Arotrios

First off, the link above to the bad place is for reference - no need to visit - full text below.

So the below write-up popped up on r/aliens about a month ago. By the time I got to it, the user had already deleted their account, and apparently been subject to various forms of shenanigans with comments getting deleted and somesuch.

As such, to preserve the content free of possible censorship, I reposted it here in the Fediverse.

The post seems to have been preserved on Reddit now, but I thought it would fit here on !uap.

Please note that I am not the author of the below content, nor do I make any claims as to its veracity. Enjoy - if this is the real deal, looks like things have already gotten really goddamn weird... and if this is a LARP - hats off to the author... that's some incredibly detailed bullshit you've got going on.

It seems like all my comments are being deleted. I will post answer at the end of the message.

From the late 2000s to the mid-2010s, I worked as a molecular biologist for a national security contractor in a program to study Exo-Biospheric-Organisms (EBO). The aim of the program was to elucidate the genome and proteome basis of these organisms. Although the study of OBCs has been going on for decades in other programs, the new high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies of the late 90s unblocked stagnant research in this area. Since then, several breakthroughs have led to significant advances in our understanding of the genome and proteome of these beings. What we've learned so far has enabled us to outline some disconcerting perspectives about our place in this universe. Briefly, we've discovered that the EBO genome is a chimera of genomes from our biosphere and from an unknown one. They are artificial, ephemeral and disposable organisms created for a purpose that still partially eludes us. I'll be substantiating my statements after a brief introduction.

The reason for disclosing these secrets is quite simple. I believe that every human being has the right to know the truth, and that to progress, humanity needs to divest itself of certain institutions and organizations that will probably not survive these revelations in the long term. I'm aware that I'll have very little impact in this regard, but I still believe that small leaks are necessary to break the dam of misinformation on this subject. When the governments will eventually reveal these secrets, there will undoubtedly be a societal upheaval, but in my opinion, the longer we wait, the worse it will be. I choose to divulge what I know anonymously out of selfishness for the well-being of myself and my family. I'm aware that this diminishes the reach and credibility of my message, but it's the furthest I am willing to go. I chose this forum because it offers a good compromise between anonymity and popularity. In order to protect my anonymity, I will be purposely vague or even contradictory about any information that could identify me (date, education, role etc.). I'll even introduce red herrings in this respect. I want to make it clear that any information related to the subject of the research will not be treated in this way.

Before going any further, please excuse me if you find it difficult to understand what I'm explaining. Some parts of my text are very technical. It's difficult to find the right balance between vulgarization and scientific explanation. I'll continue by talking about myself. What's the point of talking about me knowing that the information will necessarily be misleading? I simply want to introduce a perspective on the type of people who work there, normal scientists. I have a Ph.D. in molecular biology. I didn't actively seek to be part of this program, rather it was a stroke of luck that introduced me to one of the senior scientists. I met this person at a conference where I was presenting a poster on my Ph.D. research. When I think back, I don't believe he was impressed by what I was presenting, because it was quite frankly a project that wasn't going anywhere. I think it was rather the most important aspect of a professional life: the attitude and the ease with which you make connections. Shortly afterwards, I graduated and received a call from this person offering me a position. At the time, everything pointed to me working in a regular laboratory.

I did a series of three increasingly suspicious interviews, each in a different location, where my scientific background and knowledge became less and less relevant. The first was with two of the senior scientists, the second and third with people I've never seen again and who were obviously not interested in science. Sometime after the interview, I was asked to go to a fourth location where what seemed like a corporate lawyer presented me with an NDA. He made sure not only to explain every detail, but also that I understood the consequence of not respecting it.

The first Employment weeks were by far the most memorable, although I spent most of that time in a depressing archive room. It consists almost exclusively of reading about the subject of study and to get us up to speed. There's no secret Wikipedia or even a reference book to guide us. There are only dry reports, memos, presentations, procedures and SOPs. These documents are almost exclusively about the biology of EBOs, but there are also a few that deal with other subjects such as their food, religion or culture. There were no documents on their technology.

As mentioned above, the aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of the EBO genome and proteome. To achieve this, a team of around twenty scientists, four senior scientists and a director was involved. The scientists, like myself, had as their main responsibility to carry out the technical work. As each scientist had to my knowledge a Ph.D., we were all somewhat overqualified for what is ultimately a technician's job. The senior scientists, who make full use of their diplomas, had the task of designing the assays and had a supervisory responsibility. They were also in charge of training new employees, and sometimes even came in to do technical work. The director, of course, was the person in charge who dictated priorities to the senior scientists. He was rarely on site, and the few times he was, it was to attend meetings. Other than the scientific staff, there were security guards working for one subcontractor or another. There were no support staff such as janitors or maintenance workers. Scientists were responsible for this kind of work. In addition, logistical constraints ensure that every scientist is capable of carrying out any technical activity.

The laboratory itself is located in Fort Detrick, Maryland, in a building used for legitimate biomedical research. The clandestine operations are carried out in a restricted part of the basement, out of sight from regular workers. Contrary to what one might imagine, the biosafety level is not maximal for this type of research. Indeed, the lab containing EBO samples or derived cell cultures is BSL3, while the lab where assays are conducted are only BSL2. The BSL3 area of the facility includes a freezer room and a cell culture lab and is only accessible through an antechamber from the BSL2 section. EBO carcasses are preserved in horizontal freezers at a temperature of -80°C nominal. To maximize the preservation of these carcasses, they are preserved in vacuum bags and the air in the room is controlled to minimize humidity. There are only four bodies and none of them are complete. It's obvious that these creatures have died as a result of major trauma. I've never witnessed a motorcycle accident fatality, but it probably looks similar to this. It is acknowledged that there are more EBOs caracasses at other locations. The cell culture laboratory, as its name suggests, is where cell lines derived from EBOs are grown and related activities are performed. I'll talk in more detail about these specific cell lines later on. The BSL2 part is mainly used for assays, immunohistochemistry, genetic engineering, immunocytochemistry, storage etc. There's also a cell culture lab, but this is used for more traditional cell lines. Other than the labs, there are all the amenities you could find in an office. Note that the internet access is limited to senior staff and up. There is, however, an intranet for bioinformatics needs.

On the subject of the biology of these beings, I'll start by discussing genetics, then their gross anatomy and finally their biological systems. For the sake of clarity, the information that I provide here is an aggregation of what I have observed and what I have read. I will make many comparisons with human anatomy because it is the most logical reference.

Genetics:

First, I'd like to discuss their genetics. Their genetics are like ours, based on DNA. This fact was very puzzling for me when I first learned about it. We imagine that beings from an alternate biosphere would have genetics based on a completely foreign biochemical system and surprisingly, this is not the case. Several conclusions can be drawn from this surprising revelation. The one that immediately comes to mind is that our biosphere and theirs share a common ancestry. They're eukaryotes, which means their cells have nuclei containing genetic material. Which suggests that their biosphere would have been separated from ours sometime after the appearance of this type of organism. The term Exo-Biospheric-Organism is actually a misnomer, but as it's a historical term, it's still used. Their genetics are not only based on the same genetic system, but they’re also even compatible with our own cellular machinery. This means that you can take a human gene and insert it into an EBO cell, and that gene will be translated into protein, and this of course works in reverse with a human gene inserted into an EBO cell. There are important differences in post-translational modifications that will make the final protein non-functional, but I'll discuss these later. Their genome consists of 16 circular chromosomes.

You're probably familiar with the concept of intergenic region or "junk DNA". These are basically DNA sequences that don't code for proteins. These are evolutionary residues, transposons, inactivated genes and so on. To give you an idea, in humans, intergenic regions represent approximately 99% of our genome. I'm aware that these sequences aren't completely useless, they can be used as histone anchors, as buffers to protect coding DNA from radiation or even as alternative open reading frames, but that's rather peripheral.

What's particularly striking about the EBO genome is the uniformity of these intergenic regions. We see the same sequences repeated everywhere, and the distance in bp between the genes is virtually the same throughout their genome. The result is a minimalist, highly condensed genome. In fact, it's much smaller than ours. Moreover, the quantity of protein-coding genes is even significantly lower than ours, probably due to genetic refinement but also to biological processes that are absent in EBO. The uniformity of these sequences is a major indication of the artificiality of these beings. There is no complex organism on earth that has such elegance in its sequences. There is no evolutionary pressure that can lead to this kind of characteristic other than genetic engineering.

Speaking of genetic engineering, following sequencing of their genomes, we noticed a troubling and universal characteristic in the 5' of the regulatory sequence of each gene which we call the Tri-Palindromic Region. The TPR are 134bp sequences containing, as its name suggests, 3 palindromes. In genetics, a palindrome is a DNA sequence that when read in the same direction, gives the same sequence on both DNA strands. They serve both as a flag and as a binding site for proteins. The three palindromes in the TPR are distinct from one another and have been poetically named "5'P TPR", "M TPR" and "3' TPR". The TPR is composed (in 5' - 3' order) of 5'P TPR, 12bp spacer, Chromosomal address, 12bp spacer, M TPR, 12bp spacer, Gene address, 12pb spacer and 3' TPR. The chromosomal address is composed of 4 bp and is identical in each TPR of the same chromosome, but distinct between each of the 16 chromosomes of the genome. The Gene address is a 64bp sequence that is unique for each gene in the whole genome. It's therefore understandable that the TPR serves as a unique address not only for numerically identifying a gene, but also for identifying its chromosomal location. For those with only a basic knowledge of genetics, this is completely unheard of. No living thing in our biosphere has this kind of precise address in its genome. Once again, the presence of TPR cannot be explained by evolutionary pressure but only by genetic engineering on a genomic scale.

TPR opens the door to several possibilities. One of them suggests that EBO geneticists can insert or remove a gene from a cell in a way that is far more targeted and efficient than our technology allows. No proteins have been identified in the EBO genome that interacts with TPR. Rather, we believe that these proteins are exclusively targeted by external genetic engineering tools, probably used at the zygotic stage of embryonic development. The nature of these tools is unclear, but we definitely don't have anything like them. The probable absence of these proteins from the genome is a further indication of their artificiality. Given the high probability of artificiality of their genome and the apparent ease of modifying it with biomolecular tools, it's not out of the question that there could be polymorphism between individuals depending on their role and function. In other words, an individual could be genetically designed to have characteristics that give it an advantage in performing a given task, like soldier ants and worker ants in an anthill. Note that these previous statements are speculation. To my knowledge only one individual genome has been sequenced, I can't make a definitive statement on genetic variation between individuals.

I've talked a lot about intergenic regions, now I'll briefly discuss intragenic sequences. Briefly, because there's not a lot less to say despite its obvious importance. Much like ours, their genes have silencers, enhancers, promoters, 5'UTRs, exons, introns, 3' UTRs etc. There are many genes analogous to ours, which is not surprising given the compatibility of our cellular machinery. What's disturbing is that some genes correspond directly, nucleotide by nucleotide, with known human genes or even some animal genes. For these genes, there doesn't seem to be any artificial refinement but rather a crude copying and pasting. Why they do it is nebulous and still subject to conjecture. There are also many genes which are not found in our biosphere whose role has not been identified. Finding the purpose of these novel genes is one of the aims of the program. I'd like to note before going any further that this heterogeneity of genes of known and unknown origin is an undeniable proof of the artificiality of EBOs.

To conclude with genetics, the mitochondrial genome, at the time I was working there, had not yet been sequenced. It's safe to assume that this genome would also be streamlined and possibly has some version of TPR.

Transcription and translation and protein expression.

I briefly introduced the differences in post-translational modifications between human and EBO. This is hardly a surprise, as we often see the same thing between different terrestrial species. Obtaining a viable protein from a DNA sequence is a complex process involving hundreds of protein intermediates, each with a precise and essential role. A minor variation in this assembly line can lead to functional irregularities in the final product. So, it's no surprise that there are setbacks along the way when the first EBO gene transfection attempts failed to produce the desired functional protein in human cell lines. Fortunately for us, the work of what I imagine to be another team at another site has led to the development of an EBO cell line named EPI-G11 derived from epithelial tissues. With this tool in our hands, we were able to transfect and overexpress proteins of interest in order to eventually purify and study them. For your information, we use a biological ballistics delivery system (AKA gene gun) for our transfection needs because other methods are not very effective with cells of this line. For example, the viral vectors tested cannot be internalized by EPI-G11 and lipofection is too lethal. EPI-G11, like most eukaryotic cell lines, enters a phase of exponential growth when exposed to Fetal Bovine Serum. It's only half surprising that a cell line from such an exotic source should be sensitive to the growth factors present in FBS. In my opinion, this can be explained by the addition of animal genes to the genome, such as growth receptors.

Gross anatomy:

They are morphologically very similar to the grey aliens that are part of modern folklore. Their height is about 150cm, they have two arms, two legs and a head. Still, there are some notable differences.

Skin: The grey skin that is often described in folklore is in fact a biosynthetic film which, likely, serves to protect the EBO from a hostile environment. It doesn't provide effective protection against temperature changes, but it does offer adequate protection against the passage of liquids. It's possible that this film confers other advantages but my knowledge on the subject is limited. Under the grey film, the epidermis is rather white, and the texture is very regular and without any hair. We do not see any defect other than the folds near the joints. It's described as greasy in one report, but that's not something I've observed. The same report states that a strong, lingering smell of burnt hair and ammonia is present when the film is removed. There are a lot of pores on the skin, crossing from the epidermis to a gland in the hypodermis. These glands and pores are the terminal part of the excretory-sudoriferous system, which could explain the previously mentioned smell.

Head: The head contains two large, oversized eyes, two nostrils without protuberance, a narrow mouth without lips and two ear canals without auricles. There is a mandible, but the musculature is vestigial. There are no teeth or tongue in the oral cavity. The nasal cavity where the nostrils meet is compact and does not rise cranially but extends axially. There appears to be no equivalent to the olfactory bulb in the nasal cavity. The mouth leads directly to the esophagus and the nasal cavity to the trachea. The trachea and esophagus do not communicate.

Eye: Like the skin, the eyes are covered with a semi-transparent biosynthetic film that offers the same environmental protection, while providing protection against certain wavelengths and light intensity. When the film is removed, a more traditional eye is revealed. It's about three times larger than a human eye and there are no eyelids. The size of their eyes suggests they have excellent night vision. It seems paradoxical to cover them with a semi-opaque film. Perhaps they only need to wear it in a bright environment. Their sclera is the same color as their skin, the iris is pale grey, and the pupil is black and oversized. The lens is rounder than a human, and the musculature used to adjust focus is more developed. On the retina, there are at least 6 types of cone cells. The responsiveness of each of these 6 types of cone is specific to a wavelength band, with a minimum of overlap between each other. The result is a broader visible spectrum.

Ear: As mentioned, the outer ear has no auricle and the ear canal is unremarkable. The inner ear has all the characteristics of a typical vestibular and cochlear system, although the curvature of the cochlea is more pronounced than a human. This probably results in greater hearing acuity for low frequencies.

Brain: The brain is tetraspheric, i.e. composed of four major sections. The sections are separated by transverse and longitudinal fissures and are connected to the central lobe, which acts as brainstem and cerebellum. The volume of the brain is around 20% superior to that of a man of the same height. It has a much more pronounced level of gyrication than an average human. Moreover, the ratio of glial cells to neurons is also slightly higher than in humans. It is important to mention the presence of nodules on the central lobe. Histological analysis of these structures reveals a kind of intricate biological circuitry. It is speculated that these nodules are essential to interact with their technology. Consequently, determining the proteome of these structures is an absolute priority for the program.

Neck: The neck is proportionally longer than that of a human, and at the same time relatively thin. As mentioned, the esophagus and trachea are separate. There are no vocal cords in this region.

Thorax: The musculature of the thorax is underdeveloped. Muscles equivalent to the pectoralis major can be seen. We can also see the trapezius and deltoid muscles. The sternocleidomastoids are well defined. The ribs and sternum are clearly visible. There are no nipples.

Abdomen: The abdomen is wider than the thorax and bulges slightly forward. There is no navel.

Pelvis: The pelvic bones are apparent. There are no genitals or anus.

Hands and feets: Their hands have four digits, including an opposable thumb on the medial side. They have no nails, and the texture of their fingerprints is composed of concentric circles. Fingers are proportionally much longer than in humans. Unlike humans, finger musculature is entirely intrinsic to the hand. In other words, the muscles used to move the fingers are not in the forearms but entirely located in the hands. At first glance, the feet consist of just two digits, but a necropsy soon determined that each toe was made of two fused digits. The medial toe is marginally longer than the distal toe. The feet are relatively longer and narrower than in a human. Their musculature, however, is vestigial.

The EBOs endoskeleton is very similar to ours, at least in terms of composition. There's collagen, hydroxyapatite but also copper oxide crystals where marrow would normally be found. The role of these crystals has not been established, but it is not a crystalopathic condition. The blood cells of the myeloid lineage (or the equivalent for these creatures) therefore mature in a different location than in humans i.e. in the thymus like organ. A transverse section of the bone reveals osteon and osteocytes. There appear to be few osteoblasts and no osteoclasts. This indicates that the bones are no longer growing and cannot absorb the minerals present or adapt mechanically to changes in posture.

Biological system:

Respiratory system: Their cellular respiration is equivalent to ours, i.e. they need to oxidize organic components to produce energy. Their lungs have no reciprocating action, but rather have a unidirectional flow of air, similar to those seen in birds, which is more efficient than ours. It is speculated that this is in response to the brain's elevated metabolic needs. Vocalization is produced by vibration of the wall membrane at the junction between the two air sacs.

The Circulatory system of EBOs is rather analogous to ours. The heart is located in the mediastanum, but in a more medial position, directly beneath the sternum. The heart has two ventricles and two atria. There is an aorta, a pulmonary vein, a pulmonary artery and a vena cava. Blood flowing to the pulmonary capillaries via the pulmonary artery is pumped against the flow of air, maximizing gas exchange efficiency. The blood gas barrier is relatively narrow in these capillaries, at least compared to a human. Then oxygen-rich blood is returned to the heart and then expelled into the aorta and the rest of the body. Before returning to the heart, the blood will pass through the hepatorenal organ which, among other things, filters and controls osmotic pressure of the blood.

The blood itself is also analogous to that of a human. However, the proportion of plasma is much higher, albumin is in similar proportion ,hormone levels are much lower, metal ion levels are much higher (particularly copper) and glucose levels are significantly higher. The color of the blood is brownish, given the higher proportion of plasma and concentration of metal ions. On the cellular side, there are erythrocytes which, in addition to hemoglobin for binding oxygen, display several complexes capable of binding copper ions. It's not clear what role these copper ions play but we believe it neutralizes blood ammonia, among other things. Several cell types with leukocyte characteristics have been observed, but no comprehensive knowledge of them exists. Platelets are present, but in smaller proportions than in humans.

Excreto-sudoriferous system: This system is completely different from what I've seen. As mentioned earlier, there is no large orifice, like an anus or urethra, to get rid of biological waste. Instead, there are countless small pores on the surface of the skin. There's a large medial organ called the hepatorenal organ, which acts as both kidney and liver and is central to maintaining homeostasis. This organ is highly vascularized and the blood must pass through it before returning to the heart. Its role is, among other things, to purify the blood of metabolic waste. Waste is excreted into the equivalent of a ureter, which branches out into four. Each branch flows towards one of the four limbs and in turn these branches divide until they end up as thousands of excretory pores. The motility of this excretory system is mediated by a weak peristalsis at the proximal level and on the four main branches. Peristalsis ceases around the first distal junction. As there is no urea cycle, the ammonia concentration at the exit of the hepatorenal organ is very high. This ammonia is carried to the pores and gives the distinct odor I mentioned earlier. The rationale behind this unusual excretory system is directly related to this excreted ammonia, which enables thermoregulation by evaporating on the skin's surface. The greater the physical effort, the greater the metabolism. This in turn leads to a rise in temperature, and a corresponding increase in metabolic waste via amino acid catabolism. This leads to an increase in filtration and ammonia excretion, which ultimately lowers body temperature.

Digestive system: The digestive system is extremely underdeveloped. There's no there is no stomach in the familiar sense. However, there is a pseudo-stomach located at the transition between the thoracic and abdominal cavities. This organ is not involved in digestion, but only serves as a reservoir. A sphincter controls the flow of food into the intestine. The intestine is limited to the equivalent of our small intestine, i.e. it only serves to absorb liquids and nutrients and acts as the main digestion site. It has villi and microvilli like ours. The intestine ends in the hepato-renal organ, where non-digested matter is transported to the ureter and excretory system. Residues are dissolved in the ammonia of metabolic waste for excretion. There's an organ near the pseudostomachal sphincter that secretes digestive enzymes directly into the intestine. This organ is inspirationally called the digestive organ. It secretes mainly proteolytic enzymes and glycoside hydrolases.

Given the absence of teeth, the narrowness and rigidity of the esophagus, the absence of a true stomach and the absence of defecation, it is strongly believed that EBOs can only consume food in liquid form. It is assumed that, given the high metabolic needs of their brains, this food would have a high carbohydrate concentration. In order to meet other metabolic needs, there must also be a high protein content in the food consumed. These two statements are supported by the type of enzyme secreted by the digestive organ. It is therefore speculated that the food consumed is a sort of broth rich in sugar and protein, which probably also has a high copper content. Given the strict limitations on the type of food that they can consume, it's unlikely that this type of creature could survive in our biosphere without technological support.

Endocrine system: Knowledge of the endocrine system is minimal. We know that cells are receptive to bovine growth hormones, so it's assumed that certain functions are regulated by such a system. Endocrine mechanisms are very complex, and it goes without saying that they are best studied on living subjects.

Immune system: The immune system is another unknown. There seems to be an innate immune system but there doesn't seem to be any adaptive immunity, at least not similar to what is known. There's a thymus-like organ near the heart that's proportionally larger than in humans. This organ seems to be where all blood cells mature. Some cells have leukocyte characteristics such as granularity. The immune cells that germinate here have a high copper concentration. The surface receptors of innate immune cells have not yet been characterized, so we might as well say that all the work remains to be done.

Nervous system: The nervous system is also relatively similar. The spinal cord begins at the base of the central lobe of the brain and propagates down the vertebral column. In the vertebrae there are ganglia made of afferent and efferent neurons. In short, other than the CNS, there is nothing out of the ordinary.

Musculoskeletal system: The musculoskeletal system is very ordinary, albeit underdeveloped. Most of the human skeletal muscles have an equivalent. Only the hands, feet and forearms are different. It should be noted that the proportion of type 1 and type 2 muscle fibers is different from that in a human. Indeed, type 1 outnumbers type 2 by about a factor of 10.

Artificial system: We speculate that artificial molecular machines may be present in the body, and that copper, if present, would be essential to their function or assembly. Importantly, no AMMs have been observed.

​

Question 1: Amazing story. Have you shared this with the Senate Select Commission on Intelligence or with AARO and do you have evidence to back this up?

Thank you, no I haven't and no I won't. It sounds like a honey trap to me. I will not place my life in the hands of politicians. I have no proof other than this message. I know it's not much but it's what I'm prepared to offer

Question 2: Well that was a read ... So they are bio engineered worker bees... Any elemental components that are unutributal to our biome ?

Yes, knowing that they're disposable, unable to live independently without technological support, and that they're ephemeral. The only suitable hypothesis is that they are alive only to accomplish their task. Can you clarify your question about elemental components?

Question 3: I havent read everything in detail but can you expend on the document on their religion?

EBOs believe that the soul is not an extension of the individual, but rather a fundamental characteristic of nature that expresses itself as a field, not unlike gravity. In the presence of life, this field acquires complexity, resulting in negative entropy if that makes sense. This gain in complexity is directly correlated with the concentration of living organisms in a given location. With time, and with the right conditions, life in turn becomes more complex until the appearance of sentient life. After reaching this threshold, the field begins to express itself through these sentient beings, forming what we call the soul. Through their life experiences, sentient beings will in turn influence the field in a sort of positive feedback loop. This in turn further accelerates the complexity of the field. Eventually, when the field reaches a "critical mass", there will be a sort of apotheosis. It's not clear what this means in practical terms, but this quest for apotheosis seems to be the EBOs main motivation.

The author of the document added his reflections and interpretations as an appendix. He specified that, for them, the soul field is not a belief but an obvious truth. He also argues that the soul loses its individuality after death, but that memory and experience persist as part of the field. This fact would influence the philosophy and culture of EBOs, resulting in a society that doesn't fear death but which places no importance or reverence on individuality. This "belief" compels them to seed life, shape it, nurture it, monitor it and influence it for the ultimate purpose of creating this apotheosis. Paradoxically, they have little or no respect for an individual's well-being.

Please be advised that I'm speaking from memory of something I read more than 10 years ago, so take the following with a grain of salt. Also, I'm not a philosopher or an artist, so please excuse my struggle to properly formulate the concepts and my dry terminology. Finally, note that this information comes from a document whose author was directly interacting with an EBO. It is not specified whether it was an ambassador, a crash survivor, a prisoner. The means of communication were not specified either.

Question 4: Wtf he dropped the location of the lab

Battelle National Biodefense Institute. It is on google map

Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s investigation appears to include the reportedly millions of dollars Donald Trump‘s PAC raised – and spent – after the 2020 election, with legal experts suggesting if the massive amounts of money raised were based off fraudulent claims, the federal government might “seize” those funds or require them to be returned.

“This isn’t over yet,” says NBC News national security analyst Frank Figliuzzi, a former top FBI official. “When you raise millions based on a fraudulent claim, you’ve committed a crime. And, you just might have to give those millions back.”

Figliuzzi’s remarks are based on a Tuesday report from Politico that reveals, “Special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of efforts by Donald Trump and others to subvert the 2020 election remains ongoing — with at least one interview this week that focused on fundraising and spending by Trump’s political action committee.”

Top Rudy Giuliani ally Bernard Kerik, the disgraced former NYPD Commissioner who was pardoned by Donald Trump in 2020, was interviewed by Jack Smith’s investigators in “a closed-door interview on Monday.”

Kerik was “asked multiple questions about the Save America PAC’s enormous fundraising haul in the weeks between Election Day and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, according to Kerik’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who was present for the interview and shared details with POLITICO.”

“It’s a laser focus from Election Day to Jan. 6,” Parlatore told Politico.

NYU Law School professor Andrew Weissmann, the well-known MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst and former FBI General Counsel, offered this advice:

“Keep your eyes peeled for a criminal case about the Trump PAC and forfeiture allegations/seizures. Case wd [would] not need to go all the way up to Trump before Jack charges folks and seizes assets.”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub responded with a bit of snark: “Wire fraud? Delicious.”

Last year in June NPR reported that, according to the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, “the Trump campaign took $250 million in donations from supporters that it said would go to an election defense fund to pay for legal fees to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. But the fund was never actually created, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., one of the committee members, said … in the panel’s second public hearing.”

“Instead, the money went to the Save America political action committee,” NPR reported.

And in September of last year, Vanity Fair reported, “Two of Trump’s former top aides, Stephen Miller and Brian Jack, were issued subpoenas this week,” in an article noting that a “federal grand jury is now looking into former President Donald Trump’s Save America PAC.”

The eight countries that share the Amazon basin have fallen short of an agreed goal to end deforestation.

Delegates from the countries are meeting in the Brazilian city of Belém for a two-day summit on the issue, the first such gathering in 14 years.

A joint declaration on Tuesday created an alliance to combat deforestation, but left each country to pursue its own conservation goals.

Preserving the Amazon is a central part of efforts to tackle climate change.

Ahead of the summit, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had called for a common goal of ending deforestation by 2030, a policy his own government has already adopted.

Around 60% of the Amazon, the largest rainforest in the world, lies in Brazil. The other countries represented at the gathering are Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela.

In his opening speech on Tuesday, Lula spoke of the "severe worsening of the climate crisis" and said "the challenges of our era, and the opportunities arising from them, demand we act in unison".

"It has never been so urgent," he said.

Bar chart showing lower deforestation rates in 2023 compared to 2022 across most months from January to July

Deforestation in Brazil has fallen dramatically since Lula won the presidency from predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who favoured development over conservation, but thousands of sq km continue to be lost each year.

The joint statement, named the Belém declaration, said the new alliance would aim to "prevent the Amazon from reaching a point of no return".

It also included commitments to enhance co-operation on issues like water management, health, sustainable development and common negotiating positions at global climate summits.

Some will be disappointed the language is not stronger, but the summit has signalled a desire among countries in the region to work towards solutions to one of the biggest challenges of our time.

There have been differences in opinion in some areas.

Colombia's President, Gustavo Petro, for example, wants other countries to match his pledge to ban new oil exploration, while Brazil is considering exploring new areas at the mouth of the Amazon river.

Despite the differences, the gathering has undoubtedly given this region a voice when it comes to combatting climate change, and is being viewed as a precursor to the 2025 UN Climate Change conference, which will also be held in Belém.

Representatives from the eight countries which share the Amazon will attend

The summit opened on the same day that the European Union's climate change panel confirmed that July had been the hottest month on record globally.

The billions of trees that make up the Amazon hold vast amounts of carbon, accumulated over centuries, and every year their leaves continue to absorb carbon dioxide that would otherwise remain in the atmosphere and contribute to the rise in global temperatures.

The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.

Thanks to @stopthatgirl7 for the link.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Tuesday introduced legislation that would prohibit the inclusion of medical debt—which impacts more than 100 million people across the U.S.—on credit or consumer reports.

"The use of credit reports—which frequently contain errors—is now more than ever a huge barrier to a thriving life for many of our residents," Tlaib (D-Mich.), who has argued that medical debt "should not exist," said in a statement Tuesday. "Americans should not be denied access to basic needs that improve their quality of life, like employment, housing, or transportation because of medical debt."

In addition to preventing companies from including medical debt on credit reports, Tlaib's Restoring Unfairly Impaired Credit and Protecting Consumers Act would reduce the amount of time that adverse information remains on a credit report from seven years to four and require reporting agencies to wipe out negative information stemming from "predatory loans and fraudulent activity."

The bill also states that agencies "may not furnish a consumer report containing any adverse item of information about a consumer that resulted from financial abuse if the consumer has provided documentation of financial abuse to the consumer reporting agency."

"Our neighbors should not have to go without necessities because they fell victim to fraudulent activity or predatory lenders," said Tlaib, who has long pushed for the credit reporting changes. "Survivors of domestic and financial abuse do not deserve to have debt resulting from that abuse on their credit report. This bill is about fairness, opportunity, and justice, and I urge my colleagues in Congress to finally get this bill signed into law."

A 2019 study estimated that a staggering 66.5% of all personal bankruptcies in the U.S. between 2013 and 2016 were primarily caused by the costs associated with medical issues.

According to a joint investigation published last year by KFF Health News and NPR, 41% of U.S. adults are saddled with medical debt—a product of the nation's high-cost, for-profit healthcare system. The growing prevalence of medical credit cards with sky-high interest rates is contributing to the debt crisis, a group of progressive senators warned in January.

In recent months, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and credit reporting agencies have taken steps to lessen the impact of medical debt on Americans' credit scores.

The CFPB, which estimates that $88 billion in medical debt in the U.S. is currently in collections, has instructed credit reporting agencies not to include any invalid medical debts or other inaccurate information on credit reports.

"Many debt collectors furnish information about unpaid medical debts to credit bureaus," the consumer agency said last year. "Furnishers must have reasonable written policies and procedures regarding the accuracy and integrity of consumer information provided to credit bureaus."

Tlaib's office pointed out Tuesday that around 20% of people in the U.S. have an error on one of their credit reports.

The new legislation notes that "credit scores may underestimate a person's creditworthiness by up to 10 points for those who owe medical debt, and may underestimate a person's creditworthiness by up to 22 points after the medical debt has been paid."

Tlaib's bill specifically bars from credit reports "any information related to a debt arising from a medical procedure."

"This bill will prevent millions of Americans from experiencing economic ruin because of destructive credit reporting."

Starting earlier this year, the three major U.S. credit reporting giants—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion— began removing all medical collections under $500 from credit reports. The CFPB observed in a report last year that two-thirds of medical debts in the U.S. "are the result of a one-time or short-term medical expense arising from an acute medical need."

Candace Milner, racial equity policy associate with Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, applauded Tlaib's bill, saying in a statement that it would "help improve the credit ratings of those abused by financial scammers or beset with crushing medical debt and ideally restore their ability to access services impacted by credit and obtain affordable personal loans."

"The current credit reporting system creates unnecessary economic barriers that hinder millions of Americans from accessing basic needs," said Milner. "Rep. Tlaib's bill addresses the failure of credit agencies to ensure accuracy in their credit reporting while also providing tools for victims of predatory lending and financial abuse to repair their credit."

"If passed," Milner added, "this bill will prevent millions of Americans from experiencing economic ruin because of destructive credit reporting."

The former president baselessly accused Fani Willis, who is investigating his 2020 election meddling, of having an “affair” with a “gang member”

During a Tuesday campaign event in New Hampshire, Donald Trump leveled a bizarre accusation against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, suggesting she had had an “affair” with a “gang member” she was prosecuting.

“They say there’s a young woman — a young racist in Atlanta — they say she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member. And this is a person who wants to indict me […] wants to indict me for a perfect phone call,” Trump told supporters.

In May 2022, Willis empaneled a grand jury to investigate Trump and his allies’ efforts to interfere with Georgia’s 2020 election outcome, including the former president’s so-called “perfect” call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which he pressured him to “find” the votes necessary for him to win the election.

Trump has repeatedly attempted to discredit prosecutors investigating him, and while it’s unclear what Trump was talking about when he accused Willis of having an affair with “gang member,”, recent social media posts indicate that he is wildly misrepresenting a case she handled in 2019.

In January, Rolling Stone spoke to rapper YSL Mondo, who co-founded the Young Stoner Life (YSL) music label with Young Thug. Willis represented Mondo during a 2019 aggravated assault case, and would later go on to prosecute YSL’s Young Thug and 13 other defendants in a RICO case alleging that the music group had affiliations with gang violence in the Atlanta area.

According to Mondo, Willis’ prosecution of Young Thug ran contrary to the impression he’d developed of the prosecutor when she represented him. “This is not her character, this is not who she is,” he told Rolling Stone. “I done had auntie-to-nephew, mother-to-son type of talks with her. I know this not her character. This is what made me start looking at [the YSL case] like I know it’s bigger than just her. It’s politics behind this shit. It’s other people that’s behind her pulling strings.”

Mondo did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment from Rolling Stone. Willis also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Friday, Trump posted a video on Truth Social painting Willis as a member of a “fraud squad” of prosecutors unfairly targeting him under the command of President Joe Biden. The video featured the headline of Rolling Stone’s interview with Mondo, and claimed that Willis “got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting.”

While there’s no indication that Willis hid her representation of Mondo — or that their relationship was romantic in nature — far-right commentator and Trump ally Laura Loomer seized on the claim in the video to suggest that Willis had a sexual affair with her client.

“Atlanta DA, Fani Willis, who is targeting Donald Trump in Georgia is a straight up THOT,” Loomer wrote along with the video in a Twitter post last week. “Turns out she failed to disclose a previous relationship she had with a gang banger she was supposed to be prosecuting. Baby girl belongs in a Trap House. Not a court house.”

It appears to have been enough for Trump to go ahead and accuse Willis of sleeping with a gang member.

Willis herself is expected to bring an indictment related to her own investigation into Trump later this month, one that could possibly include RICO charges, so it’s not surprising that the former president is cranking his smear machine into overdrive.

GUAJARA-MIRIM, BRAZIL (AP) — On the banks of the Komi Memem River, the activity never ceases: women go down the embankment from Laje Velho village carrying basins to wash clothing, while men embark in small canoes on hunting and fishing expeditions. At day’s end, it’s the children’s turn to dive into its tea-colored waters.

The river, named Laje in non-Indigenous maps, is vital to the Oro Waram, one of the six subgroups of the Wari’ people, who have inhabited the Western Amazon for centuries. However, this immemorial relationship is under increasing threat. The relentless expansion of soybeans and pastures encroaches on their land, while land-robbers promote illegal deforestation.

To protect themselves, the Wari’ people are resorting to a new strategy: the white man’s law. In June, the municipality of Guajara-Mirim passed a groundbreaking law proposed by an Indigenous councilman that designates the Komi Memem and its tributaries as living entities with rights, ranging from maintaining their natural flow to having the forest around them protected.

The law comes as representatives of eight South American governments gather Tuesday and Wednesday in Brazil to discuss ways to preserve the Amazon rainforest to help stave off climate change and protect its Indigenous peoples.

The Komi Memem, a tributary of a larger river that’s unprotected, is now the first among hundreds of rivers in the Brazilian Amazon to have a law that grants it personhood status. This is part of a new legislative approach to protect nature that has made inroads in many parts of the world, from New Zealand to Chile.

“We are further organizing ourselves to fend off invaders,” councilman Francisco Oro Waram, the law’s proponent, told The Associated Press. “We can’t fight with arrows; we have to use the laws.”

A teacher by profession, Oro Waram lives with his family in Laje Velho village, a 40-minute drive from downtown Guajara-Mirim, mostly on paved highway surrounded by pasture. Right before the village entrance, heavy machinery was preparing soil for soybean crops, which are fast replacing cattle ranching throughout this part of the Amazon in Rondonia state.

“There are many generations to come, so the elders protect the water,” Oro Waram said of the river. “We don’t pollute it or cut the trees that surround it. It is a living being for us.”

Satellite images show the encirclement of the Indigenous Land Igarapé Lage, a green rectangle amid deforestation. This is where Laje Velho is located. In the past decades, the federal government has created six non-continuous Indigenous territories. One, Rio Negro Ocaia, has been awaiting the federal government’s approval of the expanded boundaries established by an anthropological study 15 years ago.

The Wari’ people lived independently until the late 1950s and early 1960s and are the largest group of Chapakuran speakers, an isolated language family. In the initial years after contact with outsiders, three out of five Wari’ died from introduced diseases, dwindling to as low as 400 people. The population has increased tenfold since then, but they now occupy less than one-third of their original territory, according to anthropologist Beth Conklin from Vanderbilt University, who has worked with them for nearly four decades.

“The Wari’ value their cosmology and rituals. And all of it centers around promoting human thriving in relationships with the non-human, with the larger world, and the well-being of your people,” Conklin told the AP. “So this law is a 21st century update of these very traditional social, biological, ecological values that are at the center of Wari’ culture.”

The expansion of soy, with heavily pesticide-dependent crops, poses a significant threat to the Komi Memem River. But it is not the only one. Upriver from Laje Velho, an invasion by land-robbers has blocked the Wari’ people from accessing their essential fishing grounds.

Moreover, the river’s headwaters are located near Guajará-Mirim State Park, a former Wari’ territory. Despite being a protected area, it has been extensively invaded and deforested by land-robbers in the past few years.

Instead of evicting them, the state governor, Marcos Rocha, an ally of the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, signed a law in 2021 reducing the park’s boundaries to legalize the land-grabbing. A judicial order subsequently overruled that law, but the invasion and deforestation have not stopped.

Last February, the river’s tea-colored water turned muddy red, scaring Oro Waram. “I had never seen it in my lifetime,” said the 48-year-old, who blames the episode on rampant illegal deforestation.

The councilman says that due to pollution from cattle farms and soybean crops, his village no longer drinks water directly from the river, as their ancestors did. Instead, they rely on artesian wells.

The Linha 26 Indigenous Wari' community, lies next to a deforested area in Nova Mamore, Rondonia state, Brazil, Friday, July 14, 2023. On June 6, about 60 armed men invaded the village, expelling its inhabitants. They only returned after the Federal Police went to the locale and retook it, according to the Wari’ umbrella organization.

Sometimes the threat is very direct. On June 6, about 60 armed men invaded Linha 26 village, expelling its inhabitants. They only returned after the Federal Police went to the locale and retook it, according to the Wari’ umbrella organization.

“The loggers entered and divided up the Indigenous land,” Gilmar Oro Nao, vice president of the Oro Wari’ association, told the AP. “They threaten food security. Our relatives have nowhere to fish, the Brazil nut trees were cut down. Today, they have nowhere to draw their survival from.”

Oro Nao said that the Wari’ don’t trust the National Indian Foundation’s local employees. He said there is widespread suspicion that they collaborate with illegal loggers and land-robbers.

The AP sent emails to the Indian Foundation, but received no response. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office, whose responsibility includes overseeing Indigenous rights, said it has opened an investigation on the invasions and has been monitoring the situation.

The Wari’ hope that the new law giving the river personhood status can help address what they see as inaction of Funai and the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Its main provision creates a committee to monitor the river with a board that would include Indigenous and non-Indigenous members, including a representative of the Rondonia Federal University.

The committee will produce an annual report about the river’s status and propose actions to ensure the rights secured by the new law.

In an Amazon region where agribusiness has become the economic powerhouse, it came as a surprise for many that the law had the unanimous approval of the city council of Guajara-Mirim, a city of 40,000 people with more than 90% of its territory inside protected areas.

“We are very happy with the law. It brought visibility to our municipality and sets an example to other cities and Indigenous territories,” said the mayor Raissa Paes Bento, who signed the law.

Protection of the Komi Memem River is also important for non-Indigenous inhabitants, Bento said, because fishing is a major economic activity and a source of food. “It is very good to have it preserved and clean.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pushing for a piece of financial reform that would unshackle small businesses and consumers alike from the maw of Visa and Mastercard’s credit card duopoly. Wall Street, in response, is spending millions to thwart the bill’s recent advances by fueling a conservative culture war over gay pride demonstrations and Chinese influence.

In coordination with big banks, Visa and Mastercard extract billions of dollars each year in “swipe fees” from retailers for the cost of accepting payments from cardholders. Though the fees hit all retailers, and a portion of them is passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, low-margin businesses like independent corner stores or gas stations face a higher percentage of these costs relative to their revenue.

Since the start of the pandemic, the fees have increased by up to 40 percent, rivaling rent as the second-highest overhead cost for independent stores. Visa and Mastercard, which together control over 80 percent of the credit card market, effectively get to set the rates for fees by blocking competitive alternatives for the transaction routing at card terminals.

A bipartisan coalition led by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Roger Marshall (R-KS) is aiming to alleviate the burden on small businesses through the Credit Card Competition Act (CCCA). The legislation would force card issuers that host these transactions (Visa and Mastercard) to enable competitor networks to manage the processing and routing—the service for which swipe fees are levied. By providing businesses with competing options, they can choose the service with lower fees.

For Democrats and anti-monopoly advocates, it’s another manifestation of the Biden administration’s crackdown on “junk fees” across sectors of the U.S. economy. As swipe fees skyrocketed this past year, the legislation has also drawn more Republican support than ever before.

In the legislative scrum over the annual defense authorization bill this month, backers of the CCCA pushed for its inclusion, as they had the previous year under the catchall national-security designation. During negotiations, Sen. Marshall even threatened to hold up the defense bill if the CCCA didn’t at least receive a vote.

One major setback was that the bill’s longest-running champion, Sen. Durbin, was sidelined during the height of negotiations because he caught COVID. However, both Marshall and Durbin announced that party leadership guaranteed them a stand-alone vote on the bill this fall, ending the defense bill fight. Neither senator could be reached for comment on the bill’s future.

“We see it as a small victory as the chorus of voices calling for reform grows louder and Washington is hearing us,” said Doug Kantor, the general counsel for the National Association of Convenience Stores, a member of the Merchants Payment Coalition. MPC led the charge to get legislation passed in 2010 that allowed for similar competition in debit card transactions, known as the Durbin Amendment. If leadership follows through on its promise to bring the CCCA to a vote, the coalition is confident they’ll have enough support to apply the same standard to credit cards.

Since the start of the pandemic, the fees have increased by up to 40 percent, rivaling rent as the second-highest overhead cost for independent stores.

The bill’s recent advances are setting off alarm bells on Wall Street. The bank and credit card lobby is marching in lockstep with conservative dark-money groups to inflame culture-war issues on the right in the hopes of splintering the cross-partisan coalition that’s coalesced around the bill.

In a recent ad campaign, shadowy right-wing groups have been issuing mailers and other advertisements claiming the CCCA is a liberal handout for “woke” big-box retailers like Target. One set of mailers was bankrolled by the Conservative Accountability Foundation, a newly formed organization based in Sen. Marshall’s home state of Kansas but without a listed address or phone number.

The mailers draw upon a recent controversy from earlier this summer. In celebration of June’s Pride Month, Target issued a line of LGBTQ merchandise, which drew backlash from conservatives mostly online and then sparked a boycott campaign. Target ended up caving to pressure, and removed its pride merchandise from numerous stores and its website.

It’s always been more convenient for the banks and credit card companies to frame large retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart as their main opponents in the swipe fee battle. These corporate stores do form an uncommon alliance with small-business groups on swipe fees, though the latter are the main ones driving the issue. What’s new is for the financial lobby to attack the large retailers on the basis of participating in Pride Month.

Intended for a conservative audience, the attack ads are directed at Sen. Marshall and other Republicans for their support of the bill, which they call a “bailout” for Target. The text reads, “Target hates conservatives but Sen. Marshall’s bill gives them billions,” with the company’s logo emblazoned with rainbow colors.

In a statement to Punchbowl News, which first reported the mailer, Sen. Marshall’s chief of staff Brent Robertson said: “When low-rent DC grifters come out of the woodwork with a big bank funded (c)4 like this, we know we’re doing something right for the working family.”

An ad campaign on Facebook this past month by Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)—Grover Norquist’s organization—pushes the same narrative, with the slogan “Side with consumers, not woke retailers.”

The mailer also taps into national-security fears about Chinese influence inside the U.S. The Chinese national flag flies in the background behind a cutout of Sen. Marshall next to a rainbow gay pride flag. It then says, “your financial data could be processed by partners of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Financial interests have long used this talking point, that competition in routing would make consumer financial data less secure. But they’re now attaching it to a broader hostility among conservatives toward China. The CCCA includes provisions blocking foreign-owned companies, and specifically China UnionPay, from participating in the transaction routing networks.

“There’s a certain desperation because it’s hard to make a legit conservative case against a bill that is designed to protect small businesses from what is, in effect, a monopoly tax on their revenue,” said Stacy Mitchell, the co-executive director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Op-eds in local newspapers in red states are parroting the same line about foreign threats to Americans’ financial information. At the end of June, one piece in The Florida Standard equated competition in transaction routing to Chinese surveillance on social media platform TikTok. The author, Samantha Beeler, is the president of the League of Southeastern Credit Unions, which spent $20,000 on lobbying this past quarter to oppose the CCCA, according to disclosure forms. The credit card industry has relied on the nationwide network of credit unions as surrogates for years to do its bidding.

The ATR did not respond to a request for comment to clarify their opposition to the legislation.

Talking points about woke retailers and China have made their way into lobbying on the Hill, according to numerous groups involved in the legislative fight. In addition to ad campaigns, banks and credit cards are funneling millions to lobbying campaigns to beat back the push for swipe fee reform. The American Bankers Association spent close to $5 million this year on issues including the CCCA, while the Credit Union National Association laid out over $2 million in the past two quarters to lobby on swipe fees, according to lobbying disclosures. Mastercard supplemented these conjoined efforts with almost $200,000 of its own firepower last quarter to four different lobbying shops.

Wall Street’s efforts to stir up a culture-war battle over financial regulation clash with its recent posturing over the past several years, as the face of corporate initiatives to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). The top banks and credit card companies routinely pledge support for LGBTQ inclusivity and diversity in hiring. Some firms held their own Pride Month celebrations this summer.

Both Wall Street and corporate America have in recent years used liberal social causes to stymie legislative reforms that threaten their interests. Most recently, Big Tech killed an antitrust bill last year in part by arguing that the bill would harm minority small businesses and by painting anti-monopoly groups as anti-trans.

“It’s increasingly becoming a Republican talking point to go after companies for supporting social inclusion … That should raise questions for Democrats about what is motivating these bills,” said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of Chamber of Progress, a tech trade group representing Amazon, Google, and Facebook, to Politico at the time.

The credit card lobby and their front groups are flipping the script by using conservative boycott campaigns to their advantage.

UPDATE: After publication, League of Southeastern Credit Unions President Samantha Beeler responded with the following statement: “Last year alone, more than 422M consumers were impacted by a data breach. At a time when fraud is running rampant due to the negligence of others to secure consumer data, Americans cannot afford a cheaper, less secure system.”

Former President Trump’s attorney John Lauro said he would not accept a plea deal in connection to the federal Jan. 6 case, in which the former president is charged with four federal counts related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

CBS host Major Garrett asked Lauro on “Face the Nation” if there was “any condition” under which Trump would accept a plea deal on the latest charges brought against him. Lauro told him there was no condition where Trump would.

When asked if he planned to file a motion to dismiss the case, Lauro said he “absolutely” will, but did not answer when he would file that.

“Hundred percent. Well, within the time permitted,” Lauro said. “This is what’s called a Swiss cheese indictment. It has so many holes that we’re going to be identifying and litigating a number of motions that we’re going to file on First Amendment grounds, on the fact that President Trump is immune as president from being prosecuted in this way.”

Lauro also said that cases similar to this case brought against Trump do not go to trial “before two or three years.” He also emphasized how he will be pushing to change the venue, saying West Virginia would be an “excellent venue to try this case.”

Lauro also noted that Trump’s comments, such as his stating that the judge overseeing his case was “unfair,” are made in the “context of a campaign.”

“Well, the problem with bringing a case like this in the middle of a campaign season is statements are going to be made in the context of a campaign,” he said. “We expect a fair and just trial in the District of Columbia. And — and my role — my role is simply to ensure that President Trump’s rights, just like every American’s rights, are protected every step of the way, and I’m going to do that.”

Trump pleaded not guilty to the latest charges in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Any citizen of the social internet knows the feeling: that irritable contentiousness, that desire to get into it that seems almost impossible to resist, even though you know you’ve already squandered too many hours and too much emotional energy on pointless internet disputes. If you use Twitter, you may have noticed that at least half the posts seemed intent on making someone—especially you—mad. In his new book, Outrage Machine, the technology researcher Tobias Rose-Stockwell explains that the underlying architecture of the biggest social media platforms is essentially (although, he argues, unintentionally) designed to get under your skin in just this way. The results, unsurprisingly, have been bad for our sanity, our culture, and our politics.

On this topic, an increasingly popular one as the social media economy convulses in response to Twitter’s Elonification, the preferred tone is either stern jeremiad or, for the well and truly addicted commentator (usually a journalist), a sort of punch-drunk nihilism much like that of someone who declares he’ll never quit smoking even though it’s going to kill him. Rose-Stockwell, by contrast, keeps his cool, pointing out that social media is full of “angry, terrible content” that makes our lives worse, while carefully avoiding any sign of partisanship or panic.

Former vice-president Mike Pence on Sunday said he would answer “the call of law” and give evidence against Donald Trump if required as the rift between the pair widened.

Mr Pence could be a key witness in the latest case brought against the former president, who has pleaded not guilty to four counts relating to his attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election.

“I have no plans to testify, but people can be confident we’ll obey the law,” Mr Pence said on CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday. “We’ll respond to the call of the law, if it comes, and we’ll just tell the truth.”

Pointedly, on the same programme Mr Pence refused to say whether he would vote for Mr Trump, should he be the Republican presidential nominee next year.

Last week’s indictment chronicled how Mr Trump and a number of co-conspirators repeatedly lied about the results of the 2020 vote after he lost the election and pressured Mr Pence and state election officials to take action to help him cling to power.

Those efforts culminated on January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters violently stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

Mr Pence, who is running against Mr Trump for the Republican Party’s nomination in 2024, insisted he had no alternative but to defy the pressure from his former boss.

“I had no right to overturn the election,” he told CNN.

His remarks came after Mr Trump used his Truth Social channel to unleash a vitriolic attack on his one-time deputy, describing him as “delusional”.

“WOW, it’s finally happened! Liddle’ Mike Pence, a man who was about to be ousted as Governor Indiana until I came along and made him V.P., has gone to the Dark Side,” Mr Trump said.

“I never told a newly emboldened (not based on his 2% poll numbers!) Pence to put me above the Constitution, or that Mike was ‘too honest,” he added, citing the 45-page indictment brought forward by the Department of Justice.

The “contemporaneous notes” Pence took in the run up to the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, are frequently cited in the indictment.

“He’s delusional, and now he wants to show he’s a tough guy,” Mr Trump said.

Meanwhile, John Lauro, a member of Mr Trump’s defence team, welcomed the prospect of Mr Pence testifying as he toured US television networks on behalf of the former president.

“The Vice President will be our best witness,” he said on CBS’ Face the Nation as he played down the rift between the former running mates.

“Now, of course, there was a constitutional disagreement between Vice President Pence and President Trump, but the bottom line is never, never in our country’s history have those kinds of disagreements been prosecuted criminally? It’s unheard of,” Mr Lauro added.

He also confirmed the Trump defence team was seeking to have the case thrown out, arguing any actions the former president took after the 2020 election were “aspirational asks,” protected by free speech.

“This is what’s called a Swiss cheese indictment and there’s so many holes that we’re going to be identifying and mitigating a number of motions that we’re going to file on First Amendment grounds, or the fact that President Trump is immune as president from being prosecuted in this way,” Mr Lauro said.

Should the trial on the charges filed by special prosecutor Jack Smith relating to the election go ahead, Mr Trump’s team will try to move a hearing away from Washington DC to West Virginia – a state he won by nearly 40 points.

“I think West Virginia would be an excellent venue to try this case,” Mr Lauro said.

Mr Trump added he was seeking Judge Tanya Chutkan’s recusal from the case over concerns he would not receive a “fair trial”.

Rival Republican candidate Chris Christie meanwhile dismissed the calls to shift any eventual hearing away from Washington DC.

“I believe jurors can be fair. I believe in the American people. And I believe in the fact that jurors will listen fairly and impartially,” Mr Christie, a former prosecutor, told CNN.

Meanwhile, another of Mr Trump’s lawyers, Alina Habba, predicted he could face a further indictment, this time from Georgia, within weeks.

The former president was taped asking Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the 11,780 votes he needed to reverse his defeat there in 2020.

Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, Ms Hubba said she expected an indictment from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis,

“I think that it’s been highly spoken about. I think, if you look at the barricades, the fact that she’s got her PR team doing fresh pictures for her, it’s a good indicator that Fani wants her moment, and she will — she will get on the bandwagon with the rest of the corrupt DAs and AGs that we have seen out of this country,” she said.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr said he is willing to testify against former President Trump at his Jan. 6 trial.

Barr, who was appointed by Trump, responded “of course” when asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if he would be willing to appear as a witness in Trump’s trial over federal charges related to alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He declined to answer whether he was interviewed by the special counsel in connection to the federal investigation.

Barr has been a staunch critic of the former president since he resigned from his post shortly after the 2020 election. He noted that the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith was a “challenging” one, but that he does not think it “runs afoul of the First Amendment.”

When asked about his interactions with Trump and how he told the former president there was no evidence of election fraud, Barr said that his investigations into the fraud “satisfied” the conclusions.

“Well, I go through that in my book in painstaking detail, but on three occasions at least, I told him in no uncertain terms, that there was no evidence of fraud that would have changed the outcome,” he said.

Trump was indicted last week over his attempts to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election to President Biden. In a 45-page indictment, the Justice Department alleges Trump engaged in a campaign of “dishonesty, fraud and conceit” to obstruct a “bedrock function” of a democracy. He pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday.

Any citizen of the social internet knows the feeling: that irritable contentiousness, that desire to get into it that seems almost impossible to resist, even though you know you’ve already squandered too many hours and too much emotional energy on pointless internet disputes. If you use Twitter, you may have noticed that at least half the posts seemed intent on making someone—especially you—mad. In his new book, Outrage Machine, the technology researcher Tobias Rose-Stockwell explains that the underlying architecture of the biggest social media platforms is essentially (although, he argues, unintentionally) designed to get under your skin in just this way. The results, unsurprisingly, have been bad for our sanity, our culture, and our politics.

On this topic, an increasingly popular one as the social media economy convulses in response to Twitter’s Elonification, the preferred tone is either stern jeremiad or, for the well and truly addicted commentator (usually a journalist), a sort of punch-drunk nihilism much like that of someone who declares he’ll never quit smoking even though it’s going to kill him. Rose-Stockwell, by contrast, keeps his cool, pointing out that social media is full of “angry, terrible content” that makes our lives worse, while carefully avoiding any sign of partisanship or panic.