Putin Signs Off on Nukes, Pentagon Can't Find $1 Trillion, Latest Twitter Competitor...May Change the Whole Internet. Proof FBI Killed Malcom X? (The Five for 11/19/24)
Plus, French Farmers protest. Biden approves long-range missiles for Ukraine--expected to hit deep into Russia in the coming days.
Hey, welcome to The Five, a publication about the stories that matter, but don’t always make the front page.
Let’s dive into the news.
[one]
The same federal government that wants to tax your $60 venmo transaction…lost track of nearly $1 trillion.
The Pentagon on Friday failed its seventh audit in a row, with the nation’s largest government agency still unable to fully account for its more than $824 billion budget, though officials stress they are making good progress toward a clean audit in 2028.
The Department of Defense technically earned a disclaimer of opinion, meaning it failed to provide sufficient information to auditors to form an accurate opinion.
The goal is to earn an unmodified audit opinion, or a clean audit that says the financial statements are accurate. A qualified opinion says there are omissions and concerns but the finances are generally reliable.
Michael McCord, under secretary of Defense comptroller and chief financial officer, said that despite the disclaimer of opinion, which he expected, the Defense Department “has turned a corner in its understanding of the depth and breadth of its challenges.”
“Momentum is on our side, and throughout the Department there is strong commitment — and belief in our ability — to achieve an unmodified audit opinion,” he said in a statement.
The Defense Department’s report card as a whole is made up of 28 entities operating under the Pentagon that conducted independent audits.
Of those, nine received an unmodified audit opinion, one received a qualified opinion, 15 received disclaimers and three opinions remain pending. The Pentagon expects the final number of clean or qualified audits to be roughly around what it was last year.
“Momentum is on our side.” Uhhh…wut? With all due respect, Mr. McCord, seven years ago, the iPhone 8 released and The Last Jedi was the #1 movie. And every year since then, you’ve lost track of $1B +/-? And that’s a strong commitment?
If the Pentagon continues to fail their audits, they could be forced to return 1% of their budget to the federal treasury. That will really strike fear into their hearts…
[two]
President Trump has vowed to declassify the JFK (and possibly RFK and MLK) murder files. But we may find out the true culprits behind another 1960’s murder, depending on how things go in New York Courts…
The family of murdered black civil rights activist Malcolm X is suing the FBI, the CIA and the New York police department (NYPD) for $100m (£79m), accusing them of a having role in his death.
The lawsuit says the agencies were involved in the plot and failed to stop the killing.
“We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th Century,” Ben Crump, a civil rights attorney who is representing the family, said at a news conference.
Malcolm X was killed in 1965 when three armed men shot him 21 times as he was preparing to speak in New York.
The lawsuit alleges that a “corrupt, unlawful and unconstitutional” relationship between law enforcement and the “ruthless killers” allowed for the murder.
A link between the agencies and the killers “went unchecked for many years and was actively concealed, condoned, protected and facilitated by government agents”, the lawsuit says.
It says the NYPD, coordinating with the agencies, also detained members of Malcolm X's security team days before the shooting and intentionally removed their officers from inside the ballroom where he was shot.
Federal agents, including undercover operatives, were in the ballroom during the assassination and took no steps to intervene, the lawsuit alleges.
This isn’t well known, but MLK’s family sued the government in civil court for killing Dr. King…and they won.
At this point, I’m inclined to believe the Feds whacked all the big names…JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcom…maybe even novelist Earnest Hemingway (seriously, read this piece in The Guardian).
[three]
President Biden has approved Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to shoot deep into Russian territory.
In a major change, President Joe Biden has lifted a ban on Ukraine using U.S. long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia, according to reports.
Ukraine could carry out the first strikes using ATACMS, U.S.-provided long-range missiles, in the coming days, three sources told Reuters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and some in Washington have long pushed for the U.S. to greenlight the long-range strikes amid past concern the move would involve the U.S. more directly and escalate the 999-day-old invasion.
Although the White House has yet to officially announce the policy change, Deputy National Security advisor Jon Finer cited the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops to join Russia's forces in the war, calling it "a significant Russian escalation that involves the deployment of a foreign country's forces on its own territory."
"The United States has been clear that we would respond to that. We've been clear to the Russians that we would respond to that," Finer said Monday.
The Biden administration has so far barred Ukraine from using the missiles to strike deep into Russian territory.
Its hesitation stemmed from fears that allowing Ukraine to carry out the strikes would involve the U.S. more directly in the conflict and provoke a harsh response from Putin, who has long threatened to deploy nuclear weapons in the conflict.
The Ukrainian military needs Pentagon assistance to launch ATACMS at their longest range. Putin has said that would amount to direct U.S. involvement in the war.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that if the missiles are used to strike targets "deep" inside Russia then it could lead to a sea-change in relations with the West, state media reported.
In September, amid mounting speculation the U.S. was mulling a policy change, Putin said it would constitute the "direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine."
UPDATE 1: Ukraine fired US-supplied missiles into Kursk, Russia earlier today. Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine, allowing nuclear weapons as a “last resort measure.”
UPDATE 2: Russia likely damaged submerged cables that connect internet and phone service between Central Europe and the Nordic countries. There’s a VERY weird online conspiracy that…Elon Musk is behind this?
So, Elon got Joe Biden, who hates Elon…to supply American Missiles to Russia…a country that also hates Elon for supplying free Starlink to Ukraine, including for military purposes…so that Russia would disrupt internet service in Europe…to help Elon grow Starlink, even though they hate Elon…and Starlink is being used against their troops?
Such a sound theory.
[four]
Twitter has a new competitor in town…from the guy who invented Twitter.
You may have seen the same celebs move to Bluesky who also swear they’re moving to Canada due to the Trump Presidency…but there’s something more going on here than just another also-ran social network that starts off big, then fades out in a few weeks (looking at you, Instagram Threads).
Unlike the other networks, Bluesky is tech that is designed for the users to own their content rather than being stuck inside a “walled garden,” and be able to more easily connect to other parts of the web.
From its beginning, Bluesky aimed to separate itself from other social media. The project grew out of an idea from Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter, who said he hoped to build a “decentralized” social network.
That meant building the app with an “open protocol,” which keeps the social network’s power and decision making out of the hands of any one company or group of people. Mr. Dorsey called the project “Bluesky,” and it eventually became a public benefit corporation, a type of for-profit company that aims to have a positive impact on society rather than focus on maximizing shareholder value.
Bluesky was initially financed with a grant from Twitter under Mr. Dorsey; Mr. Musk cut ties with the Bluesky team after he bought Twitter. Bluesky later raised more than $23 million in two rounds of venture funding from private investors.
From there, a team of about a half dozen, led by Ms. Graber, began building the “AT protocol.” That is a technical term for the code that would essentially let independent developers create their own social networks atop it, while allowing people to carry their digital identities and information across different platforms. Using this technology, Bluesky executives say, people can tailor their own algorithms to show themselves the kinds of social media posts they want to see.
In contrast, Facebook and TikTok lock people into their platforms and make it difficult for them to migrate to competitors. The apps are known as “walled gardens,” meaning that what is posted on individual platforms remains only on that platform. (In March, Meta loosened this stance by allowing users to turn on an option that syndicates their Threads posts to other social networks, like Mastodon.)
With Bluesky, “you’re no longer tied to a dominant algorithm that promotes either the most polarizing posts and/or the biggest brands,” Rose Wang, Bluesky’s chief operating officer, said in a recent video explaining the site to new users. She added, “It’s built by the people, for the people.”
Of course, no algorithm means you may just log in and see a lot of boring crap.
But unlike Gettr, Peach, Vine, Periscope, YikYak and Google+ (believe it or not, eacho of these were hot for a few minutes in the 2010’s) Bluesky may be worth a look, simply because it is, quite literally, built different…the first social media you actually “own” a portion of.
UPDATE: Bluesky hit 20 million users earlier today.
[five]
And finally, French farmers are out en masse protesting an international deal that could hold them to higher climate standards than South American farmers are being held to…as Europe prepares to import major amounts of ag products from South America.
French farmers are mobilizing for widespread protests on Monday targeting the EU-Mercosur trade agreement. Backed by their government, they argue the deal threatens their livelihoods by allowing a surge of South American agricultural imports produced under less stringent environmental standards.
Protests are planned nationwide, including gatherings at prefectures and traffic circles. So far, protests have been small. One group blocked a highway southwest of Paris on Sunday night with tractors. Witnesses at Velizy-Villacoublay said that some 20 tractors stationed by placard-holding farmers overnight on the N118 freeway artery toward Paris had left by late Monday morning.
The European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc, composed of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia, reached an initial agreement in 2019, but negotiations stumbled due to opposition from farmers and some European governments, particularly France.
“It is unacceptable as it stands,” said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
But France’s hands might be tied.
There are fears the agreement could be finalized at the G20 summit in Brazil this week, or in the coming weeks. A partial EU-Mercosur deal, with many of the parts that French farmers find unsavory, could be agreed over their heads since France does not hold veto power.
That is…quite hypocritical. Whatever the environmental standard is, European nations should not be dropping it just to import food across the ocean (which also burns a lot of fossil fuels) and hurting their on farmers.
Until the next one,
-sth