Sam Bankman-Fried Says He’s Not to Blame for FTX Collapse: ‘Didn’t Ever Try to Commit Fraud’

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Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, attempted to distance himself from suggestion of fraud in his first public appearance since his company’s collapse stunned investors and left creditors facing losses totaling billions of dollars.

Speaking at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin at what he said was against the advice of his lawyers, Bankman-Fried said that he did not knowingly commingle customer funds on FTX with funds at his proprietary trading firm, Alameda Research.

The liquidity crunch at FTX came after Bankman-Fried secretly moved $10 billion of FTX customer funds to Alameda Research, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. At least $1 billion in customer funds had vanished, the people said.

Bankman-Fried told Reuters the company did not “secretly transfer” but rather misread its “confusing internal labeling.

FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried stepped down as chief executive on Nov. 11, after traders pulled $6 billion from the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal. (Read more from “Sam Bankman-Fried Says He’s Not to Blame for FTX Collapse: ‘Didn’t Ever Try to Commit Fraud'” HERE)

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Musk Claims Dispute With Tech Giant Over Twitter’s Potential Removal From App Store ‘Resolved’

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that he and Apple CEO Tim Cook met Wednesday and claimed to have resolved a dispute over the social media site’s presence on the tech giant’s App Store.

“Good conversation,” Musk posted on Twitter two and a half hours after he tweeted a five-second video showing a pond at Apple’s headquarters. “Among other things, we resolved the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from the App Store. Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so.”

Musk claimed Monday that Apple threatened to boot Twitter from the App Store, targeting Cook in a series of tweets, as well as amplifying a claim from LBRY, a content creation site, about censorship. Musk noted that the option of designing a smartphone was on the table if Twitter was removed from the app stores of Apple and Google.

(Read more from “Musk Claims Dispute With Tech Giant Over Twitter’s Potential Removal From App Store ‘Resolved’” HERE)

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The Balenciagas of an Anti-Christian World ‘Condemn’ Child Abuse While Castrating, Traumatizing, and Exploiting Kids

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It’s hard to think of an episode more tailored to confirm the wildest conspiracy theories of QAnon — that global elites are a bunch of Satan-worshipping pedophiles — than the ongoing Balenciaga scandal.

Here you have a luxury fashion brand literally caught in the act of grooming, with a recent ad campaign featuring small children in Balenciaga apparel holding teddy bears wearing sexual fetish and bondage gear, and another ad campaign that included images of court documents from a 2008 Supreme Court decision in United States v. Williams, which ruled on a law banning the pandering of child pornography.. .

But there is a deeper story here beyond the hypocrisy and depravity of a single luxury fashion brand, which is that companies like Balenciaga, along with nearly all corporate brands today, have no criteria for saying why such images are a “wrong choice,” or that publishing them is a “grievous error.”

In its statement, Balenciaga says, “We strongly condemn child abuse.” But does it? The photo shoots themselves, in which young children were exposed to teddy bears in BDSM gear, were arguably abusive. How can a brand both condemn and engage in child abuse?

The answer is that the term “child abuse” has no meaning to the people who run Balenciaga, just as it has no meaning to the people who provide “gender-affirming care” at Boston Children’s Hospital, one of many hospitals where minors are routinely castrated, mutilated, and given powerful puberty-blocking drugs that cause irreversible damage. Same goes for those who put on all-ages drag shows targeting children, or push for pornographic material to be available in public school libraries. For these people, “child abuse” is a phrase without content, a holdover from a moral universe they believe they have transcended, or perhaps destroyed. (Read more from “The Balenciagas of an Anti-Christian World ‘Condemn’ Child Abuse While Castrating, Traumatizing, and Exploiting Kids” HERE)

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19,000 Millionaires Collected Unemployment During the Pandemic

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Thousands of millionaires were collecting government unemployment checks while essential workers were paying into the system during the pandemic, according to IRS data.

More than 19,000 tax filers who reported earning at least $1 million in 2020 also collected unemployment benefits that year. They walked away with more than a quarter of a billion dollars in payments, the IRS found.

Among them were 229 taxpayers who earned at least $10 million that year yet also applied for and took unemployment payments. Nearly 700 more taxpayers collected jobless benefits despite making $5 million to $10 million.

Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who in 2020 tried to draw attention to the likelihood that millionaires would get unemployment benefits, said it was particularly galling to see them collect money while so many lower-wage workers were still on the job and paying taxes to fund the system. She called it the “reverse-millionaire tax.”

“The true million-dollar question is: Why did Congress continue to pay the rich not to work?” she said. (Read more from “19,000 Millionaires Collected Unemployment During the Pandemic” HERE)

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Whistleblower Says Border Patrol Released Convicted Murderer Because He Had COVID

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Border Patrol agents were ordered to release a convicted murderer because he had contracted the coronavirus and Homeland Security didn’t want to house him, according to a former high-ranking immigration official.

Tom Homan, who served as head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration, said he was told about the release by a Border Patrol agent involved in the incident.

The agent wanted to become a whistleblower. Mr. Homan, in an interview last week with SiriusXM’s Patriot channel, said he directed the agent to House Republicans, who are about to take control of the chamber and its committees, giving them the ability to showcase the complaints.

“Right now, several Border Patrol agents have contacted me and wanted to become whistleblowers. I turned them over to (Rep.) Jim Jordan’s office to be processed,” Mr. Homan told The Washington Times’ Kerry Picket, who was hosting the channel’s “Wilkow Majority” program. “So whistleblowers within DHS have already come out, and they’re already being processed to give their testimony.”

Mr. Jordan is a Congress member from Ohio who is expected to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee next year. His office didn’t respond to inquiries from The Times. (Read more from “Whistleblower Says Border Patrol Released Convicted Murderer Because He Had COVID” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Out for ‘Blood’: Country Tries to Seize Guardianship of Baby Over Parents’ Vaccine Stance

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New Zealand’s government health service has applied to remove guardianship of a 4-month-old baby boy from his parents after they demanded that his life-saving surgery can proceed only with blood that does not contain the COVID-19 vaccine.

Health New Zealand, also known as Te Whatu Ora, made a court application Monday with the Auckland High Court to transfer guardianship under the Care of Children Act so the baby can receive the operation, according to court documents reported by the New Zealand Herald.

The baby’s parents recently explained their position during an interview with Liz Gunn, a broadcaster from New Zealand who has raised concerns about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.

Explaining how their son has severe pulmonary valve stenosis and needs surgery “almost immediately,” the parents said they are “extremely concerned with the blood [the doctors] are going to use.” . . .

The parents maintained that more than 20 unvaccinated people were willing to donate the blood for their son’s operation, but that had not been approved by the government’s New Zealand Blood Service (NZBS), according to the New Zealand Herald. (Read more from “Out for ‘Blood’: Country Tries to Seize Guardianship of Baby Over Parents’ Vaccine Stance” HERE)

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GOP Governors Join Letter Opposing Military COVID Vaccine Mandate

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A group of 21 GOP governors joined a letter on Wednesday to congressional leaders in an effort to stop President Joe Biden from initiating a COVID vaccine mandate for military personnel.

The letter — sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Republican minority leaders in the House and Senate — called for immediate action concerning the military’s vaccine requirement.

“The Biden vaccine mandate on our military creates a national security risk that severely impacts our defense capabilities abroad and our state readiness here at home,” the Republican governors wrote.

“We face a two-front problem due to the Biden vaccine mandate: current servicemembers are leaving our ranks, and new recruits are not signing up to join. Implementation of the mandate has placed our nation’s military readiness at risk,” they added.

The letter cited concerns regarding National Guard recruiting efforts that had missed their mark as a major factor for the request. The Army National Guard missed its recruiting target by 10% and announced that 7,500 members left service in an October report cited in the letter. (Read more from “GOP Governors Join Letter Opposing Military COVID Vaccine Mandate” HERE)

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Eastern Ukraine Had Good Reason to Join Russia, After Kyiv’s Aggression

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Once a Pittsburgh sister city also known for its steel industry, Donetsk, and the greater Donbas region in which it is located, has been at war since 2014. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, 14,000 people died in this conflict, even before Russia began its military operations in February. I’ve just returned from there.

Before Russia’s intervention, the conflict had been between the people of that region and the government in Kiev, after an unconstitutional coup took 2014. This coup, known as “Maidan,” was — as then US Ambassador to Ukraine Victoria Nuland explained in a recorded telephone conversation — managed by the United States.

The coup brought to power a pro-Western, anti-Russian, government, which contained elements which were far-right and even Nazi. The best known element, as the Nation Magazine reported in 2019, is the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has been part of Ukraine’s National Guard since 2014. Its commander Andriy Biletsky once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is to “lead the White Races of the world in a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” . . .

However, the people of Donetsk, who have lived this reality now for almost nine years, are very clear that all of this is real. Indeed, I met people in Donetsk (some quite elderly) who volunteered back in 2014 to defend their land and their people from the Kiev government’s aggression.

Much of the government views the predominantly ethnic Russian people of the Donbas as inferior beings whose language and culture, including the Russian Orthodox Church, should be eradicated. I actually traveled to Donestk in a vehicle laden with clothes destined for a Russian Orthodox monastery in Donetsk that is constantly being shelled by the Kiev government. These monks now live in underground rooms beneath the increasingly-destroyed monastery. (Read more from “Eastern Ukraine Had Good Reason to Join Russia, After Kyiv’s Aggression” HERE)

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Another Fashion Designer Tied to Satanism and Child Abuse

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A fashion stylist connected to haute-couture fashion house Balenciaga broke her silence after being accused of posting images featuring graphic violence against children.

Lotta Volkova worked hand-in-hand with Balenciaga’s creative director Demna Gvasalia until 2017 and was forced to set her Instagram account to ‘private’ after facing backlash over the images she posted to social media, according to Newsweek.

Tweets directing attention to her photographs went viral as fans called out the label and its celebrity supporters, demanding answers and calling for Volkova to face consequences.

The stylist’s social media pages came under scrutiny after Balenciaga shared a controversial ad campaign that featured children holding stuffed bears dressed in BDSM gear and a partially hidden printout of a Supreme Court case dealing with child pornography. The fashion label has since announced a $25 million lawsuit against the production company responsible for the ads.

On Volkova’s Instagram page, fans uncovered scenes of violence and Satanic imagery, much of it involving children, although it remains unclear if Volkova photographed the images herself or just shared them to her online profile, according to Newsweek. Volkova’s representative spoke on her behalf, saying “she condemns the abuse of children in any form,” according to the outlet.

(Read more from “Another Fashion Designer Tied to Satanism and Child Abuse” HERE)

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Russian Crypto Billionaire Dead in Helicopter Crash: Reports

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Russian billionaire cryptocurrency investor Vyacheslav Taran died near the French-Italian border after his helicopter crashed, according to multiple reports.

Taran was riding in an Airbus H130 from Lucerne, Switzerland, to Monaco on Friday when it crashed in Villefranche-sur-Mer, the New York Post reported, citing radio network France Bleu.

The helicopter carrying Taran was owned by the company Monacair, Alexander Makogonov, head of press service for the Russian Embassy, told Russian news outlet TASS. The Russian Embassy in Paris has been in communication with Taran’s family, according to TASS.

(Read more from “Russian Crypto Billionaire Dead in Helicopter Crash: Reports” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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