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The long-shot campaign to get big banks out of fossil fuels

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This week, shareholders at Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs voted on resolutions recommending the companies stop any additional financing for fossil fuel projects.
All the resolutions failed, pretty spectacularly, garnering just over 10 percent of the vote. Despite that failure, the votes were notable examples of a strategy climate activists are implementing with increasing boldness: pressuring institutions from the inside to make meaningful reforms on climate change.
It’s one that showed some signs of success at the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22455347/exxon-board-shell-oil-news-chevron-engine-no-one">shareholder meetings of energy companies</a> last year, and is also one advocates like Kate Monahan — director of shareholder advocacy at <a href="https://www.trilliuminvest.com/">Trillium Asset Management</a>, a fund that sponsored the climate resolution at Bank of America on Tuesday — believe will eventually bear fruit more broadly.
“I’m optimistic that we can build the vote over time,” she said. “This is a totally new type of proposal. So 11 percent, I think, is a really good base on which to build for next year.”
The incremental approach this strategy entails can seem frustrating, considering the scientific consensus that <a href="https://www.vox.com/23009894/un-ipcc-climate-mitigation-report-ar6-summary">the world needs to stop financing</a> new fossil fuel development today. But there is reason to believe it could ultimately have an impact.
The current shareholder push has its roots in the divestment movement, which saw climate activists building a case to a conservative audience of financial institutions, universities, and state pension funds that they should divest their investments from fossil fuel companies. After a decade and a litany of failures, powerful players relented — including <a href="https://www.vox.com/22256192/norway-oil-gas-investments-fossil-fuel">Norway’s sovereign wealth fund</a>, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2021/9/10/divest-declares-victory/">Harvard University</a>, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/nyregion/new-york-pension-fossil-fuels.html">New York state’s pension fund</a>.
Now, the global fossil fuel divestment movement has come to represent about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opinion/climate-change-divestment-fossil-fuels.html">$40 trillion</a> in assets. Other firms, like the world’s largest asset manager BlackRock, have made <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/blackrock-promises-big-jump-in-climate-commitments-within-its-holdings-whats-different-this-time-11649947380">public commitments</a> to align their funds with climate targets.
It’s that success that has <a href="https://www.iccr.org/sites/default/files/page_attachments/co-filers_on_bank_proposals12.17.21.pdf">led the groups</a> behind <a href="https://www.iccr.org/2022-climate-finance-resolutions-going-vote">this week’s resolutions</a>, like the Sierra Club Foundation and asset mangers Harrington Investments and Trillium, to apply daring pressure campaigns at annual shareholder meetings.
The largest institutional shareholders at big banks are still clearly skeptical of this latest ask to stop new fossil fuel finance immediately. In part, that’s because the campaign hasn’t reached the same heights as the divestment movement — just yet.
<h3>The long road to changing the conversation around banks’ role in financing a climate crisis</h3>
All the banks with meetings this week (and <a href="https://www.iccr.org/sites/default/files/page_attachments/jp_morgan_chase_2022_sierra_club_foundation_.pdf">JPMorgan Chase</a> and <a href="https://www.iccr.org/sites/default/files/page_attachments/morgan_stanley_2022_sierra_club_foundation.pdf">Morgan Stanley</a>, which have shareholder votes next month), <a href="https://www.unepfi.org/net-zero-banking/">joined a coalition</a> at last fall’s climate conference in Glasgow aligning their financing with reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Despite that pledge, the same banks all still fund fossil fuel development that ensures they are not aligned with these longer-term targets.
“Now we need to see the policies that will actually make that happen,” Loren Blackford, the investor committee chair of the Sierra Club Foundation’s board of directors, said.
To that end, SCF’s proposal (similar to the others from this week) <a href="https://www.goldmansachs.com/investor-relations/financials/proxy-statements/2022/2022-proxy-statement-pdf.pdf">requested Goldman Sachs</a> commit to “proactive measures to ensure that the firm’s lending and underwritten activities do not contribute to new fossil fuel development.”
It argued there were two problems: that Goldman Sachs’s “prominence in asserting climate leadership flies in the face of its actions, creating reputation risk from accusations of greenwashing” and that the bank is putting its long-term stability and gains at risk by pouring money into a dying industry — “knowingly loading potentially stranded assets onto its clients’ balance sheets, creating litigation risk.”
Big banks are indeed continuing to fund fossil fuel expansion: Last year alone, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America spent a combined $137 billion on fossil fuel projects, according to a report from a coalition of environmental advocacy groups, <a href="https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org//wp-content/themes/bocc-2021/inc/bcc-data-2022/BOCC_2022_vSPREAD.pdf">Banking on Climate Chaos</a>. (JPMorgan Chase by itself spent over $61 billion in 2021 on fossil fuels.)
There are a few reasons for this.
One is that banks are deeply intertwined with fossil fuel companies even though their rhetoric suggests the opposite. The Banking on Climate Chaos <a href="https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org//wp-content/themes/bocc-2021/inc/bcc-data-2022/BOCC_2022_vSPREAD.pdf">report</a> found that the 60 biggest banks spent about $4.6 trillion on fossil fuel investments since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and about $742 billion last year alone. The pandemic illustrated just how exposed banks are to volatility in the oil market. When global demand for oil plummeted in 2020, big banks like <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2021/04/jpmorgan-secretly-emailed-the-trump-administration-about-bailing-out-the-oil-industry/">JPMorgan</a> advocated on behalf of oil companies for federal stimulus.
Climate advocates argue the only way to avoid similar fallout again is by limiting further investment in the sector. Bank boards disagree, so much so that they went to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to block this week’s votes. When the SEC didn’t intervene, the boards campaigned against the proposals. Goldman’s board finally said that it’s committed to the climate goals set out six years ago in Paris; however, they said, “We do not believe that placing limits on financing to producers will result in either reduction in emissions or demand for fossil fuels.”
Another factor is current turmoil in the oil market, caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine. That made any climate proposal a harder sell to major asset managers who are worried about their bottom line.
The importance of swaying the wealthiest companies owning stock at any given meeting — particularly firms like BlackRock and Vanguard — can’t be understated either. These two asset managers backed the climate proposals at energy companies last year, ensuring their victory. And although BlackRock and Vanguard have not yet disclosed their votes from this week, it’s expected, given the final results, they didn’t support the 2022 initiatives. Getting BlackRock on board, along with pension funds and other major asset managers, will be crucial to raise the stakes for financial institutions.
<h3>Changing banks’ approach to fossil fuels is difficult, not necessarily impossible</h3>
There are a few reasons for hope though.
One is that the play to get a giant corporation’s attention at the general shareholder meetings is not particularly new, and success doesn’t always entirely depend on getting to a majority. In 2019, for instance, environmental campaigners attempted to get Goldman Sachs to stop financing Arctic oil exploration. The company <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/16/goldman-sachs-to-stop-financing-new-drilling-for-oil-in-the-arctic">responded</a> by making an initial pledge commitment not to fund drilling in the Arctic.
Another is climate activists’ successes in <a href="https://www.vox.com/22455347/exxon-board-shell-oil-news-chevron-engine-no-one">last year’s oil company meetings</a>. Shareholders at Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Phillips 66 voted for more disclosure on climate preparation. And ExxonMobil lost three board seats to climate activist-backed candidates. In these cases, shareholders actually overrode the board’s recommendations against taking climate action.
Finally, there has been growing momentum for more climate disclosure and commitment from companies. Corporate governance analysts at the research group The Conference Board <a href="https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/02/11/2021-proxy-season-preview-and-shareholder-voting-trends-2017-2020/">tracked</a> how the average vote for climate-related proposals grew from 24 percent in 2019 up to 32 percent in 2020 (the investor-focused nonprofit Ceres counted another 10-point jump to <a href="https://www.climateaction100.org/news/as-climate-risks-skyrocket-largest-asset-managers-vote-for-more-climate-related-shareholder-proposals-tipping-support-to-record-levels-in-2021/">41 percent</a> in 2021).
Every year that passes is another year that the world comes up short on its climate commitments. The <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050">International Energy Agency</a> and the United Nations’ <a href="https://www.vox.com/23009894/un-ipcc-climate-mitigation-report-ar6-summary">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> have all asserted that averting the worst of climate change requires the world to stop investing in new fossil fuels, immediately. So rather than play it safe, activists are going bigger and bolder with their resolutions.
Some end in failure. But they’re also banking that someday soon, they might not.
“It may not be a quick process,” Monahan said. “But we believe it’s important for us to try.”
Correction, 11 am: A previous version of this article erroneously referred to the Sierra Club rather than the Sierra Club Foundation, the independent fiscal sponsor of the Sierra Club. It also misstated Loren Blackford’s title; she is the investor committee chair of the Sierra Club Foundation’s board of directors.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/23046282/banks-climate-shareholder-votes-fossil-fuels">https://www.vox.com/23046282/banks-climate-shareholder-votes-fossil-fuels</a>

vox The long-shot campaign to get big banks out of fossil fuels

This week, shareholders at Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs voted on resolutions recommending the companies stop ...

Rand Paul: Fauci “Is A Man That Is Against Everything That America Stands For”

A new study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal found that lockdowns in the UK caused around 60,000 children to suffer clinical depression.
Researchers detected a 27.1 per cent prevalence of depression amongst their sample, a number significantly higher than would have occurred without lockdowns.
According to a report by <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/04/25/hepatitis-surge-leaves-one-child-dead-17-needing-liver-transplants/">the Telegraph</a>, the percentage equates to about 60,000 extra kids who suffered clinical depression thanks to COVID-19 restrictions.
“After controlling for baseline scores and several school and pupil-level characteristics, depressive symptoms were higher in the COVID-19 group,” the study found.
“These findings demonstrate that the COVID-19 pandemic increased adolescent depressive symptoms beyond what would have likely occurred under non-pandemic circumstances.”
Figures show that 400,000 British children were referred to mental health specialists last year for things like eating disorders and self-harm.
Once again, the study underscores how those who vehemently promoted lockdowns, while demanding voices of dissent be silenced, were on the wrong side of history.
As we previously <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/26/outbreak-of-hepatitis-in-children-caused-by-lockdowns-that-weakened-immunity/">highlighted</a>, a shocking outbreak of hepatitis cases in children was likely caused by lockdowns and social distancing, which served to weaken immune systems, according to health experts.
Many infants are also suffering from cognitive developmental and speech disorders due to adults wearing face coverings during the pandemic.
According to speech therapists, mask wearing has caused a 364% increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers.
A major study by Johns Hopkins University <a href="https://summit.news/2022/02/02/new-johns-hopkins-study-lockdowns-have-had-little-to-no-public-health-effects-and-imposed-enormous-economic-and-social-costs/">concluded</a> that global lockdowns have had a much more detrimental impact on society than they have produced any benefit, with researchers urging that they “are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true" readability="13.932307692308">
A speech therapist says her clinic has seen a "364% increase in patient referrals of babies and toddlers".
"It's very important kids do see your face to learn, so they're watching your mouth."
What the hell have we done?!
End this cruel insanity. <a href="https://t.co/DN6J4yQfju">pic.twitter.com/DN6J4yQfju</a>
— Darren Grimes (@darrengrimes_) <a href="https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1486348600393220102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2022</a>
</blockquote>
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/29/rand-paul-fauci-is-a-man-that-is-against-everything-that-america-stands-for/">https://summit.news/2022/04/29/rand-paul-fauci-is-a-man-that-is-against-everything-that-america-stands-for/</a>

revolution summit Rand Paul: Fauci “Is A Man That Is Against Everything That America Stands For”

A new study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal found that lockdowns in the UK caused around 60,000 children to suffer clini...

An expert on why wars start, and how to prevent them

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War is a stupid idea.
Fighting is a bad way to resolve disagreements. If two countries want the same land, it is almost always less costly to each side to split it than to fight. The same is true if they are arguing over a shared natural resource, like oil. Fighting costs lives and money, with an incredibly uncertain payoff when the dust settles.
And yet wars persist, both within nations and, as appallingly demonstrated by Russia’s devastation of Ukraine, between them. Why? Why do governments and private armed groups still resort to violence when it’s so often mutually destructive?
That’s the question Chris Blattman’s new book, <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/636263/why-we-fight-by-christopher-blattman/">Why We Fight</a>, seeks to answer. Blattman is an economist and political scientist at the University of Chicago, and he has studied the roots of violence in many different contexts. In academic work, Blattman and his coauthors have examined the roots of <a href="https://chrisblattman.com/documents/research/2010.Consequences.RESTAT.pdf">child soldiering</a> in Uganda, the potential of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/04/15/jobs-and-jail-might-not-keep-young-men-out-of-crime-but-how-about-therapy/">cognitive behavioral therapy to prevent violence</a> in post-war Liberia, and the policy choices of <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/5nyqs/">drug gangs who govern neighborhoods</a> in Medellín, Colombia.
Why We Fight is an effort to summarize what he and other social scientists have learned about violent conflict, both between and within states: where it comes from; if it can be prevented; and how to stop it once it’s begun.
Blattman and I spoke for this week’s episode of the Vox podcast The Weeds. A transcript, edited for length and clarity, follows. Note that our conversation occurred on April 7, so we didn’t cover the past couple weeks of developments in Ukraine. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow The Weeds on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weeds/id1042433083">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vdGhld2VlZHM">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/1vSUO6Bg4abtjRF7fnGpT1">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/voxs-the-weeds">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
<h3>Dylan Matthews</h3>
You start from a standpoint that is kind of surprising for a book about war, which is that war usually is a bad idea, it usually isn’t in anybody’s best interests, and most conflicts are resolved peaceably. Can you explain that organizing framework and why you think that’s important?
<h3>Chris Blattman</h3>
It is kind of amazing how much attention we pay to violence. We want doctors to pay a lot of attention to sick people, but then we don’t want them to forget that most people are healthy.
For example, two weeks into Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/12/world/asia/india-pakistan-missile.html">India accidentally lobbed a cruise missile at Pakistan</a> and nothing came of it, and we shouldn’t be surprised at that. Likewise, schoolchildren will learn about the US invasion of Afghanistan for decades, [but] very few kids will be taught about the <a href="https://time.com/5682135/haiti-military-anniversary/">US invasion of Haiti in 1994</a>, which ended before it began. Colin Powell went to the coup leader [Raoul Cédras] who ousted a democratically elected president, showed him a video of US troops loading into planes and taking off and said, “This isn’t live. This happened two hours ago,” and he sort of surrendered right there.
All of these things are happening all the time. And they’re happening for a pretty simple reason. If you’re Pakistan [after India’s missile launch], it’s just going to be ruinous if you go to war over this, even if you think it might not have been an accident. And this military leader in Haiti … It wasn’t just that the US was strong and Haiti was weak. That was part of it, but we know that weak parties can mount insurgencies. I think he just looked at [the situation] and he said, this isn’t going to be worth it, because I can basically use whatever bargaining power I have to get some kind of deal. [The US government wound up <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-10-14-mn-50281-story.html">giving the coup leader over $1 million</a> to leave.]
That’s just the normal everyday business of what happens, precisely because war is so costly. Peace has this gravitational pull, from all the costs of war. So war only happens because some other force yanked it out of that orbit, which is actually pretty hard to do.
<h3>Dylan Matthews</h3>
You list five explanations for war, which are all explanations of how bargaining breaks down and why people can’t reach agreements peaceably. Could you walk through those five?
<h3>Chris Blattman</h3>
I call them:
<ol>
<li>Unchecked leaders</li>
<li>Intangible incentives</li>
<li>Misperceptions</li>
<li>Uncertainty, and</li>
<li>Commitment problems</li>
</ol>
Three of them are more strategic in nature, and then two are more psychological.
Let me just start with a couple examples that I think are the most intuitive. We live in a world with a lot of autocrats, and even if they’re not autocrats, we live in a world where leaders are not totally constrained by their people, which means they don’t have to do the thing that’s in the interest of their group. This especially matters for someone who is completely unaccountable, like a <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/03/23/the-rise-of-personalist-rule/">personalized dictator</a>, which Vladimir Putin has increasingly become.
If you’re a personalized dictator, you don’t have to consider all these costs of war. You consider some of them, but you consider a much narrower range, so you’re much more ready to use violence. Sometimes leaders, particularly dictators, have a special incentive to invade or attack that their group doesn’t share. In Liberia, maybe the warlord Charles Taylor thinks he’s going to get more diamond profits by keeping the war going. Or maybe Putin thinks that too — to keep his regime of control the war needs to keep going. That’s one example of a very powerful thing that can yank us out of that peaceful orbit.
Another, which is related, I call intangible incentives. What if the group or a leader — or in particular the dictatorial, personalized ruler — is seeking some ethereal benefits, something they value? That gives them a strong incentive to go to war. It’s not a material incentive like diamonds or something strategic, like “I need to gain this territory in Ukraine or exterminate democracy there because it’s going to threaten me.” Rather, it’s this nationalist ideal of a unified Russia. Or, in Charles Taylor’s case, a nationalist ideal of a unified West African Republic that, by the way, he would rule. It could be personal glory, like wanting to be the next Catherine the Great. It could be the desire to exterminate a heretic, or in service of some kind of religious or ethnic ideal. If you value this thing that only war can bring you, it’s going to yank you out of the peaceful orbit.
“Misperceptions” includes all the ways war happens by mistake. Uncertainty is about times when we don’t know the strength of our opponent, we don’t know their resolve, so it seems like the optimal choice to fight. Commitment problems are mostly cases where there’s some way we can avert our opponent from being strong in the future. It actually pays to invade now to lock in our advantage forever. That can overcome the costs of war.
<h3>Dylan Matthews</h3>
We’re having this conversation as a war in Ukraine rages. Just before the war broke out, you wrote a <a href="https://chrisblattman.com/blog/2022/02/15/when-we-focus-on-russian-aggression-and-motives-are-we-asking-the-wrong-questions/">short post</a> asking the question of why diplomacy didn’t work, why the countries hadn’t been able to come to a deal. Looking back, how do you think about that question? How do you apply some of the lessons in this book to that context?
<h3>Chris Blattman</h3>
I know exactly how to apply each of the lessons in the book. What I don’t know is which ones are correct.
What it comes down to is you either think Putin and his cabal are being strategic, or they’re not. I always lean on this side of [strategy]; fundamentally they’re not bonkers. Certainly in week four, they’ve woken up and they’re becoming strategic.
But at many lunch hours, I knock on the door of my colleague <a href="https://harris.uchicago.edu/directory/konstantin-sonin">Konstantin Sonin</a>, who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/opinion/masha-gessen-putin-and-his-new-years-resolutions.html">used to be the provost</a> of one of the most major universities in Moscow. He’s a game theorist, so he’s the kind of person who’s biased to think that everything is strategic, and he thinks it’s completely non-strategic. He thinks [Putin’s] inner circle has basically gone downhill in quality of thought and quality of individuals and experience, and that they’re both mass-deluded and ideological. He puts in the misperceptions and the intangible incentives, and that’s enough for him.
I lean more towards the strategic camp. We can all understand Konstantin’s point of view because it’s what we read in the paper every day. I’m always suspicious of it because it gives those people very little agency. It denigrates them. It makes us feel superior.
I think it comes down to Putin’s unchecked-ness: the fact that he is not responsible for the costs [of the war], and he has some private incentives, in terms of the preservation of his regime, to exterminate democracy in Ukraine. There’s uncertainty; he got bad draws and Ukraine got good draws. There’s maybe a little bit of a commitment problem, where he could see a point where [Ukraine] is more democratic, closer to the West, maybe even armed with long-range missiles by the West and thus impossible to invade, and so the window of opportunity is closing.
I think those are really important to understanding the war. But for the record, Konstantin totally disagrees with me.
<h3>Dylan Matthews</h3>
The US is still processing <a href="https://www.vox.com/22217039/capitol-attack-trump-rally-election-biden-explained">what happened on January 6th</a> last year. On the extreme end, your colleague Barbara Walter has a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/624156/how-civil-wars-start-by-barbara-f-walter/">book</a> raising the <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22814025/democracy-trump-january-6-capitol-riot-election-violence">possibility of widespread political violence</a> in the US. Even if not a Liberia-style civil war, then widespread terrorism and street violence. I’m curious how you think about that question, especially because I left your book oddly hopeful about our odds of finding peace.
<h3>Chris Blattman</h3>
Barbara’s not the extreme end — there’s people who think there could be full-scale civil war. Barbara’s more like, “At worst this is probably going to look like the Irish troubles, and that’s not assured.” She’s definitely more pessimistic than I am. I agree with a lot of what she says. We just have very different probabilities. We can all look at the same evidence and disagree.
Again, it comes down to these costs [of war]. These costs are very high and we have a lot of institutions that have not been politicized and are very good at internalizing these costs, and therefore will work very hard to avoid them. The thing that would push me to be as pessimistic as Barbara is if those institutions, like our military and our Supreme Court and police forces, were more split, or more unaccountable, and thus were not internalizing these costs of violence. But I actually have found those institutions to be amazingly resilient in a polarized age. I draw some optimism from that.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/4/28/23041726/chris-blattman-why-we-fight-war-peace">https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/4/28/23041726/chris-blattman-why-we-fight-war-peace</a>

vox An expert on why wars start, and how to prevent them

War is a stupid idea. Fighting is a bad way to resolve disagreements. If two countries want the same land, it is almost always less costly...

PJW Live: Twitter Staffers Digitally Burning Documents?

A Russian-Australian man was told to leave a television studio after he asked a ‘rogue’ question and pointed out that there is an alternative narrative to be considered surrounding the conflict in Ukraine.
The audience member Sasha Gillies-Lekakis was speaking on a live Australian debate show when he expressed support for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, angering other audience members and surprising the host of the show, Stan Grant.
“As someone who comes from the Russian community here in Australia, I’ve been pretty outraged by the narrative depicted by our media, with Ukraine as the good guy and Russia as the bad guy,” Gillies-Lekakis said.
“Believe it or not, there are a lot of Russians here and around the world that support what Putin’s doing in Ukraine, myself included,” he added before claiming that Ukraine has previously “besieged” the Russian populations in Donetsk and Luhansk, killing thousands of people.
Other audience members heckled him and yelled ‘propaganda’ and ‘lies’, while the host Grant moved the program on.
Around twenty minutes later Grant returned to Gillies-Lekakis and said he had ‘thought about it’ and wasn’t comfortable allowing him to stay in the studio.
“Something has been bothering me,” Grant said, adding “people here have been talking about family who are suffering and people who are dying. Can I just say – I’m just not comfortable with you being here. Could you please leave?”
“You can ask a question, but we cannot advocate violence. I should have asked you to leave then. It‘s been playing on my mind and, I’m sorry, but I have to ask you to leave,” the host added.
Watch:
<figure>[embedded content]</figure>
Here is the question with the panel of guests reacting, before Grant asked Gillies-Lekakis to leave:
<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"></figure>
Grant later stated “we can’t have anyone who is sanctioning, supporting, violence and killing of people. So I‘m sorry for the disruption. It was not a vetted question. It was a rogue question. It’s not good.”
In a now removed Facebook post, Gillies-Lekakis explained that he “supports Putin’s grievances regarding the breaking of the Minsk Peace Agreement by Ukraine and the ensuing loss of life, particularly in the Russian-populated areas of the Donbas”.
He added, “My question, furthermore, sought to question why these Russian deaths were seemingly less important compared to Ukrainian casualties in our media coverage, and whether the panellists thought there was any hypocrisy in their positions as a result.”
“This is reflected in my question as published on the Q+A website. Unfortunately, I was unable to fully finish asking my question nor clarify myself despite trying, and so believe that my words were misrepresented and incomplete,” he further wrote.
Gillies-Lekakis further noted that his question was not ‘rogue’ and was submitted to the show’s producers beforehand, adding that he wasn’t able to ask it in full before being interrupted.
“The only addition I made to my question when actually delivering it was my reference to the Azhov Battalion (7-8 words roughly), and some sentences were left out towards the end as I was interrupted,” he said.
He added, “If this small change to my question amounts to it being ‘rogue’, as was claimed, once again I apologise. However, I find this difficult to reconcile with the fact that other guests were given the chance to speak at length, off-script, on the Russia-Ukraine situation.”
He said the Q+A host was “disappointing and unprofessional” and accused the network ABC of “questionable conduct” during the night.
“I am genuinely sorry that things took the turn they did … if my question was not appropriate for the show after being vetted and edited, I wonder why I was invited at all,” he noted, adding “I would like to say that I had no intention whatsoever of offending anyone, and so would like to sincerely apologise for any distress my comments may have caused.”
The incident has unsurprisingly caused division on social media, with some arguing these questions and opinions must be debated, while others proclaimed to do so is to support the bombardment and murder of innocent people:
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I don’t agree with kicking him out. It goes against freedom of speech if it doesn’t suit your narrative. I’m fully behind <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ukraine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Ukraine</a> but having these conversations is a necessity.
— Kristie Soto (@KristieSoto80) <a href="https://twitter.com/KristieSoto80/status/1499348989229297666?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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I don’t support war in any form. This was a low in QandA’s history. Opinions offered on QandA, have been varied over time. Some offensive. None have resulted in eviction until tonight. 
He was asked to comment. You didn’t like it. 
Shouldn’t he get to have his say in a democracy?
— LouiseTaylor (@LouiseTay48) <a href="https://twitter.com/LouiseTay48/status/1499341568175910914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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should have let this guy finish his question in full without cutting him off. Thought the idea of a QandA was to here different points of view even if you disagree with them.
— Byron (@Peyote_TheForce) <a href="https://twitter.com/Peyote_TheForce/status/1499330060654096385?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Well done Stan for telling him to leave. He was supporting the murder of civilians and children
— Karen Monk (@KM12094068) <a href="https://twitter.com/KM12094068/status/1499335543192125444?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Get absolutely f*d with this clickbait garbage. Putin invaded a peaceful Democratic neighbour that posed no threat to Russia. His forces have murdered civilians, including children. There are not 2 sides to this story. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/auspol?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#auspol</a>
— Brian Mitchell MP (@BrianMitchellMP) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrianMitchellMP/status/1499345886517751809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/IStandWithUkraine?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#IStandWithUkraine</a> & despise that Putin has manipulated the narrative. However, we need to allow ppl to engage in conversation so that facts can be discussed & fiction proved nonsense. To silence opposing views can be dangerous, as those ppl can use this to support their claims.
— kayd (@jckmac7) <a href="https://twitter.com/jckmac7/status/1499376818864140290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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When one side of the debate controls the narrative by kicking out anyone with a different opinion, then claims the other side of the debate is all just propaganda, you know there is more to the story.
— Lita Gillies (@LitaGillies) <a href="https://twitter.com/LitaGillies/status/1499382943629774849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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What “right” are you talking about? Australia doesn’t have a “freedom of speech” right in out constitution. This isn’t America. Plus what he was saying was extremely false. He was stating stuff as if it was fact, not just “his opinion”.
— Luke (@goldstein85) <a href="https://twitter.com/goldstein85/status/1499351040436891651?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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I am 100% against what Russia is doing and I am 100% against the way qanda responded to this person’s opinion and ejected him.
— Rod Barnett (@salientrod) <a href="https://twitter.com/salientrod/status/1499332152798105600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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Stan Grant advocated for MORE war, then kicked out a Russian-Aust saying the guy advocated for violence
All I see is that it's Stan & Olga are the ONLY people on the Panel advocating for violence
Olga:"we don't negotiate with Russia,it's a terrorist state". Non-milit solution?
— Rudolphreindeer (@Rudolphreinde19) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rudolphreinde19/status/1499336302906720256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2022</a></blockquote>
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/28/pjw-live-twitter-staffers-digitally-burning-documents/">https://summit.news/2022/04/28/pjw-live-twitter-staffers-digitally-burning-documents/</a>

revolution summit PJW Live: Twitter Staffers Digitally Burning Documents?

A Russian-Australian man was told to leave a television studio after he asked a ‘rogue’ question and pointed out that there is an alternativ...

Leftist Leader Admits Multiculturalism Has Failed

In the absence of any action by the Biden Administration, Twenty six states have formed an alliance to create a ‘border strike force’ to secure the southern border.
The move was announced Tuesday in a <a href="https://azgovernor.gov/governor/news/2022/04/governor-ducey-25-governors-commit-coordinated-effort-secure-united-states">press release</a> and <a href="https://azgovernor.gov/sites/default/files/american_governors_border_strike_force_brief.pdf">document</a> from the office of Arizona governor Doug Ducey, who is heading up the alliance along with Texas governor Greg Abbott.
The pledge has been signed on to by the governors of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.
Ducey commented “What we’re doing in Arizona works, but this is not just an Arizona issue, it’s a national issue. If our entire southern border isn’t secure, our nation isn’t secure.”
The governor added that “As dangerous transnational criminal organizations continue to profit from holes in the border and fill our communities with drugs, it’s no coincidence that we’re seeing historic levels of opioid-related deaths. The American Governors’ Border Strike Force will serve as a force multiplier in the fight against criminal activity directly tied to our border.”
The release also notes “With record breaking migration leading to an overwhelming amount of apprehensions at the southern border, law enforcement is stretched too thin to effectively combat the cartels. This leads to more drugs entering the country, more dangerous individuals avoiding arrest, and more victims of human trafficking.”
Last month, former Obama Homeland Security head Jeh Johnson warned that unmanageable numbers of illegal immigrants will pour across the southern border when the Biden Administration lifts the Title 42 public health authority.
The measure, which Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/04/01/cdc-phase-out-border-restrictions-increase-crossings-expected/">intends to scrap in May</a>, has effectively served as border control, allowing federal immigration officials to swiftly return around two million illegal immigrants to their home countries over the past two years.
Without it, it is conservatively estimated that numbers of migrants reaching the border will increase three fold to 18,000 per day.
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The DHS estimates that 221,000 crossed in March, and noted that there are hundreds of thousands more just waiting for restrictions to ease.
Hidalgo County, Texas Sheriff Eddie Guerra, interviewed during a recent NBC news report said that he has been warned to expect that the border could be overrun.
Describing how he and his deputies are preparing, Guerra said “We’re talking about deputies dressed in their riot gear with their shields and their helmets and batons to keep the crowd at bay.”
“We’re asking them to reconsider, you know, lifting the Title 42,” Guerra further stated.
Watch:
Arizona GOP Rep. Andy Biggs has also warned that numbers will be even higher than estimated, suggesting that 20,000 to 30,000 could surge the border every day.
“Right now, the [Department of Homeland Security] number is about 8,000 people a day, illegally entering our country,” Biggs said during a podcast, adding “DHS’s number, they say it’s going to be 18,000 a day … I personally think it’s going to be 20,000 to 30,000 a day.”
He explained, “Cartels are already advertising to put together caravans to come across … our communities are going to be overrun … last year, 800,000 people illegally snuck into the country, they were not apprehended, they were the got-aways, we don’t know who they are, where they are from, what their intentions are.”
Regarding lifting Title 42, Biggs said “I think the rationale here is, they’re trying to get this open and bring in as many people as they can before they lose the majority … [in] the House and Senate.” 
“I think this is a political ploy, it’s meant to happen. They campaigned on an open border,” Biggs continued, warning“If you think it’s bad now, the tsunami that’s coming is going to be overwhelming.”
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/28/leftist-leader-admits-multiculturalism-has-failed/">https://summit.news/2022/04/28/leftist-leader-admits-multiculturalism-has-failed/</a>

revolution summit Leftist Leader Admits Multiculturalism Has Failed

In the absence of any action by the Biden Administration, Twenty six states have formed an alliance to create a ‘border strike force’ to sec...

Too Many White Men Flying Planes!

Former world number one tennis star Novak Djokovic has described Wimbledon’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players as “crazy,” saying politics shouldn’t interfere in sport.
As we <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/20/wimbledon-bans-russian-players-from-competing-in-tournament/">highlighted</a> yesterday, Wimbledon organizers confirmed that players from both countries would be barred from competing in the tournament even if they have vocally opposed the war in Ukraine.
Players had initially been expected to be given an opportunity to perform an act of ideological subservience by denouncing Russia in order to be able to take part, but now even this won’t be enough.
Serbian star Djokovic, who was deported earlier this year after attempting to take part in the Australian Open without having been vaccinated, condemned the announcement.
“I will always condemn war, I will never support war being myself a child of war,” he asserted, adding, “I know how much emotional trauma it leaves. In Serbia we all know what happened in 1999. In the Balkans we have had many wars in recent history.”
“However, I cannot support the decision of Wimbledon, I think it is crazy. When politics interferes with sport, the result is not good,” said Djokovic.
Wimbledon organizers All England Lawn Tennis Club attempted to justify the ban by saying it would be “unacceptable for the Russian regime to derive any benefits from the involvement of Russian or Belarusian players with The Championships.”
However, both the ATP and the WTA slammed Wimbledon over the decision.
Men’s tour organizers ATP said it was “unfair and has the potential to set a damaging precedent for the game.”
The WTA said the ban was “neither fair nor justified.”
The ban opens up future possibilities for players to be banned from tournaments if they don’t express political support for whatever ‘current thing’ cause is popular at the time.
As we previously <a href="https://summit.news/2022/03/22/russian-chess-player-banned-from-competing-for-expressing-wrong-political-opinion/">highlighted</a>, Russian chess prodigy Sergey Karjakin was banned from competing internationally by the International Chess Federation (FIDE) because he expressed the wrong political opinion about Ukraine.
Ukrainian sisters and chess grandmasters Maria & Anna Muzychuk were then banned by the Lviv Chess Federation for refusing to sign an open letter demanding that all Russians and Belarusians be banned.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true" readability="8.8629737609329">
Ukrainian sisters and chess grandmasters Maria & Anna Muzychuk will be suspended and excluded from competition by Lviv Chess Federation for refusing to sign an open letter calling for the International Chess Federation (FIDE) to ban Russian & Belarusian athletes. <a href="https://t.co/VRkCvG3ntT">pic.twitter.com/VRkCvG3ntT</a>
— Danny Armstrong (@DannyWArmstrong) <a href="https://twitter.com/DannyWArmstrong/status/1512335862155120646?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 8, 2022</a>
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source <a href="https://summit.news/2022/04/28/too-many-white-men-flying-planes/">https://summit.news/2022/04/28/too-many-white-men-flying-planes/</a>

revolution summit Too Many White Men Flying Planes!

Former world number one tennis star Novak Djokovic has described Wimbledon’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players as “crazy,” saying politi...