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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 9:41:12 GMT -8
You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
Crypto for Christ
A pastor says he may have misunderstood his divine instruction after being accused of a scheme to defraud his parishioners out of $3.2 million, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
Eligio Regalado, who goes by Eli, and his wife, Kaitlyn Regalado, are being charged by the Colorado Securities Commissioner.
According to the legal filing, the Regalados invented their own Christian cryptocurrency which they sold through the Kingdom Wealth Exchange, an online body they also created. The cryptocurrency went under the name INDXcoin.
Read More: Secret phone call reveals Christian Right plan to 'take down the education system as we know it'
"The action, filed in Denver District Court, seeks preliminary and injunctive relief, damages for investors and for a constructive trust to be placed on the Defendants’ property," described the release from Commissioner Tung Chan.
From June 2022 to April 2023, INDXcoin scored nearly $3.2 million thanks to investments by more than 300 people in the "Christian community," the legal filing states. Regalado, who is based in Denver, said that God directly told him investors would be wealthy if they threw all of their money into INDXcoin.
"The Lord said: I want you to build this,” Regalado told individuals, according to the filing. “We took God at his word and sold a cryptocurrency with no clear exit.”
Now he has another story.
“Either I misheard God, and every one of you who prayed and came in — you as well. Or two, God is still not done with this project,” Regalado said, implying that it would still deliver.
The couple had no experience in cryptocurrency, the Washington Post reported. A third-party audit called the effort "unsafe, unsecured and riddled with serious technical problems." The legal filing called it practically worthless.
“We allege that Mr. Regalado took advantage of the trust and faith of his own Christian community and that he peddled outlandish promises of wealth to them when he sold them essentially worthless cryptocurrencies,” said Commissioner Chan. “New coins and new exchanges are easy to create with open source code. We want to remind consumers to be very skeptical.”
Next Time Listen Better
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 9:44:31 GMT -8
Putin Isn't Russian to Bring Them Home
In a function room on the edge of Moscow, something unusual is happening.
A group of women are publicly criticising the Russian authorities. Their husbands are among the 300,000 reservists mobilised by Russian President Vladimir Putin for the war in Ukraine in autumn 2022.
And they want them home.
"When will our husbands be considered to have discharged their military duty?" asks Maria. "When they're brought back with no arms and legs? When they can't do anything at all because they're just vegetables? Or do we have to wait for them to be sent back in zinc coffins?"
The women met via social media and have formed a group called The Way Home. They have differing views on the war. Some claim to support it. Others are sceptical about the Kremlin's "special military operation". What seems to unite them is the belief that the mobilised men have done their fair share of the fighting and should be back home with their families.
It is an opinion the authorities do not share.
In Russia public criticism of anything related to the war comes with a risk. Most of the speakers choose their words very carefully. They know there's a string of laws in place now in Russia for punishing dissent. Their frustration, though, is palpable.
"To begin with we trusted our government," Antonina says. "But should we trust them now? I don't trust anyone."
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 9:46:23 GMT -8
It's So Easy to Mix Up Norway and Gaza and Send the Money to the Wrong Place
On Sunday, Israel approved a plan to send taxes earmarked for Gaza to Norway instead of the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Since November, taxes that would ordinarily be sent to Gaza have been frozen by the Israeli government.
Under the terms of a deal reached in the 1990s, Israel collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the PA pending the approval of the Ministry of Finance.
While the PA was ousted from the Gaza Strip in 2007, many of its public sector employees in the enclave kept their jobs and continued to be paid with transferred tax revenues.
Weeks after the Hamas attack on southern Israel on October 7, Israel took the decision to withhold payments earmarked for those employees in the Gaza Strip on the grounds that they could fall into the hands of Hamas.
Now, Israel says it will instead send the frozen funds to Norway. “The frozen funds will not be transferred to the Palestinian Authority, but will remain in the hands of a third country,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement released on Sunday.
Norway is an Expert in Frozen Things
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 9:59:53 GMT -8
Previous Guy Got Hoovered
When Republicans lost the Senate after the 2020 election, Trump became the first president since Herbert Hoover to lose both chambers of Congress and the presidency in a single term.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 10:03:45 GMT -8
Good One, Joe!
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 10:12:29 GMT -8
Let's Hear Him Explain How the Internet is a Bunch of Pipes
Donald Trump on Monday tried to explain how a missile defense system works ― complete with sound effects.
The former president promised to build an “iron dome” system similar to the one used in Israel, then attempted to describe it in action.
“They go ‘missile launched!’ and you hear a bell go, I mean I see this, it’s so incredible,” he said, then praised the “geniuses” who respond to the bell to stop the missiles.
“These are not muscle guys here,” he said, pointing to his arm. Then, he pointed to his head and said, “They’re muscle guys up here.”
Trump went into sound-effect mode as he described the action:
“Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! They’ve only got 17 seconds to figure this whole thing out, right? Boom, OK. Missile launch, pssshng, poom! It’s the most ― and we don’t have it here!”
Along with providing sound effects, Trump also mimed the process as he described it:
Here's One of the Geniuses Explaining It
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 10:18:50 GMT -8
The QOP Stands up for Pollution
Sixteen Republican governors are calling on the Biden administration to walk back electric vehicle standards, saying Americans just aren't that interested in battery-powered cars and trucks.
In an open letter released Monday and lead by Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, the Republican governors oppose an Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would establish the most ambitious pollution standards for cars and vehicles in the agency’s history.
In an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA is pushing for more than two-thirds of new cars sold in 2032 to be electric.
“Instead of using government mandates to drive the vehicle market, allow American consumers to maintain choice in the types of vehicles they choose to drive,” the letter states. “While we are not opposed to the electric vehicle marketplace, we do have concerns with federal government mandates that penalize retailers and do not reflect the will of the consumer.”
The letter is signed by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders, Idaho Gov. Brad Little, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon.
No Democratic governors signed the letter.
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 10:21:57 GMT -8
If You Feed Them, They Will Come
Tempe has banned a local nonprofit from hosting a long-running event to feed the homeless in city parks for at least a year, a move that city leaders said is about permitting rules and resident safety, but local activists are decrying it as an inhuman effort to force homeless people out of Tempe.
The nonprofit, called AZ HUGS, has been hosting the picnics every Sunday for the past three years. It usually takes place in ramadas at Papago Park, where the nonprofit's founder, Austin Davis, hands out free meals to the scores of homeless people who show up and sometimes connects them with needed services.
He never got a special events permit from the city, but Tempe leaders looked the other way until November, when they warned Davis to apply for the event license and stop hosting the picnics until the city signed off. Davis applied for the permit last month but refused to stop the picnics while the city reviewed his request because he saw it as an attempt to deny help to those most in need.
That "repeated defiance" is why Tempe said it rejected the application on Friday and barred his nonprofit from legally hosting the events for at least another year. Davis describes it as a heavy-handed blow to Tempe's most vulnerable population.
"This whole situation is about much more than just the picnic. This is about human rights," he said. "Taking away access to daily necessities like food and criminalizing homelessness in Tempe doesn’t actually solve anything. ... Doing so just shifts the location of where those in need have to hide."
If You Don't Feed Them, Will They Go?
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Post by mhbruin on Jan 23, 2024 10:27:33 GMT -8
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