Tag: hypocrisy

“Distasteful Masterclass In Hypocrisy”: Elites Swarm Davos In Private Jets To Discuss Climate Crisis

The annual conference of the World Economic Forum begins today in Davos, Switzerland. Global elites landed in luxurious private jets over the last few days in airports around Davos to discuss important global challenges, such as climate change, behind closed doors. 

“The rich and powerful are swarming to Davos to discuss climate and inequality behind closed doors using the most unequal and polluting form of transport: private jets,” Klara Maria Schenk, transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s European mobility campaign, told news website Politics.co.uk. 

Greenpeace International published a new report that showed 1,040 private jets flew in and out of airports around Davos for last year’s meeting, causing CO2 emissions from private jets to increase four times more versus a weekly average.

“Given that 80% of the world’s population has never even flown, but suffers from the consequences of climate-damaging aviation emissions, and that the WEF claims to be committed to the 1.5°C Paris Climate Target, this annual private jet bonanza is a distasteful masterclass in hypocrisy. Private jets must be consigned to history if we are to have a green, just and safe future for all. So-called world leaders must lead by example and ban private jets and useless short-haul flights,” added Schenk.

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BIDEN USED CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS ACCUSATION AGAINST CARTER CIA NOMINEE

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN and his supporters have sought to downplay the significance of the improperly handled and stored classified documents discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, a think tank where Biden maintained an office. The documents are believed to relate to his time as vice president under Barack Obama. But then it emerged that another batch of classified documents was recovered from Biden’s personal garage at his home in Delaware. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter.

Former President Donald Trump and his supporters have defended his transfer of classified materials to his resort at Mar-a-Lago, claiming that the president had authority to declassify the materials. That case is also the subject of a federal investigation.

It is a barely concealed secret in Washington, D.C., that for decades, elite politicians have engaged in some form of bending or breaking the rules on classified documents — in some cases for plausibly benign uses as writing memoirs. Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser Sandy Berger stole documents from the National Archives in 2003 by stuffing them inside his clothing and then destroyed some classified materials. He claimed he wanted to review the documents to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission. Gen. David Petraeus was forced to resign as CIA director in 2012 after it was revealed he had improperly handled classified materials, including taking some to his home and sharing them with his biographer with whom he was having an affair.

While there have been cases where criminal charges have been brought — Berger was fined $50,000 by a federal judge and lost his security clearance, and Petraeus got two years probation and a $100,000 fine — it is rare for a high-profile figure to face any meaningful criminal consequences for such actions. That, of course, is not the case with whistleblowers — including Reality Winner, Jeffrey Sterling, Terry Albury, and Daniel Hale — who have been aggressively prosecuted under the Espionage Act and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

The revelation that Biden illicitly stored classified materials, including in his garage, is a grave embarrassment to the president, particularly in light of the fact that Democrats have hammered away at Trump for months over the classified documents he retained at Mar-a-Lago. But there is also a relevant story from Biden’s past that bears mentioning.

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AOC Thinks Gas Stoves Cause Brain Damage — But She Still Uses One

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) belief that exposure to gas stoves “is linked to reduced cognitive performance” hasn’t stopped her from using one regularly in her home.

Multiple videos and images recorded in the New York Democrat’s kitchen and posted to social media show that she has a standard gas range in her apartment.

In one video posted to Instagram, Ocasio-Cortez can be seen bending over to dunk her face in a bowl of ice water with a gas stove clearly visible behind her.

Ocasio-Cortez immediately endorsed the idea of doing away with gas stoves after a Consumer Safety Commissioner told Bloomberg News that a ban on the appliance was on the table due to its alleged health effects.

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QAnon influencer who accused Democrats of pedophilia was himself convicted of abusing 8-year-old boy in 1999

A filmmaker confronted QAnon influencer David Todeschini about a past child abuse conviction in clips from a new HBO Max documentary.

In the clips posted on Twitter,  journalist Andrew Callaghan shows pictures of public figures including Oprah Winfrey and President Joe Biden to Todeschini who baselessly claims they are “pedophiles.” 

The belief that elite Hollywood figures and Democrats covertly run child abuse rings is one of the core claims of QAnon, the sprawling online conspiracy theory movement that Todeschini has promoted. 

Soon after, Callaghan tells Todeschini that he “needs to talk” to him about something.

“On May 19, 1999, you were convicted of sexual abuse in the first degree and sodomy in the second degree of an eight-year-old boy in New Jersey,” Callaghan says.

He continued: “So, according to this paper, you are a registered sex offender and a convicted pedophile.”

Todeschini then claims the conviction was “false.”

“I know, I’ve seen the paper. I pled because I knew – I did what Michael Flynn did. I knew I couldn’t win,” Todeschini responds, referring to former Donald Trump advisor Flynn’s 2017 guilty plea in the Mueller probe. 

“Do you feel like maybe you’re projecting by …” said Callaghan, before Todeschini jumps back in to say: “No, I’m not projecting.”

Todeschini’s criminal conviction was first reported in October 2021, by Right Wing Watch, which found that Todeschini was promoting QAnon conspiracy under the name David Trent.

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The hypocrisy of ‘those braying the loudest about misinformation’

We live in a time when U.S. politics is not only hyper-partisan, but toxic. Party activists on both sides of the divide assign a higher value to slurring those on the other side – and covering up for those on their side – than to telling the unvarnished truth.

In this hothouse environment, some well-meaning people assert that misinformation and “disinformation” threaten the very pillars of self-government.

The most obvious and immediate problem with this approach is hypocrisy: Many of those braying the loudest about misinformation have made wildly untrue assertions and statements themselves. The long-term problem is that freedom is and always will be utterly incompatible with a society in which the government or private media monopolies control the right of people to speak or write or broadcast without being censored.

In the waning days of December 1793, Thomas Paine was arrested in Paris. This was the height of the “Reign of Terror,” and the result of being detained on political charges, as Paine was, usually meant the guillotine. Paine certainly thought that was to be his fate.

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Climate Warrior Joe Biden Had the Omnibus Bill Flown to Him in St. Croix for Signing

President Joe Biden is a man supposedly on a mission to save the planet from climate change. He killed off America’s energy independence, tried to enact unconstitutional regulations to shutter coal-fired power plants, and is hell-bent on ending fossil fuels through a forced energy “transition.” 

But he also really needed his vacation on St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and, as a result, was not in Washington or nearby at Camp David or his homes in Delaware when it came time to sign the bloated $1.7+ trillion omnibus bill before the end of the year. 

To fix the problem, Joe Biden — who wants Americans to alter their lives and throw money at expensive and unreliable so-called “green” energy — had the bill flown to him in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Yes, really. You can’t make it up. 

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