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Tucker Carlson completely loses it over the idea that the FBI should target white nationalist terrorists
January 27, 2021
Fox News' Tucker Carlson unleashed a furious screed on Tuesday night in response to California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff's argument that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security focus their efforts on white nationalist terrorism.
"Listen to America's new grand inquisitor," Carlson said on air, introducing a clip of Schiff speaking.
<p>In the clip, Schiff, who is Jewish, explained to CNN that the concern is not new.</p><p>"We have been urging for some time that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security raise the priority to domestic terrorism, to white nationalism, as it threatens the country," he said. "And we're going to continue sounding the alarm, and make sure that they're devoting the time, the resources, the attention. Just as we did after 9/11 to the threat of international terrorism, we need to give the same priority and urgency to domestic terrorism."</p><p>They weren't surprising remarks, coming just weeks after the U.S. Capitol was stormed by a violent and deadly mob, filled with racists and white supremacists, trying to overthrow the constitutional order. As the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, it's Schiff's job to oversee the conduct of the agencies in question.</p><p>But for Carlson, the remarks were completely outrageous. To convey that message to his audience, he had to completely distort what Schiff said. The way Carlson chose to misinterpret the remarks was quite telling.</p><p>"Got that?" Carlson said after playing the Schiff clip. "Vote the wrong way, and you are a jihadi. You thought you were an American citizen with rights and just a different view. But no, you're a jihadi. And we're going to treat you like we treated those radicals after 9/11. Like we treated bin Laden. Get in line, pal. This is a war on terror. Keep in mind, as you listen to people talk like this — and Adam Schiff is far from the only one — they're talking about <em>American citizens</em> here. They're talking about you. But nobody seems to notice or care."</p><p>It was a remarkable reaction. In the clip — the clip Carlson specifically chose because he thought it best illustrated his point — Schiff was explicitly talking about white nationalist domestic terrorists. This is indisputably a crime, not First Amendment-protected activity, and it's a threat that the Trump-appointed FBI Director Christopher Wray recently warned about as an increasing peril.</p><p>"Within the domestic terrorism bucket, the category as a whole, racially motivated violent extremism is, I think, the biggest bucket within that larger group. And within the racially motivated violent extremist bucket, people subscribing to some kind of white supremacist-type ideology is certainly the biggest chunk of that," <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/516888-wray-says-racially-motivated-violent-extremism-makes-up-most-of-fbis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Wray</a> said last September. "Lately we've been having about 1,000 domestic terrorism cases each year. It is higher this year."</p><p>The attack on the Capitol only highlighted this danger. It's fair to worry that the new administration might overreact to this threat and that civil liberties might be at risk, as they were after 9/11. Those are concerns worth taking seriously.</p><p>But that's not what Carlson said. Instead, he told his audience that Schiff is arguing that people should be treated like terrorists if they "vote the wrong way." In fact, he even said that "you" will be treated like Osama bin Laden — that is, hunted down and killed — because of who "you" vote for. That's not within the same ballpark of what Schiff or anyone else has said. This a QAnon-level conspiracy theory that Carlson is spouting on primetime cable news.</p><p>Carlson also showed his own prejudice and bigotry, directly implying that "jihadis" couldn't be American citizens with all the rights that entitles them to. That's false, of course — some terrorists who commit jihadist-inspired acts of terrorism are Americans. Even foreign jihadi terrorists have many rights that ought to be recognized. But it's been people like Carlson and his allies who have consistently argued against the rights of terrorists when they happen to be Muslim. Despite his posturing now against the war on terror, he previously supported it. In fact, <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-iraqis-are-semiliterate-primitive-monkeys" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Carlson</a> one called Iraqis "semiliterate primitive monkeys" who should "just shut the fuck up and obey."</p><p>So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that while overreacting to the idea that white nationalist terrorism should be targeted by law enforcement, Carlson also made clear that he thinks terrorists who are Muslim should not have any rights. He's being perfectly clear about who he stands with and who he stands against.</p>
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Napoleon's account of legendary Battle of Austerlitz goes on sale
January 27, 2021
Napoleon Bonaparte's account of his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, dictated during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, went on sale Wednesday in Paris for one million euros ($1.2 million).
The account of the 1805 "three-emperors clash" with Russo-Austrian forces, which is considered Napoleon's greatest military victory, takes readers through preparations for battle, the fighting itself and is completed by a battle plan drawn by his loyal aide-de-camp General Henri-Gatien on tracing paper.
<p>The densely packed 74-page manuscript, dictated to Bertrand, contains several corrections by the exiled emperor, who crossed out words and added remarks in the margins in tiny writing.</p><p>Napoleon does not refer to himself in the first person, instead prefacing his remarks with "the emperor says".</p><p>The sale comes at the start of a year marking the bicentenary of Napoleon's death.</p><p>Gallery owner Jean-Emmanuel Raux, a collector of French imperial memorabilia, found the manuscript in a trove of documents belonging to Bertrand's heirs.</p><p>"It's the most fabulous document about French history that you could find in a private collection," he told AFP.</p><p>His daughter Alizee, who studied the manuscript in detail, said it was an "embellished account of the battle".</p><p>Within around nine hours on December 2, 1805, some 75,000 soldiers of Napoleon's "Grande Armee" outmanoeuvred a larger Russian-Austrian force at Austerlitz, in what was then the Austrian empire.</p><p>It helped to end the coalition between Francois I of Austria and Tsar Alexander I of Russia that had been financed by Britain -- and is a battle studied in French military schools to this day.</p><p>Napoleon details all the tactics he deployed to dupe his opponents into believing that French forces were weak -- including earlier retreats and negotiations that disguised the fact he had already chosen the site of the battle.</p><p>His exalted account trumpets the heroism of the French, from trooper to officer, and claims even wounded soldiers hailed the emperor.</p><p>"I will lose a good number of brave men," he said on the eve of the battle. "I feel bad that they really feel like my children, and, in truth, I reproach myself sometimes over this sentiment since I fear that it will leave me unqualified for war."</p><p>The manuscript will be exhibited until the end of the month at the Paris gallery Arts et Autographes, as well as online for potential foreign buyers.</p><p>The sale is part of the "BRAFA in the Galleries" art fair taking place in 126 galleries in 13 countries from January 27 to 31.</p><p>Collectors can arrange to view the manuscript in person or over the internet.</p><p>© 2021 AFP</p>
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Boarded-up stores, shuttered restaurants and empty office towers: Covid-19 has turned New York's famous business districts into ghost towns, with companies scrambling to come up with ways to entice workers to return post-pandemic.
"If they don't come back, we're sunk," said Kenneth McClure, vice president of Hospitality Holdings, whose Midtown bistro pre-coronavirus would buzz with the sound of financiers striking deals at lunch and sharing cocktails after a hard day at the office.
<p>The group has closed its six restaurants and bars in Manhattan, two of them permanently, due to lockdown restrictions that have paused office culture - a culture as intrinsic to the Big Apple as a Broadway show, a yellow taxi or a slice of cheese pizza.</p><p>"Customers that you saw three, four, five times a week just virtually disappeared," McClure told AFP, recalling March of last year when the pandemic first swept New York, where it has killed more than 26,000 people.</p><p>According to data collected by security firm Kastle Systems, only 14 percent of New York's more than one million office workers had returned to their desks by the middle of January, putting the countless sandwich shops and small businesses in Midtown and Wall Street at risk.</p><p>With vaccines now rolling out, corporations and business leaders are grappling with how to attract employees back after spending the best part of a year working from home, and in turn maintaining the character of business districts.</p><p>Seventy-nine percent of employees questioned in a PricewaterhouseCoopers survey published this month said that working remotely had been a success, but the report also found that offices are not about to be consigned to history.</p><p>Some 87 percent of employees said the office was important to them for collaborating with team members and building relationships, aspects of working life they felt was easier and more rewarding in person than over Zoom.</p><p>"Being here, seeing my colleagues and getting out of the house, it changes my mood for the whole week," said Jessica Lappin, speaking to AFP from her office at the Alliance for Downtown New York, where she is president.</p><p>Few workers plan on being in offices Monday to Friday, nine to five, though.</p><p>"The vast majority of employees say a hybrid system of two-to-three days working from home and two-to-three days working in the office is their preferred approach," said Deniz Caglar, co-author of the PwC report.</p><p>Experts say companies should transform their offices away from places where employees come to send emails or make phone calls, which they can do at home, towards more appealing spaces suited for mentoring, camaraderie and fostering creativity.</p><h1>'New future'</h1><p>That could mean larger, more flexible conference rooms rather than cubicles, something as simple as better decor, outdoor space like a balcony or terrace and "hoteling," where workers schedule use of a workspace as opposed to every employee having their own desk.</p><p>"Think of it as a theater, where you have different sets for different scenes," David Smith, co-author of a Cushman & Wakefield report about workplaces of the future, told AFP.</p><p>It may also mean offices becoming more multipurpose -- facilities such as gyms, cafes, launderettes and concierge services that make employees feel their commute is worthwhile -- accelerating a trend that was growing before coronavirus, experts say.</p><p>While offering staff flexibility, several major employers are doubling-down on their commitment to offices, betting big on New York's business districts despite the uncertainty caused by the pandemic.</p><p>In August, Facebook signed a lease on a 730,000-square-foot space in Midtown, while a Google spokesperson told AFP the technology giant is continuing to expand its campus in the Chelsea neighborhood.</p><p>Greenberg Traurig, a law firm that employs 400 people in New York, has installed sneeze guards, touchless faucets, hand sanitizer machines, increased ventilation and distanced work stations.</p><p>It has staff coming in on "a rotational basis," and the firm plans to proceed with its move into a new state-of-the-art building near Grand Central Station this year, vice-chairman Robert Ivanhoe told AFP.</p><p>In late December, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo cut the ribbon on a new $1.6 billion train concourse servicing Penn Station, highlighting local politicians' hopes of reviving Midtown.</p><p>Business district leaders say they are looking to add green spaces to the neighborhoods, while outdoor dining -- extremely rare in New York before the pandemic -- is expected to become a permanent feature.</p><p>"There is definitely an opportunity for everyone to be looking at the new future," Alfred Cerullo, president of the Grand Central Partnership business improvement group, told AFP.</p>
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