going through a period of euphoria and things are still in flux. It will take a few months before we know.”

See also “Najib’s downfall a bitter-sweet victory for Malaysia’s stifled satirists” [L3N1SS2EE]

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

At the heart of the issue is that a number of Malaysia’s mainstream news outlets are either owned by parties from the former coalition government or linked to state entities.

This allowed the political leadership to vet senior editorial appointments and influence coverage, stifling opposition voices during the campaign and sending readers elsewhere for the facts.

A general view of Malaysiakini’s newsroom in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 24, 2018. REUTERS/John Geddie

“In prison I had no access to newspapers, television, so in a way it was good. I kept my sanity by not reading local papers,” reform leader Anwar Ibrahim joked as he addressed reporters last week after his release from prison, where he was jailed three years ago on charges of sodomy that he said were politically motivated.

He and Mahathir came together in the alliance that won the May 9 election.

In the free-for-all that has followed, journalists at the likes of the Star, an English-language newspaper majority owned by one of the Barisan parties, have scrambled to catch up on big stories mostly ignored previously.

“Up until May 8, the mainstream media was used by the government to create an alternate reality which no thinking person could really have believed in,” said Martin Vengadesan, news editor at the Star.

The paper this week published his interview with Clare Rewcastle-Brown, whose groundbreaking reporting on a financial scandal at state fund 1MDB was suppressed and led to her exile from Malaysia, on the front page.

“When I was interviewing (Rewcastle-Brown) and we were talking openly about … corruption at the highest level, I had to keep checking myself because I was not used to this much openness,” Vengadesan said in an e-mail.

But Vengadesan added that because of the Star’s political ownership, it does face uncertainty.

“I don’t have any answers as to what future direction we may take,” he said. The Star’s major shareholder, the Malaysian Chinese Association party, was in the former coalition government but lost all but one of its seats in the election.

For even the most intrepid reporters, years of persecution at the hands of the government have made them wary of promises of change.

Under the previous administration, financial newspaper the Edge and news site the Malaysian Insider were suspended, two cartoonists were charged for satirising Prime Minister Najib Razak, and charges were brought against Malaysiakini’s co-founders, Gan and Premesh Chandran.

Life was set to get even tougher under fake news laws brought in last month, under which misleading reports can lead to prison terms of up to six years.

Slideshow (2 Images)

On the campaign trail, Mahathir’s political alliance promised to repeal the fake news law but since the election the new premier has equivocated. “Even though we support freedom of press and freedom of speech, there are limits,” Mahathir said.

In the early years of Mahathir’s first spell as prime minister, he suspended three newspapers – the Star, Sin Chew Daily and Watan – and used several laws to curb speech freedoms.

“After that, everybody did a lot of self-censorship and wanted to avoid problems,” Chan Aun Kuang, editor-in-chief of Chinese-language newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau, told Reuters.

However, this time, Mahathir’s party is a minority in the new ruling coalition, and if his authoritarianism resurfaced it is likely to be curbed by his partners. So far, he has shown a consultative approach in dealings with his new allies.

Anwar, an enemy-turned-ally of Mahathir who is expected to take over as prime minister at some point, has already sounded a different note.

“We are committed to the reform agenda, beginning with the judiciary, media and the entire apparatus,” he said last week.

THE MALAYSIAN WAY

Even if some of the publishing controls are dismantled, and government pressure subsides, some of the country’s leading independent media outlets don’t expect radical changes in a press corps conditioned for years to behave cautiously.

“We have our own way,” said Kamarul Bahrain Haron, deputy editor-in-chief of Astro Awani, a round-the-clock news channel.

“We always love to say in editorial meetings an idiom or proverb in Malay: ‘If there’s a pound of flour, and just one strand of hair, you pull the hair without disturbing the flour,’” he said, explaining that means being critical without creating a stir.

Another factor shaking up Malaysia’s media landscape is familiar the world over: social media and the smartphone.

From scurrilous gossip to footage of opposition rallies, many Malaysians turned to each other and to opposition leaders directly on Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter in the run-up to the election, completely bypassing major media and the regulators.

“We’re not following the government media stuff, they’re a laughing stock,” said Kuzi Romeo, who drives a taxi in Kuala Lumpur and prefers to get his news from Whatsapp groups instead.

He said he believed “about 25 percent” of what he reads in mainstream newspapers. “Since the election, maybe 30 percent, they’re still the same media,” he said.

(Corrects paragraph 20 to show party won one seat in election, not zero)

Additional reporting by Tom Allard; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan

The post Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2sbSTZD via Breaking News

[cleopatrarps]

Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – In the first hours after the biggest political upset in Malaysia’s history, the chief editor of news site Malaysiakini gathered his team in their cramped newsroom in a shabby industrial estate on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

FILE PHOTO: Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak arrives to give a statement to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in Putrajaya, Malaysia May 22, 2018. REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin

Some journalists and volunteers brought in to cover this month’s election that ousted the Barisan Nasional coalition from power after 61 years shed a few tears of joy, recounted Steven Gan, the editor.

Others fretted that a government that had relentlessly harassed them, even blocking their site during the vote count on election night, may still try to cling to power.

With widespread distrust in the largely party-owned or pro-Barisan press that skipped stories of corruption and gave little voice to opposition parties, reporting from alternative news sources like Malaysiakini played a major role in rousing an electorate angered by endemic graft and rising living costs.

Remembering what he said to his staff that morning, Gan said it was no victory speech, but a simple message: “It doesn’t really matter who is in power, we as journalists will continue to do our job.”

Wall-to-wall coverage of the fallout from the election since then has given a sense that Malaysia’s media has been unshackled by the arrival of a new coalition that includes pro-democracy activists and has pledged to repeal anti-fake news legislation.

However, uncertainty remains as to whether the mainstream media, conditioned to be cautious because of the diverse religious and ethnic mix in the country, will keep its focus on politics when the election fever dies down.

Or whether the new administration led by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad – who intimidated and muzzled the media when he was prime minister from 1981 to 2003 – is really prepared to cede more power to the fourth estate.

“Mahathir is not known to be a democrat, so there is some scepticism,” said Gan. “We are going through a period of euphoria and things are still in flux. It will take a few months before we know.”

See also “Najib’s downfall a bitter-sweet victory for Malaysia’s stifled satirists” [L3N1SS2EE]

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

At the heart of the issue is that a number of Malaysia’s mainstream news outlets are either owned by parties from the former coalition government or linked to state entities.

This allowed the political leadership to vet senior editorial appointments and influence coverage, stifling opposition voices during the campaign and sending readers elsewhere for the facts.

A general view of Malaysiakini’s newsroom in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 24, 2018. REUTERS/John Geddie

“In prison I had no access to newspapers, television, so in a way it was good. I kept my sanity by not reading local papers,” reform leader Anwar Ibrahim joked as he addressed reporters last week after his release from prison, where he was jailed three years ago on charges of sodomy that he said were politically motivated.

He and Mahathir came together in the alliance that won the May 9 election.

In the free-for-all that has followed, journalists at the likes of the Star, an English-language newspaper majority owned by one of the Barisan parties, have scrambled to catch up on big stories mostly ignored previously.

“Up until May 8, the mainstream media was used by the government to create an alternate reality which no thinking person could really have believed in,” said Martin Vengadesan, news editor at the Star.

The paper this week published his interview with Clare Rewcastle-Brown, whose groundbreaking reporting on a financial scandal at state fund 1MDB was suppressed and led to her exile from Malaysia, on the front page.

“When I was interviewing (Rewcastle-Brown) and we were talking openly about … corruption at the highest level, I had to keep checking myself because I was not used to this much openness,” Vengadesan said in an e-mail.

But Vengadesan added that because of the Star’s political ownership, it does face uncertainty.

“I don’t have any answers as to what future direction we may take,” he said. The Star’s major shareholder, the Malaysian Chinese Association party, was in the former coalition government but lost all but one of its seats in the election.

For even the most intrepid reporters, years of persecution at the hands of the government have made them wary of promises of change.

Under the previous administration, financial newspaper the Edge and news site the Malaysian Insider were suspended, two cartoonists were charged for satirising Prime Minister Najib Razak, and charges were brought against Malaysiakini’s co-founders, Gan and Premesh Chandran.

Life was set to get even tougher under fake news laws brought in last month, under which misleading reports can lead to prison terms of up to six years.

Slideshow (2 Images)

On the campaign trail, Mahathir’s political alliance promised to repeal the fake news law but since the election the new premier has equivocated. “Even though we support freedom of press and freedom of speech, there are limits,” Mahathir said.

In the early years of Mahathir’s first spell as prime minister, he suspended three newspapers – the Star, Sin Chew Daily and Watan – and used several laws to curb speech freedoms.

“After that, everybody did a lot of self-censorship and wanted to avoid problems,” Chan Aun Kuang, editor-in-chief of Chinese-language newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau, told Reuters.

However, this time, Mahathir’s party is a minority in the new ruling coalition, and if his authoritarianism resurfaced it is likely to be curbed by his partners. So far, he has shown a consultative approach in dealings with his new allies.

Anwar, an enemy-turned-ally of Mahathir who is expected to take over as prime minister at some point, has already sounded a different note.

“We are committed to the reform agenda, beginning with the judiciary, media and the entire apparatus,” he said last week.

THE MALAYSIAN WAY

Even if some of the publishing controls are dismantled, and government pressure subsides, some of the country’s leading independent media outlets don’t expect radical changes in a press corps conditioned for years to behave cautiously.

“We have our own way,” said Kamarul Bahrain Haron, deputy editor-in-chief of Astro Awani, a round-the-clock news channel.

“We always love to say in editorial meetings an idiom or proverb in Malay: ‘If there’s a pound of flour, and just one strand of hair, you pull the hair without disturbing the flour,’” he said, explaining that means being critical without creating a stir.

Another factor shaking up Malaysia’s media landscape is familiar the world over: social media and the smartphone.

From scurrilous gossip to footage of opposition rallies, many Malaysians turned to each other and to opposition leaders directly on Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter in the run-up to the election, completely bypassing major media and the regulators.

“We’re not following the government media stuff, they’re a laughing stock,” said Kuzi Romeo, who drives a taxi in Kuala Lumpur and prefers to get his news from Whatsapp groups instead.

He said he believed “about 25 percent” of what he reads in mainstream newspapers. “Since the election, maybe 30 percent, they’re still the same media,” he said.

(Corrects paragraph 20 to show party won one seat in election, not zero)

Additional reporting by Tom Allard; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan

The post Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2sbSTZD via News of World

[newestbalance]

Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – In the first hours after the biggest political upset in Malaysia’s history, the chief editor of news site Malaysiakini gathered his team in their cramped newsroom in a shabby industrial estate on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

FILE PHOTO: Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak arrives to give a statement to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in Putrajaya, Malaysia May 22, 2018. REUTERS/Lai Seng Sin

Some journalists and volunteers brought in to cover this month’s election that ousted the Barisan Nasional coalition from power after 61 years shed a few tears of joy, recounted Steven Gan, the editor.

Others fretted that a government that had relentlessly harassed them, even blocking their site during the vote count on election night, may still try to cling to power.

With widespread distrust in the largely party-owned or pro-Barisan press that skipped stories of corruption and gave little voice to opposition parties, reporting from alternative news sources like Malaysiakini played a major role in rousing an electorate angered by endemic graft and rising living costs.

Remembering what he said to his staff that morning, Gan said it was no victory speech, but a simple message: “It doesn’t really matter who is in power, we as journalists will continue to do our job.”

Wall-to-wall coverage of the fallout from the election since then has given a sense that Malaysia’s media has been unshackled by the arrival of a new coalition that includes pro-democracy activists and has pledged to repeal anti-fake news legislation.

However, uncertainty remains as to whether the mainstream media, conditioned to be cautious because of the diverse religious and ethnic mix in the country, will keep its focus on politics when the election fever dies down.

Or whether the new administration led by 92-year-old Mahathir Mohamad – who intimidated and muzzled the media when he was prime minister from 1981 to 2003 – is really prepared to cede more power to the fourth estate.

“Mahathir is not known to be a democrat, so there is some scepticism,” said Gan. “We are going through a period of euphoria and things are still in flux. It will take a few months before we know.”

See also “Najib’s downfall a bitter-sweet victory for Malaysia’s stifled satirists” [L3N1SS2EE]

STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

At the heart of the issue is that a number of Malaysia’s mainstream news outlets are either owned by parties from the former coalition government or linked to state entities.

This allowed the political leadership to vet senior editorial appointments and influence coverage, stifling opposition voices during the campaign and sending readers elsewhere for the facts.

A general view of Malaysiakini’s newsroom in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia May 24, 2018. REUTERS/John Geddie

“In prison I had no access to newspapers, television, so in a way it was good. I kept my sanity by not reading local papers,” reform leader Anwar Ibrahim joked as he addressed reporters last week after his release from prison, where he was jailed three years ago on charges of sodomy that he said were politically motivated.

He and Mahathir came together in the alliance that won the May 9 election.

In the free-for-all that has followed, journalists at the likes of the Star, an English-language newspaper majority owned by one of the Barisan parties, have scrambled to catch up on big stories mostly ignored previously.

“Up until May 8, the mainstream media was used by the government to create an alternate reality which no thinking person could really have believed in,” said Martin Vengadesan, news editor at the Star.

The paper this week published his interview with Clare Rewcastle-Brown, whose groundbreaking reporting on a financial scandal at state fund 1MDB was suppressed and led to her exile from Malaysia, on the front page.

“When I was interviewing (Rewcastle-Brown) and we were talking openly about … corruption at the highest level, I had to keep checking myself because I was not used to this much openness,” Vengadesan said in an e-mail.

But Vengadesan added that because of the Star’s political ownership, it does face uncertainty.

“I don’t have any answers as to what future direction we may take,” he said. The Star’s major shareholder, the Malaysian Chinese Association party, was in the former coalition government but lost all but one of its seats in the election.

For even the most intrepid reporters, years of persecution at the hands of the government have made them wary of promises of change.

Under the previous administration, financial newspaper the Edge and news site the Malaysian Insider were suspended, two cartoonists were charged for satirising Prime Minister Najib Razak, and charges were brought against Malaysiakini’s co-founders, Gan and Premesh Chandran.

Life was set to get even tougher under fake news laws brought in last month, under which misleading reports can lead to prison terms of up to six years.

Slideshow (2 Images)

On the campaign trail, Mahathir’s political alliance promised to repeal the fake news law but since the election the new premier has equivocated. “Even though we support freedom of press and freedom of speech, there are limits,” Mahathir said.

In the early years of Mahathir’s first spell as prime minister, he suspended three newspapers – the Star, Sin Chew Daily and Watan – and used several laws to curb speech freedoms.

“After that, everybody did a lot of self-censorship and wanted to avoid problems,” Chan Aun Kuang, editor-in-chief of Chinese-language newspaper Nanyang Siang Pau, told Reuters.

However, this time, Mahathir’s party is a minority in the new ruling coalition, and if his authoritarianism resurfaced it is likely to be curbed by his partners. So far, he has shown a consultative approach in dealings with his new allies.

Anwar, an enemy-turned-ally of Mahathir who is expected to take over as prime minister at some point, has already sounded a different note.

“We are committed to the reform agenda, beginning with the judiciary, media and the entire apparatus,” he said last week.

THE MALAYSIAN WAY

Even if some of the publishing controls are dismantled, and government pressure subsides, some of the country’s leading independent media outlets don’t expect radical changes in a press corps conditioned for years to behave cautiously.

“We have our own way,” said Kamarul Bahrain Haron, deputy editor-in-chief of Astro Awani, a round-the-clock news channel.

“We always love to say in editorial meetings an idiom or proverb in Malay: ‘If there’s a pound of flour, and just one strand of hair, you pull the hair without disturbing the flour,’” he said, explaining that means being critical without creating a stir.

Another factor shaking up Malaysia’s media landscape is familiar the world over: social media and the smartphone.

From scurrilous gossip to footage of opposition rallies, many Malaysians turned to each other and to opposition leaders directly on Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter in the run-up to the election, completely bypassing major media and the regulators.

“We’re not following the government media stuff, they’re a laughing stock,” said Kuzi Romeo, who drives a taxi in Kuala Lumpur and prefers to get his news from Whatsapp groups instead.

He said he believed “about 25 percent” of what he reads in mainstream newspapers. “Since the election, maybe 30 percent, they’re still the same media,” he said.

(Corrects paragraph 20 to show party won one seat in election, not zero)

Additional reporting by Tom Allard; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan

The post Telling truth to power still no easy task for Malaysia appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2sbSTZD via Everyday News

[cubaverdad]

Cuba had been unplugged from American culture for generations. What happens now?

Cuba had been unplugged from American culture for generations. What happens now? Randy Lewis CUBA'S ROBERTO GOMEZ HAD a single night free on his first trip to San Francisco, part of a short performance visit in his role as lead guitarist for singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, often referred to as "The Bob Dylan of Cuba," and "The Poet of Havana." Gomez might have chosen to head to any number of clubs, restaurants or other social gathering places in one of the most vibrant and culturally rich cities in the U.S. Instead, foremost on his mind immediately after the Varela concert performance was his search for a power cord to his laptop computer. Is Hollywood out of touch with your America? Tell us >> "I just want to go back to my hotel," Gomez said, "and watch all the music videos we cannot see at home." It's a common cry from Cuban musicians in particular, and artists in general. State-controlled media in the socialist country is heavily censored, and access to the Internet has only begun, leaving Cubans often feeling isolated from the cultural conversations going on in their culture-dominating neighbor to the north. Indeed, one of the most prized commodities among Cubans is "El Paquete" — The Package, typically a 500-gigabyte memory stick containing downloaded American music, movies and television programs secreted into the country from the U.S. by relatives, friends or cunning entrepreneurs. Consider it a contemporary expression of the cultural grapevine that has long kept Cuban musicians apprised of what their peers elsewhere in the world are doing. Cuba's artists and musicians take pride in forging a cultural scene outside of the direct influence of Hollywood and the kind of hit-making pull that has led countries such as France to impose quotas on American movies and music. But there is still a strong desire for artists and musicians to interact with their counterparts in the U.S. and around the world. "I come from a generation of musicians that grew up with no access to the Internet whatsoever," said trumpeter Yelfris Valdés, who left Cuba in 2014 to work in London, where he has played with various world-beat groups as well as his own Dub Afro Electric Jazz ensemble. "Although when I started to learn about jazz music at school, I was fully aware of what was happening with the composers [and] arrangers from around the world. "Fellow musicians who were already traveling would feed to the rest of us what was going on in the industry," Valdés said. "Thanks to that information I received as a student, I am now producing a more complex type of music. The more styles of music I can have access to, the richer my own music becomes." Which means, despite the stereotype created by the large number of pre-Cuban revolution American cars commonly found in Havana and other cities, Cuban music is hardly stuck in the 1950s. Along with the traditional son and salsa music that thrives in clubs and theaters around the country, it's possible these days to find Cuban hip-hop and R&B; acts serving up their equivalent to the latest videos by American trend-setters such as Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé or Rihanna. But it's a relatively recent development, and Cubans still don't have ready access to the actual videos, much less live music, from Western pop stars. The Cuban government has a strict filter on media coming into the country. That is compounded by the political, economic and cultural embargo imposed by the U.S. on Cuba almost 60 years ago, established following Fidel Castro's history-shifting revolution on Jan. 1, 1959. Easing of some elements of the embargo under President Obama's administration has allowed great opportunity for Cuban musicians to visit the U.S. and perform here. Cuba and its music, for instance, will be the focal point internationally at the 2017 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. But many musicians and artists who have welcomed improved relations with the U.S. expressed uncertainty and concern about whether President-elect Donald Trump is more likely to continue opening travel and commerce opportunities or return to more restrictive policies. As the decades have rolled by, musicians, especially the younger generations, have often struggled to work with their American counterparts, to perform and promote their music to U.S. audiences and to be actively engaged with the most lucrative music market in the world. "Youth is characterized by the desire to explore and know," said singer, guitarist, percussionist and educator Jesus Bello. "Most of the young musicians wish to work abroad not only to obtain better pay for their work, but for the exchange with other musicians." The reverse is equally true: Americans and other musicians outside Cuba are frequently compelled to visit to learn more about the country's music and musicians. "It's a great, rich place of music— there are so many styles," Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger said following his band's first performance in Cuba in March, a free show that drew a massive crowd estimated at 500,000 to 600,000 people. "I have no pretense of understanding where it's all coming from. Music historians must love it, because there is so much richness in one fairly small place." A major step toward bringing Cuban music to the outside world came in 1997, when American roots musicians Ry Cooder and British producer Nick Gold visited Havana. They spearheaded the Buena Vista Social Club project, a recording and companion documentary (by German filmmaker Wim Wenders) that spotlighted a coterie of veteran Cuban musicians performing the infectious music that's lived and breathed within the country, but was previously little exposed in the U.S. "There's a world of music down there," said singer-songwriter Jackson Browne, who recently led a contingent of international oceanographic scientists to Cuba to study the relatively pristine ocean around the island. During that trip, he arranged for them to be exposed to the music of Varela, for whom Browne has become something of a cheerleader in the U.S., along with other Varela admirers among the rock music community including Dave Matthews and Bonnie Raitt. "We're isolated from Cuba, rather than Cuba being isolated from the world," Browne told The Times recently. "We are the ones that have isolated ourselves from this incredibly rich musical culture. For all of the attempts at isolation, Cuban music has still had an incredible influence in the U.S. It's influenced jazz, it's influenced a lot of our music over the years. But we don't know the most contemporary stuff" because of the embargo. Bello agrees that the embargo has resulted in misconceptions and ignorance among Americans about the deep well of Cuban music. "Silence and isolation between our ways of life have made many [American] people imagine Cuba in a very different way than it is," Bello said, a situation that increased travel opportunities has begun to change. "I think it is very good for people to see the different ways and musical programs we have in Cuba, from the academies and the theaters to the most authentic manifestations that have been transmitted orally from generation to generation, such as peasant music, rumba and the tunes of African saints, changüí , nengón , parrandas , etc." One of the more dramatic results of the recent easing of relations is the April release of "Papa Hemingway in Cuba," the first major Hollywood film to be shot in Cuba since before the revolution. Cuban music purveyors as well as rank-and-file fans also point to the watershed moment in March when the Stones performed, although non-Cubans who attended that show noted that most in the audience seemed familiar with the group only in the most general way, and sang along en masse only with one song: "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." "Just 3½ years ago things were totally different," said Nancy Covey, who booked concerts at McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and now runs a music-focused tour company. "The first time I went, I didn't have any communication with the outside world; they didn't either and they were desperate to know what was going on in the States. "It used to be that all they had [in terms of American recordings] was really old, battered vinyl you'd find at flea markets," she said. "It reminded me a lot of the old Soviet Union. Even in the last year it has changed so much — they're starting to get iPhones and have access to the Internet. "I can't imagine that the influx of American music and culture is not going to be a huge game changer," she said. "They're hungry for it, and here it comes — but they don't get that they might lose a whole lot of what they have." That crystallizes a fear expressed often in Cuba: that a full lifting of the embargo, should it occur, may unleash what Cuban architectural historian Miguel Coyula called "a tsunami" of cultural and economic changes that could overwhelm his country. "The government here is reactive, not proactive," Coyula told an American visitor in November. "They will wait until it happens and then try to figure out how to respond." Cuban musicians say their motives for coming to the U.S. are closely scrutinized by both governments because of fears on both sides that once here, they would try to remain. Bello, who lives in Santa Clara, about 170 miles east of Havana, is planning a U.S. visit in the spring to work with a group of musicians in New Jersey interested in learning more about the traditional Cuban music styles in which he is fluent. But he faces challenges, not only in receiving travel visas for himself and others he wants to bring along, but also in arranging funding for the trip and securing venues for stateside performances that could help offset the prohibitive costs of travel and accommodations in the U.S. "In general, few people come to Cuba wanting to know about our work," Bello said recently. "It is important for us and for those who don't know Cuba. I am looking forward to the possibility to share my work [in the U.S.]. Even after the roads that were opened by the Buena Vista Social Club, it is still not anything easy." Bello faces the double-edged struggle of passing on Cuban music traditions to younger players, many of whom would rather leave Cuba and try to pursue careers in the U.S., Europe or elsewhere. Cuban universities still focus on training musicians in European-rooted classical traditions, and Bello is pushing to get Cuban academics to acknowledge and accept traditional Cuban music performance as part of the curriculum at the university level. His son, Jose Manuel Bello, has been brought up with the traditional son and has formed a band consisting of other players in their early 20s, helping fulfill his father's wish to keep the traditions strong with Cuban youth. "I always stress to the young people with whom I work that the path within the music Is infinite," Bello said. "Each one must find the course that best suits him and exploit his talent as much as the opportunities and his talent will allow it." Along that line, Varela band guitarist Gomez noted that he'd been well-trained in classical guitar techniques in his years at Cuban universities. But he had to seek out and study with a private teacher to learn the nuances of the rock guitarists he wanted to emulate, players including British musician Richard Thompson, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and Dire Straits' Mark Knopfler — a different vocabulary he brings to bear in working with Varela. American drummer Michael Jerome, a member of Thompson's band, visited Cuba in 2013 and soaked up what he could of the distinctive rhythms of Cuban music, even arranging for individual lessons with Cuban percussionists while he was there. He takes a largely positive outlook at the prospect of cultural walls coming down between the U.S. and Cuba. "I do think Cubans will appreciate more access to American music and we'll see a lot more evidence of that influence reflected in the coming years," he said. "I don't think Cubans will lose any uniqueness or identity. If anything it will be strengthen by the fear of losing it, and/or the love and uniqueness of sharing it. It's like nothing else and is desired because of it." Twitter: @RandyLewis2 Source: Cuba had been unplugged from American culture for generations. What happens now? - LA Times - Cuba had been unplugged from American culture for generations. What happens now? via Blogger http://ift.tt/2iPGB3L