Things to Keep an Eye On
Another David Sacks company exposed, the misinformation industry being dismantled, Norway balks at Elon Musk's pay package, Israeli resignations, Mexico-St. Louis drug pipeline
Today being World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, say a prayer for our president. It’s also Magna Carta Day, when the nobles of England began to claw back their historic liberties from the Norman yoke, and the feast of St. Vitus of Lucania, a probably legendary figure associated with crazed dancing, martyred in the Diocletianic persecution, venerated in Central Europe, and often depicted being boiled alive in oil, sometimes holding a rooster, making him the patron saint of fried chicken.
Done Global executives arrested
A lot of these Telehealth start-ups geared toward prescribing specific drugs are really bad news. There will probably be more of these, though this one in particular was backed by David Sacks:
The founder and head doctor of telehealth company Done Global were arrested and charged with fraud, accused by federal authorities of conspiring to provide easy access to Adderall and other stimulants.
Done founder Ruthia He and clinical leader David Brody allegedly arranged for the prescription of more than 40 million stimulant pills and targeted “drug seekers,” spending tens of millions of dollars on “deceptive” social-media advertising, according to the Justice Department.
The misinformation industry takes several l’s
Big layoffs this week at the Daily Beast, Southern Poverty Law Center, and also the Stanford Internet Observatory, which is being wound down:
After five years of pioneering research into the abuse of social platforms, the Stanford Internet Observatory is winding down. Its founding director, Alex Stamos, left his position in November. Renee DiResta, its research director, left last week after her contract was not renewed. One other staff member's contract expired this month, while others have been told to look for jobs elsewhere, sources say.
Some members of the eight-person team might find other jobs at Stanford, and it’s possible that the university will retain the Stanford Internet Observatory branding, according to sources familiar with the matter. But the lab will not conduct research into the 2024 election or other elections in the future.
There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense about Renee DiResta, who we covered here in relation to New Knowledge and Betsy DuPuis.
The whole concept of the misinformation panic was to put the most miseducated people on the planet in charge of some of the most powerful censorship tools. In many cases this is just make-work for liberal arts graduates. It’s pretty obvious that the real purpose of it was to serve as a sort of selection mechanism whereby certain media companies would be permitted to succeed and certain ones wouldn’t, which is why it’s a pity the people doing the selecting have such poor taste.
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to oppose Elon Musk’s pay package
In the spirit of Rurik, the Scandinavians rein in a guy with a ton of Russian problems:
Norway’s $1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund said it would vote against the $56 billion pay package for Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk, adding to opposition for the carmaker ahead of its annual general meeting next week.
“We remain concerned about the total size of the award, the structure given performance triggers, dilution, and lack of mitigation of key person risk,” Norges Bank Investment Management - the official name of the fund - said in a statementSaturday.
Big shake-ups in the Israeli government
Just after our update last week, Benny Gantz left Netanyahu’s coalition. There have been a number of other top-level resignations, including the head of the Gaza Division:
National Unity MK Gadi Eisenkot is following party leader Benny Gantz out of the coalition and giving up his spot as an observer in the war cabinet now being dismantled by the departure.
Like Gantz, Eisenkot has harsh words for the way the panel handled itself during the war in a resignation letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Despite the efforts of many, alongside those of my colleague, the cabinet you headed was prevented for a long while from making determining decisions, which were needed to realize the war’s goals and improve Israel’s strategic position,” the former IDF chief writes.
Central African Republic suspends Chinese mining company
These African resource conflicts are very important to everything that’s going on:
The government of the Central African Republic suspended a Chinese mining company’s operations in the country, accusing it of cooperating with armed groups, a government decree has said.
The country's ministry of mines accused Daqing SARL, a Chinese gold and diamond mining company, of “intelligence with armed groups, illegal exploitation, illegal introduction of foreign subjects into mining areas, non-payment of taxes and lack of activity reports,” in the decree, which was made public Saturday.
Daqing SARL operated in Mingala, a town in the south of the Central African Republic that has been plagued by fighting between the country's armed forces and the Coalition of Patriots for Change, an anti-government armed group.
Ilit Raz charged
Oh yeah, it’s a “diversity” AI recruiting firm, that makes sense, if it has diversity in the name nobody will see that it’s an Israeli fraud:
Joonko was a company that purported to offer an artificial intelligence-based product designed to help prospective employers identify and hire job candidates from diverse backgrounds. To induce prospective and existing Joonko investors to invest approximately $27 million in funding rounds in 2021 and 2022, RAZ made false claims regarding central aspects of Joonko’s business, including by falsely representing how many customers Joonko had at the time and falsely representing the identity of those customers. For example, RAZ falsely represented that Joonko’s customers included some of the world’s largest companies, including a credit card company, sports apparel brand, online travel company, and luxury fashion brand. In truth and in fact, and as RAZ knew, these companies were never Joonko customers. In addition to overstating the number of customers that Joonko had and the identity of those customers, RAZ also made false representations about Joonko’s actual and anticipated revenues.
After RAZ made false and misleading statements regarding Joonko’s customers and revenue, several investors who received those statements invested in a series of funding rounds with Joonko. Specifically, on or about June 1, 2021, several investors, including venture capital firms, invested a total of approximately $10 million in a Series A round with Joonko. On or about June 2, 2022, several investors, including venture capital firms, invested a total of approximately $17 million in a Series B round with Joonko.
Raz is an 8200 alum and another victim of the Forbes curse—someone fêted by the publication who turns out to be an enormous fraud.
Garrett Graves retiring, Nancy Mace coming back to DC
Kevin McCarthy’s people took two big L’s this week, with Nancy Mace winning her primary, and Garrett Graves announcing his retirement. Republican voters are making sure crimin’ doesn’t pay:
U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, a Republican representing Louisiana, said on Friday that he will not run for reelection after a new congressional map dismantled his district, transforming it into the state’s second majority-Black district.
Up until now, the congressman, one of former-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s close allies, had remained adamant that he would run again. But in a written statement on Friday, he explained his change of mind.
UN inquiry finds Israel committed war crimes
The entire report is here:
In relation to Israeli military operations and attacks in Gaza, the Commission found that Israeli authorities are responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare, murder or wilful killing, intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects, forcible transfer, sexual violence, torture and inhuman or cruel treatment, arbitrary detention and outrages upon personal dignity.
The Commission found that the crimes against humanity of extermination, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, murder, forcible transfer, and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment were also committed.
Sen. Wyden probes Jared Kushner
Kushner’s gulf-state corruption is a perfect example of the mafia-esque qualities of the Israel lobby: if they control access in DC, it’s the Israeli’s guys the other countries will pay off. So, in the Trump years, that meant Jared Kushner:
Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today launched a new investigation of top Trump official Jared Kushner’s investment firm Affinity Partners, which reported that 99 percent of the billions of dollars it manages comes from foreign sources, primarily the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. In a new letter, Senator Wyden sought records and information pertaining to the tens of millions in payments Kushner is receiving from the Saudis and other foreign sources every year while exploiting private investment fund disclosure loopholes to shield the arrangement from public scrutiny.
NSO Group founder rewarded with academic post
Pretty horrific given what the company hath wrought:
The co-founder and former CEO of the company behind the powerful commercial spyware Pegasus has launched and will help lead a new artificial intelligence research institute at a premier Israeli university.
Shalev Hulio’s new project, known as the Institute, also will be supported by leaders from Microsoft and Nvidia and will be housed at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The goal is to promote Israel's “leadership in implementing artificial intelligence capabilities in the cyber, medical, finance and education industries,” according to a Ben-Gurion press release.
LA attorney tried to hire Israeli hackers to discredit his opponents
Seems like there’s a lot of Israeli criminality in Los Angeles:
A Los Angeles area lawyer is facing potential disciplinary charges from the State Bar of California for allegedly conspiring to hire hackers from the controversial Israeli firm Black Cube to dig up dirt on a rival attorney and a judge who previously ruled against him.
A June 6 filing in the bar court lays out the accusations against Michael Libman, who was one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which resulted in a $67 million settlement.
Libman was ultimately forced to return his $1.65 million fee from the settlement after it was determined that he had been a puppet of the city’s lawyers, taking instructions from them on how to represent his client.
According to the State Bar, that was just the beginning of Libman’s ethical violations. Hoping to expose collusion between Judge Elihu Berle and the new class counsel, Brian Kabateck, he allegedly conspired with a New York attorney to hire Israeli hackers to get access to their emails and phones.
Feds uncover Mexico-St. Louis drug pipeline
A big win for Eric Garland:
Genaro “Chilango” Rosas-Vargas, 39, is the alleged kingpin of an operation that used couriers to funnel the drugs to St. Louis while funneling money and weapons to Mexico, with Rosas-Vargas allegedly brokering deals with cartels across that country. He was arrested earlier this year while crossing the border into the United States.
The other 28 defendants allegedly handled the day-to-day drug business in the City of St. Louis, St. Louis County, and St. Charles County from February to December 2023.