Market taking more dip. SPY dumping.

Most of us are wrong half the time at least. Think your right more than your wrong, so take solace in that, that's the best anyone can be in this crazy market.

Well CNTX didn't go where I wanted it, almost exited with a nickel in the red, but instead I averaged down at 9.16 and got out with a nickel to the green. Now they will take to $11 after all my work for nothing. LOL

Back in CNTX 9.56. Are they going to push it up again? Betting that they do, but maybe not, never know.

Sold CNTX. Took my offer at 10.60 when resumed. Coming back down now.

CNTX halted on upside.

CNTXl did get back in. Now over $10

I should of got back in CNTX. Back up over $9 again.

I'm out for now, but still watching. Maybe they will fill the gap and have it another go this afternoon. Seen that happen and stranger things. It's one big Wack-A-Mole and free for all. Not much of it really equating to actual worth of anything. It would be nice to see more of something worth the run that gets attached to it.

Started trading that one at $8. This one maybe active leading up to the Breast Cancer Symposium presentation? CNTX Do they maybe have something or just hype? Sure would be great if they really did and any treatment could be assessable to the less well to do or people that can't afford the premium insurance policies.

More of a manipulate and dump. They don't even need the "pump" anymore. OP

Anybody else pick up any shares last night ah? Picked a bunch below $36. Made for some nice trades this morning. It bounced around showed a support about there US side. Maybe that will be the support for the "Big Dip" or whatever it will be called or if even the market does much anything more than what it's done the past week of trading. The money that has/is being taken out will of course come back in at some point. The Big Boyz won't just sit on the money not making their take for long and the Market will do what it has always done.

News Flash. All companies that are listed and even some that aren't sell stock. Even when the GOP gives them our money to buy stock previously owned back. They will just sell them again later. Lending is done with stock as collateral. That's why they call it a stock market. LAC isn't any different than any other as far as selling stock. One of the ways we value worth of a company by their market cap with a main number in the equation being how many shares they have.

As with any ticker, there is dilution coming in, dilution growing, dilution going forward. How any company manages that system, what is believed to be the result at a future time, or whether any trading can be profitable is where the attention should go. Works out a lot better working with the system that we don't have much power to change. Can't change the demand for Lithium or change the need for abilities to supply that demand. Again, I'll have to wait 6 months at least to assess the results of LAC's dilution and pps at that time. At this time, I don't see anything that will stop LAC turning into a profitable venture or stock to own and trade.

One thing, Faux news isn't a reputable source, so you can't be sure of any numbers being correct or complete.
But, I do believe that due to the Republican Tax Corporate giveaways which led to the actions of hyping up with upgrades all over and insiders utilizing those GOP and Trump giveaways enabling the insiders to do the work as you described. Why would they want to give back of which they didn't deserve and now you see them wining about their having to give their free corp welfare checks and all the insiders looting back. I didn't expect anything else and what little of Biden's policies claw back (rightfully so) won't even amount close to what all the insiders have gained.

But that has always been the way the stock market has worked. The house always wins. But it is getting a bit carried away and harder for small retail to work with it. I've only experienced more ease working with LAC than most under their system. The stock is worth what somebody is going to pay, seems like generally LAC is worth it to many more.

We also expected, at least anyone who is paying any attention to LAC, that some sort of dilution or debt would be happening. No surprise there. Your either for or against LAC acquisitions, either own or not, every ones choice.

Filed this under DD, Support, and Research. Great stuff.

“Modern portfolio theory is a framework that aims to reduce risk while maximising returns,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. “It’s treating conservation sort of as an investment opportunity.”
The strategy, which came out of a meeting of scientists at the Hawai?i Institute of Marine Biology in 2017, tapped into the theory to help scientists choose a “balanced” portfolio of coral reefs.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/28/stock-markets-modern-portfolio-theory-mpt-used-to-pick-coral-reefs-arks-conservation-survive-climate-crisis

Nobel-winning stock market theory used to help save coral reefs
Portfolio selection rules on evaluating risk used to pick 50 reefs as ‘arks’ best able to survive climate crisis and revive coral elsewhere


Coral reef in Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania
A coral reef in Mafia Island marine park in Tanzania. The study has helped conservationists target resources on the reefs most likely to survive the climate crisis. Photograph: Simon Pierce
Seascape: the state of our oceans is supported by
The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
About this content
Karen McVeigh
@karenmcveigh1
Sun 28 Nov 2021 10.00 EST

A Nobel prize-winning economic theory used by investors is showing early signs of helping save threatened coral reefs, scientists say.

Researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland used modern portfolio theory (MPT), a mathematical framework developed by the economist Harry Markowitz in the 1950s to help risk-averse investors maximise returns, to identify the 50 reefs or coral sanctuaries around the world that are most likely to survive the climate crisis and be able to repopulate other reefs, if other threats are absent.

The study recommends targeting investment in conservation projects that have the “strongest potential to succeed” in protecting priority reefs. The gains go beyond positive ecological outcomes and include crucial social, economic, health and nutritional benefits for communities, according to partners, organisations and funders interviewed by Blue Earth Consultants.

Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a climate scientist at the University of Queensland, who helped lead the “50 reefs” project, said: “It’s essentially a strategy to help us make decisions about what to protect, if we are to have corals at the end of the century.”

“It is our best shot at having a long-term future for coral reefs,” he said.

Coral reefs face a dire future. Even if drastic emission reductions ensured global heating was limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – which would require almost halving global CO2 emissions by 2030 from 2010 levels – 70% to 90% of today’s corals would vanish.

Bleached staghorn coral
Bleached coral at Ko Losin, Thailand. About 14% of coral reefs have been lost in the past decade, mostly to bleaching. Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters
In October, a study of coral reef health found 14% has been lost globally in less than a decade, with bleaching events caused by raised sea-surface temperatures the biggest culprit.

“Modern portfolio theory is a framework that aims to reduce risk while maximising returns,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. “It’s treating conservation sort of as an investment opportunity.”

The strategy, which came out of a meeting of scientists at the Hawai?i Institute of Marine Biology in 2017, tapped into the theory to help scientists choose a “balanced” portfolio of coral reefs.

“You’ve got hundreds of these reefs across the planet,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. “Which one do you pick, so that you concentrate your efforts on it?”

Researchers hope to breed Great Barrier Reef corals more resilient to extreme heat events – video
02:30
Researchers hope to breed Great Barrier Reef corals more resilient to extreme heat events – video
Dr Hawthorne Beyer, a fellow at the University of Queensland researching the use of quantitative modelling in managing environmental systems, said: “Talk to people in the business world and they get it immediately. It’s a very logical idea and makes a lot of sense. Ours was the first to apply it on a global scale.”

The scientists divided the world’s coral reefs into “bioclimatic units” (BCU) of 500 sq km (190 sq miles). They used 174 metrics, in five categories, including temperature history and projections, ocean acidification, invasive species, cyclone activity and connectivity to other reefs, for each one. Then, using a process called “scalarisation”, they produced estimates for each BCU. This captured the widest range of possibilities for the future. “We don’t know which metrics are the best metrics at predicting risk,” explained Beyer.

The team then used MPT to quantify threats and identify the reefs offering the best options for conservation, while allowing for the uncertainty over future risks from climate change.

“You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, or bet on one measure of risk, when we have massive uncertainty about what the risks will be,” he said.

Clownfish in an anemone on coral in the Great Barrier Reef
Clownfish in an anemone on coral in the Great Barrier Reef, parts of which were identified as priority areas by the study. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty
The project identified reefs across the Middle East, northern and eastern Africa, Australia, the Caribbean, Pacific islands, South America, south-east and south Asia. They include parts of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Egyptian and southern Red Sea, and parts of the “coral triangle” around Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. But, based on the criteria for climate and connectivity, the model excluded several ecologically significant areas, such as Hawaii and Central America’s Barrier Reef.

Nearly $93m (£70m) has been invested in the project, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Vibrant Oceans initiative and others. The report found the 50 reefs-inspired approach had helped at least 26 organisations, and eight funders have now prioritised 60 coral reef ecosystems across more than 40 countries.

Coral reefs cover just 0.2% of the ocean floor but are home to at least a quarter of all marine species and support hundreds of millions of people. Conservation efforts inspired by the study have focused on five threats to coral: fishing; “non-point source pollution”, such as from fertilisers, runoff from roads, or sediment; wastewater pollution; coastal development; and stress to reefs from climatic extremes.

Emily Darling, director of coral reef conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said part of the benefit was having a clear blueprint of where best to focus their efforts.

“One of the biggest benefits of the 50 reef approach has been this compelling message that climate change is the critical threat to coral reefs and this is an approach that can give reefs a fighting chance.”

Coral Reef off the shore of Tanzania
'Happy corals': climate crisis sanctuary teeming with life found off east Africa
Read more
The WCS has $18m in funding for work in 11 countries, including Fiji, Indonesia, Kenya and Tanzania, on 21 of the 50 reefs, to help communities reduce pressure on the precious ecosystems.

“We are looking at non-climate threats such as overexploitation, destructive fishing, unsustainable tourism, coastal development, water pollution. We then ask ‘well, what are the top local pressures?’,” said Darling. “And that’s how we identify which intervention to tailor to those different situations.”

A no-take marine protected area between Kenya and Tanzania – in which no fishing, mining, drilling or similar activities are allowed – has been supported by WSC to protect the corals from these other pressures running alongside global heating.

“By doing that, we will not only safeguard coral reef biodiversity, but also the whales, spinner dolphins, the dugong, coelacanth fish, that whole ecosystem,” she said.

One of the 50 reefs identified is the “happy coral” sanctuary discovered in Tanzania, reported by the Guardian last year, where coral species have thrived despite warming events that have killed neighbouring reefs.

That's true for the bulk that I do, but anyone can get just a ham or side of pork without the rest of the animal. Small freezers are pretty cheap and don't take that much space that one could get. Probably have to order before pick up from a butcher for the uncured cuts, but most butchers sell those pieces from their shop, will pay more per lb than bulk, but still worth it. I also use just a small cheap dryer that sits on top of the counter for jerky and dried fruits without the added sugars and additives that you get from the store. Very little time or effort for the curing, mostly the meat just sits by itself for the process. That goes for the dried product also.

On the nitrate note; I get my meat from a ranch (half a whole grass fed cow, whole pig, range chicken etc) and pick up from the local butcher but I direct them to not cure the bacon or ham. Getting a side of pork and uncured ham eliminates all those nitrates. Super easy to cure and/or smoke yourself with out any nitrates, then slice the bacon and meats up and freeze any for later. One's own curing recipes get so much better than anything one can get from the store and so much healthier eliminating the nitrates and other not so good processing additives.

They are still on the attack and waring as much as ever. A comment, quote noted by another poster:

“Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.”
-Joseph Stalin



https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-allies-election-oversight/2021/11/28/3933b3ce-4227-11ec-9ea7-3eb2406a2e24_story.html

Trump allies work to place supporters in key election posts across the country, spurring fears about future vote challenges


In Michigan, local GOP leaders have sought to reshape election canvassing boards by appointing members who expressed sympathy for former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 vote was rigged.

In two Pennsylvania communities, candidates who embraced election fraud allegations won races this month to become local voting judges and inspectors.

And in Colorado, 2020 doubters are urging their followers on conservative social media platforms to apply for jobs in election offices.

A year after local and state election officials came under immense pressure from Trump to subvert the results of the 2020 White House race, he and his supporters are pushing an ambitious plan to place Trump loyalists in key positions across the administration of U.S. elections.

The effort goes far beyond the former president’s public broadsides against well-known Republican state officials who certified President Biden’s victory, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. Citing the need to make elections more secure, Trump allies are also seeking to replace officials across the nation, including volunteer poll watchers, paid precinct judges, elected county clerks and state attorneys general, according to state and local officials, as well as rally speeches, social media posts and campaign appearances by those seeking the positions.

If they succeed, Trump and his allies could pull down some of the guardrails that prevented him from overturning Biden’s win by creating openings to challenge the results next time, election officials and watchdog groups say.

“The attacks right now are no longer about 2020,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D). “They’re about 2022 and 2024. It’s about chipping away at confidence and chipping away at the reality of safe and secure elections. And the next time there’s a close election, it will be easier to achieve their goals. That’s what this is all about.”

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

Supporters of the former president who are seeking offices that would give them oversight of elections say they just want to make the system secure.


Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo speaks outside the state Capitol in Lansing on Oct. 12, 2021, at rally to demand a “forensic” audit of the 2020 results. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Voters have a right “to scrutinize the election process,” Kristina Karamo, a candidate for Michigan secretary of state, told several hundred demonstrators gathered on the lawn of the state Capitol in Lansing last month in support of a “forensic” audit of the 2020 results.

Karamo — who shot to prominence after making unsubstantiated allegations that she witnessed fraudulent voting as a poll challenger in Detroit — said one of her top priorities as the state’s top election administrator would be to “make sure every citizen across the state of Michigan’s voice is heard. That way illegal ballots do not nullify legal votes.”

Few states have seen more fervor for replacing election officials than Michigan, where the push extends from candidates for statewide office down to the most local level of election administration — county boards of canvassers, whose members served as bulwarks against Trump’s efforts in 2020.

One leader of the effort to challenge the 2020 vote in the state, West Michigan lawyer Matthew DePerno, is seeking the GOP nomination for attorney general. DePerno, who waged a failed legal battle over an election-night vote-counting error in Antrim County, has built his campaign around a vow to expose fraud.

“The elites in this state, the elected officials they don’t want you — the voter, the common man, the taxpayer — they don’t want you to see the voting data,” DePerno told the cheering crowd at the Lansing rally, adding: “The Democrats and the establishment don’t understand the power of the grass roots movement in Michigan.”

Neither DePerno nor Karamo responded to requests for comment.

Trump has endorsed both candidates, part of a wave of Republican contenders across the country who have embraced the former president’s false assertions about the 2020 election — including 10 running for secretary of state and eight running for attorney general, according to a tally by The Washington Post.


Matthew DePerno, who is seeking the GOP nomination for Michigan attorney general, addresses Trump supporters in Lansing on Oct. 12. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Earlier this year, the GOP-led Michigan Senate Oversight Committee issued a report that found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s 2020 election.

But the 2020 vote is such an animating force among Republican activists in Michigan that there is now intense focus in some large counties on the four-member canvassing boards charged with verifying the vote, certifying the results and transmitting the numbers to a state board for final certification.

These boards are typically made up of an even number of Republicans and Democrats, who in the past approached certification as a ministerial duty determined by the outcome of the popular vote.

Tension grips Michigan as Trump’s election attacks continue to reverberate

But last fall, multiple Republican canvassers came under fire from pro-Trump forces for voting to certify the results. William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, the two Republican board members in Wayne County, home of Detroit, received calls directly from Trump, they later said in interviews.

Both initially voted not to certify, then reversed themselves after receiving promises that the vote would be audited. They then tried unsuccessfully to rescind their votes.

This year, Palmer was replaced with Robert Boyd, a Republican who said in an interview that he probably would not have voted to certify the 2020 results.

“No deals are to be made with an election,” Boyd said, referring to Hartmann’s and Palmer’s decision to certify in exchange for the pledge of an audit. “I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t happen that way again.”

Boyd said he sought the post because “I am really interested in the integrity of elections, and I am a Christian, so I want to make sure that we do the best job we can and be as transparent as we can .?.?. so elections can be trusted.”

Hartmann said he regretted losing Palmer’s experience and expressed wariness about some of those being nominated to canvassing boards around the state.


Monica Palmer, then a member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, and Jonathan Kinloch discuss a motion to certify the election during a board meeting in Detroit on Nov. 17, 2020. (Robin Buckson/AP)
“I am concerned about this,” Hartmann said in an interview in late October, before he was hospitalized this month with covid-19. “When you are on that board, you are sort of a nonpartisan. It doesn’t matter which party you are in, it matters how the numbers shake out. I am concerned that they are appointing people with strong views. We need to make decisions off the law. Not on gut emotion.”

Boyd was selected by the Wayne County Board of Commissioners from a pool of three people nominated by the county GOP committee to succeed Palmer, all of whom have expressed support for Trump’s false claims of fraud. The others were Josephine Brown, who has spoken publicly about attending the Jan. 6 rally in Washington to protest the outcome and has said she probably wouldn’t have certified the 2020 result; and Hima Kolanagireddy, whom Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani called as a witness to voter fraud at a legislative hearing last year in Lansing.

Kolanagireddy said in an interview that she withdrew her nomination because of the threatening environment. Brown did not respond to a request for comment. The Wayne County Republican Committee did not respond to email inquiries.

GOP officials also have replaced local canvassing board members in other key counties in the state, as the Detroit News first reported. In Michigan’s third-largest county, Macomb, Republican officials appointed to the canvassing board a former Republican poll challenger, Nancy Tiseo, who tweeted shortly after the 2020 election that Trump should suspend meetings of the electoral college and have “military tribunals” investigate claims about election fraud. Tiseo did not respond to a request for comment.


Michelle Voorheis, a longtime member of the Genesee County Board of Canvassers, lost her seat after defending the integrity of the 2020 election. (Jake May/Flint, Mich., Journal/AP)
“This is a great big flashing red warning sign,” said Jeff Timmer, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and a Trump critic. “The officials who fulfilled their legal duty after the last election are now being replaced by people who are pledging to throw a wrench in the gears of the next election. It tells you that they are planning nothing but chaos and that they have a strategy to disrupt the certification of the next election.”

In Genesee County, home of Flint, Michelle Voorheis, a 13-year Republican veteran of the county canvassing board, said in an interview that she believes the local GOP committee did not renominate her this year because she defended the outcome of the last election on social media.

“It makes me sad,” said Voorheis, who has participated in national and local GOP politics for decades and recently served as Genesee party chair. “I vouched for the integrity of the 2020 election, I answered peoples’ questions on Facebook and tried to explain there was no evidence” of widespread fraud.

She was replaced on the Board of Canvassers by Eric Stewart, a local pastor. In an email to The Post, Stewart did not address a question about his views on the 2020 election, but he said he was looking forward to working with the other election officials. “All I am focused on is doing the job I have been asked to do with the team members I will be working with,” he wrote.

The county clerk, Democrat John Gleason, said in an interview Friday that Stewart impressed him and had not raised questions about fraud, unlike some other GOP nominees. But Gleason lamented Voorheis’s departure, which he blamed on pressure from what he called “wacko” Republicans.

The local GOP chairman, Matthew Smith, did not respond to an email seeking comment. Smith pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor for “malicious use of telecommunication services,” admitting that he called Houghton County Election Clerk Jennifer Kelly, a Democrat, in March 2020, to harass her. She has said Smith threatened to kill her dogs. Since the election, Kelly has contended with a wave of claims by local residents that 2020 election was rigged.

Threats and disinformation spread across the country in the wake of the Capitol siege, shaking the underpinnings of American democracy

Similar upheaval is taking place in other states. In two Pennsylvania counties earlier this month — Lancaster and York — a handful of candidates who have supported Trump’s false 2020 claims won elections to serve as local election judges and election inspectors, according to research by the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group focused on free and fair elections.

“Having election deniers run elections is like having arsonists take over the fire department,” said Joanna Lydgate, who leads the organization.

“We have every reason to believe that what happened in those two counties — individuals who promote lies about the 2020 election running for and winning local seats — is happening in other places around the state and nationwide,” she added.

One of the winning candidates for election judge in Windsor Township, Pa., was Shane Lehman, who embraced claims of fraud on his Facebook page after the 2020 election and has shared statements from state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who has been pushing for an audit of the 2020 results in Pennsylvania. Lehman did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.


Colorado election officials have said Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters sneaked an outsider into the local election office to copy the hard drives of voting machines in search of fraud. Peters has said her actions were necessary to protect election security. (Mckenzie Lange/AP)
Some activists have encouraged Trump supporters to get hired inside election offices in Colorado and Pennsylvania, according to social media posts viewed by The Post.

One activist from Colorado who is a member of a Telegram channel called “Colorado Election Audit News” shared a job listing for an “IT Technical Project Manager” in the office of Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state.

The activist, Barb Crossman, declined to talk about the job posting or whom she hoped would fill it. Instead, she wrote in an email that she was hoping to invite Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon to Mesa County, Colo., to bring attention to the case of Tina Peters, the clerk barred by a judge from supervising an election after she admitted copying the hard drives of election equipment in search of evidence of corruption.

Crossman wrote: “We have to get the TRUTH out because our Colorado courts are so so so corrupted!!!”

Colorado officials said they have collected additional election job listings that have been shared on conservative social media sites.

Griswold said in an interview that she was “aware that election conspiracists are encouraging people to apply for jobs in our office.” But she added that safeguards are in place that will screen out such applicants.

“Many of the positions require a high level of expertise or skill that just can’t be falsified” she said. “Positions are available only to Colorado residents. You have to pass reference checks and background checks.”

Still, the evidence is mounting that some local officials are receptive to arguments that the 2020 vote was tainted. The FBI is investigating the incident in Colorado involving Peters and another in Ohio in which a county official appears to have provided an outsider access to a government computer system to assess claims of fraud.

Attempted breach of Ohio county election network draws FBI and state scrutiny

The push to take over the country’s election administration is being fueled by figures including Bannon, a former senior adviser to Trump who has promoted a blueprint he and others call the “precinct strategy” to take over every level of the GOP, from statewide officeholders to volunteer poll watchers and local committee members.


Stephen K. Bannon talks to reporters after appearing in federal court on Nov. 15, after being charged with contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
“We’re taking over school boards, we’re taking over the Republican Party — through the precinct committee strategy,” Bannon said on an episode of his “War Room” podcast broadcast Nov. 12. “We’re taking over all the elections.”

“They’re there to have a free and fair count,” Bannon added, referring to those seeking election and voting oversight positions. “And we’re going to continue that and we’re going to get to the bottom of 3 November and we’re going to decertify the electors. Okay? And you’re going to have a constitutional crisis. But you know what? We’re a big and tough country, and we can handle that.”

The movement is also getting oxygen from local GOP organizations across the country. In Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the state GOP recently gathered, county Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false election claims staged a separate event called the “I Pledge Allegiance Tour.” They have also pushed for an audit in surrounding Horry County, despite the fact that Trump won overwhelmingly there.

“We took over the Republican Party in South Carolina. We kicked out the RINO b------,” Tracy Beanz Diaz, a state executive committeewoman who has touted QAnon theories, said at a Florida conference this year, according to footage reviewed by The Post. (RINO stands for Republican In Name Only and has been invoked by Trump and his allies to refer to those in the party viewed as insufficiently loyal to him.) Diaz did not respond to a request for comment.

Some national Republican leaders have shown more reluctance to fully embrace Trump’s false claims, but as the GOP base has followed the former president’s lead, party officials have faced building pressure to address concerns about election security.

In a presentation to donors last spring obtained by The Post, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced the formation of a “Committee on Election Integrity” that has placed public-records requests in numerous states “to ensure election officials are administering elections in a free, fair and transparent manner.”

The party is also growing its Election Day poll-watching operation into a permanent infrastructure staffed with attorneys and organizers year-round, according to RNC officials. Target states will have their own director focused on recruiting, training and deploying volunteers and poll watchers.

“We’re doing more recruitment ahead of time, instead of just a few months before Election Day,” Justin Riemer, chief counsel at the RNC, said in an interview.

Riemer said the party plans legal action in up to 10 states, including key battlegrounds. He said the replacement of election officials doesn’t particularly concern him. “The election officials who you’re seeing removed or potentially removed are the elections officials who have messed things up,” he said. “Like any job, if you don’t perform, you’re going to be replaced.”


Former president Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on Oct. 9 in Des Moines. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Meanwhile, Trump is demanding fealty to the lie that he won in 2020 and has thrown his weight behind candidates who have touted claims of fraud. In Georgia, he has endorsed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who is challenging Raffensperger for secretary of state after the incumbent refused Trump’s entreaties to reverse Biden’s win in the state.

“People do not understand why you and Governor Brian Kemp adamantly refuse to acknowledge the now proven facts, and fight so hard that the election truth not be told,” the former president wrote in an open letter in September calling on Raffensperger to decertify the 2020 results.

Hice and Trump have been in touch throughout the year, Trump advisers said. Hice declined a request for an interview.

Trump has tried to spur 2020 reviews in other states — even after a recount of ballots in Arizona’s Maricopa County reaffirmed Biden’s victory earlier this year. He recently began promoting claims that the Wisconsin Election Commission “committed felony crimes” related to voting practices at nursing homes during the pandemic.

The former president is briefed some mornings by his spokeswoman, Liz Harrington, who promoted false claims about election fraud before she left the RNC last December, according to people familiar with the matter. Harrington collects allegations of fraud posted online and has written many of Trump’s detailed statements, particularly those attacking local politicians, according to Trump advisers. Harrington did not respond to requests for comment.

Some Republicans have refused to follow the party’s new direction — and worry that it will push away reasonable voters.

“Mainstream elected officials have become so fearful of these people that it’s pushing them to the crazy fringe,” said Walter Whetsell, a GOP consultant in South Carolina. “They fear them. I’m not positive there are significantly more of them. I’m certain they are emboldened and louder than they’ve ever been before.”

Others have urged the party faithful to look ahead and stop litigating the 2020 results.

“We have to talk about the future,” said Henry Barbour, an RNC committeeman from Mississippi. “Most people in Mississippi are concerned about gas prices, covid overreach. I think candidates are making a mistake getting in those weeds.”

He added: “I don’t hear people in Mississippi talking about whether the election was or wasn’t stolen.”

Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election lawyer, said the public should pay attention to the surge of pro-Trump forces taking over the local workings of elections, because it was at that level where the system withstood its most difficult test last year.

“The closest call was not on the floor of the House or the floor of the Senate,” Elias said, referring to efforts leading up to Jan. 6 to persuade Congress not to accept the electoral college count. “The closest call was at the Wayne County Canvassing Board, where Republicans tried to intimidate appointees not to certify the results.”

It didn’t work. But it’s a different board now, Elias said.

Emma Brown and Alice Crites in Washington and Kayla Ruble in Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.

OP just leaving gaps between the halts. Opened and halted immediately.

Looks like it's acting like the one the other day. I forget what symbol.

Maybe suffer the same education that Keynes did I guess only the opposite way.

FCEL covered at 8.35

Yes red market is having it's effect. Went out of ASTR trade at 10.80 & high .70's But doing ok on my short positions. Shorted FCEL above 9 after selling long from premarket buys. Now 8.42

Entering for a trade ASTR 10.60s. Will it oscillate back up towards $11 for my plan or will it just take me down further to have to wait it out.

IONQ doing well on this mornings trades. Got $2 on trading shares.

I played that earlier, but not early enough. Only a nickel and dime and then left it seeing that it was just going to fade away leaving even a chance to break even. PPSI

There is usually a dominant force that evolves with any merger. Which will it be? Human or machine?

More machines to help us along and direct us. Hopefully the help won't be to our demise.

Scientists say xenobots, world's first living robots, can reproduce
BY MONIQUE BEALS - 11/29/21 07:08 PM EST

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/583479-scientists-say-xenobots-worlds-first-living-robots-can-reproduce


Scientists who created xenobots, the world's first living robots, say the life forms are "the first-ever, self-replicating living robots."

The tiny organisms were originally unveiled in 2020. The robots were assembled from heart and skin stem cells belonging to the African clawed frog. They can move independently for about a week before running out of energy, are self-healing and break down naturally.

The scientists from the University of Vermont, Tufts University and Harvard University's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering published research on Monday saying they discovered a new type of biological reproduction different from any other known plant or animal species, according to a press release published by the Wyss Institute.

Trust in science and scientists grows amid pandemic
CDC strengthens recommendation to say all adults should get booster...
"People have thought for quite a long time that we’ve worked out all the ways that life can reproduce or replicate. But this is something that’s never been observed before," said Douglas Blackiston, Ph.D., a senior scientist at Tufts University and the Wyss Institute who worked on the study.

The scientists say that the new research could be beneficial in terms of uses in the medical field.

“If we knew how to tell collections of cells to do what we wanted them to do, ultimately, that’s regenerative medicine—that’s the solution to traumatic injury, birth defects, cancer, and aging,” Michael Levin, Ph.D., a co-leader of the research, added. “All of these different problems are here because we don’t know how to predict and control what groups of cells are going to build. Xenobots are a new platform for teaching us.”

Quite perturbing to say the least. It's so obvious, the more the GOP shout and holler about something, the more they are the ones doing it. Way too many people with their head in the sand. Not going to any place good, that's for sure.

Trump allies work to place supporters in key election posts across the country, spurring fears about future vote challenges

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-allies-election-oversight/2021/11/28/3933b3ce-4227-11ec-9ea7-3eb2406a2e24_story.html

In Michigan, local GOP leaders have sought to reshape election canvassing boards by appointing members who expressed sympathy for former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 vote was rigged.

In two Pennsylvania communities, candidates who embraced election fraud allegations won races this month to become local voting judges and inspectors.

And in Colorado, 2020 doubters are urging their followers on conservative social media platforms to apply for jobs in election offices.

A year after local and state election officials came under immense pressure from Trump to subvert the results of the 2020 White House race, he and his supporters are pushing an ambitious plan to place Trump loyalists in key positions across the administration of U.S. elections.

The effort goes far beyond the former president’s public broadsides against well-known Republican state officials who certified President Biden’s victory, such as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. Citing the need to make elections more secure, Trump allies are also seeking to replace officials across the nation, including volunteer poll watchers, paid precinct judges, elected county clerks and state attorneys general, according to state and local officials, as well as rally speeches, social media posts and campaign appearances by those seeking the positions.

If they succeed, Trump and his allies could pull down some of the guardrails that prevented him from overturning Biden’s win by creating openings to challenge the results next time, election officials and watchdog groups say.

“The attacks right now are no longer about 2020,” said Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D). “They’re about 2022 and 2024. It’s about chipping away at confidence and chipping away at the reality of safe and secure elections. And the next time there’s a close election, it will be easier to achieve their goals. That’s what this is all about.”

A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment.

Supporters of the former president who are seeking offices that would give them oversight of elections say they just want to make the system secure.


Michigan secretary of state candidate Kristina Karamo speaks outside the state Capitol in Lansing on Oct. 12, 2021, at rally to demand a “forensic” audit of the 2020 results. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
Voters have a right “to scrutinize the election process,” Kristina Karamo, a candidate for Michigan secretary of state, told several hundred demonstrators gathered on the lawn of the state Capitol in Lansing last month in support of a “forensic” audit of the 2020 results.

Karamo — who shot to prominence after making unsubstantiated allegations that she witnessed fraudulent voting as a poll challenger in Detroit — said one of her top priorities as the state’s top election administrator would be to “make sure every citizen across the state of Michigan’s voice is heard. That way illegal ballots do not nullify legal votes.”

Few states have seen more fervor for replacing election officials than Michigan, where the push extends from candidates for statewide office down to the most local level of election administration — county boards of canvassers, whose members served as bulwarks against Trump’s efforts in 2020.

One leader of the effort to challenge the 2020 vote in the state, West Michigan lawyer Matthew DePerno, is seeking the GOP nomination for attorney general. DePerno, who waged a failed legal battle over an election-night vote-counting error in Antrim County, has built his campaign around a vow to expose fraud.

“The elites in this state, the elected officials they don’t want you — the voter, the common man, the taxpayer — they don’t want you to see the voting data,” DePerno told the cheering crowd at the Lansing rally, adding: “The Democrats and the establishment don’t understand the power of the grass roots movement in Michigan.”

Neither DePerno nor Karamo responded to requests for comment.

Trump has endorsed both candidates, part of a wave of Republican contenders across the country who have embraced the former president’s false assertions about the 2020 election — including 10 running for secretary of state and eight running for attorney general, according to a tally by The Washington Post.


Matthew DePerno, who is seeking the GOP nomination for Michigan attorney general, addresses Trump supporters in Lansing on Oct. 12. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Earlier this year, the GOP-led Michigan Senate Oversight Committee issued a report that found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s 2020 election.

But the 2020 vote is such an animating force among Republican activists in Michigan that there is now intense focus in some large counties on the four-member canvassing boards charged with verifying the vote, certifying the results and transmitting the numbers to a state board for final certification.

These boards are typically made up of an even number of Republicans and Democrats, who in the past approached certification as a ministerial duty determined by the outcome of the popular vote.

Tension grips Michigan as Trump’s election attacks continue to reverberate

But last fall, multiple Republican canvassers came under fire from pro-Trump forces for voting to certify the results. William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, the two Republican board members in Wayne County, home of Detroit, received calls directly from Trump, they later said in interviews.

Both initially voted not to certify, then reversed themselves after receiving promises that the vote would be audited. They then tried unsuccessfully to rescind their votes.

This year, Palmer was replaced with Robert Boyd, a Republican who said in an interview that he probably would not have voted to certify the 2020 results.

“No deals are to be made with an election,” Boyd said, referring to Hartmann’s and Palmer’s decision to certify in exchange for the pledge of an audit. “I wanted to make sure that it wouldn’t happen that way again.”

Boyd said he sought the post because “I am really interested in the integrity of elections, and I am a Christian, so I want to make sure that we do the best job we can and be as transparent as we can .?.?. so elections can be trusted.”

Hartmann said he regretted losing Palmer’s experience and expressed wariness about some of those being nominated to canvassing boards around the state.


Monica Palmer, then a member of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, and Jonathan Kinloch discuss a motion to certify the election during a board meeting in Detroit on Nov. 17, 2020. (Robin Buckson/AP)
“I am concerned about this,” Hartmann said in an interview in late October, before he was hospitalized this month with covid-19. “When you are on that board, you are sort of a nonpartisan. It doesn’t matter which party you are in, it matters how the numbers shake out. I am concerned that they are appointing people with strong views. We need to make decisions off the law. Not on gut emotion.”

Boyd was selected by the Wayne County Board of Commissioners from a pool of three people nominated by the county GOP committee to succeed Palmer, all of whom have expressed support for Trump’s false claims of fraud. The others were Josephine Brown, who has spoken publicly about attending the Jan. 6 rally in Washington to protest the outcome and has said she probably wouldn’t have certified the 2020 result; and Hima Kolanagireddy, whom Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani called as a witness to voter fraud at a legislative hearing last year in Lansing.

Kolanagireddy said in an interview that she withdrew her nomination because of the threatening environment. Brown did not respond to a request for comment. The Wayne County Republican Committee did not respond to email inquiries.

GOP officials also have replaced local canvassing board members in other key counties in the state, as the Detroit News first reported. In Michigan’s third-largest county, Macomb, Republican officials appointed to the canvassing board a former Republican poll challenger, Nancy Tiseo, who tweeted shortly after the 2020 election that Trump should suspend meetings of the electoral college and have “military tribunals” investigate claims about election fraud. Tiseo did not respond to a request for comment.


Michelle Voorheis, a longtime member of the Genesee County Board of Canvassers, lost her seat after defending the integrity of the 2020 election. (Jake May/Flint, Mich., Journal/AP)
“This is a great big flashing red warning sign,” said Jeff Timmer, former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and a Trump critic. “The officials who fulfilled their legal duty after the last election are now being replaced by people who are pledging to throw a wrench in the gears of the next election. It tells you that they are planning nothing but chaos and that they have a strategy to disrupt the certification of the next election.”

In Genesee County, home of Flint, Michelle Voorheis, a 13-year Republican veteran of the county canvassing board, said in an interview that she believes the local GOP committee did not renominate her this year because she defended the outcome of the last election on social media.

“It makes me sad,” said Voorheis, who has participated in national and local GOP politics for decades and recently served as Genesee party chair. “I vouched for the integrity of the 2020 election, I answered peoples’ questions on Facebook and tried to explain there was no evidence” of widespread fraud.

She was replaced on the Board of Canvassers by Eric Stewart, a local pastor. In an email to The Post, Stewart did not address a question about his views on the 2020 election, but he said he was looking forward to working with the other election officials. “All I am focused on is doing the job I have been asked to do with the team members I will be working with,” he wrote.

The county clerk, Democrat John Gleason, said in an interview Friday that Stewart impressed him and had not raised questions about fraud, unlike some other GOP nominees. But Gleason lamented Voorheis’s departure, which he blamed on pressure from what he called “wacko” Republicans.

The local GOP chairman, Matthew Smith, did not respond to an email seeking comment. Smith pleaded guilty last week to a misdemeanor for “malicious use of telecommunication services,” admitting that he called Houghton County Election Clerk Jennifer Kelly, a Democrat, in March 2020, to harass her. She has said Smith threatened to kill her dogs. Since the election, Kelly has contended with a wave of claims by local residents that 2020 election was rigged.

Threats and disinformation spread across the country in the wake of the Capitol siege, shaking the underpinnings of American democracy

Similar upheaval is taking place in other states. In two Pennsylvania counties earlier this month — Lancaster and York — a handful of candidates who have supported Trump’s false 2020 claims won elections to serve as local election judges and election inspectors, according to research by the States United Democracy Center, a nonpartisan group focused on free and fair elections.

“Having election deniers run elections is like having arsonists take over the fire department,” said Joanna Lydgate, who leads the organization.

“We have every reason to believe that what happened in those two counties — individuals who promote lies about the 2020 election running for and winning local seats — is happening in other places around the state and nationwide,” she added.

One of the winning candidates for election judge in Windsor Township, Pa., was Shane Lehman, who embraced claims of fraud on his Facebook page after the 2020 election and has shared statements from state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R), who has been pushing for an audit of the 2020 results in Pennsylvania. Lehman did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.


Colorado election officials have said Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters sneaked an outsider into the local election office to copy the hard drives of voting machines in search of fraud. Peters has said her actions were necessary to protect election security. (Mckenzie Lange/AP)
Some activists have encouraged Trump supporters to get hired inside election offices in Colorado and Pennsylvania, according to social media posts viewed by The Post.

One activist from Colorado who is a member of a Telegram channel called “Colorado Election Audit News” shared a job listing for an “IT Technical Project Manager” in the office of Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state.

The activist, Barb Crossman, declined to talk about the job posting or whom she hoped would fill it. Instead, she wrote in an email that she was hoping to invite Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon to Mesa County, Colo., to bring attention to the case of Tina Peters, the clerk barred by a judge from supervising an election after she admitted copying the hard drives of election equipment in search of evidence of corruption.

Crossman wrote: “We have to get the TRUTH out because our Colorado courts are so so so corrupted!!!”

Colorado officials said they have collected additional election job listings that have been shared on conservative social media sites.

Griswold said in an interview that she was “aware that election conspiracists are encouraging people to apply for jobs in our office.” But she added that safeguards are in place that will screen out such applicants.

“Many of the positions require a high level of expertise or skill that just can’t be falsified” she said. “Positions are available only to Colorado residents. You have to pass reference checks and background checks.”

Still, the evidence is mounting that some local officials are receptive to arguments that the 2020 vote was tainted. The FBI is investigating the incident in Colorado involving Peters and another in Ohio in which a county official appears to have provided an outsider access to a government computer system to assess claims of fraud.

Attempted breach of Ohio county election network draws FBI and state scrutiny

The push to take over the country’s election administration is being fueled by figures including Bannon, a former senior adviser to Trump who has promoted a blueprint he and others call the “precinct strategy” to take over every level of the GOP, from statewide officeholders to volunteer poll watchers and local committee members.


Stephen K. Bannon talks to reporters after appearing in federal court on Nov. 15, after being charged with contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
“We’re taking over school boards, we’re taking over the Republican Party — through the precinct committee strategy,” Bannon said on an episode of his “War Room” podcast broadcast Nov. 12. “We’re taking over all the elections.”

“They’re there to have a free and fair count,” Bannon added, referring to those seeking election and voting oversight positions. “And we’re going to continue that and we’re going to get to the bottom of 3 November and we’re going to decertify the electors. Okay? And you’re going to have a constitutional crisis. But you know what? We’re a big and tough country, and we can handle that.”

The movement is also getting oxygen from local GOP organizations across the country. In Myrtle Beach, S.C., where the state GOP recently gathered, county Republicans who have embraced Trump’s false election claims staged a separate event called the “I Pledge Allegiance Tour.” They have also pushed for an audit in surrounding Horry County, despite the fact that Trump won overwhelmingly there.

“We took over the Republican Party in South Carolina. We kicked out the RINO b------,” Tracy Beanz Diaz, a state executive committeewoman who has touted QAnon theories, said at a Florida conference this year, according to footage reviewed by The Post. (RINO stands for Republican In Name Only and has been invoked by Trump and his allies to refer to those in the party viewed as insufficiently loyal to him.) Diaz did not respond to a request for comment.

Some national Republican leaders have shown more reluctance to fully embrace Trump’s false claims, but as the GOP base has followed the former president’s lead, party officials have faced building pressure to address concerns about election security.

In a presentation to donors last spring obtained by The Post, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced the formation of a “Committee on Election Integrity” that has placed public-records requests in numerous states “to ensure election officials are administering elections in a free, fair and transparent manner.”

The party is also growing its Election Day poll-watching operation into a permanent infrastructure staffed with attorneys and organizers year-round, according to RNC officials. Target states will have their own director focused on recruiting, training and deploying volunteers and poll watchers.

“We’re doing more recruitment ahead of time, instead of just a few months before Election Day,” Justin Riemer, chief counsel at the RNC, said in an interview.

Riemer said the party plans legal action in up to 10 states, including key battlegrounds. He said the replacement of election officials doesn’t particularly concern him. “The election officials who you’re seeing removed or potentially removed are the elections officials who have messed things up,” he said. “Like any job, if you don’t perform, you’re going to be replaced.”


Former president Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on Oct. 9 in Des Moines. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
Meanwhile, Trump is demanding fealty to the lie that he won in 2020 and has thrown his weight behind candidates who have touted claims of fraud. In Georgia, he has endorsed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who is challenging Raffensperger for secretary of state after the incumbent refused Trump’s entreaties to reverse Biden’s win in the state.

“People do not understand why you and Governor Brian Kemp adamantly refuse to acknowledge the now proven facts, and fight so hard that the election truth not be told,” the former president wrote in an open letter in September calling on Raffensperger to decertify the 2020 results.

Hice and Trump have been in touch throughout the year, Trump advisers said. Hice declined a request for an interview.

Trump has tried to spur 2020 reviews in other states — even after a recount of ballots in Arizona’s Maricopa County reaffirmed Biden’s victory earlier this year. He recently began promoting claims that the Wisconsin Election Commission “committed felony crimes” related to voting practices at nursing homes during the pandemic.

The former president is briefed some mornings by his spokeswoman, Liz Harrington, who promoted false claims about election fraud before she left the RNC last December, according to people familiar with the matter. Harrington collects allegations of fraud posted online and has written many of Trump’s detailed statements, particularly those attacking local politicians, according to Trump advisers. Harrington did not respond to requests for comment.

Some Republicans have refused to follow the party’s new direction — and worry that it will push away reasonable voters.

“Mainstream elected officials have become so fearful of these people that it’s pushing them to the crazy fringe,” said Walter Whetsell, a GOP consultant in South Carolina. “They fear them. I’m not positive there are significantly more of them. I’m certain they are emboldened and louder than they’ve ever been before.”

Others have urged the party faithful to look ahead and stop litigating the 2020 results.

“We have to talk about the future,” said Henry Barbour, an RNC committeeman from Mississippi. “Most people in Mississippi are concerned about gas prices, covid overreach. I think candidates are making a mistake getting in those weeds.”

He added: “I don’t hear people in Mississippi talking about whether the election was or wasn’t stolen.”

Marc Elias, a leading Democratic election lawyer, said the public should pay attention to the surge of pro-Trump forces taking over the local workings of elections, because it was at that level where the system withstood its most difficult test last year.

“The closest call was not on the floor of the House or the floor of the Senate,” Elias said, referring to efforts leading up to Jan. 6 to persuade Congress not to accept the electoral college count. “The closest call was at the Wayne County Canvassing Board, where Republicans tried to intimidate appointees not to certify the results.”

It didn’t work. But it’s a different board now, Elias said.

Emma Brown and Alice Crites in Washington and Kayla Ruble in Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.

Or maybe our best friend.

The direction that is being taken is among other things to reduce our usage and dependency on oil and reduce the environmental and climate impacts of oil. The pipeline is in the opposite direction of that path and would be based upon continued usage and dependency for many decades to come. Very long term profitable project (for a few) if that direction is chosen, but we (the many) will be much worse off from an ecological standpoint and I would argue a economical one too in many ways.

One could also compare the short term with long term results. The line gets done and in a relatively short term, your going to have a big section of rail and especially trucking industry with all the business and peoples livelihoods in-between that will be disrupted and income lost. Admitted, you do have a certain footprint with that group that could be debated. In the same relatively short time, your going to have millions of jobs terminated and any business and peoples income that were effected by the increase of money flow in that area that suddenly disappears, along with the chance for Godzilla and King Kong making their footprints on a main aquifer and the expense with that. I consider our diminishing water supply to be worth more than than all the gold in the world, and needs extreme protection especially given the current climate conditions. Can not take any chances no matter how low the risk and we've already seen hundreds of times what that low risk appraisal has done.

I like to think in 50 yrs we see a lot less of refineries, pipelines, and tanker trucks. The economic effects of reducing will be smoothed out, giving time for adapting, evolving, keeping profitability for most and even oil tycoons will have time to evolve into some other profitable ventures, instead of just dropping livelihoods off a proverbial cliff and wrecking the environment to boot. That time, money, and energy focus to the path of elimination or at least minimizing oil as much as we can, not continuance of it. There will be more expense to all of us in the long run if we continue the way we have. I have to believe that stopping this pipeline is one small part of achieving that goal. Can't let short-sightedness get in the way of the long term view.

Along with taking out endless amount of $$ jobs and income from the shipping route that it would replace. The jobs created building the pipeline would be for the most part be temporary. The jobs and business lost to the pipeline would be permanent. So there's that as part of the not so simplistic equations.

Standard Lithium's Koch investment more than just capital funding, Roth says


Standard Lithium (SLI +9.1%) powers higher as Roth Capital reiterates a Buy rating and raises its stock price target to $11 from $10.50, after the company said last week it will receive a $100M direct investment from Koch Investments Group.
Standard Lithium will issue nearly 13.5M common shares at C$9.43/share - while somewhat dilutive, Roth analyst Joe Reagor says the value of the strategic partner outweighs the dilution.
While the funding should provide Standard Lithium with the necessary capital to cover its portion of the cost of developing its first commercial direct lithium extraction plant, it also allows the company to aggressively advance its SW Arkansas project, and adds credibility to its technology amid a period of volatility in the company's share price.
Standard Lithium shares have recouped losses that followed a short report from Blue Orca that said the company was "massively overvalued."
Now Read: Standard Lithium: 100 Million Ways To Wreck A Short Seller

Standard Lithium's Koch investment more than just capital funding, Roth says


Standard Lithium (SLI +9.1%) powers higher as Roth Capital reiterates a Buy rating and raises its stock price target to $11 from $10.50, after the company said last week it will receive a $100M direct investment from Koch Investments Group.
Standard Lithium will issue nearly 13.5M common shares at C$9.43/share - while somewhat dilutive, Roth analyst Joe Reagor says the value of the strategic partner outweighs the dilution.
While the funding should provide Standard Lithium with the necessary capital to cover its portion of the cost of developing its first commercial direct lithium extraction plant, it also allows the company to aggressively advance its SW Arkansas project, and adds credibility to its technology amid a period of volatility in the company's share price.
Standard Lithium shares have recouped losses that followed a short report from Blue Orca that said the company was "massively overvalued."
Now Read: Standard Lithium: 100 Million Ways To Wreck A Short Seller

LAC hit over $41. Trend is your friend -- until it isn't. Think it's going to be generally friendly for the time being.

.03 shy of 41 for a high so far. Also it stayed pretty steady Fri when most of the market was taking a pretty good hit. Just a short time ago there was discussion of where the support would be projecting above 30 somewhere. Well, I guess it's above $30. LOL

ASTR has lately given a few good trades for 2-4 bits profit, oscillating around the $11. Near future catalysts will have an effect also. Been increasing my core, betting on a continued successful launchings. We'll see in the next month or two.

An interesting article earlier this month, which Astra is included in the dealing of the new RE wave.

In race to provide internet from space, companies ask FCC for about 38,000 new broadband satellites



A flurry of space companies filed requests with the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday for new or expanded broadband networks, asking for approval of nearly 38,000 total satellites.
Amazon, Astra, Boeing, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Hughes Network, OneWeb, SpinLaunch, and Telesat are among those asking the FCC for access to what is known as V-band spectrum, a range of frequency the companies can use to provide global broadband.
“The most difficult aspect of building a [low Earth orbit] broadband system is acquiring the spectrum, not building and launching satellites. This is an attempt by every company with any future plans to stake a claim on beachfront that’s currently unclaimed,” Quilty Analytics founder Chris Quilty told CNBC.
In this article

BA
-1.99 (-1.00%)

ASTR
-0.27 (-2.40%)

AMZN
+87.74 (+2.50%)

Rocket 3.1 launches from Kodiak, Alaska.
Rocket 3.1 launches from Kodiak, Alaska.
Astra / John Kraus
A flurry of space companies filed requests with the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday for new or expanded broadband networks, asking the regulator for approval of nearly 38,000 total satellites.

Amazon, Astra, Boeing, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Hughes Network, OneWeb, SpinLaunch, and Telesat are among those asking the FCC for access to what is known as V-band spectrum, a range of frequency that the companies hope to use to provide global broadband service from space.

The FCC’s deadline for its latest processing round of proposals to use V-band was Thursday at midnight, driving the influx of applications.

“It’s just a land grab,” Quilty Analytics founder Chris Quilty told CNBC. Quilty’s boutique research and investment firm focused on the satellite communications sector.

“The most difficult aspect of building a [low Earth orbit] broadband system is acquiring the spectrum, not building and launching satellites. This is an attempt by every company with any future plans to stake a claim on beachfront that’s currently unclaimed,” Quilty added.

Notably, the companies which applied on Thursday have a variety of backgrounds and existing plans.

Amazon is working toward an initial constellation of 3,236 satellites called Project Kuiper. Astra is a rocket-builder that previously announced plans to begin building spacecraft. Boeing earlier this week received FCC authorization for a constellation of 147 satellites. British-owned OneWeb is about halfway through deploying its initial constellation of 648 satellites in orbit. Canadian operator Telesat is working on a constellation of 298 satellites called Lightspeed. SpinLaunch is focused on building an alternative launch system, while Inmarsat, Intelsat, and Hughes have existing satellite communications networks.

The number of satellites in each company’s new or expanded constellation proposed on Thursday:

Amazon - 7,774
Astra - 13,620
Boeing - 5,789
Inmarsat - 198
Intelsat - 216
Hughes - 1,440
OneWeb - 6,372
SpinLaunch - 1,190
Telesat - 1,373
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has deployed 1,740 of its Starlink broadband satellites already, was not among the recent batch of applicants. The FCC previously authorized SpaceX to launch about 7,500 V-band Starlink satellites, and the company is working on plans for nearly 30,000 satellites in its “Gen2” system.

Why companies are filing
How the FCC responds to the flood of applications, and which ones receive authorization to move forward, is unclear. But the motivation is, Summit Ridge Group president Armand Musey said. His consultancy specializes in valuations for companies in the telecom and satellite industries.

“Everybody wants to put a stake out there and one way to put a stake out there is to file for a constellation and then, down the road, they’ll figure out how exactly they want to implement it or if they want to propose some changes to their initial filing. But if you don’t have a sort of a stake in the ground in terms of a filing, you’re kind of giving up your option to participate,” Musey told CNBC.

Additionally, the FCC’s historical role in this is analyzing whether applicants filed correctly, Musey said, rather than “make judgments based on evaluating business plans.”

One major issue from the potential jump in the number of satellites in low Earth orbit is the risk of collisions and creating new space debris. Companies’ proposals include maneuvering systems and using the atmosphere to burn up any defunct satellites, as a way to combat that risk. The proposals also include a wide range of altitudes, ranging anywhere from as little as 600 kilometers above the Earth to 10,000 kilometers or more.

“Space debris is one of the issues that’s becoming increasingly important in the industry,” Musey said. “If you have too many satellites up there and you have them starting to crash into each other, you can create a chain reaction that sometimes called the Kessler syndrome.”

“That’s the existential threat that people are concerned about with all these satellites, and there’s not really a great central authority, outside of individual governments, to police and make sure that satellites are put up responsibly,” Musey added.

The V-band challenge
Satellite communications systems have traditionally focused on lower frequencies of spectrum, such as C-band, but have increasingly moved toward higher but more difficult to utilize frequencies such as Ka-band, Ku-band, and now V-band.

“It’s harder to work with, but you can get actually get more bandwidth and more throughput, and the technologies to use V-band are becoming more and more viable,” Musey said.

The business model is “still being speculated” with market focus, potential broadband speeds and more reflected in the “wide variety of different constellation proposals out there” Musey said. For now, V-band is “essentially an asset you can trade to get business.”

Making use of V-band “is a bottom line issue of physics,” Quilty said.

“The higher the frequency you go, the more susceptible you are to rain fade and weather attenuation and other issues that degrade the signal,” Quilty said.

That means companies need better antennas, more powerful satellites, and improved processing algorithms to make V-band service work for providing consumer service. However, firms have overcome technological hurdles, which increases the potential use of V-band.

“The whole history of wireless communications, satellite or terrestrial, has been a slow migration to higher frequencies over time,” Musey said. “The issue is: When do you get it down to the prices that are commercially viable?”

Quilty also highlighted the lack of a robust supply chain as another challenge for companies wanting to build V-band satellites and ground systems.

“It’s expensive, it’s early stage, and there are limited sources of supply,” Quilty said. “I would argue that companies that are trying to build these components on their own are going to run into significant engineering challenges.”

Another note/article on that;

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/28/fauci-lying-covid-research-cruz-523412


Fauci said that the accusations are dangerous, not only to him, but the scientific community.

“It's easy to criticize, but they're really criticizing science because I represent science. That's dangerous,” he said. “To me, that's more dangerous than the slings and the arrows that get thrown at me. I'm not going to be around here forever, but science is going to be here forever.”

"I'm just going to do my job and I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying," he added.

Fauci’s remarks have come under fire not only from Cruz, but other Republican lawmakers such as Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), though NIH maintained it had not provided money for such research. Cruz and Cotton have pointed to an October letter highlighting specific grant funding from the NIH that aided a certain aspect of coronavirus research at the lab to bolster their claim that Fauci lied.

When asked if the recent accusations are a way for Republican lawmakers to use him as a scapegoat to deflect criticism from former President Donald Trump, Fauci said, “You have to be asleep not to figure that one out.”

On another board, I was scolded and stated that I was wrong for the way I was using the term "right-wing" as some incredibly mixed up description or improper usage. I was not and the word was used correctly.

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/583256-gop-becoming-a-cult-of-know-nothings?rl=1

TheHill.com
GOP becoming a cult of know-nothings
BY BILL SCHNEIDER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 11/28/21 10:00 AM EST 8,906THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL



The Republican Party is becoming a cult. Its leaders are in thrall to Donald Trump, a defeated former president who refuses to acknowledge defeat. Its ideology is MAGA, Trump’s deeply divisive take on what Republicans assume to be unifying American values.

The party is now in the process of carrying out purges of heretics who do not worship Trump or accept all the tenets of MAGA. Conformity is enforced by social media, a relatively new institution with the power to marshal populist energy against critics and opponents.

What’s happening on the right in American politics is not exactly new. To understand it, you need to read a book published 50 years ago by Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, "The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1970." Right-wing extremism, now embodied in Trump’s MAGA movement, dates back to the earliest days of the country.

The title of Lipset and Raab’s book was chosen carefully. Right-wing extremism is not about the rational calculation of interests. It’s about irrational impulses, which the authors identify as “status frustrations.” They write that “the political movements which have successfully appealed to status resentments have been irrational in character. [The movements] focus on attacking a scapegoat, which conveniently symbolizes the threat perceived by their supporters.”

The most common scapegoats have been minority ethnic or religious groups. In the 19th century, that meant Catholics, immigrants and even Freemasons. The Anti-Masonic Party, the Know Nothing Party and later the American Protective Association were major political forces. In the 20th century, the U.S. experienced waves of anti-immigrant sentiment. After World War II, anti-communism became the driving force behind McCarthyism in the 1950s and the Goldwater movement in the early 1960s (“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice”).

The roots of the current right-wing extremism lie in the late 1960s and 1970s, when Americans began to be polarized over values (race, ethnicity, sex, military intervention). Conflicts of interest (such as business versus labor) can be negotiated and compromised. Conflicts of values cannot.

You see “the politics of unreason” in today’s right-wing extremism. While it remains true, as it has been for decades, that the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to vote Republican (that’s interests), what’s new today is that the better educated you are, the more likely you are to vote Democratic, at least among whites (that’s values, and it’s been driving white suburban voters with college degrees away from Trump’s “know-nothing” brand of Republicanism).

Oddly, religion has become a major force driving the current wave of right-wing extremism. Not religious affiliation (Protestant versus Catholic) but religiosity (regular churchgoers versus non-churchgoers). That’s not because of Trump’s religious appeal (he has none) but because of the Democratic Party’s embrace of secularism and the resulting estrangement of fundamentalist Protestants, observant Catholics and even orthodox Jews.

The Democratic Party today is defined by its commitment to diversity and inclusion. The party celebrates diversity in all its forms — racial, ethnic, religious and sexual. To Democrats, that’s the tradition of American pluralism — “E pluribus unum.” Republicans celebrate the “unum” more than the “pluribus” — we may come from diverse backgrounds, but we should all share the same “American values.”

One reason right-wing extremism is thriving in the Republican Party is that there is no figure in the party willing to lead the opposition to it. Polls of Republican voters show no other GOP figure even close to Trump’s level of support for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. The only other Republican who seems interested in running is Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, who recently criticized “Trump cancel culture.”

If Trump does run in 2024, as he seems inclined to do, can he win?

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It all depends on President Biden’s record. Right now, Biden’s popularity is not very high. In fact, Biden and Trump are about equally unpopular (Biden’s job approval is 52 to 43 percent negative, while Trump’s favorability is 54 to 41.5 percent negative). Biden will be 82 years old in 2024. If he doesn’t run, the Democrats will very likely nominate Vice President Harris. When a president doesn’t run for reelection, his party almost always nominates its most recent vice president, assuming they run (Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Walter Mondale in 1984, George H.W. Bush in 1988, Al Gore in 2000, Joe Biden in 2020). Democrats would be unlikely to deny a black woman the nomination. There is also some talk of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg running if Biden doesn’t.

The 2024 election could be a rematch between Trump and Biden. Or a race between Trump and a black woman. Or between Trump and a gay man with a husband and children. Lee Drutman, a political scientist at the New America think tank, recently told The New York Times, “I have a hard time seeing how we have a peaceful 2024 election after everything that’s happened now. I don’t see the rhetoric turning down. I don’t see the conflicts going away. ... It’s hard to see how it gets better before it gets worse.”

Bill Schneider is an emeritus professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and author of "Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable" (Simon & Schuster).