Yuan Has Replaced Dollar As Russia’s Main Foreign Currency
The Bank of Russia has announced that yhe yuan/ruble exchange rate will now set the trajectory for other currency pairs on the Moscow Exchange (MOEX), including for the euro and dollar. Their statement comes as […]
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UK Gov’t to Mandate Bill Gates’ Digital ID for Citizens Who Wish To Participate in Society
The British government has announced plans to require all residents in the UK to enroll in Bill Gates’ digital ID system if they wish to continue participating in society. The Gates Foundation welcomed the news […]
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New Study Reveals mRNA Jabs Cause Irreversible Tinnitus
A new study has revealed that mRNA injections cause severe and irreversible tinnitus in recipients. The study authors from the U.S. analyzed results from a survey involving 398 cases of tinnitus related to the Covid […]
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New GOP Bill Would Ban Gov’t DEI Hires, Prevent Funding to Diversity Initiatives
(LifeSiteNews) — Republican U.S. representatives on Wednesday introduced a bill to ban all so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) hires and promotions in the federal government as well as required assent to the DEI principle of “oppressed” and “privileged” classes.
The Washington Free Beacon referred to the Dismantle DEI Act, introduced by Republican U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Republican U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud of Texas, as “the most comprehensive legislative effort yet” to eliminate DEI initiatives from the federal government. The bill would also nix federal grant funding to diversity initiatives and bar accreditation agencies “from requiring DEI in schools,” the Beacon reported.
“The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division,” Vance told the Washington Free Beacon. “It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society.”
Diversity training has “exploded” in the federal government since President Joe Biden took office in 2020, the Beacon noted, with all federal agencies now mandating a form of DEI training.
A prime example of the absurd and counterproductive lengths to which DEI trainings can go is a training video leaked from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) that instructs employees that using the term “person who is pregnant” is “inclusive and preferred to ‘pregnant women.’”
Both these trainings and the DEI offices that conduct them would be wiped out by the Dismantle DEI Act. It would also prevent the staff fired in the process from being transferred or reassigned, in order to put a hard stop to all DEI initiatives under any name.
The Beacon also points out that the legislation goes a step further than previously proposed anti-DEI bills by eliminating requirements to keep tabs on the racial makeup of employees, for example, as well as requirements to collect data on the“diversity and inclusion efforts” of federal agencies.
Remarkably, if passed, the legislation could save the federal government billions of dollars, given that the Biden administration has spent over $16 million on diversity training in 2023 for government staff alone. Biden’s State Department sought another whopping $83 million for DEI programs last year that was slammed at the time by a Republican congressional aide as “useless.”
“Woke ideology and culturally en vogue but diplomatically useless DEI notions have come to penetrate every last inch of the State Department,” the aide toldNational Review. “Every office, and every process, has been colonized by this way of thinking. The new budget proposal reflects this.”
DEI initiatives have long been widely denounced by conservatives and moderates as divisive, but they have been coming under increasing fire for undermining the competence and most basic functioning of public institutions and private corporations, even putting lives at risk.
For example, some commentators have blamed growing – and at times catastrophic and fatal – airplane safety failures in part on DEI hires and policies. Upon the revelation that a doctor at Duke Medical School was “abandoning… all sort(s) of metrics” in hiring surgeons in order to implement DEI practice, Elon Musk warned that “people will die” because of DEI.
He elaborated on X, “If the standards for passing medical exams and becoming a doctor, or especially something like a surgeon – if the standards are lowered, then the probability that the surgeon will make a mistake is higher. (If) they’re making mistakes in their exam, they may make mistakes with people and that may result in people dying.”
“DEI destroys competence while making Americans into enemies,” commented Arthur Milikh, director of the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life, a conservative group backing the bill. “This ideology must be fought, and its offices removed.”
New Polish Surveillance Bill will Give Tusk Government Incredible Access to Citizens’ Private Data
The Polish parliament is in the process of debating a government telecommunications bill, which, according to the Confederation party, will endanger people’s right to privacy. The party has been warning since April that the proposed legislation is a reworking of a bill that the former Law and Justice (PiS) government proposed but recoiled from introducing.
Confederation MP Roman Fritz said that the proposed legislation is ”introducing surveillance through the backdoor,” as it forces providers of services to maintain the capacity to store data to which 10 different state intelligence and law enforcement services have direct access.
The state services that would have such access include the police, border guards, the prison service, the Internal Security Agency (ABW), counterintelligence, the military police, and the Anti-Corruption Agency (CBA).
“Thousands of officials will have the ability to conduct extensive surveillance of Poles and this is to be funded by telecoms service providers, which will mean a rise in the price of these services for the public,” said Fritz.
Michał Urbaniak, another Confederation MP, pointed to the provision in the legislation, which would force the service providers to block people’s access to their email and social media messaging accounts and would oblige service providers to keep billing and geolocation data. This, argued the MP, would mean “blanket surveillance.”
Confederation has consistently argued for limiting powers of surveillance and data protection for private individuals. The party has submitted its legislative proposals, which only give state services access to personal data after obtaining a court order.
Court Rules ‘Success Kid’ Meme Use in Political Ad Does Not Qualify as Fair Use
When the Obama White House in 2013 used the “Success Kid” meme to promote, in posts on social media, the adoption of the Immigration Reform Bill – nobody clenched a fist, much less batted an eyelash to brand this PR strategy as a copyright violation.
However, the same can’t be said for the case of former Republican Congressman Steve King’s use of the meme (variations of which have been all over the internet for the past 15 or so years). But, when it made its way to one of King’s Facebook posts in 2020, the family of the child whose picture is used as a template sued on copyright grounds.
And now a court has once again sided with their arguments. The “new rule” is that the image turned into a meme, when used in a political ad, does not fall under the fair use copyright exemption.
The mother of the child, Laney Griner, has no problem with the picture being used in other types of ads – the United States Court of Appeals For the Eighth Circuit ruling notes that she took the photo in 2007, and after “Success Kid” became extremely popular, copyrighted it in 2012 to then license it to the likes of Virgin Mobile, Vitamin Water, Microsoft, and Coca-Cola, who used it in ads.
The original 2022 verdict in the case brought by Griner against King was that unlicensed use took place and that his campaign, but not the congressman himself, was guilty, and ordered them to pay $750.
In appealing the ruling, the campaign argued copyright law’s fair use rule to defend the inclusion of the meme in a fundraising effort. Another argument was implied license.
Now the court of appeals has found that the latter claim was abandoned during the original trial and, as for fair use – this was rejected based on the criteria the judges set for themselves to consider: whether the use was commercial, and “how much of the photo” was used.
Regarding other political campaigns (notably, the Obama administration pushing the immigration legislation), this latest decision saw the circuit judge agree with the trail judge that the evidence about the meme’s association with political ideas should not be considered.
We obtained a copy of the ruling for you here.