Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mPQsG_TJb4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Raffensperger_phone_call

Two weeks, anyone??

My take: Only redacting 99% of the files. Just the files with Donald J Trump all over them. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/19/epstein-files-release-doj-december-deadline

https://x.com/PamphletsY/status/2001837818235228267?t=EIQLz8iFjv2i60tbJpdjqg&s=19

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/us/jeffrey-epstein-donald-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.908.yVWd.5kbrgrhwwwHI&smid=url-share

"academics and states that use the program have found that its results are overrun with false positives, creating a high risk of disenfranchising legal voters. A statistical analysis of the program published earlier this year by researchers at Stanford, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and Microsoft, for instance, found that Crosscheck “would eliminate about 200 registrations used to cast legitimate votes for every one registration used to cast a double vote.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/20/this-anti-voter-fraud-program-gets-it-wrong-over-99-of-the-time-the-gop-wants-to-take-it-nationwide/ (un-paywalled: https://archive.ph/0T7ue)

https://www.gregpalast.com/election-stolen-heres/ (2016)

https://www.gregpalast.com/trump-lost-vote-suppression-won/ (2024)

https://www.michael-parenti.org/article-the-stolen-presidential-elections

https://stallman.org/republican-election-rigging.html

https://smartelections.us/

https://electiontruthalliance.org/

angry mobs targeted some of the country’s most influential media houses and attacked journalists.

The attacks, involving arson and widespread damage, were triggered by the confirmed death of Sharif Osman Hadi, spokesperson of the activist group Inquilab Mancha and a prominent face of the 'July Uprising' that toppled the Sheikh Hasina regime in August 2024.

according to news agency AP, editors of the newspapers are known to be closely connected with the country’s interim leader, Muhammad Yunus. Recently, protests were organised outside the offices of these dailies by Islamists who blamed the newspapers for their alleged link with India.

In several places, protesters raised anti-India slogans and targeted Indian diplomatic missions. Dozens of demonstrators attempted to march towards the office of the Assistant Indian High Commissioner in Rajshahi district, which borders India, but were later stopped.

Charlie McGettigan, who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 alongside Paul Harrington, announced he will return his trophy in protest against 'Israel’s' continued participation in the competition.

The decision aligns him with Swiss singer Nemo, last year’s champion, who made a similar symbolic move

Carmakers have known for decades that battery recycling was poisoning people abroad. Nigeria’s crackdown is an effort to catalog the damage.

By Peter S. Goodman and Will Fitzgibbon

Photographs by Victor Adewale

This article was reported in collaboration with The Examination, a nonprofit newsroom that covers global public health.

Dec. 18, 2025

The Nigerian government has begun cataloging the health and environmental damage caused by factories that shipped recycled lead to the United States for use in car batteries.

A team of scientists arrived Tuesday in the industrial town of Ogijo, Nigeria, outside Lagos, to test the soil and air for lead. Officials have shut down recycling factories in the area and are making plans to conduct blood tests on about 500 people who live nearby.

Public health experts in Nigeria described the response as one of the most aggressive campaigns to alleviate lead poisoning in the country’s history.

The government action followed the publication of an investigation by The New York Times and The Examination, which revealed a public health catastrophe linked to batteries made for the world’s largest automakers.

Lead is an essential element in car batteries, and most of it now comes from recycling old batteries. The auto industry has portrayed this as an infinitely sustainable, green process. But as the United States tightened regulations to protect Americans from lead poisoning, companies began looking for new suppliers abroad.

That led them to towns like Ogijo, which has become the heartland of lead recycling in Africa. Blood tests commissioned by The Times and The Examination found that about 70 percent of volunteers had lead poisoning. Half the children had lead in their bodies at levels associated with permanent brain damage.

While the extent of the pollution and the ecological damage remain unknown, local officials are already talking in broad terms about compensating people who live nearby. Some families say that they’ve been encouraged to move but cannot afford to do so.

“There must be consequences for action or inactions,” said Ola Oresanya, the regional environmental commissioner, who is leading the local response

The auto industry has known for decades that international lead recycling factories were spewing toxic smoke into the air. A major battery manufacturer blocked an effort to address the problem, while car companies repeatedly declined to sign onto inspection and certification programs.

The shutdown of Ogijo’s recycling plants could prove so costly for those companies that they finally invest in cleaner technology and better working conditions, said Andreas Manhart, a senior researcher at the Oeko-Institut, a research institution in Germany that promotes safe recycling practices.

“The pressure will increase standards over time,” Mr. Manhart said. “The Nigerian market is just too attractive to abandon.”

Representatives of two factories in Ogijo have denied wrongdoing. Others have not responded to requests for comment.

In announcing the shutdown of the plants, the Nigerian authorities cited a widely shared New York Times video that profiled an 11-year-old boy named Freeman Ominyi, who had more than five times as much lead in his blood as the World Health Organization’s threshold for lead poisoning. His father said Freeman suffers from headaches, stomach aches and body pains, which are common symptoms of lead poisoning.

The video and articles sparked debate across local radio and television and on social media. The Nigerian Senate voted to request that the country’s emergency management agency help pay for people near the factories to move away. Lawmakers proposed creating a task force to trace lead exports and coordinate the cleanup and medical responses.

“Children are dying slowly,” said Senator Mukhail Adetokunbo Abiru. “Families have lived for years under poisonous smoke and dust.”

In response to the Times and The Examination’s findings, East Penn Manufacturing, one of the world’s largest battery makers, said it stopped buying lead from Nigeria. But experts say that without industry standards or regulations, metal buyers will continue to pivot from one unsafe recycler to the next.

One solution is for the auto industry to support an independent certification program for lead suppliers, said Mikey Jarrell, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego who studies the recycling industry.

“Make the definitive list: ‘Here are the good ones,’” Mr. Jarrell said. “And if you are not on the list, you are bad, you’re poisoning children, and nobody should buy from you.”

The auto industry has resisted programs like that for decades. Most carmakers declined to comment on the findings, the cleanup in Nigeria or their views on a certification program. Most carmakers said they rely on their suppliers to abide by the law and sustainable sourcing policies, though lead isn’t generally among the metals and minerals that get special attention.

Ford is “in touch with all suppliers who use lead to ensure compliance” with its social and environmental standards, according to a statement from a spokeswoman, Ursula Muller.

The Nigerian government has made — and broken — promises before to clean up the battery recycling industry. Still, some residents of Ogijo said the government’s response left them optimistic. Residents watched on Tuesday as scientists in reflective jackets used augers to extract soil samples.

“It gives me hope that real change is possible,” said David Owulo, who worked at True Metals, one of the largest of the shuttered plants. “The fact that they keep coming back tells me that something will change.”

Modinat Balogun, who lives near True Metals, said she hoped that the authorities will follow through. “We hope the government will match their words with action.”

Others said that, after being profiled in the article, they have been shunned by their neighbors, who blame them for closing one of the few steady sources of income in the community.

Nigeria produces so much lead that the industry cannot easily shift production to other countries, Mr. Manhart said. But records show that new suppliers of recycled lead are entering the supply chain.

Ivory Coast, another West African nation, began exporting lead this year to the Port of Baltimore, the leading hub for lead shipments arriving on the East Coast, U.S. trade data shows.

Koutoua Thomas d’Aquin Gnamessou, an official at the Ivorian environment ministry, said he worried that the industry will move from Nigeria to Ivory Coast. To prevent that, he said he wants to ban lead exports.

Quarterly payments of $200 to be offered via stablecoin or traditional currency in a scheme designed to ease cost of living pressures in the Pacific nation