Last week, a political campaign in California celebrated an impactful milestone, as the “Recall DA George Gascón” group announced it had collected over 400,000 signatures as of May 1, raising more than $6 million.
In order to get the recall question on the ballot, the campaign must collect 566,857 signatures from registered voters in Los Angeles County. This amounts to approximately 10% of registered voters, as county officials logged 5,690,406 total registrations for September’s gubernatorial recall election.
“Perhaps worse than any one specific policy, Gascón has sent a loud and clear message to criminals that he will always have their backs, whether that means lowering sentences or declining to prosecute certain crimes altogether,” a spokesperson with the Recall DA George Gascón campaign told The Daily Wire. 
“That mentality has turned the streets of Los Angeles into a living nightmare — criminals feel emboldened, residents feel unsafe, and victims feel completely betrayed. That is why you see convicted killers saying they are going to tattoo Gascón name on their forehead or toasting Gascón with homemade alcohol from inside a prison cell.”
In an earlier press release, the campaign said that it was “starting to see light at the end of the tunnel,” and that “there is a legitimate pathway to qualifying the recall by the July 6th deadline if we do not let up.”
“In addition to paid and volunteer signature gathering, the recall is preparing to mail out petitions with pre-paid return envelopes to targeted Los Angeles County voters,” the campaign added. “This is the make-or-break phase of the recall, and if we can pull off this monumental task, Gascón will be voted out in a landslide.”
According to <a href="https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/gascon-recall-is-being-funded-by-hollywood-power-players/">Los Angeles Magazine</a>, the effort to recall the controversial District Attorney is surprisingly bipartisan, with “help from some deep-pocketed Democratic donors and Hollywood grandees,” with some “big-name Democrats” entering “the fray in the early days of 2022.” The outlet described numerous early contributors to the campaign, including notable Democrats with links to the Clinton and Biden administrations.
Calls to recall Gascón follow a concerning rise in lawlessness in Los Angeles, with dozens of cities in America&#8217;s most populous county issuing votes of “no confidence” in the District Attorney. These include San Gabriel, Santa Clarita, Beverly Hills, Pico Rivera, Whitter, La Mirada, Covina, Rosemead, Azusa, Santa Fe Springs, Diamond Bar, Redondo Beach, Arcadia, Manhattan Beach, Temple City, Palos Verdes Estates and Lancaster.
The Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA), the “collective bargaining group for more than 800 deputy district attorneys in the county,” <a href="https://www.foxla.com/news/south-gate-city-council-issues-vote-of-no-confidence-in-da-george-gascon">voted</a> in support of the recall effort, with 98% of Gascón&#8217;s own line prosecutors voting in favor. Approximately 83% of association members took part in the vote.
&#8220;This vote is by those who are intimately familiar with how Mr. Gascón&#8217;s policies actually play out on a day-to-day basis,&#8221; ADDA President Michele Hanisee said in a statement announcing the vote. &#8220;We believe the vote of our members will resonate with the voters of Los Angeles as they decide whether to recall Gascón from office and restore public safety as the priority of the District Attorney&#8217;s Office.&#8221;
On the campaign’s <a href="https://www.recalldageorgegascon.com/why-recall-da-george-gascon/">website</a>, a summary of George Gascón&#8217;s directives include the elimination of cash bail, the redefinition of 13 crimes as misdemeanors (such as trespassing, driving without a license and resisting arrest), and treating repeat violent offenders as first-time offenders.
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on<a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth"> Twitter</a>,<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth"> Facebook</a>, and<a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth"> YouTube</a>.

George Gascon

Radical DA ‘Has Turned The Streets Of Los Angeles Into A Living Nightmare’: Campaign To Recall Gascón Raises More Than $6 Million

Recall DA George Gascón Celebrates 400,000 Signatures and $6 Million Raised To Remove Radical Los Angeles District Attorney

Crime

Los Angeles County

Recall

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT FOR MONDAY’S WORDLE…
On Monday, The New York Times admitted that it changed the answer of Monday’s Wordle Puzzle from “fetus” to “shine” alluding to the ongoing news cycle surrounding the contentious debate over abortion. The change also confused players, who complained of two possible solutions.
The original answer, “fetus,” was flagged as problematic following last week’s report that the Supreme Court might soon overturn 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision. However, according to The Times, the original “fetus” answer couldn’t be completely removed from its system, which resulted in some players working to uncover the first answer, and others working to uncover the second answer.
In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/09/crosswords/a-note-about-todays-wordle-game.html">statement</a>, New York Times Games explained that it wants “Wordle to remain distinct from the news,” and that “some users may see an outdated answer that seems closely connected to a major recent news event.”
“This is entirely unintentional and a coincidence — today’s original answer was loaded into Wordle last year,” the statement noted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Some of you may have a different Wordle answer than the official answer. Please refresh your browser to receive the correct answer word. For more information, please read our editor’s note. <a href="https://t.co/3dY5nRu7yu">https://t.co/3dY5nRu7yu</a>
&mdash; The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1523514223317315584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 9, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“At New York Times Games, we take our role seriously as a place to entertain and escape, and we want Wordle to remain distinct from the news,” the statement continued. “But because of the current Wordle technology, it can be difficult to change words that have already been loaded into the game. When we discovered last week that this particular word would be featured today, we switched it for as many solvers as possible.”
The statement explained that players wouldn’t “receive the outdated version” if they have refreshed browser windows.
“But we know that some people won’t do that and, as a result, will be asked to solve the outdated puzzle,” the statement added.
<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473">Politico</a> first reported Justice Samuel Alito’s early draft opinion which indicated Roe vs. Wade could likely be struck down.
“The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision — Planned Parenthood v. Casey — that largely maintained the right,” Politico reported.”
“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito reportedly wrote.
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Wordle

New York Times Changes Wordle Answer After Abortion News, Sparks User Confusion

New York Times Admits It Changed Worlde Solution From Fetus To Remain Distinct From Abortion News

Abortion

New York Times

SCOTUS

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been labeled as an enemy of the world, an evil and ruthless aggressor, and even — as President Joe Biden put it — a war criminal.
However, the assault on Ukraine is far from the first time since Putin rose to power that the Russian regime has been accused of leveraging violence to protect and expand its axis of influence and control.
Alexei Navalny
On August 20, 2020, the leading political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Alexei Navalny, suddenly fell seriously and mysteriously ill while on a flight from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow. After an emergency landing, Navalny was rushed to a hospital and put into a coma. Two days later, he was evacuated to a hospital in Germany. 
There, five certified labs from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons confirmed that a nerve agent had been used to poison Navalny.
“The presence of this poison was discovered without any doubt,” Germany’s Angela Merkel <a href="https://youtu.be/C3Ou_JY2yV0">announced</a> at the time. “Therefore, it is now certain that Alexei Navalny is the victim of a crime. The attempt was to silence him, and I condemn this.”
Unfortunately for so many, Navalny is far from the only person to fall victim after standing up in some way or another to the Russian regime. In many ways, Putin&#8217;s leading political opponent is lucky, since he lived to tell his story.
Who is Vladimir Putin?
Born in 1952, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was raised during a period of change in the Soviet Union known as de-Stalinization. As a young adult, he joined the Soviet intelligence agency, the KGB, and quickly rose through the ranks. He served in various roles, which may have included monitoring foreign government officials in Leningrad, spying in New Zealand, and later working as an undercover agent in East Germany. 
As the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin returned to Russia, and resigned from the KGB on the second day of a coup against then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, with Putin saying that he immediately decided which side he was on. 
It just so happened that Putin chose the side that was going to win…
Putin then pivoted to a career in politics, quickly rising to the position of deputy chief of the Presidential Staff under President Boris Yeltsin in just seven years. This meteoric rise continued, and he was eventually appointed as one of several deputy prime ministers. Yeltsin soon appointed Putin as acting prime minister of the Russian Federation, and stated that he wanted Putin to be his successor. Just a few months later, Yeltsin suddenly and unexpectedly resigned, and Putin became Acting President of the Russian Federation — before <a href="https://youtu.be/59AhatpMwRY">winning</a> the election the following March.
Putin has been in control of Russia ever since, as president from 2000 to 2008, as prime minister from 2008 to 2012, and as president again from 2012 until the present day.
And how has Putin exerted unwavering control over Russia for more than twenty years? Some believe that part of the answer to that question is a decades-long trail of violence that begins and ends in the Kremlin.
Journalists and their allies
In a similar fashion to the Soviet Union, under the Putin regime, dozens of journalists or political dissidents have been found dead. In fact, so many journalists have died in Russia — either in the field or from other causes — that an official day of remembrance — the Remembrance Day of Journalists Killed in the Line of Duty — is observed on December 15 every year.
One of these journalists is a woman called Anna Politkovskaya. She wrote a book called “Putin’s Russia,” in which she criticized the Putin regime, and Putin personally, for turning Russia into a police state. In what was found to be a contract killing for $150,000, she was shot at point-blank range outside her apartment. Five men were convicted of her murder, but it was never revealed who paid for the hit.
Putin spoke at her funeral, where he condemned Politkovskaya’s killing — as well as her reporting.
Another journalist in this growing list is Natalia Estemirova. She sometimes worked alongside Politkovskaya, and was found in the woods near her home. She had been abducted and shot in the head. No one was ever convicted in her death. 
Yet another victim of a contract killing was Paul Klebnikov, who was the chief editor of the Russian edition of Forbes. He investigated corruption in Russia — especially among the wealthy elite. He was killed in a drive-by shooting.
Political dissidents and Putin rivals
Boris Nemtsov — another former deputy prime minister of Russia under Yeltsin — was an outspoken critic of Putin, accusing Putin of, among many things, being in the pocket of wealthy Russian oligarchs.
He was <a href="https://youtu.be/TUGYJXx0izo">shot</a> four times in the back in the shadows of the Kremlin. Putin took personal control of the investigation, with one theory being that this was the result of Islamic extremism. The killer — or killers — were never found.
Another politician, Sergey Yushenkov, was assassinated just hours after registering his political party, Liberal Russia, to run for office in the parliamentary elections in late 2003.
Four people were convicted, one of them being a former co-chairman of the Liberal Russia party, who denied his involvement and later attempted suicide in prison.
Meanwhile, other deaths are as violent as they are mysterious.
First, there’s Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch, nicknamed “Rasputin,” who assisted Putin in his rise to power. He fled to the United Kingdom after his relationship with Putin deteriorated. He later threatened to bring down Putin and his regime by force — or at least by a bloodless revolution — and openly accused Putin of having his opponents murdered.
He previously survived multiple assassination attempts, including a bombing that decapitated his chauffeur. He was found <a href="https://youtu.be/WE8DcFDvajg">dead</a> in his home in England in what appeared to be a suicide. 
The coroner who investigated returned an open verdict, following two days of “contradictory” evidence. He said that he couldn’t prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Berezovsky killed himself, or was killed by someone else. 
According to one expert who specializes in hanging and asphyxiation cases, the marks on Berezovsky’s neck could not come from hanging, and they were “far away from the typical inverse ‘V’ shape” we usually see. He believed that Berezovsky was instead strangled, and then hung from the shower rail to mimic suicide.
Next, there’s Yuri Shchekochikhin, yet another journalist who investigated corruption and organized crime in the Soviet Union and Russia. He died suddenly from a mysterious illness just days before he was due to travel to the United States to meet with the FBI. His medical records were apparently either lost or destroyed, but his symptoms appeared to match other cases of radioactive poisoning, similar to Roman Tsepov, an earlier confidant to Putin, who died after he had a cup of tea at a local FSB office. 
Soon after, Tsepov was hospitalized after experiencing vomiting, diarrhea, and a drop in white blood cell count. He died 13 days later in Saint Petersburg.
And then there’s perhaps the most famous case of suspected radioactive poisoning of all: the 2006 case involving Alexander Litvinenko.
Alexander Litvinenko
It was also a cup of tea that caused the death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former KGB agent. 
Three weeks after drinking tea laced with the deadly radioactive compound, polonium-210, at a London hotel, Litvinenko died. An <a href="https://youtu.be/bSl7pdsTa-E">investigation</a> by British authorities found that Litvinenko was poisoned by several FSB agents, with orders likely coming straight from the Kremlin.
The European Court of Human Rights found the Kremlin responsible for Litvinenko’s death, while two of the accused FSB agents suggested that Litvinenko might have poisoned himself. 
And on his deathbed, Litvinenko accused Putin of ordering his assassination.
The Chechnya link?
While each one of these deaths, and many others, are disturbing enough, things get even more shocking when we scratch beneath the surface and discover that there are a few common threads that tie them all together, often involving the now-Russian republic of Chechnya.
When Litvinenko left the Federal Security Service, for example, he went on to become a vocal critic of the agency. He later blamed the service for carrying out a series of bombings in 1999 that killed hundreds of civilians in Russia, writing a book titled, “Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within.” 
Meanwhile, Russian authorities blamed these attacks on Chechen warlords, and the bombings increased public support for the invasion of Chechnya that followed, all of which contributed to the rise of Putin, who took a hard-line against Chechnya and vowed not to negotiate with terrorists.
The Liberal Russia leader, Yushenkov, believed that Russia orchestrated these attacks, and claimed to be gathering evidence of such a conspiracy when he was killed.
Berezovsky, the man who died in a supposed suicide, was allied with former Chechen warlord, Ahmed Zakayev, as well as Litvinenko, whom Berezovsky helped with the spread of these claims.
Litvinenko also accused the Kremlin of ordering the murder of Anna Politkovskaya. He’d worked with the doomed journalist on what they saw as another conspiracy — that the FSB were allegedly involved in the Moscow theater hostage crisis, when 50 Chechen terrorists stormed a theater and took 800 people captive. After a 57-hour standoff, Russian special forces raided the theater, during which most of the terrorists and 120 hostages were killed.
Politkovskaya — who investigated this story — also had links to others who have been killed. She was colleagues with Shchekochikhin, who died following a sudden and mysterious illness. Estemirova, who was abducted and shot in the head, also worked with Politkovskaya, and investigated human-rights abuses by Russian forces in Chechnya.
Then there’s Klevinov, who was murdered in a drive-by shooting. According to a Moscow Prosecutor-General, the killing of Politkovskaya may have been linked to the death of Klevinov, with a group led by an ethnic Chechen organized crime boss blamed for the murders.
Has Putin responded?
For his part, Putin has either denied any involvement in these deaths or argued that the same happens elsewhere. For example, during one press conference in 2021, Putin responded to these accusations by referring to the U.S. response to January 6.
“Alright, about my opponents being jailed or imprisoned,” Putin said when <a href="https://youtu.be/pEBYU1aGXMA%5C">pressed</a> by an American journalist. “People went into US Congress with political demands. 400 people are now facing criminal charges. They are facing prison terms of up to 20, maybe 25 years. They are called home-grown terrorists.”
He even went on to reference the shooting of Ashli Babbitt.
“One of the participants, a woman, was shot dead on the spot. She was not threatening with arms or anything,” Putin added. “Why am I bringing this up? Many people are facing the same thing as we do, and I am stressing this — we are sympathizing with the United States, but we do not want the same thing repeating here.”
While experts are hesitant to blame Putin directly for these — and other — deaths, some argue that Putin has instead “created the climate” which allows these murders to happen.
More dead oligarchs as Russia invades Ukraine
With Russia invading Ukraine, the trail of violence involving Russian dissidents, critics, or other prominent figures has <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/every-russian-oligarch-who-has-died-since-putin-invaded-ukraine-full-list-1700022">continued</a>.
Sergey Protosenya, a former high-level manager of Russia’s Novatek energy corporation, was found hanged in Spain earlier in April, while his wife and daughter were found stabbed to death. This came one day after the body of Vladislav Avaev, former vice president of the Russian bank Gazprombank was found, also with the bodies of his wife and daughter.
Vasily Melnikov, a Russian billionaire, was found dead alongside his wife and two sons in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. They had all been stabbed to death in late March.
Mikhail Watford, a Ukrainian-born Russian oligarch, was found dead in his United Kingdom home in February, hanged in his garage. That same month, Alexander Tyulyakov, Deputy General Director of the Unified Settlement Center (UCC) for Corporate Security for Gazprom, was also found hanged in a garage near Saint Petersburg.
***
In reality, we’ll likely never know who was behind these deaths and so many more. One thing is for sure, though: speaking out against the Russian regime is a dangerous business.
To find out more, listen to a <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murder-in-moscow/id1576594336?i=1000558500613">special episode</a> of Morning Wire, &#8220;Murder in Moscow.&#8221; Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Vladimir Putin

Moscow Murders: The Danger Of Standing Up To The Russian Regime

Chechnya

Readers Pass

Russia

Soviet Union

Ukraine

Ukraine-Russia War

Twitter may cost him $44 billion, but Elon Musk is getting an avalanche of free advice on how to run the social media giant.
Musk, who reached a deal Monday with the platform&#8217;s board of directors, claims he bought what he called &#8220;the digital town square&#8221; to ensure that it promotes free speech after years of criticism the San Francisco based company has silenced conservatives and other speech it arbitrarily brands harmful.
But the Tesla chief seems poised to do far more than merely tinker under the hood.
“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans,” Musk added. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Those users, including public figures, media outlets, tech gurus, and everyday users are poised to help. Some have ideas for improvements and others want Musk to shine a light on what went on inside the company before he took the reins. Sen. Josh Hawley — (R-MO), an outspoken critic of “Big Tech,” shared an open letter to Musk in which he congratulated the world&#8217;s richest man on his acquisition and called for a post-purchase audit.
“Twitter has largely evaded public accountability over the past several years,” Hawley wrote. “Since I’ve been in the Senate, I’ve sent a number of oversight inquiries to the company. These letters cover subjects as diverse as content moderation policies, viewpoint discrimination, suppression of content, and Twitter’s own security. Twitter, not surprisingly, has effectively ignored these requests.”
In particular, Hawley and other conservatives want to know how the decision was made to suspend the New York Post&#8217;s account over its now-vindicated reporting on Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop just before the 2020 election. In general, Hawley wants to know if Twitter&#8217;s suspension and shadow banning of users over the years represents a pattern of bias against conservatives.
Media outlets have suggestions of their own. The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61226282">BBC</a>, for example, suggested Musk could “loosen content rules,” remove advertisements, distinguish between real and fake accounts, and provide the ability to “edit” tweets. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/25/business/elon-musk-twitter-trump-return.html">The New York Times</a> speculated that Musk may seek to address “free speech and content moderators,” reinstate high-profile banned figures such as former president Donald Trump, and uncover “the algorithm.”
But while Musk’s acquisition of Twitter — and the prospect of a powerful tool for political expression may soon be more ideologically tolerant — has sparked giddiness among conservatives, there may be cause to pump the brakes, at least until Musk&#8217;s intentions become more clear.
Free speech and content moderation
The most likely area of change falls squarely in the realm of free speech. In recent years, almost every social media platform has tightened its control on content, often under political pressure from the Democratic Party in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential race and the lead up to the 2020 election.
Musk has been consistent on his views on free speech, often bordering on absolutism. That perspective is currently almost non-existent on the mainstream internet.
“A good sign as to whether there is free speech is, is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like?&#8221; Musk <a href="https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-free-speech-ted-talk-on-twitter-1848795067">pondered</a> during a recent TED event. &#8220;If that is the case, we have free speech. It’s damn annoying when someone you don’t like says something you don’t like. That is the sign of a healthy, functioning free speech situation.”
Bending Twitter to his view of free speech could be one of the easiest changes for Musk to implement. In plain terms, free speech online is restricted by content moderation, which is imposed according to internal policies and principles defined by vague metrics like “hate speech” and “safety.” Twitter lays out these metrics in their “<a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-rules">Twitter Rules,</a>” which the new boss could adjust on Day 1. The technical obstacles of implementation would be nearly nonexistent.
“The algorithm” and making Twitter open source
Musk has called for making Twitter’s algorithms &#8220;open source.&#8221; In Computer Science, an algorithm is simply a set of rules which describes a process, not unlike a &#8220;recipe&#8221; for a computer. Massive platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are built upon thousands of interconnected algorithms and sub-algorithms, all of which serve a different purpose. Opening up all of Twitter&#8217;s algorithms to the public could not only prove difficult, it may simply be bad business. The costly intellectual property that helped make Twitter a $44 billion company would be anyone&#8217;s to replicate. Surely Musk isn&#8217;t buying a company simply to open its guts to the world.
Musk could make certain parts of Twitter open source, and it is possible that exposing some specific parts of “the algorithm” to which he referred could provide some transparency without giving away crucial company secrets. Many aren&#8217;t looking for trade secrets in order to build their own platforms. Instead, they more likely want access to Twitter’s ranking algorithms, which decide which posts users see; profile suggestion algorithms, which suggest who users may want to follow; and comment-moderation algorithms, which decide which replies may be in some way offensive, and must therefore be hidden from view.
Still, these complex pieces of Twitter&#8217;s infrastructure represent valuable intellectual property and are likely too complicated for most to understand when considered as part of the platform&#8217;s programmatic ecosystem. For Twitter to achieve meaningful algorithm transparency, it would likely need to release them to trusted experts figures who could determine their purpose before distilling the details in plain-language overviews.
 Twitter already <a href="https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/rules-enforcement.html#2021-jan-jun">claims to do exactly that</a>.
Fake accounts and bots
Prior to reaching a deal to buy Twitter, Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1517215736606957573">promised</a> to “defeat the spam bots or die trying,” and to “authenticate all real humans” on the platform. To underscore the need for this, he has referenced the out-sized audiences of several high-profile figures who have lower levels of engagement — a tell-tale sign that many of their followers may be fake.
There are multiple reasons why the removal of fake (or even anonymous) accounts would be beneficial. Doing so would give a more realistic impression of user feedback and ideological breakdown, all while undermining the ability of foreign entities — such as Russia, China and Iran — to manipulate the American public narrative. In a world where follower count and virality are seen as metrics of societal importance, the proportion of fake follows and fake likes/retweets is a crucial factor.
However, solving such a problem is far more complicated than many acknowledge, given that multiple social media platforms already struggle to verify the authenticity of accounts. Twitter allows the use of anonymous accounts for various valid reasons and requiring heightened levels of user verification opens up significant privacy concerns. Finally, forcing users to identify themselves may have an impact on the existence of true free speech in certain countries.
Edit button, longer posts, no ads…
In recent days, a wide array of potential changes to Twitter features have been suggested. Among them: creating an “edit button,” which could allow people to edit previously-immutable tweets; allowing posts to exceed 280 characters; and the removal of advertisements. They could all be achieved, and perhaps easily. But each would represent a fundamental shift in the platform itself, with potential consequences for its user base.
The ability to edit tweets, for example, could be its own can of worms. Would edits be limited to shortly after the original post — in a similar fashion to Gmail’s “undo” functionality? If not, how would engagement with the original content be sorted from the new, edited content? Would the content be marked as &#8220;edited,&#8221; and if so, how? Would Twitter notify those who engaged with the old content that it has been updated?
In an increasingly fast-moving and online world, Twitter often acts as a real-time pulse point in our culture. But would this change if tweets were no longer snapshots of the moment they were published? We already see media outlets quietly changing headlines after their original reporting consumed the oxygen of online attention. The same could happen on Twitter, but at a much higher velocity.
Longer posts would allow Twitter to address the issue of low-context debate, but they could also impact what makes the platform unique, even if it did solve a growing problem — while threads allow people to explore more complex ideas in depth, it’s increasingly easier to cherry-pick comments and take them out of context. And in a society which works to consume data (not information) ever more quickly, will people look elsewhere if Twitter &#8220;slowed down&#8221;?
Finally, the removal of advertisements would be a pivotal change in the company’s business model. Given that Twitter currently garners approximately 90% of its revenue from ad sales, amounting to $1.41 billion in the last quarter of 2021 alone, what could fill this monetary void?
One potential solution would be to revamp Twitter’s existing subscription model, Twitter Blue. But would this force all users to pay for the service? And even if some users paid for more features, would this impact the Musk’s vision of true liberty for Twitter’s future?
Uncovering Twitter’s past ills
Hawley&#8217;s call for Musk to uncover details of Twitter’s past could include exposing the truth about the censorship of the Hunter Biden story, who was suspended or shadow-banned and why, and whether there is an ongoing issue of political bias within Twitter.
Musk has called the silencing of the Hunter Biden laptop story &#8220;incredibly inappropriate,&#8221; but it is not clear that his criticism of Twitter and calls for freer expression of ideas is rooted in partisan politics. In fact, his politics are something of a closely held mystery, with his donations going to members of both parties. It could be a mistake for conservatives to believe they have an outsized say in the direction Musk takes Twitter, especially when it comes to actions that would be to their political benefit.
Musk has expressed views which align with some conservative principles in the past, such as free speech and tax policy. But he has denied being a conservative, and claimed on another occasion (perhaps un-seriously) that he was a “socialist,” but “not the kind that shifts resources from most productive to least productive.”
Indeed, Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519415674111672325">argued</a> that Twitter should be &#8220;politically neutral&#8221; in order to &#8220;deserve public trust.&#8221; This &#8220;effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,&#8221; he added.
***
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is fascinating, from a technological perspective and in terms of its potential cultural impact. With one of Silicon Valley’s major communication platforms moving directly against the tide of governmental control of speech, it is likely that Twitter will find itself at the center of the growing debate over the nature of online freedom.
But all we can do now is wait to see what online freedom means to Elon Musk. 
Ultimately, it will be his company. We&#8217;re just passengers, along for the ride.
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Elon Musk

What Does Elon Musk Buying Twitter Really Mean?

Big Tech

Censorship

Freedom of Speech

Twitter

On Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Russia&#8217;s potential rationale for invading Ukraine.
 During the exchange, Blinken “firmly disagree[d]” with the “proposition” that Russia&#8217;s invasions of other countries were justified if they were part of the former Soviet Union, with Paul asking whether the U.S. &#8220;agitating&#8221; for Ukraine to join NATO in 2021 played a role.
Paul was quickly criticized by those who interpreted his argument as a justification for the invasion of Ukraine.
His communications director, Kelsey Cooper, further explained Paul&#8217;s position to The Daily Wire, saying, “[w]hile there is no justification for Putin’s war on Ukraine, there is an explanation for the invasion, which was the point Dr. Paul was making.”
“Any other interpretation of the exchange is a blatant attempt to misinform,” Cooper claimed. “As Dr. Paul has expressed publicly many times before, he has a great deal of sympathy for Ukraine, and <a href="https://rumble.com/v12ic2f-dr.-rand-paul-grills-secretary-of-state-anthony-blinken-april-26-2022.html">clearly stated</a> his support for them in his exchange today, saying: ‘I’m proud of how well the Ukrainians have fought, I’m supportive of their cause.’”
In a short clip taken from the exchange that was widely circulated on social media, Paul stated, “you could also argue that the countries [Russia has] attacked were part of Russia,” before correcting himself to say “part of the Soviet Union.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY): “The countries that have been attacked, Georgia and Ukraine, were part of the Soviet Union &#8230; since the 1920s.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken: “That does not give Russia the right to attack them.” <a href="https://t.co/jnlRP6wAsN">pic.twitter.com/jnlRP6wAsN</a>
&mdash; The Recount (@therecount) <a href="https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1518979804011372546?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 26, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“I firmly disagree with that proposition,” Secretary Blinken replied. “It is the fundamental right of these countries to decide their own future and their own destiny.”
“But I’m saying that the countries that have been attacked, Georgia and Ukraine, were part of the Soviet Union … since the 1920s,” Paul responded, to which Secretary Blinken said, “but that does not give Russia the right to attack them.”
“No one’s saying it does,” Paul interjected.
While the complete exchange lasted almost seven minutes, the 39-second clip was quickly condemned by critics online. Charles Booker, a Democrat running against Paul, <a href="https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1519068905519697924">accused</a> the incumbent senator of being a “puppet, essentially, for Vladimir Putin,” and “trying to protect an invasion that has destroyed maternity wards.”
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) <a href="https://twitter.com/tedlieu/status/1519036336245776387">implied</a> that Paul was arguing that Russia has a right to former members of the Soviet Union. 
On social media, a 2017 clip of the late Senator John McCain was also shared, during which he <a href="https://twitter.com/votevets/status/1519008389208100864">accused</a> Paul, his then-colleague, of “working for Vladimir Putin,&#8221; following Paul&#8217;s objection to a resolution that would permit Montenegro to join Nato.
McCain <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/16/politics/john-mccain-rand-paul-rule-19-vladimir-putin/index.html">said</a> that the &#8220;gentleman from Kentucky&#8221; and others who may object would be &#8220;carrying out the desires and ambitions of Vladimir Putin.&#8221;
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Rand Paul

‘Blatant Attempt To Misinform’: Rand Paul Fires Back At Critics After Tense Exchange With Antony Blinken

Antony Blinken

Last week, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner Brendan Carr slammed Apple CEO, Tim Cook, for hypocrisy, after the Big Tech executive gave a speech regarding “Apple’s commitment to running the App Store in a way that promotes human rights.”
Carr <a href="https://twitter.com/BrendanCarrFCC/status/1517181456732540934">argued</a> that Cook’s words run counter to the “harsh reality of Apple’s conduct in China.”
In a letter to Cook, Carr noted that while the Apple CEO was speaking in D.C. about his “App Store policies promoting privacy and human rights,” his company was “continuing its well documented campaign in Beijing of aggressively censoring apps at the behest of the Communist Party of China.”
Carr concluded, arguing that it is “past time to stand up” for human rights, and for Apple to “evaluate its overall relationship with China, particularly its extensive manufacturing operations there, to ensure that these relationships reflect the global Apple voices.”
Carr’s criticism follows <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/technology/apple-china-censorship-data.html">The New York Times</a>’ bombshell report from May 2021, in which it was shown that Apple’s self-proclaimed quest for privacy doesn’t apply when it comes to users of its products and services in China.
According to the report, Apple planned to store user data at centers in Guiyang, China — and another in the Inner Mongolia region — after largely ceding “control to the Chinese government.” This involved Chinese state management of the computers, the abandonment of encryption technology not permitted by the Chinese regime, and “digital keys that unlock information on those computers” being held in the very “data centers they’re meant to secure.”
“But to stay on the right side of Chinese regulators, his company has put the data of its Chinese customers at risk and has aided government censorship in the Chinese version of its App Store,” the report said of Cook.
The report also detailed allegations by current and former employees of the Silicon Valley giant that Cook “ultimately approved the plans to store customer data on Chinese servers and to aggressively censor apps” on the Apple “App Store.”
This came despite Apple’s claim to be committed to both “human rights” and privacy. In their “Our Commitment to Human Rights” document, for example, they declared that they “feel a deep sense of responsibility to make technology for people that respects their human rights, empowers them with useful tools and information, and enhances their overall quality of life.” 
According to the Big Tech giant, such “commitment” involves “setting the industry standard for minimizing personal data collection,” by building “ privacy protections into everything [they] make.”
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Tim Cook

Apple CEO Tim Cook Slammed For Human Rights Hypocrisy Over China Censorship

Apple

Communist China

Prosecutors in Portugal have named an official suspect in the years-long investigation of the infamous disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the British three year old who went missing while her family vacationed in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007.
In what <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1902515/Master-of-media-circus-for-Madeleine-McCann.html">The Daily Telegraph</a> once described as “the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history,” McCann’s mysterious disappearance drew unprecedented levels of media attention in the years that followed. 
In 2007, her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, were named as suspects in the case and were then cleared. The latest updates in the probe represent the first time in almost 15 years that Portuguese prosecutors have named alternative official suspects.
Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old man from Germany, has been made an “arguido,” while Portuguese authorities have not yet formally released the suspect’s identity. “Arguido” translates to “named suspect” or “person of interest,” and this status is used in Portugal’s legal system to categorize someone who is more than a witness in a case, but has not yet been arrested or charged with a crime. It is a necessary precursor to pursuing any criminal charges.
Portuguese authorities have been working with their German counterparts, with Brueckner being investigated by German police as recently as 2020. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Germany for drug offenses, in addition to a seven-year sentence for raping an elderly woman.
Under Portuguese law, it would not have been possible to declare anyone a person of interest in this case beyond the 15-year anniversary of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance, on May 3, 2022. Despite the rapidly approaching deadline, however, Portugal’s office of public prosecutions <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61183857">said</a> that the timing was coincidental, and instead driven by “strong indications” of the practice of a crime.
According to Jim Gamble, a former British police officer who led an official Home Office review of McCann’s disappearance in 2010, the case against Brueckner is strong.
“This seems like a really strong case and that&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t think it is a procedural tick in a box to make sure they don&#8217;t miss out because of the statute of limitations,” Gamble told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program. &#8220;I think there&#8217;s been a growing case and we should not underestimate the confidence of the German police.&#8221;
Gamble added allegations that phone data placed Brueckner in the area of McCann’s disappearance within a 30-minute timeframe, that the suspect had burglarized vacation homes in the area, and that children’s clothes were found in his vehicle.
&#8220;I think the circumstantial evidence that I know exists is extremely strong… I wouldn&#8217;t be surprised if charges follow,” Gamble noted. &#8220;It would just be fantastic to be able to give the McCanns peace of mind so far as knowing exactly what happened.&#8221;
Brueckner denies any involvement in the disappearance of McCann.
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Madeleine McCann

15 Years After Madeleine McCann Disappeared, Official Suspect Named As Deadline Looms

In the early days of the Russian invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine’s defense ministry announced that it had started using facial recognition technology to identify Russian military members, as well as Ukrainians, who have been killed.
The announcement followed a letter to the Ukrainian government from co-founder and CEO of Clearview AI, Hoan Ton-That, &#8220;offering free training and usage of our product, which may be of help during this time of terrible conflict.”
“My heart goes out to the Ukrainian people, and my hope is our technology could be used to prevent harm, save innocent people, and protect lives,” Hoan said, before offering assistance to the Ukrainian government.
“We would be honored to help in any way,” Hoan concluded.
How does Clearview AI work?
“Clearview AI is a facial recognition search engine that can instantly identify someone from just a photo,” Hoan explained in his letter to the Ukrainian government. 
The system works by matching a given image with one of over 10 billion photos scraped from the internet.
According to Hoan, Clearview AI is currently used by “law enforcement agencies, military bases, including the FBI, Homeland Security, and more.” 
Clearview AI’s image database includes a large number of photographs taken from Russian social media platforms, such as Vkontakte.
“We have over 2 billion images from the Vkontakte social network in the Clearview AI database,” Hoan claimed.
In his letter to the Ukrainian government, Hoan listed several potential use-cases for the system:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Identifying Infiltrators” — The Clearview AI system could allow Ukrainian authorities to use a photograph of a person (or even their ID card) to gain access to identifying information, such as “their real name, associates, friends, family, and links to any public information online about that person.” This could allow “[p]otential infiltrators who may be posing as to help Ukraine” to be “instantly vetted in real time.”</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Deceased People” — The Clearview AI system could help with the identification of those killed during the conflict without the use of fingerprints, which are “hard to obtain.” According to Hoan, the platform “works effectively regardless of facial damage that may have occurred to a deceased person,” which is particularly important given the physical impact of the Russian invasion.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Fighting Misinformation” — Noting the explosive spread of misinformation and disinformation on social media, Hoan claimed that Clearview AI could be used to “help correct misinformation in real-time as it shows up.”</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">“Family Reunification” — The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also sparked a refugee crisis, with millions of Ukrainian civilians fleeing the country. “In situations where there are refugees who are separated from their family,” Hoan wrote, “facial recognition technology can help identify people who may be stuck in refugee camps, who may not have paperwork or identification, and help them reunify with their families.”</li>
</ul>
In a statement to the Daily Wire, Clearview AI explained that their “bias-free facial recognition algorithm can work on photos from multiple angles, in darkness, with and without glasses and facial hair, photos of only parts of a face, due to state of the art artificial intelligence technology.”
Noting the use-cases in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Clearview AI also stated that their software “has been shown to be successful in the field when identifying deceased bodies, even with some facial damage.”
“War zones can be dangerous when there is no way to tell apart enemy combatants from civilians. Facial recognition technology can help reduce uncertainty and increase safety in these situations,” Hoan told the Daily Wire.
He then explained that Cleaview AI’s algorithm can “pick the correct face out of a lineup of over 12 million photos” at an accuracy rate of 99.85 percent, based on “NIST 1:N Face Recognition Vendor Test.”
This is “much more accurate than the human eye,” Hoan noted, adding that it would “prevent misidentifications from happening in the field.”
How is it being used?
According to Clearview AI, over 300 accounts had been created by Ukrainian authorities, with over 10,000 searches being performed. Hoan told the Daily Wire that Ukrainian officials have “expressed their enthusiasm” regarding the program, and are now being trained on safe and effective use of the facial recognition software. Hoan added that “[s]earch results from Clearview AI should not be the sole source of identification.”
In addition, Clearview AI’s platform has been translated into Ukrainian, and is reportedly being used by at least five Ukrainian government agencies.
One documented use case of Clearview AI involves the identification of dead Russian soldiers. In a Telegram post by the Ukrainian vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, he outlined an ongoing campaign to combat Russian propaganda efforts to hide the human cost of their invasion of Ukraine. By identifying Russian soldiers who have been killed, and attempting to reach their families, the Ukrainian government hopes to “dispel the myth of a ‘special operation’ in which there are ‘no conscripts’ and ‘no one dies,’” he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/07/technology/facial-recognition-ukraine-clearview.html">explained</a>.
What are critics saying?
In the United States, there are significant privacy concerns regarding Clearview AI’s data collection processes, especially since Clearview provides U.S. law enforcement with its services. Clearview AI is currently facing several lawsuits in the United States.
In fact, several countries — including the United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, France and Australia — have deemed its practices <a href="https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-ukraine-has-started-using-clearview-ais-facial-recognition-during-war-2022-03-13/">illegal</a>, referencing the alleged use of people&#8217;s photos without their consent. Meanwhile, Clearview AI has defended its image-gathering strategy, saying it’s similar to Google Search.
There is also a concern that various tech companies may be leveraging the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a way to expand their influence with little-to-no oversight in terms of privacy. 
In addition, some critics of facial recognition software argue that the technology should be banned, claiming it can be abused by governments to persecute minority communities or suppress dissidents.
“War zones are often used as testing grounds not just for weapons but surveillance tools that are later deployed on civilian populations or used for law enforcement or crowd control purposes,” Evan Greer, a deputy director for the digital rights group, Fight for the Future, said. “Companies like Clearview are eager to exploit the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine to normalize the use of their harmful and invasive software.”
“We already know that authoritarian states like Russia use facial recognition surveillance to crack down on protests and dissent,” Greer added. “Expanding the use of facial recognition doesn’t hurt authoritarians like Putin — it helps them.”
In a statement to the Daily Wire, Clearview AI’s chief executive responded to these accusations, saying that he “created the consequential facial recognition technology known the world over with the purpose of helping to make communities safer and assisting law enforcement in solving heinous crimes against children, seniors and other victims of unscrupulous acts.”
“We only collect public data from the open internet and comply with all standards of privacy and law,” Hoan continued. “I am heartbroken by the misinterpretation by some in the EU, where we do no business, of Clearview AI’s technology to society.  My intentions and those of my company have always been to help communities and their people to live better, safer lives.”
Hoan then noted that “[w]ar zones can be dangerous” when there is no way to distinguish between enemy combatants and civilians, arguing that “[f]acial recognition technology can help reduce uncertainty and increase safety in these situations.”
“Unlike facial recognition technology applied in other authoritarian countries, Clearview AI&#8217;s technology is not used in a real-time way, but in a manner that is after the incident has occured,” Hoan concluded. “Our goal is to use our technology to make our communities safer. We are honored to provide our life saving technology for free to the Ukrainian government.”
Some U.S.-based companies have even pulled back from facial recognition technology in recent years. For example, Facebook <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/facebook-shutting-down-facial-recognition-system-citing-societal-concerns">announced</a> in November 2021 that it would be shutting down its facial recognition system, citing “societal concerns” made worse by the fact that “regulators have yet to provide clear rules.”
“We’re shutting down the Face Recognition system on Facebook,” the company announced in a <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/11/update-on-use-of-face-recognition/">blog post</a>. “People who’ve opted in will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos and we will delete more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates.”
There are also concerns that misidentification could result in disastrous consequences. For example, Privacy International, a digital rights group, cited this risk when they <a href="https://privacyinternational.org/news-analysis/4806/clearviewukraine-partnership-how-surveillance-companies-exploit-war">called</a> on Clearview AI to pull back from Ukraine.
“The risks and perils of facial recognition and online surveillance have been extensively aired, and in a war context the potential consequences would be too atrocious to be tolerated — such as mistaking civilians for soldiers, or Ukrainians for Russian soldiers,” Privacy International argued, before noting the potential for interference by the Russian government, given “Putin&#8217;s vast record of perpetrating online manipulation.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author&#8217;s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
This article has been updated to include additional comment from Clearview AI chief executive, Hoan Ton-That.

How Facial Recognition Software Is Changing The War In Ukraine

Facial Recognition

Privacy

In response to a drastic decline in subscribers, streaming giant Netflix has indicated that friends and families who share their Netflix accounts might soon fall under the microscope.
&#8220;Our revenue growth has slowed considerably,&#8221; the company <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-61153252">told</a> shareholders on Tuesday, following the release of disappointing first quarter results. &#8220;Our relatively high household penetration — when including the large number of households sharing accounts — combined with competition, is creating revenue growth headwinds.&#8221;
According to Netflix, more than 30 million households in North America are sharing an account, with number increasing by another 100 million households worldwide.
“Account sharing as a percentage of our paying membership hasn’t changed much over the years, but, coupled with the first factor [slowed revenue growth], means it’s harder to grow membership in many markets — an issue that was obscured by our COVID growth,” Netflix said in a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/19/netflix-warns-password-sharing-crackdown-is-coming.html">letter</a> to shareholders. 
By the end of its first quarter on March 31, Netflix reported a loss of 200,000 paid subscribers. The streaming giant has also predicted that another two million subscribers will leave the service in the second quarter. This is the first time in more than a decade that Netflix has lost subscribers in one quarter of business.
In the past, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings said that the company would need to learn to live with password-sharing, and that shared accounts may have helped Netflix grow in the early stages. However, Hastings is now arguing that it has made growth more difficult, particularly in certain regions.
&#8220;When we were growing fast, it wasn&#8217;t a high priority to work on [password sharing]. And now we&#8217;re working super hard on it,&#8221; he said.
Currently, Netflix is experimenting with a password sharing prevention system in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. Users there must pay in order to provide access to those outside their household, with up to two extra profiles costing between $2 and $3 more per month.
&#8220;The principle way we have is asking our members to pay a bit more to share the service outside their homes,&#8221; said Greg Peters, Netflix&#8217;s chief product officer.
However, according to Dominic Sunnebo, an analyst at research firm Kantar, the scheme could risk “alienating a potential future audience” if the “schemes to counter password sharing move too fast and too aggressively,” since “many who password-share beyond the household are not actually aware they&#8217;re breaking the terms of their subscription.&#8221;
According to Netflix, no concrete plans have been announced, but these proposed account changes could be imposed as soon as next year.
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Netflix

‘What’s Your Netflix Password?’ Netflix Targets ‘Account Sharing’ As Subscribers Decline

Business

Economy

Internet

Stock Market

The long battle against the extradition of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is approaching its culmination, with a Westminster Magistrates Court sending the case request to the U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel after his extradition was approved.
Patel will now determine whether the United States’ long-standing request to extradite Assange meets various legal requirements, including the promise that he will not face execution. If his extradition is fully approved, Assange will likely appeal to the British High Court.
Assange&#8217;s attorney, Mark Summers QC, informed Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring that &#8220;serious submissions&#8221; on U.S. sentencing law would be sent to Patel, and that the Home Secretary has “no option but to send this case to the Secretary of State.”
“It is not for me to raise fresh evidence [at this stage] even though there have been serious developments in this case,” he added.
&#8220;I am duty-bound to send your case to the Secretary of State for a decision on whether you will be extradited,&#8221; the judge told Assange, who spoke briefly via video link from Belmarsh Prison during the hearing. &#8220;You have the right to appeal to the High Court and if you exercise your right to appeal it will not be heard until [Patel] has made her decision.&#8221;
“He has done no more than tell the world about military planning, military policies and the horrors of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and I think he deserves to be thanked,” controversial British politician, Jeremy Corbyn, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/20/uk-court-approves-extradition-of-julian-assange-to-us">told</a> reporters outside the Westminster magistrates court.
Assange has been incarcerated in the United Kingdom since being removed from Ecuador’s embassy in London in 2019. That same year, the U.S. Department of Justice filed multiple charges against Assange related to an alleged violation of the Espionage Act following the release of classified documents by Wikileaks.
The U.S.-based charges were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-can-be-extradited-to-the-u-s-british-court-rules">summarized</a> as follows:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">His complicity in illegal acts to obtain or receive voluminous databases of classified information;</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">His agreement and attempt to obtain classified information through computer hacking; and </li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">His publishing certain classified documents that contained the unredacted names of innocent people who risked their safety and freedom to provide information to the United States and its allies, including local Afghans and Iraqis, journalists, religious leaders, human rights advocates, and political dissidents from repressive regimes.” </li>
</ul>
It was first ruled in December 2021 that Assange could be extradited to the United States.
Meanwhile, numerous British politicians have called for President Joe Biden to drop the charges facing Assange. In a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/julian-assange-and-a-clarion-call-for-freedom-u-k-politicians-call-on-biden-to-drop-charges-against-wikileaks-founder">letter</a> last summer, 24 Members of Parliament wrote, “We appeal to you to drop this prosecution, an act that would be a clarion call for freedom that would echo around the globe.”
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

Assange Case

British Court Approves Julian Assange Extradition To U.S., Wikileaks Founder Awaiting Final Decision

Department of Justice

Great Britain

Jeremy Corbyn

Julian Assange

United Kingdom

WikiLeaks

With every day that passes, it becomes increasingly clear that there is far more truth to the infamous “Hunter Biden laptop story” than the legacy media ever dared to admit. 
Even though investigatory crosshairs are now closing on the business dealings of the entire Biden family, with some media figures acknowledging that there might be something of interest to discover, there is a parallel viewpoint that must be protected: that the Hunter Biden “faux scandal” had no impact on the election.
“They now think that if only the ‘media’ had told us about the laptop at the time …Trump would have won. But for the censoring of the New York Post, Trump would have won,” <a href="https://twitter.com/ThinkerChicago/status/1512086977234931722">said</a> Jonah Goldberg, who went on to describe the notion that the lack of coverage of the Hunter Biden scandal had any impact on the 2020 election as a “preposterous counterfactual.”
And Goldberg is not alone. For example, during the same event, staff writer for The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, <a href="https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1511853692160458752">claimed</a> that the Hunter Biden laptop story was “irrelevant,” and uninteresting. 
This viewpoint mirrors messaging prior to and in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 election. For example, Sen. Schumer <a href="https://uk.news.yahoo.com/hunter-biden-irrelevant-distraction-schumer-171919621.html?guccounter=1&amp;guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&amp;guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABembEkwVng3XZl_SrdfSXvcFKvZNDPzC26km3BQffRNOKS_IFYwbrHxzBneWslj1HcBdVugyQPlh_GaDhSatiioOmxIPJcr_fURaUPsIG91TTQ6VO2Lf7sQU8eHA4lQYXpBsveck92Ac9dXdBAGGDcIyzrY4sq_HSgoDkr5mCcX">described</a> Hunter Biden as “irrelevant” and a “distraction” in January 2020, while multiple pundits <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnn-msnbc-dismissed-hunter-bidens-laptop-russian-disinformation-narrative-deflated">called</a> the story &#8220;Russian misinformation&#8221; after the election took place.
However, as data from the time shows, Hunter Biden is not only relevant, but potentially pivotal.
In November 2020, the Media Research Center commissioned The Polling Company to <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/rich-noyes/2020/11/24/special-report-stealing-presidency-2020">survey</a> 1,750 Biden voters in seven swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin).
A massive 45.1% of Biden voters polled said they were “unaware of the financial scandal enveloping Biden and his son, Hunter,” adding that “full awareness of the Hunter Biden scandal would have led 9.4% of Biden voters to abandon the Democratic candidate.”
And it’s this 9.4% change that could have been hugely consequential when we consider Biden’s winning margins in six of these swing states. Biden won Arizona by 0.3%, Georgia by 0.23%, Michigan by 2.8%, Nevada by 2.4%, Pennsylvania by 1.2%, and Wisconsin by 0.63%. A swing of 9.4% would have handed each of these states to former President Donald Trump, giving him 79 additional electoral votes.
His total in this scenario? 311 electoral votes, 41 votes over the 270 electoral votes required to win the presidential election.
So even while the Democratic Party and their media accomplices cling to the notion that Hunter Biden remains an “irrelevant” and “uninteresting” “distraction,” the fact remains clear: one act of <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/washington-post-admits-hunter-biden-laptop-is-real/">baseless</a> censorship helped win the election for Joe Biden.
That seems pretty relevant to me.
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Hunter and Joe Biden

How The Censorship Of Hunter Biden’s Laptop Story Helped Joe Biden Win

2020 Election

Hunter Biden

Joe Biden

New York Post

Social Media Censorship

On Thursday, the United Nations General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. The vote was held during a session in New York, and comes in response to growing condemnation of alleged war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine.
“Russia’s rights of membership in the UN Human Rights Council has just been suspended,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, <a href="https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1512095879037169665">responded</a>. “War criminals have no place in UN bodies aimed at protecting human rights. Grateful to all member states which supported the relevant UNGA resolution and chose the right side of history.”
Of the 175 votes cast, 93 were in favor, while 24 were against. There were 58 abstentions. Two-thirds of the body (excluding abstentions) were required to vote in favor in order for the suspension to be successful.
Among those countries that voted against Russia’s suspension was Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, China, Congo, Cuba, North Korea, Iran, Kazakhstan, Syria, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe, as well as Russia. Notable abstentions included India, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
Suspensions from the United Nations Human Rights Council are rare, with the only other example of a sitting member being suspended being Libya in 2011, following violence against protesters by Gaddafi’s forces. 
The adopted resolution <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/un-vote-suspending-russia-human-rights-council-over-ukraine-2022-04-07/?taid=624e7e0de5704a0001750d07&amp;utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&amp;utm_medium=trueAnthem&amp;utm_source=twitter">expresses</a> &#8220;grave concern at the ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.” 
On Monday, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, first <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/russias-participation-a-farce-u-s-calls-for-russia-to-be-kicked-out-of-u-n-human-rights-council">announced</a> that the United States will seek Russia’s removal from the United Nations Human Rights Council, following its brutal invasion of Ukraine.
“I am returning to New York to do two things. One: I will take this to the Security Council tomorrow morning and address Russia’s actions directly,” Thomas-Greenfield <a href="https://twitter.com/USUNSpox/status/1510952803895681028">said</a>, according to a spokesperson. “Two: In close coordination with Ukraine, European countries and other partners at the UN, we are going to seek Russia’s suspension from the UN Human Rights Council.”
“Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council is a farce. It hurts the credibility of the Council and the UN writ large. And it is wrong, which is why we believe it is time the UN General Assembly vote to suspend them,” Thomas-Greenfield <a href="https://twitter.com/USUNSpox/status/1510952805611106305">added</a>.
“Pushing Russia off of the Human Rights Council is the right move. It should be easy for every single country to support this,” former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, <a href="https://twitter.com/NikkiHaley/status/1510983136225775623">tweeted</a> in response. “As long as Russia sits on the council with China and Venezuela, it remains a joke and a disgrace to human rights.”
Ian Haworth is a writer for The Daily Wire and contributor to Morning Wire. Follow him on <a href="https://twitter.com/ighaworth">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ighaworth">Facebook</a>, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/IanGHaworth">YouTube</a>.

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Russia Suspended From UN Human Rights Council, China Votes Against Suspension

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