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WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)Calling it his solemn duty, Rand Paul vowed to fill the COVID-misinformation gap created by Twitters ban of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

In an emotional statement, the U.S. senator from Kentucky said that those who have relied on Greene for COVID-19 falsehoods must not be forgotten.

Twitters ban of Marjorie Taylor Greene left millions without a go-to source for reckless pandemic myths, he said. I am here to say, I got this.

Admitting that it would be challenging to mislead as many people about the virus as Greene did, Paul said, I relish that challenge.

He also addressed what would happen if, like Greene, he is eventually banned from the social-media platform.

I will pass the baton to Matt Gaetz, Ron DeSantis, and Greg Abbott, Paul said. Let Twitter be warned: when it comes to misinformation, we Republicans have an extremely deep bench.

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Rand Paul Vows to Fill Misinformation Void Caused by Twitters Ban of Marjorie Taylor Greene - The New Yorker

LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) Here are five things to know before you go to bed Jan. 4, 2022.

Prices are going up for some of the cheapest and most popular at-home COVID-19 test kits.

Walmart and Kroger are raising their prices after the expiration of a deal with the white house to sell the test kits at a discount cost of $14.

Walmart is raising the price to about $20 a box and Kroger now sells them for $24.

The CDC released new guidelines urging people regardless of their vaccination status to avoid taking a cruise.

But despite the warning, hundreds of passengers boarded the Disney Dream on Monday ready for a four-night cruise sailing out of Port Canaveral.

Many passengers said theyre willing to take their chances.

Disney and many other cruise lines require all passengers to be vaccinated.

Toyota passed General Motors as the top-selling car company in the U.S. last year.

A change driven largely by a global computer-chip shortage.

Sales were up about 10% compared with 2020.

By contrast, GM reported a nearly 13% slide in the result as the semiconductor shortage took a bigger toll on its manufacturing operations and left dealers with fewer vehicles to sell.

Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul is quitting youtube.

Paul said he is ditching big tech over what he describes as rampant censorship

He said when he posts videos that challenge the current White House narrative on COVID-19 Youtube deletes them, no matter how well his opinion is sourced and researched.

The late Betty White is being honored with a new social media challenge.

The idea is that on Jan. 17, which would have been Whites 100th birthday, people should pick a local animal shelter and donate $5 in Whites name.

White was a lifelong animal lover. Some shelters said theyve already received thousands of dollars from the challenge.

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Jan. 4: Cruises, Rand Paul, and the White challenge - Fox 56

One day after Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greenes Twitter account was suspended over Covid-19 misinformation, Rand Paul announced that hes fed up with Big Tech. To emphasize his fist-shaking, he declared hed be joining a Donald Trump-backed video-streaming platform called Rumble.

Why Rumble? Adored by the far-right, Rumble is a Canadian video-sharing platform that launched in 2013 but saw serious growth during the Covid-19 pandemic: The companys monthly viewership soared from 1.6 million users in fall 2020 to 31.9 million by the end of 2021s first quarter. Its a bit of a mishmash of viral clips of cute animals doing funny things, political commentary, and conspiracy theories about where society is headed.

Although anti-vaccine propaganda runs rampant on Rumble, as does liberal disdain, it labels itself as a neutral platform, and it just keeps getting bigger. In May, Narya Capital invested in Rumble; Narya was co-founded by German-American billionaire Peter Thiel the Republican venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, invested early in Facebook, and spent millions to fund Hulk Hogans bankrupting lawsuits against Gawker and author J.D. Vance, who followed up his memoir Hillbilly Elegy with a run for the Ohio Senate seat on a far-right ticket. Colt Ventures, the family office of former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, also invested at that time, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Former Trump administration lawyer Michael Ellis joined Rumble as its general counsel and corporate secretary in November. Around the same time, Russell Brand gave the platform a celebrity boost, coming aboard as a creator and agreeing to give the platform first access to all of his videos, as well as exclusive content.

On Dec. 1, Rumble announced plans to go public and claimed to be valued at $2.1 billion. Rumble is designed to be the rails and independent infrastructure that is immune to cancel culture, CEO Chris Pavlovski said in a press release about joining with NASDAQ. We are a movement that does not stifle, censor, or punish creativity and believe everyone benefits from access to a neutral network with diverse ideas and opinions. On Dec. 14, Donald Trump announced that his work-in-progress social media app, Truth Social, had partnered with Rumble.

Though Rumble is all about a free and open Internet, as Pavlovski would go on to say in his statement, it didthreaten to sue another YouTube competitor, Odysee, over a tweet that alleged Rumble misled its investors. While Odysee withdrew the statement in question as requested, it then posted what appears to be a screenshot of the cease-and-desist andtweeting again: We are very sorry for suggesting that Rumble would ever fake traffic to mislead their investors. There is nothing suspicious about their average user leaving after only 1 minute despite it being a website for long-form video content. We retract our prior tweet.

Now, Rumble is not the first social media platform to say they prioritize free speech over everything else, as Yotam Ophir an assistant professor in University at Buffalos communication department points out. Even Reddit kind of started as a company that tries to break the rules and get censorship off the map you know, until Charlottesville, which pushed reality back in their faces, he says. Weve seen it before and it usually ends badly. He brings up the likes of Parler and Gab, which lean heavily to the right. Im getting tired of hearing about all those freedom of speech heroes that are going to open the new platform that changes the rules only to learn a month from now that they cant actually do it because the lawsuits will start coming in, the public pressure will start coming in, and advertisers wont want to stay on a platform thats full of hate speech and misinformation.

Rumbles terms and conditions do state that the platform doesnt allow for videos that incite violence and utilize hate speech, but its unclear how loose their definitions may be and how strict they are about such moderation.

When asked how Rumble polices the spread of misinformation, particularly misinformation regarding vaccines and Qanon theories, a Rumble representative responded to Rolling Stone with an email that sort of skirts around the question. Unlike other platforms, Rumble doesnt amplify content by sharing it with groups outside of your followers, they write. Instead, we use a chronological feed that treats all uploads equally. This design removes the incentive to produce and amplify extreme content to gain views. In addition to our terms, we believe this approach creates a healthier society without resorting to editorial restrictions on content we disagree with. When a video posted on Rumble gets significant views (more than the follower count), in nearly all cases, it is not because of our platform but because people share the content on other websites and platforms. These platforms have algorithms incentivizing engagement and amplify content to a wider audience.

The chronological approach may be valid. However, Rumble does have a trending section, which must operate via some sort of algorithm. Moreover, as Ophir mentions, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all started with chronological feeds. When you had 10 friends, you pretty much saw everything they did, he recalls. But when you follow 45,000 people, you cant see everything thats happening. He predicts that Rumble will be forced to adapt as it grows. Thats when matters may snowball even more or the whole thing falls apart.

If and when conservatives move from YouTube to Rumble or from Twitter and Facebook to other free-speech platforms like Parler and Gab this could create hyper echo chambers, according to Yini Zhang, a colleague of Ophir who studies social media and the spread of misinformation. Such chambers can radicalize people and make them more extreme in their attitudes and beliefs, and the idea of there being corners for liberals and conservatives to huddle in, she thinks, just deepens the divide.

The migration reminds her of the late Eighties and early Nineties after the FCC fairness doctrine was repealed. Thats when we saw the rise of cable news with Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left, she says, highlighting the creation of an increasingly partisan media environment. People with strong political opinions and convictions know which cable news channel they should watch, and they know which channel will offer them the correct or truthful information. A social-media parallel is what she fears most, adding that its not impossible to imagine a liberal equivalent launching in the future. Liberals and conservatives, she worries, will then completely insulate themselves in a very homogeneous information environment that just caters to their existing views.

So, whats the solution? Ophir hopes for regulation. I dont think that private companies should be responsible for moderating content and censoring misinformation. Thats not their job. Theyre not able to do that. Theyre not motivated to do that. And this isnt limited to Rumble. Its true for Facebook and Twitter too. Private companies only have one goal in mind: They want to make money. So, we cant ask them to be guardians of information and integrity. It doesnt make sense. Every time those motivations are in conflict, those companies keep choosing profit over public safety.

Ophir explains that these platforms sneak through the cracks of FCC involvement by identifying as tech companies instead of media and news sources, which he finds laughable at this point. The legal system is still like 30 years behind, he says. Were still treating the Internet like its 1995. Its not. Social media is now the biggest thing in the world.

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Rumble Mixes Cat Videos With Covid Misinformation and the Right Is Loving It - Rolling Stone

And how about the Federal government? Well, unsurprisingly, it managed to keep spending money we dont have on things we dont need, U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) says in the 2021 Festivus Report on Government Waste, an annual compilation of how the federal government wastes taxpayer money on often absurd programs.

So how much did our esteemed representatives and senators waste this year? A whopping $52,598,515,585 in government waste, according to the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight (ETSO) Subcommittee for the Homeland Security, of which Paul is chair.

Paul said, with an average taxpayer bill of about $15,332, the federal government has wasted the taxes of 3,430,636 people.

That is roughly the population of Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; or 50.74 times the size of Senator Pauls hometown of Bowling Green, KY, according to the report.

And what could possibly cost $52 billion?

Well, there was $11.3 million spent by USAID to advertise to the people of Vietnam to stop burning their trash, Congress giving the Wilson Center which throws swanky parties for members of congress $14 million, and over $465,000 granted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to Reed College of Portland, Oregon, to create a token-based economy where pigeons are taught to gamble with slot machines.

Yes, now national security is dependent on the ability of pigeons, the rats of the sky, to be able to listen to Dean Martin and lose it all in Vegas. Aint that a Kick in the Head?

What else?

Well, there was $40,316,270,000 wasted on COVID-19, including $4.29 billion in bad loans out of the Paycheck Protection Program, about $36 billion in wasted unemployment insurance payments, and $1.27 million in COVID relief funds for students who actually werent enrolled in a Baltimore school.

Other waste included more than $8 billion, including $250 million to build border walls in the Middle East and North Africa, $179 million for the State Department to fund green energy programs in Africa, and $200,000 to teach France about U.S. culture.

Additionally, the FAA was named for spending $57,000 on a study of the physical measurements of 432 airline stewardesses, Paul said during a speech on the senate floor. These included the distance from knee-to-knee while sitting and the length of the buttocks... This was your government money put to good use.

During the same speech Paul noted how NIH spent $800,000 in taxpayer dollars to assess the risky sex habits of Japanese quail while high on cocaine.

...money to study whether Japanese quail are more sexually promiscuous on cocaine, Paul noted. You think, we could have just polled the audience? You think we could have just said, What do you think? Because thats sort of the answer. The answer is yes.

All this at a time when the inflation rate is the highest it has been in decades, and businesses struggle to find enough employees.

Maybe Grandpa Joe should have reigned in this wasteful spending? Then he would have had more than $52 billion that could have gone to infrastructure.

This leaves the question, does the majority of Congress know how to balance a check book?

Probably not.

This is why Congress is the opposite of Progress.

The rest is here:
Studying Pigeons on Cocaine... - The Glasgow Courier - Glasgow Courier

Azher Khan| Indianapolis Star

The Small Business Administration (SBA) rescued hundreds and thousands of small businesses like mine and millions of employees by timely distributing PPP loans. My heart is heavy for the tremendous loss of life inflicted by the pandemic, but we survived as a nation.

We are not out of the woods yet, and the economy is still vulnerable, evidenced by the inflation and supply-chain issues we are facing. Again, issues that disproportionately affect small businesses.

In this backdrop, I am deeply concerned by the hold-up in confirming Dilawar Syed, President Biden's nominee for Small Business Adminstration (SBA) deputy administrator.

He is uniquely qualified to help lead SBA as it continues to deliver aid to small businesses. Syed brings 20 years of experience leading companies that are driving major impact across the technology, healthcare, and business services sectors.

As a business owner and a taxpayer, it's painful to see an eminently qualified public servant and an entrepreneur like Syed stalled by Senate Republicans. Syed should be have been confirmed six months ago. Instead, he has yet to receive a vote in the committee.

Syed'snomination is currently held-up in the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship as the Republican members have continued their months-long blockade by impeding a quorum.

One of the Republicans on this committee is our very own Sen.Todd Young. Whereas Sen. Young and I disagree on politics and policy, I have the utmost respect for him as a Hoosier political leader.

He boycotted Syed's vote on five occasions, led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), whose state is right now devastated bytornadoes where businesses likely could use the help of someone like Syed.

A Julytweet by the Senate Small Business Committee, said it would notallow a vote until "the SBA takes action to recover the wrongfully acquired PPP funds by Planned Parenthood entities."

More: Rand Paul, a 'stalwart defender' of religious freedom, sets the record straight | Opinion

It appears they are holding up a qualified candidate for political gain.

If confirmed, Syed would become the highest-ranking Muslim in the Biden administration. There are insinuations that his nomination is being blocked because of religious prejudice.

Eight Republican committee members last year raisedconcerns about Syed's involvment in EmgageAction, which they describeas "vocally" anti-Israel.Syed wasamember of the poltical action commmittee, which, according to its website, seeks to "promote just policy guided by our faith and reflective of our Muslim American identity."

Yet, Syed is supported by Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee.

Referring to the lack of valid concerns raised on Syed's nomination, Sen.Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) recently said on Twitter, "This has the stench of religious bigotry".

I refuse to believe that a religious test could be used as a weapon to disqualify a qualified nominee at this point in our nation's history. Syed hasbuilt a stellar record as a civic leader and advocate for entrepreneurs in minority, rural, and other underserved communitiesa vital asset for SBA in the years ahead as the agency invests in the entrepreneurial ecosystems in those communities.

Syed's nomination is backed by more than 230 civic, government, higher education, and business leaders and organization, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Black Chambers, the Small Business Investor Alliance, and Small Business Roundtable.

I urge Sen.Young to show up for the next committee meeting. Vote your conscience, but at least be present soSyed's nomination can proceed for a full Senate vote. Small businesses and America need you to stand up for the American way and show up.

Azher Khan is chairman of Calderon Textiles in Indianapolis. Helives in Zionsville.

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Op-Ed: There's a qualified candidate for the SBA. Why won't Sen. Young show up and vote? - IndyStar