Just wild:

Earlier this month, Free Speech Systems proposed a bankruptcy plan that would pay an annual salary of $520,000 to Jones and leave $7 million to $10 million to annually pay creditors, including the victims’ families.

This is all really wild, IMO.

The guy is being milked. Basically everything he does from now on will largely benefit people he is completely disconnected from, and who were not actually negatively impacted by his work.

It's a travesty.

Alex Jones reportedly concealing funds to avoid $1.5bn payout to Sandy Hook families

The conspiracy theorist was ordered to pay the families of the victims damages for claims that 2012 shooting was a hoax

^{Maya Yang (The Guardian)}

Posted on March 17, 2023

We will be upgrading our server kernels on Saturday the 18th starting at 11pm Pacific Daylight Time. Expected downtime is about ten minutes per service with the exception of Yacy which can take half an hour or longer to rebuild database after a reboot.

This will affect all of our services, free and non-free, virtual private servers, shell services, e-mail, and web hosting. The free services are the fediverse services, friendica.eskimo.com/, hubzilla.eskimo.com/, nextcloud.eskimo.com/, and yacy.eskimo.com/.

Real numbers are starting to come out.

Russia has spent months pummeling the country with missiles, seeking not only to cause destruction but also deplete Ukraine’s air defense stocks. Ukrainian soldiers have described acute shortages of basic ammunition, including mortar rounds and artillery shells. And upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian forces have died in the year-long war, U.S. officials estimate, including the most experienced soldiers.

They're ready to wind this down, I think.

‘Ukraine doesn’t have any time to waste’: U.S. races to prepare Kyiv for spring offensive

Washington is increasingly concerned about Ukraine’s dwindling supply of ammo and air defenses.

^POLITICO

Absolutely we need to get to the bottom of this and sort the media out.

It's good to see that Cruz is still running with this issue:

Cruz sent four letters to the chief officers of TikTok, Meta, Twitter, and Google asking for information about their platforms’ algorithms.
...
“As you are well aware, social media companies rely on algorithms to not only moderate content, but also to surface personalized recommendations to users,” Cruz said.

He emphasized the ways these algorithms play a tangible role in politics, noting that “Recommendation systems play an increasingly ubiquitous role in selecting content for individual consumption, including by promoting some content, using product design elements to prominently display recommendations, and downranking or filtering disfavored content and accounts.”

Later in the letters, Cruz wrote, “In a world where seven out of ten Americans receive their political news from social media, the manner in which content is filtered through recommendation systems has an undeniable effect on what Americans see, think, and ultimately believe.”

“At their best,” Cruz added, “recommendations help users discover interesting or relevant content that they might not otherwise find on a platform.”
...
But at their worst, Cruz said, these algorithms can be a recipe for addiction and a pipeline to obscene or harmful material, or can be redirected for partisan ends.

“[R]ecommendation systems can also fuel platform addiction by feeding users an essentially infinite stream of content,” Cruz said, adding that these algorithms “can be especially dangerous when recommendations make it easier for vulnerable users, especially teenagers, to find objectively harmful content, such as content that promotes eating disorders and self-harm.”

All of this is true and I sincerely hope that he is invested in bringing big tech to heel.

... But we cannot count the number of times that we have been disappointed by politicians, can we ?

Ted Cruz Launches New Senate Probe, Demands Answer From Big Tech Chiefs

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has launched a new Senate probe into Big Tech through the Senate Committee on ...

^{www.theepochtimes.com}

Absolute hero tier:

Tucker: So when you, look at me and say, "Yeah, of course [the media] is part of the means of control." That's obvious to you because you're 28, but I just didn't see it at all -- at all. And I'm ashamed of that.

PODCAST HOST: Isn't that what the media tries to do though?

TUCKER CARLSON: It's their only purpose. They're not here to inform you! Really? Even on the big things that really matter like the economy and the war and Covid, things that really matter and will effect you, no. Their job is not to inform you, they're working for the small group of people who actually run the world. They're their servants, they're the Praetorian Guard. And we should treat them with maximum contempt because they have earned it.

Stand behind this man.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/03/16/tucker_carlson_not_being_more_skeptical_about_the_iraq_war_is_my_greatest_regret.html

Honestly this detail makes it really interesting:

According to local residents interviewed by the Daily Mail, the woman and her attacker were inside the car, arguing, before the stabbing.

US spy stabbed in terrorist attack – media

The Cheltenham stabbing victim has been revealed as an American spy on loan to the nearby GCHQ, and her attacker was charged with terrorism

^RT

He's rightfully concerned:

The US could get directly involved in the Ukraine conflict if it sees that Kiev’s forces are on the back foot, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Seymour Hersh suggested on Tuesday.

Speaking at an event in Washington, DC hosted by the Committee for the Republic, a non-profit organization, Hersh noted that the US “did stupid things” during the Vietnam War, and suggested that Washington could “start doing something else” in the Ukraine conflict.

“I don’t know what happens if it goes bad for Ukraine, you have all this manpower,” he said, pointing out that the US has dispatched units of its 82nd and 101st elite airborne divisions close to the Ukrainian border, while “a lot of weapons and arms are coming” to Europe.

Even further interesting observations from Hersh:

According to Hersh, “the big deal” is that Russian President Vladimir Putin is ready to come to an agreement with the Ukrainian government. “The deal is demilitarize, and it’s going to be a no-go for us,” the journalist said, adding that the Russian leader “has not put in his main force yet” in the conflict.

Summing up the Ukraine conflict, Hersh argued that “we just may be kidding ourselves what’s going on there and what the results are going to be”.

He recalled the battle of Stalingrad during WWII, when Soviet troops suffered heavy losses but still emerged victorious. “Come on. Do we really want to mix up with those guys? I don’t think so,” the journalist added.

Russia likes to fight things at a slow pace and likes to be very careful with how it engages... It moves at its own speed.

I don't fully understand it myself, I have never pretended to be some expert in military afafirs. Let me further point out that I generally think it is the case that the experts in these affairs are often no better informed than any of us.

Nonetheless, we must be very weary of what our moron leaders will do in the West.

Seymour Hersh warns of potential US plan B in Ukraine

The US could get directly involved in the Ukraine conflict if Kiev’s position deteriorates, journalist Seymour Hersh argues

^RT

Oh brother...

“We are the f**king coolest private army in the world. We are recruiting fighters from all regions of Russia. Don’t w**ck off – go work for PMC Wagner,” the Russian-language ad says, before a phone number appears on screen.

LOL, what...

Asked about the salacious promo video, Wagner Group’s head Evgeny Prigozhin later confirmed that the ad was genuine.

“...advertising PMC Wagner on porn sites is a very good idea of ​​our marketers,” he said as cited by his press service. “I absolutely completely agree with them, and this advertisement says: ‘Go to fight in the Wagner PMC, stop j**king off.’ Who disagrees with this argument?”

We can at least agree that fighting for Wagner is cooler than wacking off.

Wagner Group takes out ads on Pornhub

Russia’s Wagner Group has purchased ads on Pornhub, urging young men to join the “coolest private army in the world”

^RT

Hard to imagine the next election going off smoothly. Already the intra-party fighting is wild.

Trump may also have a point here:

“Governor DeSantis’s failure to declare his candidacy is no mere oversight; it is a coordinated effort specifically designed for him to accept, as unethical gifts, illegal campaign contributions and certain personal benefits that are necessarily intended to influence,” it declares, providing what it describes as evidence of these claims.

The gloves are really off:

A press release from Make American Great Again Inc. states that DeSantis should be held accountable, removed from office, and disqualified from “any future ballot in the State of Florida” if the commission finds these alleged violations to be legitimate.

“The Make America Great Again movement was birthed to stop career politicians who use public service to amass personal wealth and power,” the pro-Trump PAC said in a statement.

Pro-Trump Super PAC Files Ethics Complaint, Accuses DeSantis of ‘Shadow Presidential Campaign’

The pro-Trump Super PAC Make America Great Again Inc. has filed an ethics complaint against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), accusing the governor of engaging in “illegal conduct” running a “shadow presidential campaign.”

^{Hannah Bleau (Breitbart)}

Oh, look, another Ashkenazi telling us all that our opinions are like murder to him if we question the trans agenda they are forcing on kids.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff compared the “hate” at public school board meetings Wednesday to that which motivated the Holocaust, in which the Nazis exterminated six million Jews and millions of other people.

"Second gentleman," of course, is a hilarious title.

This hate is interconnected. You see it in the discourse in the country right now. You see it in the divide that we have, in the, just going to school [board] meeting[s] — you see that hate that is out there, we’ve got to step up, and speak out, and we’ve got to call out the cowards out there, people — as my wife would say, these “so-called leaders.”

By call out the cowards he is talking about enlisting conservatives to police all of the people on the rigt...

"Settle down, guys! We're going to be called Holocausters!"

WATCH: Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff Compares School Board Meetings to the Holocaust

^{Joel B. Pollak (Breitbart)}

Yeah, nothing about this is completely ridiculous.

Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), whose collapse last week has triggered a global banking crisis, donated over $73 million to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement — but found itself unable to pay depositors in a cash crunch.

Also cue the posts where they point out that the new board is primarily made up of women (though I am not 100% sure this is completely true).

Some other good factoids:

“As a point of reference, $82.9 billion is more than the GDP of 46 African countries. In 2022, the Ford Motor Company’s profits were $23 billion,” they also noted. The sum of $82.9 million includes “more than $123 million to the BLM parent organizations directly,” as well as much more to other organizations supporting BLM’s agenda.

Failed Silicon Valley Bank Gave Black Lives Matter over $73 Million

^{Joel B. Pollak (Breitbart)}

Naturally, #Russia is on the move and is not going to let the drone go to waste.

The U.S. Reaper drone that crashed in the Black Sea Tuesday will be recovered and studied, a Russian spy chief claims, as the two countries tousle over how exactly the unmanned aircraft was brought down.

An MQ-9 Reaper attack-reconnaissance drone crashed into the Black Sea on Tuesday morning, prompting the United States Air Force (USAF) to accuse Russia of having acted in an “environmentally unsound” manner by dumping aviation fuel onto the drone before striking its propeller, causing it to lose power and crash. Russia for their part denied having come into contact with the drone, stating it crashed by itself without their help.

It is actually quite unimportant what the truth of the matter is.

What will really be interesting is if the Russians recover it and hand it over to the Iranians for reverse engineering.

Russia Will Retrieve Wreckage of Crashed U.S. Drone, Spy Chief Claims

Russia could use the oldest working warship in the world to raise the drone wreckage, while the U.S. is thought to have no ships in the area.

^{Oliver JJ Lane (Breitbart)}