Vice President Kamala Harris declared herself the Democrat Party’s presumptive presidential nominee on Monday night after the majority of the party’s delegates indicated that they would flip from President Joe Biden to her. Harris’ announcement comes roughly 36 hours after Biden announced that he was dropping out of the presidential race because Democrats were concerned that he would lose to former President Donald Trump. “When I announced my campaign for President, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” Harris said. “Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee, and as a daughter of California, I am proud that my home state’s delegation helped put our campaign over the top.” “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon,” she continued.”I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me, and I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people.” Tonight, I am proud to have earned the support needed to become our party’s nominee. Over the next few months, I’ll be traveling across the country talking to Americans about everything on the line. I fully intend to unite our party and our nation, and defeat Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/Bsq3N6pMAi — Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 23, 2024 A tally from the Associated Press found that Harris has secured at least 2,668 delegates, none of whom are legally bound to vote for her, who have pledged to vote for her when they meet during the first week in August. Harris only needed 1,976 delegates to become the party’s nominee. The 59-year-old Californian has never earned a single vote from Democrat primary voters in a presidential primary after dropping out of the party’s 2020 primary before voting even started.

Nearly a quarter of a billion dollars was raised to support efforts to elect Vice President Kamala Harris after she announced her presidential campaign on Sunday, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race. Harris’ campaign announced it raised $81 million through the Democrats’ online fundraising platform ActBlue in just 24 hours after launching her campaign, The New York Times reported. More than 880,000 people donated during that time, and 43,000 donors pledged to make recurring donations. Big money donors also contributed $150 million during the same time period to Future Forward, the super PAC that was blessed by Biden, that will go toward backing efforts to elect Harris, POLITICO reported. The super PAC already had more than $120 million on hand at the end of last month. “Future Forward will continue working to make sure Donald Trump is defeated in this election and those dangerous consequences are never felt by the American people,” the super PAC said in a statement. Chris Korge, finance chair for the Biden Victory Fund, told NBC News that “the floodgates will open” to support Harris now that Biden is out of the way. “There’s been a lot of people holding back contributions that will now contribute because the whole thing — that whole situation was paralyzing our fundraising,” he said. He added that donors were giving out of emotion right now. “Major donors are incredibly receptive of his endorsement and are genuinely excited,” he said. “I think this is going to create a tidal wave of donations.” Harris declared herself the Democrat Party’s presumptive presidential nominee on Monday night after the majority of the party’s delegates indicated that they would flip from Biden to supporting her. A tally from the Associated Press found that Harris has secured at least 2,668 delegates, none of whom are legally bound to vote for her, who have pledged to vote for her when they meet during the first week in August. Harris only needed 1,976 delegates to become the party’s nominee. The 59-year-old Californian has never earned a single vote from Democrat primary voters in a presidential primary after dropping out of the party’s 2020 primary before voting even started.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said this week that Republicans do not take Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign seriously enough, and he believes President Joe Biden will pardon his son Hunter Biden before leaving office. Cruz made the remarks during the most recent episode of his “Verdict” podcast with co-host Ben Ferguson following the news over the weekend that Biden was ending his presidential campaign and endorsing Harris. Cruz said he is worried that Republicans “vastly underestimate Kamala Harris” because they “don’t think she’s terribly bright,” and anytime he mentions her name to Republicans, “people laugh, it’s immediately a punch line.” “I think people are underestimating what billions of dollars of free media of the entire corrupt corporate media complex, pitching her as a combination of Mother Teresa, Oprah, and Gandhi, and young and vibrant, and it’s historic,” he said. Cruz added that he believes former President Donald Trump will still win in November, but it won’t be “a layup.” “My message to Republicans is do not behave like this is in the bag, because that’s one of the easiest ways to ensure it’s not in the bag,” he said. He also predicted a “100%” chance that Biden would pardon his felonious son before he leaves office. “Hunter Biden will get a pardon as a result” of Biden’s decision to drop out, Cruz said. “It will not happen till after Election Day. He’s not going to do it before Election Day. But he’s going to stick around. And after Election Day, I believe it is now 100% That Joe Biden will pardon Hunter.” WATCH:

Even animals need hobbies, so Emily the elephant is learning to play the drums! This Buttonwood Park Zoo resident was inspired by a visit from a professional drummer. When he performed a drum solo outside her enclosure, Emily was absolutely enraptured by the sound. She just had to give it a try! In an adorable video on social media, Emily the elephant started hitting the instrument with her trunk. Jon, the drummer, thought this was too cute! @rossifaripod Unique forms of enrichment are so important for zoo animals! Check out today’s episode of The Rossifari Podcast to learn more about this experience and the ways it made me, Emily, and the other humans and elephant at Buttonwood Park Zoo so happy! #fyp #elephant #elephants #elephantlover #zoo #zoos #drumming #drummer #zoosoftiktok #zoos #wildlifephotography #zoo #zoos #zoopics #zoophotography #animal #animals #animalphotography #animalpics #zooanimal #zooanimals #animalphotographers #animalsofinstagram #animallover #animallovers #savewhatyoulove ♬ original sound – The Rossifari Podcast Obviously, the next step in Emily the elephant’s musical education was to hand her a drumstick. So, in another clip, Jon gave her one of his. At first, she didn’t know quite what to do with the object. Although she did grab it with her trunk, she ended up dropping it outside her enclosure with disinterest. However, Jon wasn’t ready to give up on the animal. He stopped by for another visit, and this time the lesson was far more productive. Emily the elephant not only held onto the drumstick, but started beating the drum! Of course, she still didn’t quite get the hang of how the instrument was supposed to work. Even though she was holding the stick, she couldn’t figure out how to use it to strike the drum. Instead, she just used her trunk. It was still a big step forward, though! Emily the elephant has excellent manners as well as talent. @rossifaripod EMILY THE ELEPHANT TRIES A DRUMSTICK! Y’all asked for it so here it is!! #fyp #elephant #elephants #drum #drumming #drummer ♬ original sound – The Rossifari Podcast Once Emily the elephant was done with her drum solo, she carefully returned the drumstick back to Jon. He thought this gesture was too sweet! “Thank you,” he told the elephant. “That was so polite.” Commenters fell in love with Emily’s adorable antics. They were floored by how quickly she figured out how to get sound out of the drum. “They are so beautiful and intelligent,” wrote one user. Another added, “Not to be dramatic, but I would positively perish for Emily.” We hope that Emily the elephant continues her drum lessons. She certainly has a knack for picking up instruments! You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Emily The Elephant Tries Her Hand, Or Trunk, At A Drum Solo appeared first on InspireMore.

At the ruined site of a 4,000-year-old civilization in Anatolia, clay tablets have been found documenting a mundane but nonetheless fascinating aspect of culture: packed lunches. The tablet speaks specifically of a Kültepe Cheese that was part of daily life for the people in the region, who, according to the tablet, used to carry it […] The post 4,000-year-old Tablet Details Ancient Lunchables of Cheese and Meat Carried in a Box appeared first on Good News Network.

The storm clouds have gathered for some time, a grim reality settling over our lives. The signs are undeniable: a tightening grip on information, dwindling resources, and a growing sense of unease. Yet, even in this oppressive darkness, a flicker of hope dares to emerge with the upcoming Venezuelan election. Let’s introduce those first-time readers to our particular situation. Some background When Hugo Chávez was elected in 1999, he made constitutional reforms that brought wide political changes in different areas without including important social sectors. In his first presidential period, political power started its closed increment, which has deepened with time, controlling the different constitutional powers like CNE (Center for National Elections) and TSJ (Supreme Court), also using its political coping to break other democratic and opinion expression sources. The influence of executive power over the National Assembly (the socialist equivalent of the Congress) also occurs due to internal party conflicts between opposition deputies (some of which have been sent to jail), which may end up in parallel institutions like clandestine Congress and elections. This is to avoid the government machine’s blackmail and maintain political-electoral equilibrium, where all parties compete with fair conditions within the established democratic principles. Failing this, the government party may become the only institution that creates and reformulates laws according to their personal interests, authorities, and attributions during the period they were elected. Currently, Venezuela stands as a country in a potential political conflict that very likely will draw (once again) the entire region. This fight affects nationals, foreigners, and neighboring countries, given the presence of many interest groups and international policies in Venezuelan territory. In this context, elections are instruments that could organize peaceful power transitions, in the way that presidents could be representative of most people’s will and a country achieves democracy. Thus, organizing fair, transparent, free, and just elections is important if the purpose is to confront the current turmoil and high levels of violence due to the political confrontation. However, these conditions are contradictory with the complexity of political infrastructure and justice deterioration, as well as oppression and fear that the Venezuelan political power creates in individuals who do not sympathize with the government party. Once the foreign readers understand the remarkable downturn of our economy, totally engineered to destroy it, generate massive migration, and turn it into a gigantic money laundering scheme using the financial network of the free world, we can proceed to describe the actual atmosphere in the country. A turning point is coming with the Venezuelan election. We can smell in the air an irreversible turning point is coming up. It may not be a certainty yet, but the sentiment is powerful. The people, once cowed by fear, are finally starting to react against the uniforms. There are videos where citizens get a brutal beating by the totalitarian-controlled armed forces, but this has not repeated itself recently. At least, not out in the open, as far as I know, and not as brutal as before. Food rationing programs, touted as a solution for the most vulnerable, are a cruel deception. They are not meant to help; they are a tool for societal control. Never underestimate the cruelty of those looking for power for power themselves! You only have to read some posts of analysts to confirm that things are not going to be easy after the elections: https://x.com/JorgeEickhoff/status/1811259721434681477 By dangling the promise of sustenance, the regime seeks to coerce the population into submission. Year after year, the same worn speech: “Recovery of the economy, the (4, 5, 8 or some other random numbers) motors will start to run again…” It’s a form of blackmail; a weapon intended to silence dissent and maintain their grip on power. The true purpose of these programs is not to alleviate sorrow, but to exploit it, twisting the most basic human need for survival into a tool of oppression. This flicker of resistance, captured on camera, reminds us that even in the darkest of times, the human spirit endures. It is a testament to the power of courage and the unwavering desire for freedom that is now starting to wake up in the chest of every Venezuelan after decades of an oppressive system. The fight for a better tomorrow is a long and arduous one: the dismantling of the repressive structure is going to take years, but those videos serve as a potent reminder that we are not alone. It is a call to action. However, actions have consequences, and that’s what we are going to cover in the following paragraphs. Actual atmosphere right now There is a tension in the air that you can almost feel physically. Yes, again. Any abnormal noise makes people jump. It seems everything is peaceful and quiet, but there is some sort of degree of tension, again. This being said, the level of preparedness of people is, average, so poor that it is concerning, including my own. My travail through Peru, instead of providing us with some financial resources, left us with nothing. But you already know that story. It’s OK. I will find means to survive, even if I have to go hunting wild hens to lay eggs for sale at the end of the day. Much better here for the moment than working to make someone earn money, living in a rented bedroom with a shared bathroom, in an 11 million population city where Venezuelan kids get lost every day. Let’s see. The deepest concerns right now are things like this. (Please activate your browser’s translator) This means that they are planning something out of the ordinary, and need plenty of detainees to have enough bargain chips to negotiate their immunity or their way out. There is no other possible reason I can think of. One can not but think “Maquiavelo is an amateur”. One of them, even indulged himself to say in public national TV, “Those who don’t vote, won’t eat” Public opinion is nothing they are concerned about anymore: the campaign for elections seems something out of a poorly written comedy. Music shows, the candidate “dancing” on a platform…the empty speech, the attempts to insult with name callings…They have been controlling the Justice apparatus (our version of the Supreme Court), once (more or less) independent until Hugo’s arrival. I want to inform you that the Liberation movement to recover and rebuild the institutions, nowadays occupied by a foreign power is constantly growing and will reach its peak by July 28th. This is one of the most important eras of this country since its foundation in 1811. Many people (including me) consider it a true opportunity to come back to the 1950s era when the rule was exerted by a de facto dictatorship, but based on Republican principles. Marcos Evangelista Pérez Jiménez was of the most patriotic rulers ever in South America. He fought the lefties, and that’s why they hate him and have done an ideological restructuration of the historical narrative of the events since then, portraying them as “heroes” to common criminals that planned bank robberies, kidnappings, and other crimes. A couple of outstanding figures of the socialist party come from this “family”, indeed. And many others (most of the Hugo inner circle, by the way) also came from that species. Back in the 50s, under the Republican ruling, our currency was as strong as the dollar. The name of our country was the United States of Venezuela. Most of the actual infrastructure was built back then, including schools that were authentic fortress and are still standing and will be for the next 100 years. But we’re not here to talk about that. Politics apart, the stirring of this wonderful pot of a little country could very likely cause a dire situation (again). The thing is, people (and most of the uniforms, too) are sick and tired of the abuse. This abuse had too many ways and lasted for too long. The historic moment has to be understood, to identify how strong the reactions of the people can be. Mind you, it’s scary. Those who never saw a sea of human beings becoming a torrent of violence in real life (I did, and it is registered in some of my articles but will be much better described in the books) will never have an idea of the energy flowing. Possible Scenarios Here are some of the things that could happen in the next few weeks. The elections are a fraud, and a huge turmoil with unpredictable consequences: they just replaced those responsible for the custody of the election results with “reserve personnel” instead of ACTIVE personnel. Journalist Casto Ocando is one of the most serious investigators on this topic and he explains this here. The candidate with the least odds to win quits and leaves at night, fleeing to a foreign country with his huge fortune of unknown origin, unleashing a huge fight among those left behind, again with an unpredictable outcome. They refuse to turn down the wheel, and call for some crazy decree or law mechanism to impede and sabotage the whole process, unleash violence and throw the troopers (foreign mercenaries from Russia, Syria, Iran and Cuba, guerrilla and local convicts included) to everyone on the streets generating a massacre of civilians. Crim. Intl. Court won’t do anything even if they are splashed with innocent blood. The less likely scenario? a peaceful transition. After having experienced all the misbehavior, this looks now like nothing but a child’s dream. I will be documenting how things are evolving in the coming days. Take care! About Jose Jose is an upper middle class professional. He is a former worker of the oil state company with a Bachelor’s degree from one of the best national Universities. He has an old but in good shape SUV, a good 150 square meters house in a nice neighborhood, in a small but (formerly) prosperous city with two middle size malls. Jose is a prepper and shares his eyewitness accounts and survival stories from the collapse of his beloved Venezuela. Jose and his younger kid are currently back in Venezuela, after the intention of setting up a new life in another country didn’t  go well. The SARSCOV2 re-shaped the labor market and South American economy so he decided to give it a try to homestead in the mountains, and make a living as best as possible. But this time in his own land, and surrounded by family, friends and acquaintances, with all the gear and equipment collected, as the initial plan was.  Follow Jose on YouTube and gain access to his exclusive content on Patreon. Donations: paypal.me/JoseM151 The post Will the Venezuelan Election End with Hope or Despair? appeared first on The Organic Prepper.

Authorities in Colorado Springs, Colorado released a footage of a family's dog accidentally turning on the kitchen stove and accidentally starting a home fire.

Miguel Farias: Since mindfulness it’s something you can practice at home for free, it often sounds like the perfect tonic for stress and mental health issues. Mindfulness is a type of Buddhist-based meditation in which you focus on being aware of what you’re sensing, thinking and feeling in the present moment. The first recorded evidence for this, found in India, is over 1,500 years old. The Dharmatrāta Meditation Scripture, written by a community of Buddhists, describes various practices and includes reports of symptoms of depression and anxiety that can occur after meditation. It also details cognitive anomalies associated with episodes of psychosis, dissociation and depersonalisation (when people feel the world is “unreal”). In the past eight years there has been a surge of scientific research in this area. These studies show that adverse effects are not rare. A 2022 study, using a sample of 953 people in the US who meditated regularly, showed that over 10% of participants experienced adverse effects which had a significant negative impact on their everyday life and lasted for at least one month. According to a review of over 40 years of research that was published in 2020, the most common adverse effects are anxiety and depression. These are followed by psychotic or delusional symptoms, dissociation or depersonalisation, and fear or terror. Research also found that adverse effects can happen to people without previous mental health problems, to those who have only had a moderate exposure to meditation and they can lead to long-lasting symptoms. Meditating can come with its own problems. The western world has also had evidence about these adverse affects for a long time. In 1976, Arnold Lazarus, a key figure in the cognitive-behavioural science movement, said that meditation, when used indiscriminately, could induce “serious psychiatric problems such as depression, agitation, and even schizophrenic decompensation”. There is evidence that mindfulness can benefit people’s wellbeing. The problem is that mindfulness coaches, videos, apps and books rarely warn people about the potential adverse effects. Professor of management and ordained Buddhist teacher Ronald Purser wrote in his 2023 book McMindfulness that mindfulness has become a kind of “capitalist spirituality”. In the US alone, meditation is worth US$2.2 billion (£1.7 billion). And the senior figures in the mindfulness industry should be aware of the problems with meditation. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a key figure behind the mindfulness movement, admitted in a 2017 interview with the Guardian that “90% of the research [into the positive impacts] is subpar”. In his foreword to the 2015 UK Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Report, Jon Kabat-Zinn suggests that mindfulness meditation can eventually transform “who we are as human beings and individual citizens, as communities and societies, as nations, and as a species”. This religious-like enthusiasm for the power of mindfulness to change not only individual people but the course of humanity is common among advocates. Even many atheists and agnostics who practice mindfulness believe that this practice has the power to increase peace and compassion in the world. Media discussion of mindfulness has also been somewhat imbalanced. In 2015, my book with clinical psychologist Catherine Wikholm, Buddha Pill, included a chapter summarising the research on meditation adverse effects. It was widely disseminated by the media, including a New Scientist article, and a BBC Radio 4 documentary. But there was little media coverage in 2022 of the most expensive study in the history of meditation science (over US$8 million funded by research charity the Wellcome Trust). The study tested more than 8,000 children (aged 11-14) across 84 schools in the UK from 2016 to 2018. Its results showed that mindfulness failed to improve the mental wellbeing of children compared to a control group, and may even have had detrimental effects on those who were at risk of mental health problems. Meditation is a practice in which an individual uses a technique to train attention and awareness and detach from reflexive, “discursive thinking,” achieving a mentally clear and emotionally calm and stable state, while not judging the meditation process itself. Ethical implications Is it ethical to sell mindfulness apps, teach people meditation classes, or even use mindfulness in clinical practice without mentioning its adverse effects? Given the evidence of how varied and common these effects are, the answer should be no. However, many meditation and mindfulness instructors believe that these practices can only do good and don’t know about the potential for adverse effects. The most common account I hear from people who have suffered adverse meditation effects is that the teachers don’t believe them. They’re usually told to just keep meditating and it will go away. Research about how to safely practice meditation has only recently begun, which means there isn’t yet clear advice to give people. There is a wider problem in that meditation deals with unusual states of consciousness and we don’t have psychological theories of mind to help us understand these states. But there are resources people can use to learn about these adverse effects. These include websites produced by meditators who experienced serious adverse effects and academic handbooks with dedicated sections to this topic. In the US there is a clinical service dedicated to people who have experienced acute and long term problems, led by a mindfulness researcher. For now, if meditation is to be used as a wellbeing or therapeutic tool, the public needs to be informed about its potential for harm. Miguel Farias, Associate Professor in Experimental Psychology, Coventry University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post Meditation can be harmful – and can even make mental health problems worse appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Many scientists believe that time travel is impossible. Others believe that unknown physics may allow it. Debate on this issue has persisted for many years. The authors of an article published on the preprint server arXiv, which has not been peer-reviewed, decided to look for traces of time travelers on the Internet. In June 2009, the famous physicist Stephen Hawking, while at the University of Cambridge, decided to conduct an experiment. The scientist came up with the idea of ​​sending invitations to a party that had already taken place. The essence of the experiment was that if time travel were possible, then people who received invitations would come to the party, although they could not know about it in advance. Alas, none of the people Hawking invited showed up. Perhaps the time travelers simply did not want to be in the company of the famous physicist, or perhaps time travel is simply impossible. Stephen Hawking But a group of physicists decided to conduct their own experiment to find potential time travelers. To do this, scientists decided to search the Internet for information about significant events that appeared even before these events took place. According to scientists, only those who can travel in time can write a kind of prediction about a particular event that will take place in the future. The authors of the article suggested that even if people arrived from the future (and scientists decided that they certainly could not create a time machine in the past), they might accidentally leave some information on social networks during a certain period of time when some significant events were already known to scientists but had not yet occurred. Physicists actively viewed messages on various social networks and also monitored trending queries on Google. But no references to known events before they happened were found. The scientists also posted on various social networks a call for potential time travelers to send them an email. The essence of the experiment was that the email address was indicated later than the message itself with a call for correspondence. That is, the person from the future should have already known the email address at the time the message appeared. And again, no one wrote anything to the physicists. Yes, time travel is indeed a real thing. But it’s not quite what you’ve probably seen in the movies. Scientists believe that perhaps people from the future do not want to be known, and therefore do not leave revealing information traces. But there may be other reasons. “Even time travelers who want to advertise their presence may do so ineffectively,” the team writes in their paper, “those who want to hide their presence might make a revealing mistake, and those indifferent might or might not leave traceable Internet content.” The authors of the paper write that it may be physically impossible for time travelers to leave any lasting remnants of their time in the past, including even social media posts. Or maybe we physically cannot find such information, as this would violate some still unknown law of physics. “First, it may be physically impossible for time travelers to leave any lasting remnants of their stay in the past, including even non-corporeal informational remnants on the Internet,” they explained. “Next, it may be physically impossible for us to find such information as that would violate some yet-unknown law of physics, possibly similar to the Chronology Protection Conjecture. Furthermore, time travelers may not want to be found, and may be good at covering their tracks.” The post Searching for Time Travelers: Experiments and Findings by Physicists appeared first on Anomalien.com.

The drip, drip, drip of developments from the $1 billion defamation suit against CNN has been steady. In addition to reporting on CNN attempting to block host Jake Tapper from being deposed as part of the proceedings, NewsBusters has exclusively obtained an unredacted partial transcript from the deposition of CNN correspondent Alex Marquardt connected to the case. NewsBusters has also obtained an interesting video of one of the members of CNN's internally lauded editorial members making eyebrow-raising remarks about preventing defamation suits. In their motion for a partial summary judgment last month, plaintiff, security contractor, and Navy veteran Zachary Young and his legal team included a partial transcript of CNN chief national security correspondent Alex Marquardt’s deposition testimony where he seemingly admitted there was no evidence of criminality on behalf of Young, despite claiming there was in his allegedly defamatory report on The Lead with Jake Tapper. As NewsBusters previously reported, a key factor in the case was CNN’s allegation that Young was part of a “black market” and “exploited” people trying to get out of Afghanistan. The definition of “black market” and criminal activity became a contested topic in an appeal hearing in April regarding punitive damages. Judge L. Clayton Roberts pressed CNN’s attorney, Charles D. Tobin on the use of the word: [W]hen they were talking about Mr. Young, they had his picture on the thing and there was a chyron that says he was involved in a black market. And, you know, I've looked in a couple of dictionaries –  three or four – and the first definition for black market in all the dictionaries is criminal activity. And you know, if you are accusing someone of criminal activity and they're not involved in a crime, that's usually defamation per se. Correct? In response, Tobin seemingly admitted that what CNN reported could be seen as defamatory: “Under the law where we would be looking at the defamatory meaning, perhaps it would be.” Now, obtained deposition testimony from Marquardt showed that his investigation didn’t turn up any evidence of criminal activity from Young: Q: Did your reporting ever discover anything illegal that was going on with regards to the evacuation process? A. No, it didn't. *** Q. Did you think Mr. Young was committing a crime? Let me ask it that way. A. I don't know. And we -- I don't know and we didn’t report that. I don't know. Q. I'm not saying you did. I'm just asking the question. So – A. No. As far as I knew he was -- he was charging -- sorry to interrupt. As far as I knew, he was simply asking for large amounts of money to get Afghans out of the country. *** Q. You found no evidence of Mr. Young committing a crime, correct? A. No.     Marquardt’s deposition answers provided more context for the internal CNN e-mails and messages expressing skepticism for his reporting before it went to air. “Digital decided not to publish a digital version from Alex. They told me it was bc we could not answer the question is this a scam,” one message read. “It’s not clear to me if everyone is being ripped off or if some people pay up and get out. And that’s pretty crucial! . . . If he doesn’t know the answer to that fundamental question I’d say we really need to pause this until we find out,” read another. In a statement to NewsBusters, Joe Delich, one of Young’s lawyers decried that Marquardt got a promotion amid their suit. “CNN’s internal messages are indicative of a cowboy culture that cares more about clicks than accountability. In fact, CNN promoted the primary reporter on the story after this lawsuit was filed, indicating this kind of journalism is not only tolerated at CNN—it’s rewarded,” he said. Given these details, it’s a wonder how the story got out the door, especially since CNN lauds its internal editorial oversight board known as Triad, which is made up of editorial, legal, and standards and practices professionals. NewsBusters also obtained a now-deleted YouTube video of one of the members of Triad speaking to some journalism students at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications about their work.     The video features Triad member Drew Shenkman speaking with then-professor and director Frank LoMonte’s students via Zoom during the pandemic (LoMonte is now senior counsel for CNN). Shenkman explained how CNN trained their journalists to bring them stories that “allege wrongdoing” and “are obviously defamatory”: So, there's five of us, we split everything up. We don't look at every single script or every single story that goes out. We look for things that allege wrongdoing, things that are sensitive or controversial or things that are obviously defamatory.  And it's typically a push-to-us model. So, the journalists are trained and we train them and saying, you know, hey, this needs legal review because it's alleging someone of murder or this needs legal review because we're saying the president of the United States did something bad. And so then they push that to us for the legal review.  Ironically, LoMonte compared defamation lawyers like himself to trauma surgeons and Shenkman to a primary care physician who prevents illness to begin with. “So, pretty much,” Shenkman agreed. “If I see a story and we get sued and we lose, right, then I haven't done my job.” CNN, Alex Marquardt, and CNN attorney Deanna K. Shullman did not respond to NewsBusters’ requests for comment. NewsBusters obtained the unredacted transcript of Marquardt’s deposition on July 1, 2024 from the Bay County, Florida Clerk’s Office website (the download file pictured). As of publication, the filing for the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment was no longer available for download or request on the website.