Frances Macron Calls for Regulation of Social Media to Stem Threat to Democracy – The Wall Street Journal

PARISFrench President Emmanuel Macron called for international regulation to curb the spread of ideological extremism in Western democracies, chiding tech companies and political correctness for allowing it to flourish.

Speaking to a group of reporters inside the lyse Palace, Mr. Macron said the storming of the U.S. Capitol was a sign of the Wests failure to rein in social media platforms, allowing them to become incubators of hate, moral relativism and conspiracy theories.

The French leader chided tech companieswithout naming themfor giving former President Donald Trump a platform to spread hate for years before taking action. Twitter Inc. banned Mr. Trumps personal account in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, citing the risk of further incitement of violence. Facebook Inc. announced a temporary suspension of Mr. Trump after the riot before extending that action indefinitely.

All those who allowed President Trump to succeed waited until they were entirely sure that he had no power left to then wrap themselves in dignity and now say Lets take away his whistle, Mr. Macron said. Why didnt they shut down his accounts before all this happened?

Mr. Macron said governments had delegated too much authority to tech companies by expecting them to act as stewards for Western democracy. This is an issue for real international regulation, Mr. Macron said.

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Frances Macron Calls for Regulation of Social Media to Stem Threat to Democracy - The Wall Street Journal

Biden’s Treasury revives push to put Harriet Tubman on $20 bill after Trump shelved it – CNBC

Harriet Tubman, circa 1870

HB Lindsey | Underwood Archives | Getty Images

The Biden administration will revive the push to make Harriet Tubman the face of a new $20 bill, an effort that was shelved during former President Donald Trump's term.

"We're exploring ways to speed up that effort," White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday after being asked if the new administration would pick up the Obama-era initiative.

An updated $20 note featuring Tubman, the former slave who became an icon of the abolitionist movement, was originally set to be unveiled around the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote.

But Trump's Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced during a 2019 congressional hearing that the redesign would be delayed until 2028. Mnuchin said at the time that the primary reason for redesigning a currency is to combat counterfeiting efforts.

Psaki said Monday that the Treasury Department is "taking steps to resume efforts" to put Tubman's image on the front of the new $20 bills.

It's important for the bills to "reflect the history and diversity of our country," Psaki said, "and Harriet Tubman's image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that."

Tubman's face on the bill would replace that of Andrew Jackson, the seventh U.S. president. Trump was such a big fan of Jackson that he featured a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office. Joe Biden, who took office last Wednesday, removed the painting.

Trump before being elected had called the plan to replace Jackson with Tubman "pure political correctness."

A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department echoed Psaki's remarks in a separate statement to CNBC. Jack Lew, the Treasury secretary under former President Barack Obama who spearheaded the effort to put Tubman on the $20, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Redesigning the bill is an intricate process that will take time and require more changes than just a simple face swap. For example, it took 11 years to develop the blue security strip that now adorns the $100 bill.

Producing the new $20 notes with robust anti-counterfeiting technology and other security measures in place will require a new high-speed printing facility, which is currently scheduled for 2025.

Concepts for an updated $50 note are in development.

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Biden's Treasury revives push to put Harriet Tubman on $20 bill after Trump shelved it - CNBC

Why is Kremlin Tagging Protesters Political Pedophiles? – Voice of America

Russias state-controlled media has been turning to a disinformation playbook it has used before in a bid to discredit protesters agitating for the release from prison of Kremlin critic AlexeiNavalny, say analysts.

Navalny was detained on his return to Moscow for parole violations after recovering in Germany from a near-fatal poisoning. His arrest has triggered the largest anti-Kremlin protests seen in Russia since 2011, and Washington is being blamed for the demonstrations, with Kremlin officials and state media presenters alleging that Western powers, mainly the U.S., are behind the agitation.

Washington is becoming a convenient pretext for accusations, although in reality it has very little to do with what is happening, Donald Jensen, director of the United States Institute of Peace, a research organization, told VOAs Russian service. This is a question for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and the Russian people, and it is clear that a significant minority of Russians are unhappy.

Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russias security council, has compared the Navalny protests to the popular Maidan uprising in Ukraine of 2013-2014, which he and other Kremlin officials also accused the West of fomenting.

He told the state-owned weekly newspaper Argumenty i Fakti the West needs Navalny, To destabilize the situation in Russia, for social upheavals, strikes and new Maidans.

What this can lead to we see in the example of Ukraine, which in essence, has lost its independence, he added.

Maidan revolt

Disinformation analysts also are drawing comparisons to the Maidan revolt not as an example of Western intervention, but in terms of the Kremlins information management strategy launched to try to save Putin ally President Viktor Yanukovych from ouster.

They say many of the same memes, tropes and conspiracy theories dissimulated during the Maidan revolt are being used now to try to shape a narrative discrediting pro-Navalny protesters.

In 2013, when hundreds of thousands of pro-Europe protesters occupied Kyivs Maidan to demand Yanukovychs resignation, Kremlin-controlled media portrayed the people behind the uprising as being opposed to traditional, socially conservative Russian values of family and religion.

Among the memes Russian disinformation channels broadcast were those conflating the agitation with homosexuality, warning of the risk that a homo-dictatorship would be established in Ukraine, according to analysts.

Theres a long tradition of pro-Kremlin propaganda using homophobic rhetoric to discredit pro-democracy activism, said Zarine Kharazian, an analyst at the Digital Forensic Research Lab, part of the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based research group. The lab studies disinformation campaigns.

The protesters in the early days of the revolt were predominately young and their occupation of the Maidan, one of Kyivs central squares, was sparked by Yanukovychs decision not to sign an association agreement with the European Union. Because the EU supports same-sex marriage, Russias state-controlled medias starting point was that the European Union was homosexual, and so the Ukrainian movement toward Europe must be, as well, according to Yale academic Timothy Snyder.

Writing in his book, The Road to Unfreedom, Snyder noted, In November and December 2013, the Russia media covering the Maidan introduced the irrelevant theme of gay sex at every turn.

'Political pedophilia'

As the anti-Kremlin protests erupted this week in Moscow, St. Petersburg and about 70 other towns across Russia, state-controlled media appeared again to color the political agitation with sexual politics, accusing protest leaders of political pedophilia, part of an official claim that most protesters were manipulated minors.

Sociologists say the protesters came from a range of age groups, although some 25 percent were 18- to 25-year-olds. Nonetheless, Russian officials say Navalny and his supporters have been exploiting the vulnerability of children and the young, persuading them to demonstrate in the streets. This is a serious operation, alleged Valery Fadeyev, head of Putin's human rights council.

TV presenter Dmitry Kiselyov, the head of Rossiya Segodnya, complained on his marquee show News of the Week. There are people who are so low, they drag children into politics, like political pedophiles. Is this bad? Its horrible. Other presenters on Russian newscasts also tagged protesters as political pedophiles.

Pedophilia, with or without the qualifier political, is a charged word in Russia, say disinformation analysts. They argue that the government has a long propaganda history of linking homosexuality with pedophilia. They say labeling the protesters as pedophiles has to be understood within a larger state project of defining Russias identity in terms of traditional values, delineating Russia from a Western world often portrayed by the Kremlin as dissolute and decadent.

I do think its an attempt to paint opposition protests as Western and fundamentally at odds with traditional Russian values, said Kharazian. The equating of homosexuality and pedophilia is based on common homophobic tropes of homosexuality as unnatural or in some way perverted. And beyond Maidan, these homophobic narratives have also been applied to protests in Armenia, Venezuela, Georgia and elsewhere.

It is hard to say if this tactic will work for a wide swathe of Russians, but for those already receptive to anti-Western propaganda, it certainly is potent, she said.

Putin avoided mentioning his foe Navalny by name in a midweek speech to the World Economic Forum. But he warned against the destruction of traditional values. The social and values crisis is already having negative demographic consequences, from which mankind is at risk of losing entire civilizational and cultural continents.

Putin himself has defended Russia's anti-gay laws in the past by equating gays with pedophiles, saying Russia needs to cleanse itself of homosexuality.

In an interview in 2014 with ABC TV, on the eve of the Sochi Olympics, he suggested that gays are more likely to abuse children. And in September 2013, Putin talked about the excesses of Western political correctness, which he said had reached the point where there are serious discussions on the registration of parties that have propaganda of pedophilia as their objective.

Jakub Kalensky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a colleague of Kharazian, says the Kremlin-controlled medias homophobic tropes are playing into the prejudices of some of the more conservative Russians. Its not just about influencing the audience, but also using the audience's prejudices to discredit the protests, he said.

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Why is Kremlin Tagging Protesters Political Pedophiles? - Voice of America

LETTERS / To Ensure That There – High Country Press

Dear Editor

To reduce potential confusion I begin this essay with the admonition that no president has represented my interests since JFK. We havent had a free press since at least acting President Reagan and slick Willie. What we have are Propaganda Outlets. Political correctness increases: our free press establishes official truth. Youre free as long as you stand where youre told and say whats expected.

On 1/6 the Dems found a political godsend enabling them to frame their opposition as enemies of the state, damned to ideological purgatory. The Dems now conduct a war of annihilation. The hildabeest said, during an interview, Trump and his deplorables took their orders from Putin. Divide and conquer is the tactic of the rulers and successful as ever.

Consensus is the only way to solve conflict.

If you think the game aint rigged, you aint been paying attention. It follows the same pattern as every other convenient crisis used by government as an excuse to expand its powers, and remove freedoms, at your expense. If you dare to subscribe to any views contrary to the governments you may be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.

Biden signaled its open season on any opposition: The opposition wont sit still and be abused.Theyll respond so, anticipate consequences. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party, was the question in 1950, but now its centered on the orange man.

Biden said On this January day my whole soul is in this: Bringing America together, uniting our people, and uniting our nation. I ask every American to join me in this cause. He itemized the target: Anger, resentment, hatred, extremism, violence and lawlessness.

The Biden gang speaks to the Not-Biden Rabble with a sense of conviction that theyre better people and more competent; the rabble are deluded simpletons, who need guidance from their intellectual, moral, and cultural superiors to re-direct their peasant yearnings for a better life into the approved Track.

On inauguration night, Antifa mobs rioted in Portland and Seattle. Similar mobs gave us a summer of rioting, looting and arson after George Floyds death. Democrats never condemned these mobs, but they did the activities of 1/6. Referring to the 2011 invasion of Wisconsins state capitol Nancy Pelosi praised it as an impressive show of democracy in action.

Police brutality certainly is Americas sin. To purge it, we have to kneel. To remove systemic racism while kneeling, white people have to apologize for their privilege. Slaverys next; to free ourselves from that we have to destroy sculptures as white people judge themselves while kneeling and repenting of their white privilege. White supremacy is the latest fiction. I havent seen much of that since the seventies. Now its the new burning issue.

De-fund the police calls have become fund the secret police. Domestic terror bills creating new DHS units to monitor extremism are being advanced. During summer BLM riots were called acts of courage. They even declared an autonomous zone taking over government buildings, yet our free press never used the words insurrection, sedition, or treason. AOC praised these mostly peaceful protests and said the point is to make people feel uncomfortable.

If you feel uncomfortable that 25,000 troops were in the district of corruption, then were told youre a conspiracy theorist. Remember, ignorance is strength, so you must obey the experts. When you accept the accusation, which its become, that someones a conspiracy theorist, youre allowing another to do your thinking for you. Replace that term with: critical thinker.

The media says its their job to control what you believe. Americans in the Land of the Free have had their free speech censored by most media, which features who and what they want while forbidding different views. Welcome to double standard America.

You cant make someone be someone else. You might convince them with patience and evidence.

A majoritybelieve journalists/reporters mislead by knowingly presenting false or exaggerated news; most news organizations favor a political position more than informing citizens. Americans can see that the news is the same no matter which channel you watch. The hypocrisy is thick. Party loyalists are a huge problem because they wear blinders. We expect the media to hold the powerful to account but its mostly image marketing.

After the Trump supporters, with much evidence they were directed by Antifa masquerading as trumpers, stormed the Capitol on 1/6, the media piled on. Their first move was to make it a story about race. The Trump extravaganza had nothing to do with race, but a confederate flag or two and suddenly its a KKK rally to hear the TV present it. Covid blowback, unrestricted immigration, wars of choice, election fraud, but were told its about race. Imagine the outcome/response if BLM had done 1/6? An unarmed Trump supporter at the Capitol was shot dead. If a black protester died by police in 2020s incessant BLM riots, lootings and arsons, hed already be on a postage stamp.

The TV tells us that immigrants from failing countries need free admission to the empire but neglect to remember/consider, the reason theyre running is because our empire has continually destroyed their elected governments that dont toe the empires line, creating mayhem in their countries.

Racism is an endless game of political correctness ignoring that, worldwide, there are differences others have trouble getting past, especially when you factor in the crime of micro aggression whatever that means. Disney is now, with a straight face, calling Peter Pan and Dumbo racist.

Who needs fiction writers these days when we have the Democratic Party? Our ministry of truth sells lies so well, many accept them. All the presstitutes said that theres no evidence of fraud, and all who support examining the evidence are enemies of democracy.In other words, democracy is a stolen election.If you protest the theft, you oppose democracy.

America is close to the monolithic control of information that Orwell predicted in 1984. Big Tech has banned debate about government policy on the coronavirus, and any discussion of election fraud is treated as a crime.One mans misinformation is anothers truth: ignoring Israels crimes is an example of that, as is the recent election. The world clearly sees that the emperor is wearing no clothes.

Our free press was joyous at the arrival of slow Joe. You can sleep easy again: the party of peace, tolerance, and reconciliation has returned. They want to heal and unify the nation, but clearly the only way to do so is to create enemies lists and silence anyone with dissenting opinions.

Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter, said, Me-first capitalists are going to be the first peoplelined up against the wall and shot in the revolution. Ill happily provide video commentary. Companies like Twitter are a big part of the efforts to unify the nation deleting 70,000 accounts using 1/6 as an excuse. The completely fair and objective media says that simply acknowledging this tech purge makes you a conspiracy theorist.

Axios wrote:Right wings new conspiracy: The silencing. They said that only crazy conspiracy theorists believe that there are efforts to silence their voices. In other words, dont believe your lying eyes.

Its illegal for businesses to discriminate due to peoples ancestral origin, but its legal to prohibit opinions. In the manner of No Colored signs on the door of businesses in the 50s they have every right asprivately owned businessesto do business with whomever they wish. The Left is defined by its psychotic doublethink. Its intolerant while advertising itself as open-minded. It promotes discrimination in the name of combatting it.

What are they afraid of, and who have we become?

The first amendment says you shall make no laws restricting free speech. Were told we must ensure harmful speech is regulated to guarantee broad participation in the public dialog thats essential to our democracy. Were told that thefirst amendment needs removal because right-wingers are speaking in unapproved ways. This open-ended condition can be interpreted however any official feels necessary.

Were told Twitter is big, so anti-vaccination/anti-war/pro-Russia/Covid denial viewsare going to cause panic so we must redefine free speech; Offensive, misinformation, and hate speech will be discoveredoften. Everythingcan be made to meananything. The ministry of truth has arrived.

Sowell wrote: If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago, and a racist today. Our free press presents selected information designed to do your thinking for you.

Our political/media class have beenpushing for more authorityto solve their fear of domestic terrorism. New domestic terror policies were in the works before 1/6. Internet censorship isincreasing normalized, and digital armiesare encouraged to report suspects to the authorities, just like the Soviets. An incredibly large part of America seems to have no problem with any of this.

Monopolistic Silicon Valley tycoons are censoring worldwide political speech, just like the TV news. Theres lots of narrative manipulation going on to keep it from being obvious.

The way to stem the tide of whatever concerns you is to eliminate conditions which created it.

Trump was successful by using the widespread awareness that theres a swamp that needs draining: a corrupt political system unconcerned with your interests. Governmentoften does evil things and lies about themassisted by our free press leaving people to imagine whats happening behind closed doors. People see that the system has failed them. Those interested in ending Trumpism/populism would act to end the corrupt political system, from top to bottom.These changes arent being promoted by our political/media class because they speak for an empire that depends on these things.

Corruption enables campaign donations and corporate lobbying/revolving doors,to advance the ruling interests; Government secrecy enables members to conspire (ops, conspiracy theory) to advance the empires agendas. The lying mass media manufacture yourconsent for wars in a system which doesnt serve your interests.

Youre not going to change Americas existing fascist system by expanding an authoritarian monster: you need drastic actual change.

If you dont comply with the ruling parties dogma and agenda, your ability to work, communicate, express your once-free-opinions will come to a halt. The Biden gang doesnt seem to care that there are costs for persecuting Trump and 75 million Americans. It cant be long until those consequences arrive, violently.

Criminalizing opposition to our government is insanely dangerous. The globalist ruling classes have reminded us who is in charge, and how quickly they can remove the democratic and legal facade. The War on Populism is becoming the War on Domestic Terror, one part of the Global War on Terror.

The treatment by the propagandists at CNN/ABC/NBC/CBS/Bloomberg/Fox, et al, of 1/6 proves that when they lie, mislead, quote biased official sources, and reject as conspiracy theory anything opposing their misrepresentations, they can fool half the country. Im reading about arrests for spreading misinformation.

Craig Dudley

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LETTERS / To Ensure That There - High Country Press

Point of View: ‘Cancel culture’ is tearing the nation apart – Palm Beach Post

Palm Beach Post

In two prophetic books, Animal Farm: A Fairy Storyand 1984,the British essayist George Orwell depicted a future world in which the state would exercise complete control over all facets of social life.

"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four," Orwell wrote. "If that is granted, all else follows.

Sadly, Orwell's depiction of state-controlled life is being ignored and challenged today by the "cancel culture"cult. Nonviolent free speech, our First Amendment right in our Constitution, is being attacked vitriolically and is tearing our nation apart. People are being fired from their jobs, expelled from schools, blacklisted, abused verbally and even harmed physically by simply declaring, for example, "All lives matter."

A surge of selective censorship has been directed at conservative ideas especially if those ideas are not consistent with the narrative of the political elitists and advocates of political correctness.

Freedom of speech is one of the powers of freedom of the will. It is the right to speak and think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. It is the polar opposite of political correctness, which is used as a weapon of fear and is a threat to our nation's survival.

My past and present stance on mob violence of any kind has been to confront it without prejudice. Wrong is wrong no matter who you are, what color you are, what religion you are, or what your politics are. Sadly, the hypocrisy is in plain sight today when individuals react vigorously but selectively to criminal behavior that fits their own interests and agendas.

Well-meaning citizens or large segments of our population who protest peacefully or vote differently cannot be branded as pariahs just because the majority in government power want to maintain Orwellian control as Big Brother.

Our nation was built on compromise and a free exchange of ideas. If we abandon these two tenets, our future is doomed. If we disrespect our First Amendment, knowing full well that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, then perhaps we should recall the words of the providential biblical figure who said as his life ebbed away beneath a crown of thorns, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!

We must embrace the gift of free will granted to us by Providence, and stand up and resist political correctness in every form. If not, we may be forced to accept that 2+2=5.

DR. DAVID TUCKER, PALM BEACH GARDENS

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Point of View: 'Cancel culture' is tearing the nation apart - Palm Beach Post

Dick Polman | Show me the money: Put Tubman on the $20 bill – TribDem.com

Ill readily admit that the face gracing the $20 bill is not our most urgent issue not with 420,000 people needlessly dead and 45 Republican senators saying that their insurrectionist in exile should get a pass.

But we can all agree that symbols are important, define who we are as a people and help us craft our national narrative.

So, in that sense, it surely matters whether the face on the $20 bill depicts a racist genocidal white guy who enslaved human beings or a Black woman who repeatedly risked her life to successfully free human beings. The good news is that the Biden administration intends to right a wrong by putting Harriet Tubman where she belongs.

As press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday, The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put (Tubman) on the front of the new $20 notes. Its important that our money reflect the history and diversity of our country.

Well, yeah. White men werent the only people who built this nation. Black women have never appeared on American currency. Tubman, a fugitive slave and heroine of the Underground Railroad, rescued hundreds of African-Americans from servitude.

She was a Union spy during the Civil War, recruited ex-slaves for a Union regiment, and led an assault that freed 700 more. In her late 70s she delivered speeches for womens suffrage, but died seven years before women won the right to vote.

Wait, let me back up a bit.

Did Psaki say that the Biden administration wants to resume the process to put Tubman on the $20 bill?

When did that process start and why did it stop?

Take a wild guess why it stopped.

Back in 2016, President Barack Obamas Treasury secretary announced a plan to replace facial incumbent Andrew Jackson starting in 2020. But that plan was quickly shelved during the MAGA occupation. As the MAGA candidate had signaled during the 2016 campaign, when asked about replacing Jackson with Tubman, I dont like seeing it. I think its pure political correctness.

In his mind, the reality of racial diversity and the truth of our national narrative was political correctness. And he was reportedly blunter in conversation with White House aides. According to Omarosa Manigault Newman, the ex-aide who last year wrote the book Unhinged, her boss told her what he really thought about Tubman: You want me to put that face on the $20 bill?

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was thus tasked with telling Congress that the switch to Tubman was unfeasible because of security concerns, something to do with unspecified counterfeiting issues.

And so the woman who once said that slavery is the next thing to hell was thereby consigned to the back of the bus.

Besides, the insurrectionist-in-chief loved Jackson and put the guys picture on the Oval Office wall. In his words, Andrew Jackson had a history of tremendous success for the country.

If living as a member of the landed gentry with slave labor and ethnic-cleansing Native Americans is what constitutes success, then, yes, Jackson was boffo.

As the recent excellent book Jacksonland chronicles in great detail, Jacksons style of negotiating (with Native Americans) was frank and coercive. In talk after talk over the years, he told native leaders he was their friend, and that he wanted to pay for their land but that if they failed to sell, white settlers would take their land for nothing.

Jackson, his family members and his closest business associates, ultimately stole more than 45,000 acres. Having thus enriched himself prior to becoming president, he worked with his postmaster general to suppress anti-slavery mail from northern abolitionists.

Yes, were only talking here about faces on currency. But its high time we honored people such as Tubman who truly made America great. This was a woman who in her last years preached hope to people of color during the worst of Jim Crow. She once said: Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

And she was right on the money where she belongs.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

Dick Polman is a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia. His column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

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Dick Polman | Show me the money: Put Tubman on the $20 bill - TribDem.com

No one dares to answer for the disaster of Connecticut’s cities – Journal Inquirer

Nearly everyone in Connecticut knows that its capital city, Hartford, is a mess, and that its largest city, Bridgeport, is too. Yet for saying so about Hartford in an essay in The Wall Street Journal on New Year's Day, former gubernatorial candidate Bob Stefanowski continues to generate outrage from news organizations and the establishment leaders they strive to give voice to. Predictably enough, none of the responses has addressed Stefanowski's specific criticisms. Instead the responses have constituted only mindless boosterism for Hartford.

Decades of boosterism haven't improved the city but the latest installment may be meant to prevent the failure of Connecticut's urban policies from becoming the issue it should be.

For example, why, despite ever-greater state spending on Hartford, do its demographics grow only poorer and its schools never improve?

Though it was already insolvent and a ward of the state, why was Hartford allowed to borrow tens of millions of dollars to build a minor-league baseball stadium, leading to a $500 million bailout by state government? State government could have prevented that disaster, so why didn't it?

Why did Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin pander to the "defund the police" crowd by reducing the city police budget by $2 million only to have to appeal for state troopers a few weeks later as crime in the city exploded?

Even the news organizations purporting to serve Hartford have yet to pose such questions. With his essay Stefanowski began to do so, and the response from those news organizations was only: That's mean! Don't do that again!

What'sreallymean is leaving Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven in perpetual poverty and dysfunction, where they will stay until the failures of policy and management are acknowledged. As Stefanowski wrote, state government shares responsibility for those failures. Those who took offense at their mere mention now share responsibility too.

* * *

COURANT'S P.C. POSE: Congratulations to the Hartford Courant for pledging, in the name of social justice, to do less of what it hardly had been doing anyway: publishing police photos, "mug shots," of arrested people.

This pledge was just a load of what is called virtue signaling, since few mug shots have appeared in the Courant lately not because of concern for social justice but because of the newspaper's long retreat from local news.

Of course this retreat doesn't contradict the Courant's argument that mug shots can be prejudicial and contribute to racial stereotyping. But crime itself is racially disproportionate, and it is not stereotyping to acknowledge it. A mug shot doesn't stereotype; it signifies an actual arrest. Andanyarrest publicity is potentially prejudicial.

So is the publicnotto be reminded that crime is racially disproportionate, just as family disintegration, educational failure, and poverty are? And is criminal justicenotto be watched closely so injustice may be diminished? Are only the arrests and mug shots ofwhitepeople to be published?

One could get that impression lately, as national news organizations are going out of their way to publicize any trivial incident in which a white person mistreats a Black person, like the incident the other day in New York City where a white woman mistakenly accused a Black teenager of stealing her cell phone. Meanwhile there is no reporting of trivial incidents in whichBlacksmistreatwhites. Are there no such incidents, or is political correctness overwhelming the news?

* * *

TEACHING MOMENT LOST: University of Connecticut President Thomas C. Katsouleas toadied to political correctness again last week in responding to an internet petition urging the university to "condemn" two students from Stafford who attended the "Stop the Steal" protest in Washington that ended with the attack on the Capitol. There was no allegation that the students broke the law, but one was photographed with the infamous provocateur Alex Jones.

Responding to the petition, Katsouleas wrote that Jones is "despicable." Katsouleas didnot write that the university has no business condemning anyone for peacefully exercising his First Amendment rights.

So a teaching moment was lost. Instead the P.C. petitioners were reminded of how easily the university president can be made to dance. Students may be learning that much anyway.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer.

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No one dares to answer for the disaster of Connecticut's cities - Journal Inquirer

Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill: Biden Administration Says It’s Resuming the Effort – GovExec.com

The White House will resume the Obama-era push to put Harriet Tubmans image on the $20 bill, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday.

The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes, Psaki said in response to a reporters question during the daily briefing. Its important that our money reflects the history and diversity of our country and Harriet Tubmans image gracing the new $20 note would certainly reflect that.

Harriet Tubman, born into slavery, was a 19th-century abolitionist and conductor of the Underground Railroad, risking her life to rescue dozens of enslaved people and bring them to freedom after she escaped herself. Tubman learned the escape houses and secret routes throughout the Underground Railroad, making her an asset to the Union military during the Civil War, according to the National Womens History Museum. Tubman also joined the fight for womens suffrage after the Civil War ended.

In 2016, the Obama administration set out to redesign the $20 bill, replacing Andrew Jackson, who enslaved people and both fought Native Americans and forced them to move from their land. The Obama administration was hoping for a release of the new bill in 2020 to mark the centennial anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote, a right that could at that point be exercised mainly by White women.

The project to get Tubman represented on the currency was delayed during the Trump administration. In the spring of 2019, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said counterfeit issues would make it impossible to unveil Harriet Tubman on the bill by 2020, the deadline set by the Obama administration. Trump, who put Jacksons portrait in the Oval Office, had criticized changing the image on the bill, saying it was being done out of pure political correctness.

Psaki said that the Biden administration doesnt have a set deadline for the release of the new bill but that the administration is working on it.

Were exploring ways to speed up that effort but any specifics would of course come from the Department of Treasury, said Psaki.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Originally published by The 19th.

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Harriet Tubman on the $20 Bill: Biden Administration Says It's Resuming the Effort - GovExec.com

Scratching the surface – Isthmus

Forward Theater Company has a knack for choosing plays that are accidentally a bit on the nose. Last year they planned on producing The Amateurs the story of a troupe of 14th century actors during the Black Plague which was canceled due to the outbreak of COVID-19. This season they chose The Niceties by Eleanor Burgess a play about people so entrenched in their opposing views that they cannot hear each others arguments across the enormous ideological crevasse that separates them. That describes this political moment in the U.S. to a tee.

Unfortunately this piece, available for streaming through Feb. 7, barely scratches the surface of the current, essential conversations that need to happen about race in this country. The weak script, uneven performances, and poor production values undercut the exchanges it would like to provoke.

The Niceties is a period drama set in 2016 on an elite college campus in Connecticut. It was originally inspired by the controversy surrounding a memo to Yale students from the administration that urged them not to don racially offensive costumes for Halloween. In response, one of the professors suggested that college kids wear what they want and talk to each other about crossing boundaries. This led to a much larger protest about institutional insensitivity to Yales BIPOC students and the playwrights observation that little actual communication resulted from the subsequent outrage.

Though it was only five years ago, it feels like decades have passed since then. Compared to the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests in response to the murder of George Floyd last summer, two hours of vitriol over issues of political correctness on a college campus seems positively quaint. And while The Niceties documents that moment, it doesnt add to the current conversation.

The biggest problem with The Niceties is that the characters are written as types who simply personify diametrically opposing views. Janice (played by Sarah Day) is a highly esteemed, white college professor at an Ivy League school, a 60-something Baby Boomer who has been insulated from reality by her position in the ivory tower. Cynical, condescending, and occasionally oblivious, she has a very practical view of how to couch unpleasant messages to those in power and affect change in a white, patriarchal society. On the other end of the spectrum is Zoe (played by an impressive Samantha Newcomb), a bright, passionate, Black 20-year-old college junior, majoring in political science. She feels it is her duty to protest injustice, foment change, and awaken the establishment to racism wherever she sees it from colonial syllabi and whitewashed history courses to micro-aggressions of mispronouncing students names. A Millennial and an idealist, she demands attention, validation, and immediate action.

To minimally complicate the characters, Zoe is from a well-heeled East Coast family and Janice is from working-class, immigrant stock. The professor is also a lesbian who has had her own struggles with lack of representation, prejudice, and legal inequality. They take turns being right, being sanctimonious, and wielding the power in the room.

Although the authors notes urge us to see the characters as equally flawed, three-dimensional people, its hard not to loathe Janice from the start, as she tosses off tone-deaf, white-privileged statements and mounts simplistic straw-man arguments. Her suspicion of any information found on the internet and instruction to Zoe that she should just go find primary sources from 18th century enslaved people to bolster her papers thesis sound ludicrous in 2016. Her bristling at using correct pronouns for her students and hurling you people at a student during office hours are equally ridiculous.

Not to be outdone, Zoes demands for change strain credulity because they are positioned as all or nothing ultimatums. At one point she tells Janice to quit her job and get out of the way so a person of color can have her post. And although she consistently accuses her professor of not listening to her, she is just as unwilling to hear things that dont square with her experience. Her own emotional truth trumps any opposing view.

In the end, both women seize opportunities for revenge instead of reconciliation, shifting our sympathies back and forth in a way that feels manipulative. Instead of developed character arcs, the play gives us two people who suffer for their actions but dont learn from them. Their very long argument ends with a final, ominous threat instead of any kind of growth or self-awareness on either side. Even as a cautionary tale, this is unsatisfying.

Under normal conditions this would be a difficult play to stage because its very talky and static except for a scuffle over a cell phone, there is no physical action prescribed in the text. In the current virtual world of playmaking, its even more problematic and proves the point that people who know how to make amazing plays dont necessarily know how to translate them to film.

The two actresses were recorded in front of green screens in their homes and directed remotely by Jen Uphoff Gray and DiMonte Henning. But the literal distance between them deflates the tension the actors are able to muster in each scene, just like it did in FTCs previous virtual play, The Lifespan of a Fact. Instead of floating heads in boxes that were used to seeing in online readings, the actors are superimposed onto an office backdrop, but its far from seamless. The performers gazes dont always match up, so at times they are not looking at each other while speaking. Theres a green fuzzy halo around the edges of bodies and props. A physical altercation between the two of them is unconvincing. Objects appear to float in space or are disproportionate to one another. And in its best moments, the actors simply sit still on two sides of a table and argue.

Further undermining the plays performance is the fact that one actress is off-book and the other one is quite obviously reading her script on the table in front of her. This prevents the scenes from flowing naturally and breaks thoughts up in artificial places. Its also not what audiences expect from a full, professional production, even in challenging times.

There are scheduled talkbacks after four more performances, and perhaps thats where audience members can have some meaningful conversations about race. But if they do, those conversations will probably be much more informed by the Black Lives Matter movement than by the presentation of this play.

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Scratching the surface - Isthmus

Four Shawnee Mission Schools Will Have New Mascots, After Years Of Using Native American Imagery – KMUW

Four schools in the Shawnee Mission School District will have new mascots by the end of the school year after the districts board of education voted unanimously last night in favor of a policy that bans what it calls derogatory or offensive mascots.

The change will affect Belinder Elementary, Rushton Elementary, and Shawanoe Elementary Schools, and Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park.

This is not a recent desire for change following a Black Lives Matter summer of activism, nor is it about political correctness, Shawnee Mission North graduate Alisha Vincent told school board members. "There have been people in this community working toward more inclusive indigenous recognition for decades.

Vincents daughter Halley, a sixth grader whose future school would be Shawnee Mission North, has taken a leading role in the push for change.

For months, she collected letters of support from community groups including staff members at Haskell Indian Nations University, Navajo Nation member and Kansas Rep. Christina Haswood and the Kansas City Indian Center, and presented them to the school board.

Under the new policy, mascots must now:

It will be up to the individual school principals to bring together students, staff, parents and others to decide on a new mascot.

District Superintendent Mike Fulton said, while the selection of the mascot needs to happen by the end of the school year, the change wont be immediate.

The actual implementation of the new mascot may vary by school, he said. It depends on the nature of how big that change is, and the amount of time it will take to accomplish completing that change.

In a written statement with Board of Education President Heather Ousley, Chief Ben Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe in Oklahoma called the move a first step.

The time has come to better align our language and our symbols to the values we represent, he wrote. Together, we will continue to work toward practices and procedures that treat all peoples with dignity and respect.

The move was not without opponents. An online petition to keep the Indians as Shawnee Mission Norths mascot, which it has used for 98 years, has nearly 3,000 signatures.

Emmitt Monslow, another Shawnee Mission North alumnus, asked school board members to delay the decision until later.

My biggest question I have when people are trying to remove names and images of Indians is what do we really get, as Indians, from these changes? he said. I know what we lose if we remove the names and images a seat at the table. Because after everyone has forgotten Shawnee Mission North Indians, what is the need to educate on who Indians are?

In November, Neiman Elementary School in Shawnee independently changed its mascot from the Indians to the Foxes. That change was led by the schools student council and approved by the principal and district assistant superintendent of elementary schools.

Gaylene Crouser, executive director of the Kansas City Indian Center, said the districts change is a result of a new push from students coupled with a decades-long effort from Native American organizations in the region.

Weve been asking them for years, weve been telling them for years, she said, and people are finally starting to listen.

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Four Shawnee Mission Schools Will Have New Mascots, After Years Of Using Native American Imagery - KMUW

The US Capitol riot was not the language of the unheard – Business Insider – Business Insider

It is fast becoming orthodoxy among both lefty contrarians and conservative apologists that, from the online cult of QAnon to the men and women who stormed the US Capitol in real life, the problem of the far-right stems mainly from disenfranchisement from bottled up resentment, provided no outlet by the effete snobs in publishing, exploding with righteous albeit delusional fury.

"These people know they are scorned and looked down upon," one right-wing blogger recently told a left-wing podcaster, "and the more you humiliate and make them feel powerless, the more you take away their ability to organize and express that rage, it's gonna find an outlet in more destructive ways."

Megyn Kelly, a former on-air personality at Fox News and NBC News, likewise blamed the media "the enemy of the people," in a former president's phrasing for spurring domestic right-wing terrorism. "Part of the reason we saw what happened at the Capitol here two weeks ago is because there has been a complete lack of trust, a destruction of trust in the media, and people don't know where to turn for true information," she maintained.

The problem is that this has not been the problem at all.

Civil unrest can often be viewed as the language of the unheard, per Martin Luther King, Jr.

This riot was egged on by the then-most powerful man in the world to amplify his grievance: his inability to accept he lost an election. This was a riot made up in part of small business owners, off-duty cops, military veterans, and the otherwise better off some whom even took a private jet to DC for the riot. It was largely an insurrection comprised by those to whom power has traditionally catered a white population who fears an ebbing of their privileged status, and others entering the democratic chat incited by the ultra-rich former president.

After an insurrection, an overdue national conversation about preserving democracy was drowned out, with the help of big media, by a reactionary conflation of "free speech" with the right to spread disinformation in private media. Political correctness, so-called, became "cancel culture": the red herring that, more so than overthrowing the republic, became the hot new threat to freedom and mom's apple pie.

But it has been remarkably ineffective, this recent spate of canceling. Big Tech is happy to shovel inflammatory content into the gaping mouths of consumers, blaming the algorithms they designed for the fact that anger, above all, means engagement (while the performance of wet-blanket fact check is abysmal). It has not been censorious liberalism that has ruled the online world, but capitalism. Dollars and cents. Clicks and views.

And so it is that the angriest, with the most outrageous opinions about politics and society, have not been silenced but amplified each irrational fear reported by media outlets eager to fight a no-win battle against the perception of a liberal bias.

Amid cries of censorship, reactionary content overperforms on Facebook, a site where the reactionary tabloid Breitbart, formerly run by Steve Bannon, was formally considered a "trustworthy" news entity in 2019 by the social media giant, part of an explicit appeal to the far right of the political spectrum. One cable news network has been devoted solely to airing their grievances, and at least two others have sprung up to air them even harder. There was a presidency and, for a time, two echo-chambers of Congress dedicated to "triggering the libs" on behalf of this constituency.

Right-wing extremism did not fester in dark corners. It all happened out in the open with followers led down a rabbit hole by the world's most powerful man the TV billionaire who started out promoting conspiracy theories about Barack Obama's place of birth and a cast of faux-populist millionaires willing to entertain falsehoods, on television, about everything from COVID-19 to the 2020 election.

Sedition was plotted and streamed on Facebook and Parler. While the events of January 6 were shocking, there really wasn't an element of surprise.

The belated removal of Donald Trump from platforms like Twitter is not the apotheosis of "safe space" culture, nor does it mean liberals and leftists have to put their faith in the Big Tech giants. It is, in fact, the least that could be done: holding the powerful to the same terms of service applied to shock-jock internet comedians and two-bit online harassers.

For years, the far-right used mainstream platforms to organize, these social networks indeed serving as a melting pot for locked-down conspiracy theorists to vigilante killers; half-measures to thwart this, taken after several terrorist attacks and a violent coup attempt incited by a head of state, are an embarrassed acknowledgment of this.

There are pitfalls to not allowing everything that could be said to be said, and no one trusts tech to reliably pursue the public- over self-interest. But the status quo was neither benign nor neutral. The worst rose to the top, with a lift from foreign states andAmerican politicians not the powerless who used formerly inane technology to inflame the masses. In Myanmar, that meant sparking a genocide against the Rohingya, Facebook fees serving as the 21st century Radio Rwanda. In the United States, that's a third of the Republican Party believing in QAnon, a digital rehash of a 19th-century anti-Semitic hoax.

The issue is decidedly not that the far-right among us have been denied a platform, but rather that they have been handed megaphones by corporations and politicians, Americans' worst natures exacerbated and monetized. Legitimizing a victimhood mentality that's been used to justify an increasingly violent and unhinged resentment only compounds the error.

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The US Capitol riot was not the language of the unheard - Business Insider - Business Insider

Dogecoin Blasts Into Top 10, And Leaves – Cryptonews

Source: Adobe/epic_images

Yesterday, it was the 33rd largest cryptoassets by market capitalization, today it was 7th, before dropping to the 12th position. Created as a joke in 2013, dogecoin (DOGE), is experiencing a wild ride for the second day now. (Updated at 11:41 UTC: updates throughout the entire text).

At the time of writing (11:33 UTC), DOGE trades at USD 0.04722, crashing from USD 0.782 reached earlier today. The price is still up by 270% in a day and 479% in a week. It rallied by 951% in a month and 1,832% in a year.

DOGE price chart:

As reported, yesterday, the rally started after "WSB Chairman", who claims to be the "Chairman of WallStreetBets," the r/wallstreetbets subreddit, with 5.6m (was 4.6m yesterday) users, responsible for the GameStop pump this month, asked about Dogecoin. And it was enough to send DOGE to the top 10 Club in one day.

The Chairman has a question today too:

This is the second coordinated DOGE pump in less than a year. Last summer, the TikTok community unsuccessfully tried to lift the price of the coin to USD 1.

DOGE market capitalization (USD 9.3bn) is now bigger than chainlink (LINK)'s (USD 9bn), litecoin (LTC)'s, stellar (XLM)'s. Bitcoin cash (BCH) and binance coin (BNB) have also been left behind.

The 24-hour DOGE trading volume now stands at USD 27.6bn. Earlier today, it was even higher than ethereum (ETH)'s trading volume, which is now above USD 45.5b.

Meanwhile, Google searches for "dogecoin" surpassed "bitcoin" this week.

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Learn more: Cubans Turn to Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin as US Sanctions BitePenny Altcoins Rally While TikTokers & Co Go on a Pumping SpreeDogecoin Pump Ends as Price Dumps 40% From TopThis is Why Dogecoin is Better than 'Altcoins-Degenerators'

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Dogecoin Blasts Into Top 10, And Leaves - Cryptonews

The Crypto Daily Movers and Shakers January 30th, 2021 – FX Empire

A mixed start to the day saw Bitcoin fall to a late morning intraday low $31,987.0 before making a move.

While steering clear of the first major support level at $30,927, Bitcoin fell through the 23.6% FIB of $33,008.

Finding late morning support, Bitcoin rallied to an early afternoon intraday high $38,710.7 before hitting reverse.

Bitcoin broke through the first major resistance level at $34,809 and the second major resistance level at $36,246.

More significantly, Bitcoin also broke back through the 23.6% FIB of $33,008.

The reversal, however, saw Bitcoin slide back through the major resistance levels to revisit sub-$34,000 levels.

Steering clear of the 23.6% FIB, Bitcoin moved back through to $34,000 levels to deliver the upside on the day.

The near-term bullish trend remained intact, in spite of the recent sell-off. For the bears, Bitcoin would need to slide through the 62% FIB of $18,504 to form a near-term bearish trend.

Across the rest of the majors, it was a mixed day on Friday.

Chainlink (-1.37%) and Polkadot (-2.97%) saw red to buck the trend on the day.

It was a bullish day the rest of the majors, however.

Ripples XRP rallied by 6.89% to lead the pack

Ethereum (+3.47%), Crypto.com Coin (+3.65%), and Bitcoin Cash SV (+3.47%) also found strong support.

Binance Coin (+0.41%), Cardanos ADA (+0.60%), and Litecoin (+0.88%) trailed the front runners, however.

In the current week, the crypto total market cap fell to a Wednesday low $847.51bn before rising to a Friday high $1,136.27bn. At the time of writing, the total market cap stood at $997.86bn.

Bitcoins dominance rose from a Monday low 62.54% to a Friday high 65.93%. At the time of writing, Bitcoins dominance stood at 64.21%.

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The Crypto Daily Movers and Shakers January 30th, 2021 - FX Empire

Crypto Has Entered Its Fourth Stage Of Adoption, Industry Exec Says – Forbes

Metal Pay CEO Marshall Hayner mentioned bitcoin's growing role as an inflation hedge, while early ... [+] bitcoin investor Erik Finman sees the asset's recent price correction as healthy.

Bitcoin (BTC) had a standout year in the price category last year, rising from $3,870 in March, all the way past its 2017 record highs near $20,000. By January 2021, cryptos pioneer asset found itself priced at almost $42,000 per coin. Bitcoin also gained a notable amount of adoption in the latter half of 2020 as a number of mainstream companies, such as MicroStrategy MSTR and MassMutual, bought large amounts of the asset. Marshall Hayner, the CEO and founder of digital asset payment solution Metal Pay, said he thinks BTC has entered an acceptance stage on its adoption journey.

Bitcoin has reached all-time highs over the past few months, and with this meteoric rise, institutions, hedge funds, and major corporations have begun to add digital assets to their balance sheet, Hayner told me in a January 26 message. As the oldest, most liquid, and most well-known cryptocurrency, bitcoin is rapidly becoming a hedge against rampant inflation of fiat currency (USD, EUR), he said. This is what I'm calling the fourth wave of cryptocurrency adoption, he explained. The first three waves were exuberance, speculation, utility and finally acceptance.

[Ed note: Investing in cryptocoins or tokens is highly speculative and the market is largely unregulated. Anyone considering it should be prepared to lose their entire investment.]

Launched in January 2009, bitcoin started out worth virtually nothing in U.S. dollar terms. In 2010, programmer Laszlo Hanyecz famously paid 10,000 BTC for two pizzas. The digital asset has obviously risen significantly in price since then, surpassing milestone landmarks of $1, $100, $1,000 and $10,000 through the years. Along the way, parties have created thousands of other cryptocurrencies, many of which hold varying value propositions, although some industry participants, known as bitcoin maximalists, argue bitcoin as the only option.

Bitcoin has gained significant traction over the past year as a number of mainstream financial players unveiled their positions in the asset, making BTC allocation more commonplace than years prior. MicroStrategy allocated more than $1 billion of capital toward bitcoin. Among a number of other entities who put sizable amounts of money toward bitcoin, MassMutual spent $100 million on the digital asset.

In October 2020, payments giant PayPal PYPL also furthered crypto adoption when it announced the addition of bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash to its platform.

As we see major fintech firms like PayPal adding cryptocurrency and the first wave of national crypto banks under the OCC we are reaching mass acceptance and understanding of the true value of bitcoin and cryptocurrency, Hayner said. In July 2020, national banks received the ok from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to custody crypto assets. In January 2021, the OCC cleared institutional digital asset platform Anchorage to function as a national bank.

I expect bitcoin and smaller cap altcoins to absolutely blow some minds in 2021, Hayner said. In addition, I'm expecting some major utility especially around stablecoins, NFT, innovative decentralized lending/trading models, oracles, and payment systems, he added, referring to a few niches of the crypto space that picked up interest in 2020, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

After bitcoins price run up to nearly $42,000 on January 8, the asset retraced down below $30,000 a few times amid sideways trading action over the past few weeks, according to TradingView data. I think we are seeing the very healthy retrace that many expected, Erik Finman told me in a January 26 message. Finman bought bitcoin back in 2011, later becoming a millionaire from his investment before the age of 20.

As much as people want bitcoin to just ride straight on up forever, there are always going to be bumps along the way, he said, referring to bitcoins recent price rally up past $40,000. Honestly, right now I think a lot of people have their eyes on meme-stocks like GameStop GME ! Stock shares for the popular video game store GameStop recently soared in price.

Over the next couple of weeks I expect the price to maintain, barring some relevant news event, Finman said of bitcoin. After that we will probably see new growth and a new all-time high once more, he added.

Bitcoin is a game of patience. Ultimately we must focus on adoption, on technological innovation, and on education. I understand it's hard for many to not watch the price all day when they have so much invested, but I believe many would find it rewarding to look away for a few minutes and keep their eyes on the prize.

Crypto still has its doubters, however, such as financial commentator Peter Schiff. In one of his recent tweets, Schiff, a known bitcoin skeptic, said the asset carries traits of scam types, including Ponzi schemes. Additionally, as per a January 11, 2021 tweet, billionaire Mark Cuban compared the scene in the crypto space to the dot-com bubble, which popped in the early 2000s, although he did say he expects some assets, such as btc and ethereum (ETH), to succeed in the long run.

Disclaimer: I actively trade cryptocurrencies, as well as hold varying amounts of BTC, ETH, LTC, ZEC, BCH, LINK, VGX, HBAR, XLM and ADA.

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Crypto Has Entered Its Fourth Stage Of Adoption, Industry Exec Says - Forbes

Bitcoin Cash USD On Bearish Momentum: 6.82% Down In The Last 12 Hours – Via News Agency

Bitcoin Cash USD is currently on bearish momentum. At 20:05 EST on Friday, 29 January, Bitcoin Cash USD is at $404.53 and down by 6.82% in the last 12 hours.

Over the last six hours, Bitcoin Cash USDs higher value was $408.25 and the lower value was $403.77.

Over the last twelve hours, Bitcoin Cash USDs higher value was $432.13 and the lower value was $403.77.

About Bitcoin Cash USDs daily highs and lows, its 1.592% up from its trailing 24-hour low of $398.19 and 6.387% down from its trailing 24-hour high of $432.13.

In relation to Bitcoin Cash USDs yearly highs and lows, its 190.569% up from its 52-week low and 35.768% down from its 52-week high.

Bitcoin Cash USDs last day, last week, and last months average volatility was a positive 3.64%, a negative 1.07%, and a positive 1.54%, respectively.

Bitcoin Cash USDs last day, last week, and last months high and low average amplitude percentage was 6.86%, 8.60%, and 13.08%, respectively.

Skybridge's anthony scaramucci talks up new Bitcoin fund, crypto's 'exponential liftoff'. According to Business Insider on Wednesday, 27 January, "The SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP aims toprovidemass-affluent investors with an institutional-grade vehicle to gain exposure to Bitcoin. ", "SkyBridge initiated a position, valued at about $310 million earlier this month, in funds investing in Bitcoin during November and December 2020."

Cryptos young believers stoke a craze for Bitcoin penny stocks. According to Bloomberg Quint on Wednesday, 27 January, "Marathon Patent Group has computers in Montana and North Dakota, and recently announced it bought $150 million worth of Bitcoin for its Treasury reserves.", "And the fact that Bitcoin miners tend to be unprofitable or just barely in the black isnt much of a deterrent."

Bitcoin tumbles back below $30,000 as record momentum fades. According to Bloomberg Quint on Wednesday, 27 January, "Companies such as MicroStrategy Inc., Square Inc., and crypto miner Marathon Patent Group Inc. have all added some of their companys cash reserves into Bitcoin amid the rally."

Bitcoin might break down altogether, BIS head carstens warns. According to Bloomberg Quint on Wednesday, 27 January, "Investors must be cognizant that Bitcoin may well break down altogether," because the system becomes vulnerable to majority attacks as it gets close to its maximum supply of 21 million coins, BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens said in a speech for the Hoover Institution on Wednesday."

Microstrategy bond buyers rewarded with win-tie Bitcoin play. According to Bloomberg Quint on Thursday, 28 January, "When the enterprise software maker issued convertible debt in December with the intention of using the proceeds to add to its Bitcoin pile, the company opened a backdoor for bond investors to play the crypto craze.", "Even if Bitcoin goes down 30% to 40%, the company still has enough to pay this bond off easily."

Ray dalio calls Bitcoin one hell of an invention, considers it for new funds. According to Bloomberg Quint on Thursday, 28 January, "While Bitcoin has the potential to make investors "very rich" as well as "disrupt the existing monetary system," there are risks. ", "Dalio said he thinks of Bitcoin as a "long-duration option on a highly unknown future" and investing in it means recognizing the potential to lose about 80%."

Bitcoin investors May lose everything, central banker warns. According to Bloomberg Quint on Friday, 29 January, "On Friday, Bitcoin rallied above $35,000, with brokers attributing the move to Elon Musk mentioning the cryptocurrency in his bio page on Twitter.", "Still, Makhlouf doesnt see "financial stability issues at the moment arising from Bitcoin itself."

Bitcoin has leapt 17% after billionaire Elon Musk changes his twitter bio to '#Bitcoin'. According to Business Insider on Friday, 29 January, "Clearly the move is being cheered by the Bitcoin bulls," he said, and called the markets feverish trading around hot securities like Bitcoin and GameStop "risky."

Evolve files preliminary prospectus for Bitcoin ETF. According to Business Insider on Friday, 29 January, "TORONTO, Jan. 29, 2021 /CNW/ EvolveFunds Group Inc.("Evolve")is pleased to announce that it has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Canadian securities regulators for the Bitcoin ETF ("EBIT" or "the Fund"). ", "The Funds holdings will be priced based on the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate, a once-a-day benchmark index price for bitcoin denominated in U.S. dollars."

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Bitcoin Cash USD On Bearish Momentum: 6.82% Down In The Last 12 Hours - Via News Agency

Bitcoin Cash USD On Bullish Momentum: 6.88% Up In The Last 6 Hours – Via News Agency

Bitcoin Cash USD is currently on bullish momentum. At 05:12 EST on Friday, 29 January, Bitcoin Cash USD is at $425.57 and up by 6.88% in the last 6 hours.

Over the last six hours, Bitcoin Cash USDs higher value was $425.57 and the lower value was $398.19.

Over the last twelve hours, Bitcoin Cash USDs higher value was $425.57 and the lower value was $398.19.

In relation to Bitcoin Cash USDs daily lows, its 9.065% up from its trailing 24-hour low of $390.20

Concerning Bitcoin Cash USDs yearly highs and lows, its 205.682% up from its 52-week low and 32.428% down from its 52-week high.

Bitcoin Cash USDs last day, last week, and last months average volatility was a positive 3.64%, a negative 1.07%, and a positive 1.54%, respectively.

Bitcoin Cash USDs last day, last week, and last months high and low average amplitude percentage was 6.86%, 8.60%, and 13.08%, respectively.

According to Business Insider on Tuesday, 26 January, "Of the two, the Roth version might have an edge, says Bogner, especially "if you are of the mindset that Bitcoin is going to explode" in price in the future. "

Bitcoin seen topping $50,000 long term as it vies with gold. According to Bloomberg Quint on Tuesday, 26 January, "Were talking about Bitcoin over the next three, five, 10 years slowly inching away at golds market capitalization," Vijay Ayyar, head of Asia Pacific with crypto exchange Luno in Singapore, said in an online question and answer session with Bloomberg Tuesday. ", "Predicting a price for Bitcoin is challenging but its likely to rise longer term as funds and family offices assign 0.5% or 1% of their portfolios to it, Long added."

Is Bitcoin mining worth the cost?. According to Bloomberg Quint on Tuesday, 26 January, "One Bitcoin transaction would generate the CO2 equivalent to 706,765 swipes of a Visa credit card, according to Digiconomists closely-followed index, albeit with none of the convenience of plastic. ", "Butits notable that the non-virtual side of Bitcoin buying -namely the energy consumption needed to mine and maintain it -gets far less attention. "

South Africa cracks down on Bitcoin after alleged ponzi scheme. According to Bloomberg Quint on Tuesday, 26 January, "South Africas finance-industry regulator wants more power to prosecute perpetrators of fraud and oversee dealing in cryptocurrencies after the collapse of a Bitcoin trader, alleged to be the countrys largest Ponzi scheme.", "MTI which in November claimed it had 260,000 members and 23,000 Bitcoin now worth about $740 million was placed in provisional liquidation last month after clients battled to withdraw funds. "

Skybridge's anthony scaramucci talks up new Bitcoin fund, crypto's 'exponential liftoff'. According to Business Insider on Wednesday, 27 January, "SkyBridge initiated a position, valued at about $310 million earlier this month, in funds investing in Bitcoin during November and December 2020.", "Its already happening," he said, citingBlackRock Inc.s adding Bitcoin futures as an eligible investment to two of its funds."

Cryptos young believers stoke a craze for Bitcoin penny stocks. According to Bloomberg Quint on Wednesday, 27 January, "And the fact that Bitcoin miners tend to be unprofitable or just barely in the black isnt much of a deterrent.", "Marathon Patent Group has computers in Montana and North Dakota, and recently announced it bought $150 million worth of Bitcoin for its Treasury reserves."

Bitcoin tumbles back below $30,000 as record momentum fades. According to Bloomberg Quint on Wednesday, 27 January, "Companies such as MicroStrategy Inc., Square Inc., and crypto miner Marathon Patent Group Inc. have all added some of their companys cash reserves into Bitcoin amid the rally."

Bitcoin might break down altogether, BIS head carstens warns. According to Bloomberg Quint on Wednesday, 27 January, "Investors must be cognizant that Bitcoin may well break down altogether," because the system becomes vulnerable to majority attacks as it gets close to its maximum supply of 21 million coins, BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens said in a speech for the Hoover Institution on Wednesday."

Microstrategy bond buyers rewarded with win-tie Bitcoin play. According to Bloomberg Quint on Thursday, 28 January, "So when the price of Bitcoin doubled, so did MicroStrategys shares, pushing the convertible deep into the money. ", "King estimates the value of the companys Bitcoin in the range of $800 million to $1.4 billion, assuming proceeds of the convertible offering were used to fund more buying. "

Ray dalio calls Bitcoin one hell of an invention, considers it for new funds. According to Bloomberg Quint on Thursday, 28 January, "Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said Bitcoin is "one hell of an invention" and hes considering cryptocurrencies as investments for new funds offering clients protection against the debasement of fiat money.", "While Bitcoin has the potential to make investors "very rich" as well as "disrupt the existing monetary system," there are risks. "

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Bitcoin Cash USD On Bullish Momentum: 6.88% Up In The Last 6 Hours - Via News Agency

USDT Transactions on Tron Surpassed Ethereum Tether Transactions Every Day in 2021 Altcoins Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News

During the last two months, tether transactions have spiked considerably. More recently, however, USDT transactions on the Tron network have outpaced the number of tether transfers on the Ethereum blockchain. Despite a whole lot more ERC20-based tethers in the wild, the minted stablecoin using the TRC20 standard has seen a much larger transaction count all year long.

Tether (USDT) is a dominant stablecoin and it is used on a great number of exchanges as the token is paired with nearly every digital asset that has a market value. USDT commands the third-largest market capitalization with a $24.9 billion valuation today.

During the last 24 hours market data shows that tether (USDT) has seen $17 billion in global trade volume. In the early days, tether was minted on the Omni Layer network but for the last four years, USDT tokens have migrated to other blockchains.

In 2021, USDT is issued on a myriad of chains including Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin Cash, EOS, Liquid, Solana, and Algorand. A great majority of tethers are minted using Ethereums ERC20 standard, and these tokens have seen significant transaction counts in recent years.

However, this year has been a different story as the tether (USDT) transaction count stemming from the Tron network has been outperforming its ERC20 rival. Every single day in 2021, Tron-based tether (USDT) transaction counts (tx count) have been larger.

For instance, data from Coin Metrics shows the last count three days ago, TRC20 tethers saw 247,000 transactions while the ERC20 tethers saw 179,000 that day. Now even though TRC20 tethers have a larger tx count, the aggregated volume of ERC20 USDTs is still 2x more valuable in terms of settlement.

TRC20-based tethers have beat Ethereum-based tether tx counts week after week for the entire year. Of course, cryptocurrency proponents suspect that the migration from Ethereum to Tron as far as accelerated transactions is likely due to rising ETH network fees.

Fees on the Tron network are near non-existent and Coin Metrics data shows the chain processes 3.1 million transactions per day in comparison to BTCs 254,000+ transactions per day on January 24, 2021.

Ethereum transactions per day are currently over a million every 24 hours but the fees to transact with ether are much higher than the Tron networks negligible transfer costs.

At the time of publication, the median transaction fee on the Ethereum network according to data from bitinfocharts.com shows fees are currently around $4.80 per transaction. Theres been a number of days in 2021, where ETH transaction fees have jumped above the $5 range.

What do you think about the number of transactions stemming from tether on the Tron network exceeding the tether transactions on Ethereum? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Coin Metrics, Bitinfocharts.com,

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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USDT Transactions on Tron Surpassed Ethereum Tether Transactions Every Day in 2021 Altcoins Bitcoin News - Bitcoin News

Bitcoin Jumps To Almost USD 38K, Ethereum, Altcoins Try To Follow – Cryptonews

Bitcoin price surged 20% after Elon Musk updated his Twitter bio with #Bitcoin. BTC broke the main USD 35,000 resistance and even climbed towards USD 38,000. It is currently (12:30 UTC) holding gains above USD 36,000 and it might soon revisit the USD 38,000 resistance.

Most major altcoins are trying to catch up. ETH/USD is up almost 10% and it broke the USD 1,400 resistance. XRP/USD spiked above USD 0.300, but there was no proper close.

Total market capitalization

The past few hours saw a massive increase in bitcoin price above the USD 34,500 and USD 35,000 resistance levels. BTC gained almost 20% and it even broke the USD 37,200 resistance. There was a spike almost to USD 38,000 before there was a correction. It is now trading well above USD 36,000. If the current trend remains intact, there are chances of a fresh run towards the USD 38,000 level.On the downside, the price might remain stable above USD 35,000 (the recent breakout zone). Any more losses could lead the price towards USD 34,200.

Ethereum price struggled to follow bitcoin, but it still managed to pop above the USD 1,350 and USD 1,375 resistance level. ETH traded above USD 1,400 and it is struggling to gain momentum above USD 1,425. A close above USD 1,425 might open the doors for a surge towards the USD 1,480 and USD 1,500 levels.On the downside, the USD 1,375 level is a decent support (a multi-touch zone). The next major support could be near the USD 1,350 level.

Bitcoin cash price settled above the USD 400 level and it surpassed the USD 425 resistance. BCH is now consolidating gains and it seems like it might rise towards the USD 440 and USD 450 resistance levels. If there is a downside correction, the USD 405 and USD 400 levels could act as strong supports.Litecoin (LTC) cleared the USD 138 and USD 140 resistance levels. LTC is showing positive signs above USD 140 and it could continue higher towards the USD 145 and USD 150 levels. Any more gains could open the doors for a push towards the USD 165 resistance level.XRP price surged over 10% and it even spiked above the USD 0.300 level. However, there was no close above USD 0.300. As a result, there was a fresh decline, but the price is stable above USD 0.280. It seems like the bulls might aim for another upside break above the USD 0.300 resistance level in the near term.

A few altcoins surged over 50%, including DOGE, WSB, SC, RVN, XVG, VGX, QNT, and FTM. Out of these, SC is gaining momentum above USD 0.008 and it is already up over 80%.

To sum up, bitcoin price is surging and it broke many important hurdles near USD 35,000 and USD 36,500. As a result, there are chances of a push towards USD 40,000 in the near term.

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American Cancer Society Creates Its First Crypto Only Donation Fund News Bitcoin News – Bitcoin News

The American Cancer Society has set up a fund for crypto donations so the nonprofit can raise at least $1 million by early 2021. Together with The Giving Block, the U.S.-based voluntary health organization expects to collect funds via several cryptocurrencies.

According to the announcement, the cancer crypto fund seeks to provide funding to ongoing research initiatives. The move happens within the context of a strong decrease in donations over 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The American Cancer Society says the donations flow plunged 50% in the last year the lowest number in this century. They commented on the motivations behind setting up a crypto fund:

The crypto communitys contributions will help re-establish crucial research funding for new discoveries and better treatments to save the lives of family and friends.

Per the official crypto fund website, donations can be made in bitcoin (BTC), bitcoin cash (BCH), ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC), zcash (ZEC), gemini dollar (GUSD), basic attention token (BAT) and chainlink (LINK).

The nonprofit health organization said that the first donor who contributes $250,000 or more would have the chance to name the fund. On the other side, donors with over $10,000 contributions will appear on the crypto funds wall of honor.

Jeff Klass, the interim chief digital officer at the American Cancer Society, commented on the announcement:

We want as many people to join us in our mission as possible. To do that, we need to ensure people can give to the fight against cancer when, where, and how they choose. We appreciate The Giving Blocks work to help make this possible.

Moreover, the American Cancer Society recognizes the emergency of cryptocurrency, specifically the impact cancer has across the crypto community.

Pat Duffy, a co-founder of The Giving Block, said the following about cryptocurrencies relevance in this kind of initiatives:

I believe cryptocurrency will play a pivotal role in curing cancer. () With bitcoin hitting a new all-time high, the creation of this new fund opens the door for the booming crypto market to save lives.

What do you think about this crypto cancer fund? Let us know in the comments section below.

Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, American Cancer Society

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. It is not a direct offer or solicitation of an offer to buy or sell, or a recommendation or endorsement of any products, services, or companies. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services mentioned in this article.

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Bitcoin Cash USD On Bullish Momentum: 5.93% Up In The Last 6 Hours – Via News Agency

Bitcoin Cash USD is currently on bullish momentum. At 20:07 EST on Sunday, 24 January, Bitcoin Cash USD is at $451.97 and up by 5.93% in the last 6 hours.

Over the last six hours, Bitcoin Cash USDs higher value was $451.97 and the lower value was $426.67.

Over the last twelve hours, Bitcoin Cash USDs higher value was $451.97 and the lower value was $426.67.

Concerning Bitcoin Cash USDs daily lows, its 5.93% up from its trailing 24-hour low of $426.67

About Bitcoin Cash USDs yearly highs and lows, its 224.644% up from its 52-week low and 28.236% down from its 52-week high.

Bitcoin Cash USDs last day, last week, and last months average volatility was a negative 2.32%, a negative 2.04%, and a positive 2.49%, respectively.

Bitcoin Cash USDs last day, last week, and last months high and low average amplitude percentage was 5.65%, 10.78%, and 13.49%, respectively.

Why this analyst is cautioning Bitcoin investors to have A 'very strong stomach' amid plunge. According to Business Insider on Friday, 22 January, "Price Action: Bitcoin traded 11.3% lower at $30,712.41 at press time on Thursday.", "Why It Matters: Bitcoin has seen a major correction in the last two weeks after a dizzying rally that started in July last year saw it cross $40,000 from trading below the $10,000 level."

Iran blames 1600 Bitcoin processing centers for massive blackouts in tehran and other cities. According to Business Insider on Saturday, 23 January, "According to local media, state-owned electricity firm Tavanir shut down a large Iranian-Chinese Bitcoin farm amid the power outages.", "Mohammad Hassan Motavalizadeh, the head of Tavanir, said that 45,000 illegal Bitcoin machines cheaply consuming 95MWh of electricity had been confiscated by the police, it also added."

According to Business Insider on Saturday, 23 January, "And this was a Bitcoin OTC name that has been consolidating for months.", "For the Bitcoin theme, Hasson had identified over 10 stocks on the NASDAQ as well as over-the-counter stocks to watch and monitor everyday."

Bitcoin outlook: my mantra for 2021 can make you money. According to Business Insider on Saturday, 23 January, "The post Bitcoin Outlook: My Mantra for 2021 Can Make You Money appeared first on InvestorPlace."

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Bitcoin Cash USD On Bullish Momentum: 5.93% Up In The Last 6 Hours - Via News Agency