Vera Institute of Justice has received $89 million in contracts and grants this year

The federal government provides tens of millions of dollars each year to a nonprofit group that supports the movement to defund police departments and dismantle the criminal justice system.

Officials with the Brooklyn-based Vera Institute of Justice have urged the government to “radically dismantle” police departments in order to fix a system they say dehumanizes people of color. The institute is heavily funded by the federal government. So far this fiscal year, the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and other agencies have awarded the Vera Institute more than $89 million in contracts and grants. The organization has received $811 million in federal funding since 2008, according to USA Spending, a federal budget database.

Vera’s support for the “defund the police” movement comes amid a contentious political debate over policing in America. Democrats see the issue as a political third rail and have tried to distance the party from anti-police rhetoric popular on the left. While members of the Democratic Party have embraced the defund movement, President Joe Biden claimed this month that Republicans are “lying” when they say Democrats support the concept.

The Vera Institute, which calls itself a “justice reform change agent,” also received stipends from traditional progressive donors, such as George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. The billionaire’s philanthropy gave more than $10 million to Vera from 2016 to 2019.

Two top executives at Vera rallied to the defund cause following the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020.

“Vera is committed to dismantling the current culture of policing and working toward solutions that defund police and shift power to communities,” Vera president Nicholas Turner wrote on June 8, 2020.

Turner, who received $420,000 in salary and benefits at Vera in 2019, urged support for “the outrage we’re seeing—in the streets, in our communities, and in the media.”

“Now is the time to stop tinkering with police reform and to enact wholesale change,” Turner said. “We’re building on this unique moment of public awareness, outrage, and calls to defund the police.”

Another Vera officer, Jamila Hodge, said it was “time for us to radically dismantle” the criminal justice system. Writing in June 2020, she said the criminal justice system “dehumanizes and devalues Black people” and is rooted in “our nation’s legacy of slavery and white supremacy.”

Vera, which took in $174 million in revenue for the year ended June 30, 2020, receives the bulk of its federal funding to represent illegal aliens and refugees seeking entry to the United States. The Justice Department has awarded Vera grants and contracts through various subagencies, including the Office for Victims of Crime and the Office for Violence Against Women, which provide assistance to crime victims. Other grants have been for research, including $750,000 to conduct a randomized trial on the effect of “innovative” youth housing on crime.

In addition to harboring radical views on policing, Vera has thrown its weight behind a pack of left-wing prosecutors, many of them backed by Soros, that swept into office across the United States on the promise to reform the criminal justice system. Their policies have come under intense scrutiny as crime rates surge across the country.

One such prosecutor is Kimberly Foxx, the district attorney in Chicago. The Vera Institute is hosting an event this week with Foxx and Angela Davis, the Communist Party USA member who supports the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Foxx was reprimanded last year over her handling of the investigation into actor Jussie Smollett’s false claim that he was the victim of a hate crime. An independent prosecutor said Foxx displayed “substantial abuses of discretion” during the investigation, in which she dropped charges against Smollett for filing a false police report.

Vera has also partnered with two other left-wing prosecutors, Boston district attorney Rachael Rollins and St. Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner. The Washington Free Beacon reported that Rollins, who Biden nominated for U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, helped form a commission last year with the Grassroots Law Project, a group that supports the defund cause.

Gardner has come under fire in St. Louis after judges tossed out three murder cases in one week earlier this month after Gardner’s team of prosecutors failed to show up for trial. In another case, the mother of a murder victim blasted Gardner for striking a plea deal that involved no jail time for her son’s killer.

The Vera Institute has also prematurely entered the fray in hot-button cases, including the April shooting of Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old black girl in Columbus, Ohio.

“When Ma’Khia Bryant dialed 9-1-1, she needed help,” Vera said in a statement after the shooting. “Instead of assistance, she was shot and killed by Columbus police. Her death underscores that our emergency system does not keep Black and brown children and communities safe.”

Video released soon after the shooting showed a Columbus police officer shooting Bryant as she was attempting to stab another girl with a knife.

The Vera Institute did not respond to a request for comment.

Federal Government Gives Millions to Group That Supports Defunding the Police (freebeacon.com)

A Sartell-St. Stephen School District student is speaking out after the school required grade-school children to take an equity survey.

Some students didn’t understand some of the surveys questions, but were told by a teacher they couldn’t repeat the survey questions to their parents, according to a video uploaded by Alphanews.

The survey asked questions that some students didn’t understand. Even after hearing an explanation from their teacher, some still couldn’t comprehend the survey questions.

But a teacher told the students they couldn’t ask their parents for help, according to student Haylee Yasgar.

“My teacher said that I could not skip any questions even when I didn’t understand them. One question asked us what gender we identify with. I was very confused along with a lot of other classmates,” Yasgar said during Monday night’s meeting.

She said students were told they could not “repeat any of the questions to our parents.”

The school district hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment. It’s unclear what value a survey holds if respondents don’t understand the questions.

“Being asked to hide this from my mom made me very uncomfortable, like I was doing something wrong,” she told the school board.

The equity survey is part of a reckoning of how school systems nationwide should teach issues related not only to sexuality but as well as race in a state where George Floyd died in police custody last year.

Now that the city settled a lawsuit for $27 million and former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been sentenced to 22.5 years in prison for third-degree murder and manslaughter, the question now remains how school systems should explain similar events to children.

Some parents call the curriculum divisive while supporters say it’s teaching history and showing how racist attitudes and activities such as redlining are embedded into daily life.

Despite being more than 40 years old, Critical Race Theory (CRT) has evolved to a flashpoint between political parties over the past year.

CRT holds that “the law and legal institutions in the United States are inherently racist insofar as they function to create and maintain social, economic, and political inequalities between whites and nonwhites, especially African Americans,” according to Britannica.

CRT scholars allege many societal problems are rooted in the country’s white majority using laws and other power to suppress the non-white population, whether consciously or subconsciously.

CRT opponents claim its conclusions rely on anecdotes and storytelling, rather than a comprehensive examination of evidence. They say its supporters focus on disproportionate outcomes from those individual stories, incorrectly drawing conclusions about institutional racism and white privilege and failing to take into account strides that the nation has made toward racial equality.

Critics say CRT employs heavy use of the Marxist “struggle” ideology and tactic that advocates for the destruction of history, traditions, and culture of a society.

Around the United States, there has been a growing movement of parents who have become increasingly dissatisfied with the CRT-derived curriculum being taught in their children’s classrooms.

Minnesota Student Says Teacher Told Her to Hide ‘Equity Survey’ Questions From Parents (theepochtimes.com)

Patrick Moore talks about why he left Greenpeace and why the the push for net-zero emissions is an unattainable goal

Patrick Moore was only 24 when he co-founded Greenpeace in the early 1970s. He soon became the driving force behind the environmental activist group’s many influential campaigns, such as to stop nuclear testing, protect endangered whales, and prevent toxic dumping.

“It began in 1971 with the first voyage to stop U.S. hydrogen bomb testing in Alaska, which we did,” Moore told The Epoch Times. “And then we went after France’s atmospheric nuclear testing in the South Pacific.”

Greenpeace would go on to launch its “Save the Whales” campaign in 1975, followed in 1976 by a campaign to end the killing of baby seals for their fur, and later that decade a campaign to end toxic dumping in rivers by factories in Europe.

But as Greenpeace gained influence, Moore says he started to see it getting hijacked by what he characterizes as people with political ideology from the left.

“None of us in the original group was there to make money. We were all volunteers,” he said.  “But the ultra-leftists took over my organization when they realized there was a lot of money and power to be had there.”

He said it was during the “Save The Whales” campaign that people started donating money to Greenpeace in larger numbers, and that was when the group started getting a bank account and renting an office.

“So as time went on into the late 1970s, Greenpeace turned into a kind of business,” he said. “Pretty soon it actually became a business where fundraising started to become more and more important.”

By the time Moore left in 1986 after being with the organization for 15 years, “fundraising had now become the most important priority, and they would go ahead with a campaign for which there was no scientific basis,” he said.

He left Greenpeace due to “philosophical and political” reasons, he said, after having served as director, president, and international director.

“Greenpeace had started out with a strong humanitarian orientation, as well as a belief in saving the environment,” he said. “‘Green’ is for the environment, ‘peace’ is for the people not to be killed by nuclear war, among other things, or pollution.”

Over time, “peace” was gradually dropped, and Greenpeace, along with the rest of the environmental movement, drifted into a belief that sees the “human species as the enemy of nature, the enemy of the Earth,” Moore said.

The Epoch Times asked Greenpeace for an interview but didn’t hear back.

Emphasis on Fundraising Over Science

In the mid 1980s, Moore, who has a PhD in ecology, says he found himself the only director with a formal science education on Greenpeace’s international board, and the only director disagreeing with what the rest would propose next.

“They all agreed that the next campaign for Greenpeace should be to ‘ban chlorine worldwide.’ … They named chlorine ‘the devil’s element,’” he said.

Moore says he pointed out to the board that chlorine is one of the building blocks of the Earth, and of utmost importance for public health, as chlorine added to “drinking water, swimming pools, and spas has ended waterborne communicable diseases like cholera.” 

He also said chlorine is critical for medicine because 25 percent of medicines contain chlorine, and chlorine chemistry is essential in the making of some 85 percent of medicines.

Greenpeace International proceeded to launch the campaign nonetheless, the reason being “largely based on fundraising,” according to Moore, and so he decided it was time to go. 

Moore believes this is where scare stories of impending catastrophes and doom started. “It begins with the politicians and their bureaucrats funding the scientists who can be trusted to give them a good scare story.”

The Importance of Carbon Dioxide

When it comes to climate change, the continued narrative of carbon dioxide being a “bad thing” and “destroying the world” is contrary to what the scientific community has found, Moore says. 

Moore currently serves as a director of the CO2 Coalition, established in 2015 to create educational material on the importance of carbon dioxide. The organization has published papers presenting scientific data to dispute that CO2 emissions are causing global warming. 

Contrary to what climate alarmists claim, Moore says, “carbon dioxide is the basis of all life on Earth.”

“It makes the oceans less alkaline, thus making it suitable for life,” and “on land, CO2 makes the greening of the Earth plus it makes plants more efficient with water.” 

In April 2016, an article published in Nature funded in part by NASA found that CO2 fertilization has had significant impact on the greening of the planet.

“From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide,” reads a post on NASA’s site on the study.

“Studies have shown that increased concentrations of carbon dioxide increase photosynthesis, spurring plant growth,” the article added.

Net-Zero a ‘Political Goal’

Moore said the push for net-zero carbon emissions by governments around the world is “purely a political slogan.”

“I’m not sure how they could reduce CO2 emissions if they didn’t stop using fossil fuels virtually altogether,” he said, questioning how the transportation, agriculture, mining, and forestry sectors could function without them. 

“I believe this is an unattainable political goal for society. And I also believe it is a goal that will bring greater hardship than people have endured since the great wars, since the great disease epidemics of the past.”

Moore said there is a powerful convergence of interests among key elites in Western society pushing environmental scare stories.

“It puts [politicians] in the media, and the media makes much money from the sensationalism, and the activists then raise money,” he said. 

Hollywood plays a big part as celebrities join to endorse the climate change narrative, he added, as well as many scientists.  

“Nearly all the money going to the scientists who are writing these things is public money, so it all has to be approved by politicians, and bureaucrats working for the politicians,” he said, adding that scientists who utter anything to the contrary get cancelled.

In his latest book, “Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom,” Moore talks about how the hyped up environmental catastrophes and threats create fear.

“There’s so much propaganda and so many lies, but the unified theory of scare stories is what I call these, because they have something in common—they are all based on things that are invisible or so remote that the average citizen cannot observe what these people are seeing, and cannot verify what these people are saying.”

Climate ‘Scare Story’ Began With Far-Left Ideology: Greenpeace Co-Founder (theepochtimes.com)

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Border Patrol’s apprehension numbers of illegal migrants broke records in July for the sixth consecutive month following Joe Biden’s taking office as president, with the numbers reaching an “historic crisis level.”

While the “sweltering” heat of June and July usually slows down illegal immigration at the southern US border, according to Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in June and July of 2021 border traffic actually increased. Bensman said:

“For the sixth consecutive month since President Joe Biden took office and followed through on campaign promises to dismantle his predecessor’s deterrence-based policies, the number of illegal immigrants encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection broke records, reaching 210,000 in July, the Associated Press reported Monday. The outlet cited a court filing by David Shahoulian, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Based on past trends, the vast majority of those encountered were likely illegal immigrants apprehended by the Border Patrol.”

Authorities encountered on average 6,770 individuals every single day of July, and many of these people were families and “unaccompanied alien minors.” Single adult “runners” were also driving the wave of immigration. Border Patrol is struggling to push these people back into Mexico over and over again, its resources “strained.” The CBP encountered 210,000 illegal aliens in July, and it is estimated that 37,000 migrants evaded Border Patrol altogether, a number which Bensman calls a “likely… significant undercount.”

While June’s apprehension number of 188,829 illegal migrants was the largest for one month in 21 years, July’s number of 210,000 exceeded that record. Overall, in this fiscal year, which ends September 30, CBP encounters reached the staggering number of 1.3 million. The last time border apprehension numbers hit the mark of a million was back in 2006.

In the border crisis “epicenter” of the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, the numbers of illegal migrants stopped by Border Patrol were 51,149 in May, 59,380 in June, and 78,000 in July.

“The July numbers, once finalized and released in the next couple of weeks, will show that the border crisis is going from record high to record high in an upward climb into a red-zone crisis that will defy any control, short of a radical about-face by the Biden administration. Few signs point to any such policy reversal, although the White House has tentatively begun long-haul deportations to Central America aboard ICE jets.

Border Patrol and CBP facilities, meanwhile, are overrun in the crisis’s Texas epicenter, as are hundreds of border communities that have rarely experienced anything like the steadily worsening chaos of wandering immigrants; high-speed car chases; crime; fear of Covid; and widespread insecurity.”

Bensman explained that promises by Democrat candidates for president in 2019 and 2020 to welcome illegal immigrants and institute policies highly favorable to those migrants caused migrants to begin massing in southern Mexico and even increase CBP apprehension numbers, despite then-President Trump’s “tough turn-back policies.” Individuals who had previously been “unable to advance through Trump’s border restrictions” saw a chance to be successful migrants. As polls pointed to a Biden win, migrants continued to cross in increasing numbers. Some of the migrants in Mexico told Bensman they were planning to “wait out” what they expected to be the last few months of Trump’s presidency.

Bensman calls this steadily growing surge of illegal immigration the “Biden effect,” and said that the border crisis was predicted by an October 2020 national threat assessment from the Department of Homeland Security. Biden’s exemption of “unaccompanied alien minors from pandemic-related ‘Title 42’ instant expulsions to Mexico” and effective ending of interior removals for all those migrants who had successfully evaded Border Patrol as soon as he took office made the crisis rapidly worse.

“The exempted family groups and unaccompanied alien minors have driven the crisis, because they have forced Border Patrol agents ‘off the line’ to deal with their care and processing. Agents processed a whopping 80,000 illegal family unit immigrants in July, Shahoulian said, a leap from June’s 55,805. Reports coming from the border in recent days indicate they have been showing up in individual groups of 500, and even 1,000.

U.S. officials probably picked up more than 19,000 unaccompanied children in July, exceeding the previous record of 18,877 in March.”

If the Biden administration continues its failed border policies, apprehension numbers are likely to continue in an upward trend.

Border Patrol Apprehension Numbers Point To Historic, Crisis Levels At American Border. – The National Pulse

Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir spoke directly to board

A former longtime Ben & Jerry’s employee said the company’s decision to boycott Israel was based on advice from a BDS activist who was expelled from Israel for spearheading economic pressure campaigns against the Jewish state.

Susannah Levin, who spent 21 years as a freelance graphic designer for Ben & Jerry’s before resigning last month over the company’s decision to halt its sales in the West Bank, said the company’s board consulted with Human Rights Watch’s Israel-Palestine director Omar Shakir, an advocate of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement who accused the Jewish state of “crimes against humanity.”

“Omar Shakir spoke directly to the board,” said Levin in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 radio on Tuesday. “He wrote the Human Rights Watch report, [which] is what they were basing their information on. It’s a report that accuses Israel of apartheid.”

“They believed him to be a valid source of information about Israel,” she added.

Ben & Jerry’s has come under scrutiny for its involvement with anti-Israel activists. The company recently hosted a conference call with anti-Zionist writer Peter Beinart, who has said he supports the destruction of the Jewish state, to address concerns about the boycott from its franchise owners, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Ben & Jerry’s declined to comment on Shakir’s alleged involvement with its board. Human Rights Watch did not respond to a request for comment.

Shakir was deported from Israel in 2019 due to his attempts to pressure various companies and international organizations, including FIFA, to join boycotts against homes and businesses in contested parts of Israel. He took credit for Airbnb’s decision to bar Israelis in the West Bank from renting their homes on the site in 2018. The rental service later backtracked in the face of legal challenges.

In April, Shakir authored a report for Human Rights Watch that accused Israel of committing “crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.”

The report’s conclusion was rejected by the Biden administration, which said it was “not the view of this administration that Israel’s actions constitute apartheid.” Israeli ambassador to the United States Gilad Erdan denounced the report as “lies and fabrications, bordering on anti-Semitic.”

Levin said she believed she had no choice but to resign after Ben & Jerry’s announced its boycott.

“I knew that my job was over. I knew I wasn’t going to work there if they were going to [boycott Israel],” said Levin. “I worked for this company for so long, and they were like family to me. To think they would really join up with people who hate Israel so much, it’s a terrible feeling.”

Former Ben and Jerry’s Employee Says Anti-Israel Activist Spoke to Board Ahead of Boycott Decision (freebeacon.com)

Minneapolis party chairman says ‘decorum’ is ‘hallmark of white supremacy’

The head of the Minneapolis Democratic Party defended his claim that the burning of a police building during the George Floyd riots last summer was an “act of pure righteousness.”

Devin Hogan, chair of the Minneapolis Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, argued in an August column for Southside Pride that the burning of the Third Precinct in Minneapolis during the riots last year was justified as a “genuine revolutionary moment.” Police fled the building in May 2020 as rioters broke in and set the building on fire.

In a statement issued on Monday, Hogan defended his comments as accurate and truthful.

“Fetishizing decorum over substance is a hallmark of white supremacy,” Hogan said. “If antiracism offends your sensibilities then please use this moment to examine the role you play in maintaining and upholding these systems. Which side are you on?”

The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, the state affiliate of the national Democratic Party, did not respond to a request for comment.

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey (D.) ordered police to flee the Third Precinct as an estimated 2,000 protesters gathered outside, some of whom turned violent and looted nearby buildings.

“Death to one of our officers or the general public, that was not a consequence I could have on my watch,” Frey told FOX 9.

Hogan, in his column, insisted that the riots were justified because the “cops started it.”

“They killed George Floyd and took every opportunity to escalate, agitate, and make things worse. The cops are rioting and the people are responding,” he wrote. “The people declared themselves ungovernable and unilaterally took their power back.”

Dem Official Says Burning Police Station Was ‘Act of Pure Righteousness’ (freebeacon.com)

• Ella French, 29, was fatally shot during a traffic stop Saturday 
• Her male colleague is ‘fighting for his very life,’ a police spokesman said
• The pair were fired upon after a vehicle carrying two men and a woman had been pulled over in the South Side of Chicago
• Two suspects have been arrested and a weapon seized; a third is on the run 
• The officer is the first to be shot and killed in the city since December 2018 
• All three suspects in the shooting have been taken into custody by CPD
• Ten people killed and 64 were wounded in Chicago gun violence this weekend
• Incidents included two mass shootings at two separate nightclubs 

Chicago police have arrested all three suspects in the fatal shooting of a female police officer during a traffic stop on the South Side as the nation’s third largest city grapples with yet another weekend of deadly gun violence.

Ella French, 29, was killed and her partner – who welcomed a daughter two months ago – was seriously wounded during the armed confrontation with three suspects.

French was one of 10 people killed and 64 wounded by gun violence throughout Chicagoland over the weekend. 

French’s death was the first fatal shooting of a Chicago officer in the line of duty since 2018 and the first female officer fatally shot on the job in 33 years. 

The two officers were fired upon after a vehicle carrying two men and a woman had been pulled over at 9pm, said Eric Carter, Chicago police first deputy superintendent, at a news conference early Sunday.

The officers returned fire, and one of the people in the vehicle was also wounded.

The wounded suspect was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, and their condition was unknown. 

All three suspects have been taken into custody, according to police.  Their names have not been released as of late Sunday.

Andrew French, Ella’s older brother, told the Chicago Tribune: ‘My sister’s always been a person of integrity. She’s always done the right thing even when nobody’s looking. 

‘She’s always believed in people and believed in doing the right thing. … She’s always believed in taking care of people that can’t take care of themselves.’ he said. 

‘We will never forget the true bravery she exemplified as she laid her life down to protect others,’ the department said of French on Facebook, adding that fellow officers will ‘grieve the loss of this hero.’

The department also requested support for French’s ‘wounded partner, who is in the hospital fighting for his life.’

At a Sunday news conference, Mayor Lori Lightfoot urged Chicagoans to end the acrimony between ardent police proponents who say officers are hampered by overly burdensome rules and staunch critics who say officers act with impunity.

‘Stop. Just stop,’ she said. ‘This constant strife is not what we need in this moment.’ 

‘The police are not our enemies,’ Lightfoot added at the news conference. 

‘We must come together… We have a common enemy: It’s the guns and the gangs.’ 

The shooting of the officers occurred on another violent summer weekend in the nation’s third largest city, with at least 64 people shot, 10 fatally, by afternoon Sunday, ABC7 in Chicago reported. According to the Chicago Tribune, 47 of those shootings took place in the 24 hours between Saturday night.

The bloody incidents included two mass shootings at two separate nightclubs, as well as a murder-suicide.  

One of the nightclub shootings saw seven struck by bullets – one man fatally – after an argument at a lounge in the city’s Gresham neighborhood.

That saw the 24 year-old gunman allegedly shoot a 37 year-old he’d been arguing with twice in the neck and three times in the back.

The 37 year-old was rushed to hospital and later pronounced dead. Meanwhile, the gunman was himself shot eight times, and remains critically-ill in hospital. 

Five others injured in that shooting, aged between 23 and 56, were taken to hospital and are expected to survive their wounds. 

The other nightclub shooting saw two bouncers aged 42 and 40 shot multiple times after denying someone entry to another Gresham nightclub. Three other men standing near the club door were also shot.  

Dozens of officers arrived outside the University of Chicago Medical Center to pay their respects to French and her injured colleague amid the ongoing explosion of gun violence in the city.

She had joined the force in 2018 and was a member of the community safety team, a citywide unit formed last summer under police Superintendent David Brown to respond to crime hotspots. 

The other officer was ‘fighting for his very life,’ Carter said.

He asked Chicagoans to pray for officers as they risk their lives daily.

‘They go out here and do their jobs thanklessly,’ he said. 

‘They do it without asking for anything. They do it because it’s something that’s a higher calling for them. And they do it because it’s the right thing to do.’  

Mayor Lori Lightfoot, speaking outside the hospital, said: ‘The officer who succumbed to her injuries was very young on the job, but incredibly enthusiastic to do the work.’  

Lightfoot encouraged people to never forget the sacrifices officers make.

‘This is a very tragic and sad day for our city, and pray for officers the men and women of this department,’ the mayor said. 

‘They deserve our prayers every single day that they can return home safely to their families, unfortunately that didn’t happen tonight.’ 

French was the first member of Chicago police department to be shot and killed in the line of duty since Lightfoot became mayor in 2019. 

Last year, the deaths of four other Chicago officers who succumbed to COVID-19 were also considered by the police department to be in the line of duty. 

The last line-of-duty deaths of Chicago officers who were killed while pursuing a suspect were in December 2018, when Officers Eduardo Marmolejo and Conrad Gary were fatally struck by a train as they looked for a suspect wanted for illegally possessing a gun. 

That suspect, Edward Brown, was sentenced this past April to a year in prison for a felony weapon violation in the case. 

November 2018 saw the last fatal shooting of a Chicago officer, Samuel Jimenez, 28.

In February 2018 Commander Paul Bauer, 53, was shot and killed, while arresting a suspect.

He had served with the Chicago Police Department for 32 years and served as commander of the 018th District. 

The last female officer shot to death in the line of duty was Irma Ruiz, who was shot inside an elementary school in 1988. 

Data from July showed murders in the city were nearly the same as the number reported last year, but shootings increased by 15 per cent and the number of people shot in the city rose by nearly 10 per cent year-over-year.

Those statistics, released by the Chicago Police Department, show that there were 105 homicides recorded in the month of July. 

That is down slightly from last summer, when 107 people were killed in July, but up significantly over 2019, when 44 murders were recorded – representing a 139 per cent increase in monthly homicides within the last two years.

Police say that 445 homicides have been recorded so far in 2021, compared to 446 during the first seven months of 2020. 

Once again, both numbers are significantly higher than those recorded in 2019, when 290 people were killed in the first seven months of the year, representing a 53.4 per cent increase. 

Nationwide, between January and July 24 2021, there has been 25,216 gun-related deaths including homicides, murders, suicides, unintentional shootings, and defensive gun use incidents. 

On average, this means 123 people have died across the country every single day in 2021. 

If the trend continues, almost 45,000 people will lose their lives to gun violence by the end of the year.

This figure dwarfs the 43,563 shooting deaths recorded in 2020 – which had been the deadliest year for shooting incidents in at least two decades.

Female Chicago police officer, 29, becomes the first cop shot and killed in the city since 2018 | Daily Mail Online

A fourth police officer who was present at the grounds of the Capitol building when it was breached on Jan. 6 has died by suicide, according to the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia (MPD).

Metropolitan Police Officer Kyle DeFreytag, 26, was found dead on July 10 from suicide, an MPD spokeswoman told The Epoch Times via email.

DeFreytag was assigned to the Fifth District and had been with the police department since November 2016.

MPD Chief Robert J. Contee III had sent a message to the police force last month to notify them of DeFreytag’s death.

“I am writing to share tragic news that Officer Kyle DeFreytag of the 5th District was found deceased last evening,” Contee told the department in July, according to WUSA. “This is incredibly hard news for us all, and for those that knew him best.”

DeFreytag lived in Alexandria, Virginia, and was originally from Pennsylvania, according to an obituary posted by the Bensing-Thomas Funeral Home. A memorial service was held in his memory on July 31.

“He liked hiking, camping, riding his motorcycle, he liked traveling and playing the drums, he enjoyed trying different ethnic foods and always knew the best places to eat. Kyle was kind, he had a quick wit and a great sense of humor and kept us laughing for 26 years,” according to the obituary.

DeFreytag is survived by his parents, his brother, and his sister.

The confirmation from the MPD of DeFreytag’s suicide came just hours after 43-year-old Gunther Hashida was confirmed to have died by suicide.

According to a GoFundMe fundraising page, Hashida is survived by his wife and three children. The page didn’t specify the cause of his death or what may have driven him to end his life.

DeFreytag’s death brings the number of police officers who were present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 who reportedly died by suicide to four.

The other two cases said to be due to suicide are that of MPD Officer Jeffrey Smith and Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood.

Read MoreTimeline of Events in DC on Jan. 6

Lawmakers gathered at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 for a joint session of Congress to count and certify electoral votes for the 2020 presidential election. Proceedings in the chambers were temporarily interrupted when a sizable group of protesters entered the Capitol building. Thousands of protesters, mostly peaceful, remained outside.

It remains unclear who or what groups may have instigated the breach of the Capitol building.

A total of five deaths were recorded in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 incident.

Of the deaths, Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was determined to have died from homicide on Jan. 6, having been shot and killed by an unnamed officer.

Another three people died on Jan. 6 outside the Capitol building but on Capitol grounds. Two of the deaths were found to be from natural causes—both were men in their 50s who died of hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The remaining death, involving a woman in her 30s, was ruled as an accident from a drug overdose.

Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was determined to have died of natural causes on Jan. 7.

More than 100 police officers were reportedly injured in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 incident.

The events of the day culminated in a second impeachment trial for then-President Donald Trump, who was ultimately acquitted of an insurrection incitement charge in February.

More than 500 people have been arrested and charged in cases related to the events on Jan. 6 at the Capitol. Among them, more than 50 are being held pretrial in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, in conditions that are “unconstitutional” and violate “every single basic human right,” lawyers representing several of the defendants told EpochTV last month.

Four police officers on July 27 recounted to a House of Representatives special committee that they were beaten and threatened amid clashes with the protesters on Jan. 6.

4th Police Officer Who Was at Jan. 6 Capitol Breach Dies by Suicide (theepochtimes.com)

She unveiled the black ops military force on the Capitol steps today as she gave an impassioned speech about defunding the police.

“If you don’t want to defund the police, my private army has been ordered to take care of you,” she said, standing in front of dozens of hardened, trained private special forces. “Butch, Spike, Zero, Aces, Skull—go get ’em!” 

The private military she’d hired with her healthy congressional salary then went out to find anyone who didn’t like Bush’s idea of defunding the police to apprehend them. Many tried to call the police to protect themselves, but their cities had already defunded the police, and nobody responded, or else a social worker showed up to ask about their feelings.

Bush has arrested thousands of Americans so far. Prisons are filling up quickly, but no worries: Bush says she is holding a protest to make sure violent criminals are released as soon as possible to make room for pro-police Americans.

Cori Bush Hires Mercenary Army To Arrest Anyone Who Doesn’t Want To Defund The Police | The Babylon Bee

Almost two years ago I published an article on the Gab News blog about Silicon Valley building a social credit system for the West. Exactly one year later I experienced this social credit system personally when my business and family were blacklisted by Visa after also being banned by Paypal, Stripe, Coinbase, and many other payment processors.

Around this time I wrote a warning letter to Christians about what was happening to me and what would soon be happening, and is now happening, to many more people like me. Earlier this year I wrote about the Silent Christian Secession and the need to build our own economy to escape the pending tyranny of the global elite.

In April I wrote that the vaccine was becoming a religious ceremony–cultish even– and that Christians had an absolute right to reject it. That same month I defended the right of everyone to speak freely on Gab and openly discuss, question, and criticize the vaccines in the face of a censorship crackdown on dissent from Big Tech.

God has blessed me with tremendous foresight and discernment about the Enemy’s next move. It’s why I started Gab in 2016 long before censorship became the center of cultural and political debate that it is today. It’s why I wrote these many warnings to Christians and freedom lovers everywhere about what was happening to me because I knew that it would soon be happening to all of you too.

I don’t take this blessing lightly. These things weigh on my heart heavily as a husband and father of two young children. Everyday I hear stories from Gabbers about how they are being forced and coerced into taking the vaccine when they do not want to.

I am praying that God gives them the peace and discernment they need right now. It sickens me that the Enemy is making my brothers and sisters in Christ choose between feeding their families and retaining their bodily autonomy and being true to their deeply held religious beliefs.

This week we published several religious exemption document templates for people who need them and the response was unbelievable. Many people sent emails, Gab comments, and direct messages thanking us for publishing these and I pray to God that they helped even one person facing an impossible decision to make the right one.

The people in power don’t care about Covid. They don’t care about the vaccines. They care about control. This entire situation is one giant demoralization campaign designed to grind us all down spiritually, emotionally, physically, and financially. If they can get us all to submit once, they can get us all to submit fully and forever.

We can’t let that happen. Do not let them get in your head with the fear mongering, the lies, and the shapeshifting narratives. They are exposing themselves like never before in human history and we are living through a period of immense spiritual warfare.

We must remember that we are human beings, made in the image of God. We always have choices. We always have hope. Darkness cannot and never will consume the light of Christ.

Do not look to political leaders for help. There is no political solution to a spiritual problem. Look to Jesus Christ. Open your Bible. Pray. Put on the full armor of God and get to work building something new. They have left us no choice. We can and must rebuild from scratch and it starts in your own heart and in your own local community.

God bless you all,

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King

I Tried My Best To Warn You This Was Going To Happen – Gab News

When Gab was banned from several banks earlier this year it inspired us to get right to work building our own free speech-friendly financial infrastructure. The age of financial censorship has long been coming and Gab was the canary in the coal mine on this issue over three years ago. When the financial censors came for us, few stood up to defend us. We were told to “go build our own” if we didn’t like it, so that’s exactly what we have been doing.

Facing financial censorship is nothing new for Gab.

Gab has been banned from Paypal since 2018 along with many other payment processors including Stripe, Square, Coinbase, and more.

We are even banned from accepting Visa and Mastercard despite operating a fully legal American business that sells software services and merchandise like hats, mugs, and shirts as our business model.

Gab literally cannot accept credit or debit card transactions to sell you a hat on the internet. Thankfully we had options: checks and bitcoin. New and old technology coming together to defeat financial censorship. It’s not perfect, but it works and we are about to take it to the next level.

If you’re reading this it’s inevitable that one day all of these things can and will happen to you too, which is why we have been working so hard to build a solution for everyone.

As I’ve been writing about for a while now: we need to build an alternative economy. In wake of this vaccine mandate madness that fact has never been more clear. Our human rights are being ripped from us and I’m not going to stand by and watch it happen.

Businesses, venues, sports teams, employers, and even our own federal government are all moving towards forcing people to choose between living and working in the existing economic system or being cast out for refusing to inject an experimental substance into their bodies.

Choosing between feeding your family and retaining your bodily autonomy while remaining true to your religious convictions shouldn’t be a choice any human being has to make. It’s evil, it’s wrong, and you should be speaking boldly against it.

If they want us out of their system, then so be it: we will build our own. Now is the time to stand up tall and walk away from this chaos. With our dignity and self-respect in hand we will work together to forge a new path forward that secures a future of freedom for our children.

At Gab we are making great progress on GabPay, our Paypal alternative, as one of our many initiatives in the fight against the tyranny of the global elites.

At the moment we are jumping through a lot of legal and regulatory hoops, but things are moving quickly. Building your own Paypal is not as simple as “build the software and ship it.” The software side for GabPay is actually done already and works great. It’s the red tape that takes time.

An alternative to Paypal has never been more important now that the ADL will be combing through your financial transactions and ruining people’s lives for financially supporting people and organizations they don’t like.

I’m actually really glad that Gab has been banned from Paypal for years, because it protects all of our customers from the prying eyes of the demons at the ADL. As always, God had a plan and getting banned only led us to build GabPay.

We are waiting on the lawyers to do their thing and aiming for a launch by end of the year, but I just want you all to know that something is actually being done about this madness.

Everyone loves to whine and complain about Big Tech censorship, and politicians–including President Trump— love to raise money on the issue, yet no political or legal “solutions” ever result in any concrete change or substantive action.

At Gab we are builders. We don’t sit around and whine about problems, we actively build solutions to those problems. Gab is the only community with a proven track record of not bending the knee to groups like the ADL and we’ve paid the price dearly for it by getting banned from every app store, payment processor, and even banks because of it. Despite it all we continue to survive and thrive by the grace of God and thanks to the support of people like you.

If you want to help fund our efforts in building GabPay you can upgrade to GabPRO for 15 bucks a month or make a purchase/donation on the Gab Shop. We have been testing out an early version of GabPay on our PRO upgrade system and Shop, so you can take an early look at it there if you decide to make a purchase. 

Thank you for your continued support and prayers! Keep the faith. I know many of you are scared, tired, anxious, stressed, and uncertain about our future. I believe that God is using this time to draw us closer to Him and to reveal the wicked underbelly of the global elite for all of us to see. Ultimately He is in control and that brings me tremendous peace. I pray it does for you as well.

God bless,

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King

An Alternative To Paypal Is Coming – Gab News

This evening I received an email (shared below) from Davey Alba at the New York Times. Davey explained that “researchers” from two organizations with direct connections to and funding from Facebook were defaming both myself personally and Gab as a whole for spreading “misinformation.”

I’ll get into the baseless and defamatory claims, but first I’d like you to tell you a little more about these two organizations.

Stanford Internet Observatory is led by Alex Stamos who is the former Chief Security Officer for Facebook. The CTO of Stanford Internet Observatory, David Thiel, also worked at Facebook before starting at SIO. Stanford itself is of course widely known as the Ivy League snob school that the “best and brightest” in Silicon Valley all attended and have deep connections to.

The second organization is Graphika. Graphika is a Facebook-funded “research” group whose executive leadership team includes Camille Francois, a woman worked at Google’s infamous censorship technology incubator “Jigsaw,” and Lauren Pencek who previously worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) among others.

The New York Times own reporting confirms that Graphika receives its funding from Facebook and Facebook is also listed as one of Graphika’s top clients right on the front page of their website. Aside from Facebook, Graphika also partners with DARPA, a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense, along with Google, TikTok, and Pinterest.

Gab will never work with organizations like these and will never subject our community members to the slimy eyeballs of people who wish to “research” them. In fact we have spent years and a considerable amount of our engineering resources to stop these type of “reeeesearchers” from treating our community like lab rats.

Perhaps that’s another reason why Graphika has spent almost an entire year attacking Gab, but I suspect it has more to do with their deep connections to our competitors.

Let’s dive into the email from the New York Times, shall we?

Hi Andrew,
I’m a reporter from The New York Times, where we are writing about some viral posts about the coronavirus that have gained traction online in the past few weeks. I wanted to get your comment on a post by you that the Virality Project — a consortium of research groups focused on misinformation, including the Stanford Internet Observatory and Graphika, among others — identified as misinformation.
You can find their assertions here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60025974f9f7920e6b40885b/t/61097813bdc29713648c24bf/1628010515835/Virality+Project+-+0803+Weekly+Briefing+.pdf

I’ve also screenshotted the relevant portion in the document:

Would you have a response to this being labeled as misinformation by this group of researchers?
Hope to hear from you as soon as possible — my deadline is on Monday, Aug. 9, at 12nn ET.
Feel free to call me at XXX-XXX-XXX if you have any questions about our story.
Best,Davey

My response to Davey is as follows:

The news that Lloyd Austin intends to make vaccinations mandatory in the military is two days old: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sec-of-defense-austin-to-announce-mandatory-vaccine-policy-for-all-active-duty-military

Furthermore, Pfizer and Moderna tested their vaccines on fetal cell lines and J&J used fetal cell lines in vaccination development. https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/you-asked-we-answered-do-the-covid-19-vaccines-contain-aborted-fetal-cells

I’m telling the truth. Your Facebook-funded “fact checkers” like Graphika are wrong and are the people peddling disinformation here. My response to them is that they can get bent. I’m reminding tens of millions of people that they have religious liberty and God-given human rights in this country. Deal with it. Jesus is King. 

Andrew Torba

I spent all week posting the many dozens of direct messages that I have been receiving on Gab from Military service members and their families who shared their personal stories and experiences with me. I also posted similar stories from those working in healthcare and other various industries.

People are scared, but not of Covid. They are scared of being forced to choose between violating their religious beliefs and giving up control of their own bodily autonomy or losing their livelihood. It’s a position that no human being, let alone a citizen of the United States of America, should have to be in. I choose to share their stories because no one else is.

I then drafted a blog post about my experience reading and sharing these heartbreaking stories and reminded millions of people that in the United States of America we have God-given human rights, including religious liberty. I did this by providing a set of religious exemption templates for Christians to use in the Military and in their workplace.

The post went wildly viral on Gab, Facebook, and Twitter. I also emailed it to millions of people, because people deserve to know that they always have options and the dignity of bodily autonomy and religious liberty.

For doing this both Gab and myself are being defamed for spreading “misinformation,” a totally subjective and ambiguous term that can mean anything the tyrants in power want it to mean.

Ultimately what we are seeing here is an anti-Christian, anti-competitive attack on Gab by organizations who partner with, are funded by, and are staffed by people who worked for our direct competitors.

I am sharing this all with you now to let you know how these wicked people operate and to shine a light on their lies, deception, and anti-Christian attacks. They aren’t just attacking me, they are attacking any and all dissent and opposition to their libido dominandi (lust for power.)

I’m also beating the New York Times to print by emailing this information to millions of people over the weekend. This is how you beat these people at their own game. The time to stand up and speak the truth boldly is now.

God bless you and thank you for reading.

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King
August 6th, 2021

Facebook-Funded “Researchers” and the New York Times Team Up to Attack Gab – Gab News

As the storming of the Capitol building on January 6th was still unfolding a despicable gremlin of a woman at The New York Times, Sheera Frenkel, was already crafting a totally baseless lie along with her demonic friends at the ADL and Facebook’s COO Sheryl Sandberg about the event being “planned” on both Gab and Parler.

“We need to ascertain right here, right now, whether this specific platform was knowingly facilitating an attack on our nation’s capital, literally a terror act against the seat of our government,” said the ADL’s Greenblatt, who noted that other platforms should also be investigated over the insurrection attempt but he says special attention needs to be trained on Gab.

Source

The ADL also went as far as demanding the DOJ investigate both myself individually and Gab as a whole for “intentionally aided or abetted individuals who carried out the January 6 attack on the nation’s Capitol.”

Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of the largest social network on the internet that happens to have a specific feature for organizing and planning events, also deflected the blame on Gab and Parler. “Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has sought to deflect blame, noting the role of smaller, right-leaning services such as Parler and Gab.”

It has been widely reported, even by mainstream media outlets, that if the event was planned and organized anywhere it was most certainly done on her platform, Facebook.

Today the FBI is exposing the mountain of lies built up by Frenkel, Greenblatt, and Sandberg (I can’t help noticing a trend here!)

The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”

Source

The defamatory lies of the New York Times, the ADL, and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg had dire consequences for Parler, which was immediately removed from App Stores and hosting providers and has never fully recovered despite caving to Apple’s demands for censorship.

These defamatory lies also impacted Gab’s public image. The lie is still featured prominently on Gab’s Wikipedia page and is falsely cited by other reporters in stories about Gab to this day.

We demand a full and immediate retraction of this story by the New York Times and thank God for shining the light of truth on this fake news story.

Andrew Torba
CEO, Gab.com
Jesus is King

NYT Editorial Team,

Gab AI Inc. hereby demands retraction of the false and defamatory reporting published by the New York Times’ Sheera Frenkel on January 6th, 2021 claiming without providing any evidence whatsoever that the storming of the Capitol was organized on our platform.

Today it has been reported that the FBI found scant evidence that the event was organized at all, let alone on Gab.

Gab is not a lawless platform and proactively cultivates good working relationships with U.S. and international law enforcement. If we were made aware of an illegal plot taking place on our hardware, we would have removed it. This stands in sharp contrast to platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which for years have harbored international terrorist organizations like the Taliban – something your paper has never reported on or taken to task to the extent you took us to task for content which appeared on our platform in the aftermath of Jan. 6th and other offensive but legal content that has appeared on our platform from time to time.

We quote from Reuters: “The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.”

In light of this reporting vindicating Gab’s innocence in this matter, we are demanding a full retraction of the defamatory reporting published by The New York Times. Ms. Frenkel’s piece, which alleged that “[t]he storming of Capitol Hill was organized on social media” and made extensive reference to posts on Gab that discussed the event (as indeed most of the Internet did on that day) without providing any evidence that the event was in fact organized by those same commenters, was presented as fact, not opinion.

This statement of fact was not only false, it was recklessly and maliciously false. FBI officials’ own statements on the matter, reported today, prove it was false.

Our rights in this matter are fully and expressly reserved. Please be guided accordingly.

Gab Legal

The New York Times and ADL Lies Exposed By The FBI – Gab News

In February, California resident Sherry Zhang received a call from her parents back in China, who told her a group of officers from the Ministry of State Security, the regime’s top intelligence agency, had shown up at their workplace.

The couple, in their late 70s, runs a factory in southern China’s Guangdong province.

“Are you the principal of this school?” Zhang’s parents asked her on the phone. “Is this true?”

They messaged Zhang a copy of a webpage, which included her photo and a short bio, Zhang told The Epoch Times in a phone interview. She immediately recognized the page—it’s from the official site of the San Francisco High School of the Arts, where she has been principal since 2015.

“I know my parents never go online; they’re old-fashioned,” Zhang said. She believes the officers gave her parents the copy.

According to Zhang, the officers told the elderly couple that Zhang is the head of a school that is “against China.” They then accused the parents of funneling money from their factory to the school, she said.

The officers then issued a veiled threat: if they uncover any proof of this, the factory would be shut down and Zhang’s parents would be jailed, Zhang said.

For the elderly couple, all of this came as a rude shock because Zhang had never told them anything about her profession or where she worked.

This is because Zhang is a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual meditative practice persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999. Millions of practitioners who refuse to give up their faith have been arrested, detained, or tortured in China. For practitioners based overseas but who have family inside China, the regime has threatened their relatives in a bid to pressure the relatives living outside of China into staying silent about Beijing’s human rights abuses.

Since the start of the persecution, Zhang, a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country for almost two decades, has joined protests in the United States calling for an end to the atrocities in China. She has friends whose relatives from her hometown in China were persecuted to death. “I know it’s real,” she said. “I think we should speak out.”

“Falun Gong is my personal belief,” Zhang said, adding that San Francisco High School of the Arts is a non-religious private school with faculty staff from diverse religious backgrounds.

The school focuses on teaching tradition, universal values, and a sense of civic duty, according to its website. Its arts curriculum includes ballet, Chinese dance, classical instruments and vocal music, visual arts, and musical theatre.

Zhang had not revealed details of her activities to her parents these past years. “I never wanted them to worry,” she said.

The Epoch Times is withholding details relating to Zhang’s parents and their business for safety reasons.

‘They Target Almost Anyone’

For the months following the call in February, officials would show up to “inspect” her parents’ factory every other day, according to Zhang.

“It’s never been seen that so many departments all come at once, and every time they come they have like 7 or 8 people,” Zhang said, adding that officials from tax, labor, customs, and health agencies were all involved. “The employees feel pressured. They cannot operate normally.”

One employee got ahold of Zhang’s number and called her several times. They asked her to back out from her position at the school so the factory can be “free of trouble.”

“I think [the Ministry of State Security] was trying to get their words to me,” Zhang said. “They just want to make things happen, so that I could do things according to their wish.”

Experiencing regular harassment from officials, Zhang’s parents now believe they have only two options left: get Zhang to resign from the school, or cut off all ties with their own daughter, the principal said.

“If you guys feel too much pressure, you can say we are not connected anymore,” Zhang told her parents in a phone conversation. “I don’t want to be your burden.”

This is not the first time Zhang’s parents have been pressured by local authorities.

Chinese police have harassed her parents since as early as 2001, according to Zhang. In one case, the police called her mother to meet at a restaurant. When she got there, the police told her to get Zhang to stop practicing Falun Gong. “My mom felt very disturbed,” she said.

Zhang’s parents were never against her practicing Falun Gong, but they were afraid of the officials, she said. “They don’t feel like they can do a whole lot.”

Recently, communications from Zhang’s parents have dried up. The last time they called was more than two weeks ago. They mentioned the police “keep saying they found more evidence.”

Zhang is unsure what is actually going on back home right now. “My parents try to not tell me much anymore,” she said.

Having not heard from her parents, Zhang doesn’t know what will happen next.

“[The Chinese regime] don’t just target Falun Gong practitioners. I think they’re trying to control overseas Chinese because they have their roots in China: their parents, relatives, friends,” Zhang said. “They target almost anyone they view as not in line with their [communist] doctrine.”

Speaking Out

Zhang has lived in the United States since 1992. She completed a doctorate in chemistry before doing post-doctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley researching lithium-ion batteries. After a few years of industry work, she got together with a group of like-minded parents who were dissatisfied with the U.S. public school system, and in 2010 co-founded San Francisco High School of the Arts.

“We think that a school teaching traditional arts and universal values is very important,” Zhang said. “Respect, empathy, honesty, kindness, tolerance, and responsibility.”

“When you go into a lot of schools, especially high schools, you can see the children are not necessarily motivated,” Zhang said. “I was told by many parents there’s not a single high school in San Francisco that doesn’t have drug issues.”

Many parents who come to her are concerned their children lack traditional values and work ethics, she said. “They want their children to be positive contributing members of society.”

Zhang described a typical day of work as “busy but enjoyable.” She holds weekly assemblies with students on topics like the dangers of drug addiction. Zhang’s students are like her own children, she said.

Students would tell Zhang stories of their previous schools. “They [felt] like they cannot speak what’s on their mind, otherwise they cannot fit in,” she said. “Only the loud people got their voices heard.”

Exposing the Chinese regime’s egregious abuses of power is her way of practicing what she teaches to her students, Zhang said.

“Every note [the students] play, every dance movement they make; we keep on encouraging them to work hard, and they will persevere; we teach them that goodness will prevail,” she said. “I would have to stick to the same thing.”

Zhang cautioned that the Chinese regime is infiltrating every corner of the international community. “They try to control everything, control a lot of media, a lot of schools,” she said.

“We’re teaching the traditional values here … that’s not what they [the Chinese regime] want to see.”

Zhang said that the Chinese regime tries to influence Americans through the Confucius Institutes and Classrooms, Beijing-funded language centers found in colleges and K-12 institutions that have been criticized for promoting Chinese Communist Party propaganda and suppressing academic discussion and freedom on topics the regime doesn’t want to be discussed.

“They want the next generation to be an easier target and to really infiltrate what’s easy to infiltrate—the children.”

Chinese Authorities Harass Parents of California School Principal in Intimidation Attempt (theepochtimes.com)

Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick – who played a critical role in shaping the Vatican’s controversial relationship with the Chinese Communist Party – has repeatedly headlined events sponsored by CEFC China Energy, a Chinese government-led influence group that has counted Hunter Biden as its Managing Director, The National Pulse can reveal.

The former Cardinal, who was defrocked due to sexual abuse, spoke at several events hosted by the group, with excerpts of his remarks earning publication in CEFC China Energy’s journal, “China Eye.” McCarrick has asserted commonalities exist between Communist and Catholic doctrine along with drawing positive parallels between Xi Jinping and the Pope.

McCarrick also served as an envoy for negotiations between the Chinese Communist Party and the Vatican over establishing formal ties, with many criticizing the final deal as a “slap in the face” to China’s Catholics. The establishment of formal relations between the two entities follow McCarrick’s robust involvement with CEFC China Energy.

CEFC’s Deputy Chairman and Secretary-General is Dr. Patrick Ho, dubbed “the f**king spy chief of China” in exclusive audio released by The National Pulse from Hunter Biden’s “Hard Drive from Hell.”

Ho appears multiple times in the e-mails as the pair inked million-dollar contracts, earning Hunter Biden the position of “Managing Director” at CEFC by 2018. The Chinese Communist Party operative was later indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for “schemes to bribe top officials for business advantages,” and used the committee “to conceal his criminal schemes, according to the Department of Justice.

McCarrick spoke at several CEFC events including the New York Forum on World Civilizations in 2012 and Sino-US Colloquium on Core Values and World Order in 2013.

A 2014 edition of CEFC’s “China Eye” Journal contains an excerpt from McCarrick’s speech from 2013. “It is a special pleasure to be back with the China Energy Fund,” he began his speech before praising the “brilliant” Patrick Ho. “I do not have the brilliance or the learning to match Patrick, but I’m just going to take out a couple of things that I think would be important and perhaps stimulating as we begin our discussion today,” he added.

EXC: Ex-Cardinal Negotiating Vatican-China Deals Attended Hunter Biden-Led Communist Party Influence Events, Deleted Webpages Reveal. (thenationalpulse.com)

‘It was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen’ if Biden bucked military advice, Senate minority leader says

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said President Biden directly ignored the advice of military leaders during briefings on the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

“I was in a number of these briefings over the last couple months, it was pretty obvious to me what was going to happen,” McConnell said Monday. “I know for a fact that the president’s military leaders argued against this decision. I think the president himself felt strongly about this and overruled his own military leaders to do it, and he owns it.”

McConnell slammed the Biden administration for its incompetent withdrawal of thousands of Americans and Afghans. Footage emerged Monday of havoc at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, that caused civilian casualties.

“Honestly, this administration looks to me like it couldn’t organize a two-car funeral,” McConnell said. “It is a sad day for the United States of America.”

President Biden responded Monday to critics of his withdrawal, saying he stands by his decision.

“We will continue to support the Afghan people,” Biden said. “The way to do it is not through endless military deployments, but diplomacy.”

McConnell: Biden Ignored Military’s Advice on Afghanistan (freebeacon.com)

The restraint crowd delivers America’s humiliation in Afghanistan

When the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft was founded in 2019, the mainstream media celebrated its emergence as a beacon of hope for a more restrained American foreign policy. Two years later, the humiliating failure wrought by the toxic mix of isolationism and anti-Americanism at the heart of the Quincy Institute is on full display.

Charles Koch, once pilloried for his conservative politics, was celebrated for a collaboration with George Soros that aimed to “bring an end to America’s age of endless wars and to reduce the nation’s military footprint around the world.”

While the left and right alike remain allergic to bipartisanship, the so-called transpartisanship of the Quincy Institute’s retrenchment remains very much in fashion in Washington. It can now claim full credit for the foreign policy debacle in Afghanistan.

The institution itself—and the White House—agrees. The Quincy Institute trumpeted its “success” in a Monday night email. “We knew that if we could bring the forces against endless war on the Left and the Right together, we could achieve the impossible,” the Quincy Institute wrote to supporters. White House chief of staff Ron Klain, for his part, retweeted the top Koch aide William Ruger’s wet kiss to Biden: In Ruger’s view, the president is “showing the requisite realist spine America needs at the moment.” Congratulations!

Quincy cheered President Joe Biden’s announcement in April that the United States would leave Afghanistan, sneering that that “the military high command’s never-ending urge to stick with a failed war was complemented by the inside-the-Beltway Blob’s doomsday scenarios and tired nostrums.”

The Soros network may have been pushing on an open door with Democrats, but Charles Koch gets the credit for doing the heavy lifting to provide intellectual cover for isolationists on the right.

That’s in part why President Donald Trump nominated Ruger, to serve as ambassador to Afghanistan in the last days of that administration. We opposed that nomination, but we now regret he wasn’t there this week to see the fruits of his labor.

This precipitous and calamitous withdrawal had “transpartisan” advocates. But the slogans, the white papers, the research and reports, and the veneer of professionalism and academic rigor used to justify the reckless policy came largely from Koch, Soros, and their army of “restrainers.”

A recent article from the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft blog posed a question that gets to the core of its naïve worldview:

What would our world actually be like if you simply declared peace and came home?

Now they know the answer. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft has brought us the single most irresponsible bit of American statecraft in 50 years. This travesty—and all the death and destruction that will flow from it—is their first great achievement. Let’s hope it is also their last.

Responsible Statecraft Gets Its Moment (freebeacon.com)

Another widely peddled media hoax has been shot to pieces as Reuters reveals that the FBI has “scant evidence” of any plot or forward planning to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6th.

The news confirms The National Pulse’s reporting from January 11th, and raises questions about the government’s power grab and abuse of authority using January 6th as pretext.

Reuters reported Friday morning:

The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”

The report also vindicates President Trump and his team, and clarifies that there is “no evidence that the groups had serious plans,” to overthrow the U.S. government or commit anything like an actual “insurrection.”

The news blows apart the media’s narrative over the past eight months, and should refocus attention on the fact that Speaker Nancy Pelosi and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser refused support in advance of the peaceful Trump rally at the White House earlier that day.

President Trump is known to have cleared the way for 10,000 National Guard troops, in advance of the event, in order to keep the peace.

The FBI, meanwhile, has been targeting peaceful U.S. protesters who did not breach the Capitol on January 6th, including Alaska spa owners Paul and Marilyn Hueper. Many of those arrested in the wake of the riot are being held in D.C. prison without access to edible food, and sometime in solitary confinement.

The National Pulse declared the January 6th hoax dead in March of this year, after exhaustive investigations.

FBI “Finds Scant Evidence” of Jan 6 Insurrection Plot, Killing Off Another Anti-Trump Media Hoax. – The National Pulse

Obama’s super-spreader birthday bash may have ruined the fall party scene in our nation’s capital

Regular Americans love to complain about how the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively affected their lives. The plebs throw temper tantrums when members of the political élite flaunt their privilege by throwing massive parties and ignoring the rules they put in place for everyone else.

Regular Americans, who as we all know are to blame for ruining democracy and botching the Afghanistan withdrawal, should try to take a deep breath and put their so-called suffering in perspective. They shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the political élite are also suffering, and élite suffering is, for obvious reasons, even more tragic than regular suffering.

Politico reports that members of the Washington, D.C., élite are the victims of a grave injustice perpetrated by one of their own. Former president Barack Obama’s 60th birthday party in Martha’s Vineyard earlier this month was a confirmed super-spreader event. The “Obama variant” has wreaked havoc on the island’s only hospital system.

Thanks, Obama. His insatiable narcissism may have ruined the fall party scene in our nation’s capital. Democratic power players, shocked at the (relatively) critical tone of the media coverage surrounding the Martha’s Vineyard affair, are worried they might have to wait a few months before it’s socially acceptable to hang out with celebrities again:

The bashing of the bash is having a chilling effect on the D.C. party scene as (especially Democratic) pols and their staffers scramble to figure out when and where — or even if — they can party again.

“Who wants to throw a party right now when Obama hired a doctor to make sure everyone’s vaccinated and passes a Covid test and he still gets shamed for it?” said JOHN ARUNDEL, former associate publisher of Washington Life magazine and managing director of Perdicus Communications.

“I just think there’s a stigma to throwing any kind of event,” he added. “The optics of throwing the party or being at the party, it can be chilling.”

The results have been almost as tragic as the chaos unfolding at the Kabul airport. Democratic lobbyist Heather Podesta, for example, was planning to host a lavish gala in September at the French ambassador’s residence. She was forced to reschedule the event for November.

“What we could do six weeks ago, we can’t do now,” lamented Adrienne Elrod, a former Hillary Clinton adviser. “We have to be so cognizant because Republicans are looking for any reason to call us hypocrites or to call us liars.”

All is not lost, however, as a number of swanky gatherings are still on track. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.) will be honored at the March on Washington Film Festival on Sept. 30; hundreds are expected to attend. The Halycon Awards, a fundraising gala for a prominent liberal nonprofit organization, is scheduled for the following day.

A number of Democrats are refusing to let Obama’s bad vibes prevent them from raising money from left-wing billionaires. Kathy Hochul, who is (at least in theory) set to replace disgraced governor Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.), attended a series of high-dollar fundraisers in the Hamptons this weekend.

Journalists and lobbyists, meanwhile, are suffering an almost unfathomable hardship:

Some lobbyists are panicked about shrinking guest lists at fundraisers, especially with the infrastructure and reconciliation bills on the table. Fundraisers are prime opportunities to corner a member and press their interests.

Journalists might suffer too, with the Washington book party circuit in limbo. Lobbyist and D.C. hostess JULEANNA GLOVER was slated to have a book party at her Kalorama home in September for GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON’s new tome, but she’s going to make the call the week before on whether to have the party based on the CDC’s guidance.

Perspective: Stop Whining, Plebs, the DC Élite Are Also Suffering (freebeacon.com)

Gov exploits loophole to raise millions from outside Michigan for non-existent recall election

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (D.) condemned “out-of-state interests” for “pouring millions of dollars” into her state. That apparently doesn’t apply to her own campaign coffers, which prominent national Democrats have flooded with cash thanks to a campaign finance loophole.

Whitmer raised a staggering $8.6 million from Jan. 1 to July 20, a state record for a candidate in a non-election year. Nearly 44 percent of the money came from donors who gave more than Michigan’s $7,150 contribution limit, which Whitmer’s campaign says is allowed due to the multitude of recall petitions filed against the Democrat. Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker (D.), oil executive Stacy Schusterman, and heiress and Colorado Democracy Alliance Cofounder Patricia Stryker, for example, combined to give Whitmer $750,000. None of the three billionaires live in Michigan.

Whitmer’s fundraising strategy did not stop the governor from railing against “out-of-state interests” for “pouring millions of dollars into Michigan to try and flip the governorship” in a Sunday campaign email. Whitmer—who has attacked Republicans for increasing campaign contribution limits and “infusing even more money into state politics”—also touted her campaign’s “grassroots” status. Michigan Freedom Fund executive director Tori Sachs said Whitmer “lied to the working class” through the fundraising plea.

“Whitmer’s ‘rules for thee, not for me’ playbook is so well known that Michiganders won’t be surprised by the governor’s dishonesty and hypocrisy,” Sachs said.

Whitmer did not return a request for comment.

Whitmer’s campaign has defended its decision to solicit unlimited contributions, pointing to a 1983 ruling from former Michigan secretary of state Richard Austin (D.), which established that a Michigan official can accept donations beyond the legal limit if a recall against the official is “actively being sought.” But the scheme has still attracted pushback from conservative groups. 

A July complaint from the Michigan Freedom Fund argues Whitmer is not facing an “active” recall, as the most recent petition drive to oust the Democrat approved by the Board of State Canvassers expired in late April. Whitmer received three contributions of $250,000 or more in the ensuing weeks. In addition, three former Michigan governors who faced recall efforts—Republicans Rick Snyder and John Engler and Democrat Jennifer Granholm—did not exploit the situation to accept excess campaign cash.

In addition to Pritzker, Schusterman, and Stryker, Whitmer received a combined $260,000 from Wrigley chewing gum heir Jim Offield, Democratic megadonor Karla Jurvetson, and the governor’s father, Richard Whitmer. Had Whitmer refused to accept contributions over $7,150, she would have raised just $5.9 million instead of $8.6 million, according to Michigan Campaign Finance Network executive director Simon Schuster. 

Whitmer has faced dozens of recall campaigns, most of which came in response to the Democrat’s far-reaching coronavirus restrictions. None of the efforts, however, have advanced past the petition signature collection phase. Whitmer may need to return the excess contributions “if there’s ultimately no recall election,” former Michigan Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer told Bridge Michigan. 

“This is not money that she’s going to be able to use next year in the general election,” Brewer added.

Whitmer took office in January 2019 after she defeated her GOP opponent, former state attorney general Bill Schuette, by 10 points. She is set to run for reelection in 2022.

Gretchen Whitmer Hates ‘Out-of-State Interest’ Money, Unless It’s Spent To Help Her (freebeacon.com)

“But in Islamic law, even if you have a good purpose or goal, you have to follow the rules.”

As refugees from Afghanistan pour into the Fort Lee U.S. military base in Virginia, an imam named Ammar Amonette is leading the fundraising drive for the Afghan refugees. Ammar Amonette, Imam of the Islamic Center of Virginia, is a left-wing activist who has spoken alongside Democrat then-Governor Terry McAuliffe, worked with the state’s Democrat attorney general to push hate crime legislation, held a press conference with Democrat Senator Mark Warner, and protested President Donald Trump’s travel ban on terrorism-rich countries.

In a 2004 interview unearthed by NATIONAL FILE, Amonette discussed the 9/11 attackers, saying, “Terrorism is about symbolic targets. It’s sending a political message. The World Trade Center sounds in Arabic like ‘center for globalization.’ I think they took it literally, and globalism may be a threat. But in Islamic law, even if you have a good purpose or goal, you have to follow the rules.” Amonette previously served as imam of the Colorado Muslim Society which, during his tenure, hosted an event with then-Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Ekrima Sabry, who has said that it is a “fairytale” that six million Jews died in the Holocaust.

Ammar Amonette’s Islamic Center of Virginia is raising money and supplies for the Afghan refugees at Fort Lee. DiscoveringIslam.org describes Michigan-born Amonette as “an American Islamic scholar who is a convert to Islam. He spent 12 years studying in Saudi Arabia. He initially studied at Umm Al-Qura University in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. He later earned a Masters at the Graduate Institute for Preparation of Imams in Mecca.” Amonette’s efforts to help the migrants was profiled this week by CBS 6 Richmond in which he stated that “It’s going to be a long process and it’s only beginning” and said “a new plane is arriving every day” to take refugees to Fort Lee.

In June 2020, Ammar Amonette was the first speaker at a Clergy Action RVA press conference to protest the police beside the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia. On its Facebook page, Clergy Action RVA posts support for Black Lives Matter and George Floyd, supported giving felons the right to vote in Virginia, stated that “As last week’s insurrection at the Capitol demonstrated, the voices of white supremacy are violent and loud,” and held “Election Organizing” and “Election Brainstorming & Organizing” Zoom meetings prior to the 2020 election.

In January 2021, Amonette was quoted as saying that Muslims are not allowed to be vaccine refusers, regardless of whether or not a vaccine contains pork ingredients. He stated: “In case of an epidemic, you’re not allowed to refuse vaccination even if there’s a slight danger to you of a reaction. Although you may be able to refuse treatment when you’re ill, you can’t endanger others in the community. We have a religious duty and obligation to be vaccinated as long as competent science and medical authorities approve the vaccine…Anything that saves lives takes precedence over food prohibitions. Protecting the health of the community takes precedence over some other details of the law.”

Amonette cited the rules of Muslim law when discussing the 9/11 terrorist attacks in an October 17, 2004 interview with Denver Post reporter Eric Gorski headlined “U.S.-born imam turns heads, minds, hearts.” At the time, Amonette worked as an imam for the Colorado Muslim Society. Text of that article is preserved at the World-Wide Religious News website.

Here is a passage from the article (emphasis added): “Given his background, Amonette is in demand as a spokesman for his faith on terrorism. His answer usually goes something like this: The Islamic concept of jihad is similar to Christianity’s just- war theory, which allows war if conditions are met. In Islam it is allowable to defend yourself against armed aggressors. But Islamic law strictly forbids killing innocent civilians.

“Terrorism is about symbolic targets,” he said. “It’s sending a political message. The World Trade Center sounds in Arabic like ‘center for globalization.’ I think they took it literally, and globalism may be a threat. But in Islamic law, even if you have a good purpose or goal, you have to follow the rules.’”

In 2017, Ammar Amonette spoke at an interfaith Ramadan potluck at Bon Air United Methodist Church with then-Virginia governor and current gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe and then-lieutenant governor Ralph Northam. Amonette said at the event: “This is the real America, there’s nothing more American than an interfaith breaking of the fast where we’re not threatened by each other.”

Governor McAuliffe said at the event: “We want to be part of this very special occasion, and when you think about the holy month of Ramadan and how important that is, and the message it conveys, I want everybody to understand that from day one, our administration has fought to make sure Virginia is open and welcome to everyone. And to every member of the Muslim faith, let me be very clear on behalf of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia, we love you, we respect you and we thank you for your contribution to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America.”

In 2004, while working as an imam of the Colorado Muslim Society, Amonette reportedly discussed how Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin’s assassination affected the Muslim community in Colorado. In March 2006, the Colorado Muslim Society (where Amonette served as imam) hosted “An Afternoon With Shaikh Ekrima Sabry,” who was then the Yasser Arafat-appointed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine. Years earlier in 2000, Sabry said, with regard to the Holocaust: “Six million Jews dead? No way, they were much fewer. Let’s stop with this fairytale exploited by Israel to capture international solidarity. It is not my fault if Hitler hated Jews, indeed they were hated a little everywhere.” Records confirm Amonette working as an imam for the Colorado Muslim Society both before and after the event.

Amonette expounded on his views in a lecture called “The Need To Rule By ALLAH’s Law.” In his political activism from recent years, Amonette has opposed President Donald Trump. “At US Court of Appeals today protesting Trump’s Muslim Ban,” he wrote on Facebook on May 8, 2017.

In 2015, Amonette joined Democrat Senator Mark Warner for a press conference about alleged anti-Muslim hatred. In July 2018, the Islamic Center of Virginia teamed up with the ACLU of Virginia for the event #NoMuslimBanEver to fight President Donald Trump’s homeland security policy. Amonette spoke at the event. In October 2018, Amonette spoke at a vigil at the Weinstein JCC that attorney general Mark Herring and governor Ralph Northam’s wife Pamela attended. In April 2021, Amonette spoke at a Sikh event that was attended by Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger and governor Ralph Northam’s deputy chief diversity officer and senior policy adviser for immigrant and refugee affairs.

Amonette has appeared at events for the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, which advocates for progressive policies and which gave the Islamic Center of Virginia a “Beacon of Light” award. In one entry on its website, the Virginia Interfaith Center announced that “Representatives from the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy lent support today during Attorney General Mark Herring’s announcement of a new legislative push to protect racial, ethnic and religious minorities in Virginia from hate crimes, and to establish a more inclusive definition of “hate crime.”

Several faith leaders joined Herring for his announcement and added their words of support to a new effort to help protect citizens of the Commonwealth from acts of violence, harassment, discrimination or intimidation…Iman Ammar Amonette of the Islamic Center of Virginia in Bon Air, said that “we support everyone’s First Amendment rights, but hate speech emboldens some people to take matters into their own hands and to attack and assault and harass people. Most Muslims have probably been targeted by hateful speech and these incidents are underreported. We appreciate the Attorney General’s strong words and actions to protect us here in Virginia to make people feel safe and welcome and equal citizens under the law.’” (Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy passage ends)

The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy’s “Foundational Partners” include the Center for American Progress, a George Soros-funded leftist group.

Activist Imam Fundraising For Afghan Refugees Discussed ‘Good Purpose’ Of 9/11 Spoke With McAuliffe, Hosted Holocaust Denier – National File

The Space Force officer who was removed from his command post for condemning Marxism and critical race theory is leaving the military.

Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier told The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” that his last day in the service will be Sept. 1.

“I wrote a letter to then-Acting Secretary of the Air Force explaining certain circumstances, which I don’t plan to make public, but also requesting an early retirement, and a separation honorably from the service,” he said. “And they’ve denied me an early retirement, but agreed that they would separate me. And so my family and I have decided that that’s the best course of action for us right now, given the circumstances.”

“I believe I’m able to continue serving my country outside of the service and out of uniform, perhaps in a better way than I was able to, given the circumstances, in uniform at the moment.”

Lohmeier plans to accept public speaking engagements and offer consulting services.

He’s received a slew of invitations to various events and conferences in recent months.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, Space Operations Command commander, relieved Lohmeier of his command of a squadron in May “due to loss of trust and confidence in his ability to lead,” the Space Force said at the time.

Whiting made the move because of remarks Lohmeier made on a podcast. He also ordered an investigation into whether the comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity.

Lohmeier published a book warning about the spread of Marxism and critical race theory in the military and was on the podcast promoting the book.

During the appearance, Lohmeier claimed that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was promoting “diversity, inclusion, and equity,” which he and others have said are “rooted in critical race theory, which is rooted in Marxism.”

The Air Force Inspector General’s Office later took over the investigation.

Multiple members of Congress spoke out against what happened, including Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Based on the information the committee has received so far and what’s been reported in the press, I am concerned,” Inhofe said at the time. “Members of our military should not only be able to speak out against Marxism, but they should be encouraged to do so—as long as they follow the rules and laws already in place. Marxism is an ideology that goes against everything this country stands for, and it belongs, as Ronald Reagan said famously, ‘on the ash-heap of history.’”

Lohmeier told The Epoch Times that neither his book nor the remarks were politically partisan.

“It’s not politically partisan to expose Marxist ideology where it exists and to talk about critical race theory; that should be something we’re unitedly standing against,” he said.

He also said he attempted before writing the book to utilize internal mechanisms that let service members lodge complaints, but to no avail.

The Space Force and the Air Force didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Exclusive: Space Force Officer, Punished After Denouncing Marxism, to Leave Military (theepochtimes.com)

‘Squad’ member collected rent as she vilified landlords

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) collected up to $50,000 in rent payments last year, even as she publicly criticized landlords and supported an eviction moratorium that has hurt other small landlords.

Tlaib—who in December stressed the need to protect Americans from “landlords and bill collectors in the midst of a pandemic”—disclosed in an annual financial statement this month that she took in between $15,000 and $50,000 in rent on a Detroit property.

Tlaib is not the only “Squad” member who has raked in thousands of dollars as a landlord. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) collected up to $15,000 in rental income in both 2019 and 2020 through a Boston property she owns, her financial disclosures show. Like Tlaib, Pressley slammed landlords for collecting rent during the pandemic, calling the issue “literally a matter of life and death.”

While Tlaib collected rent from her tenants, other small landlords in the United States have not been so lucky. Numerous reports have detailed small landlords’ struggles to make ends meet amid the eviction moratorium, which Tlaib has supported since early last year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented a ban on evictions last September. The Biden administration extended the eviction freeze through October of this year.

Tlaib, Pressley, and other “Squad” members introduced legislation to cancel rent and mortgage payments. The bill would require the federal government to reimburse landlords for lost rent during the pandemic, allowing Tlaib and Pressley to recoup any potential losses.

“Cancelling rent and mortgage payments for the duration of the COVID-19 virus pandemic would relieve financial pressure, allow residents to stay home from work without the added concern of losing their housing and limit the spread of the virus,” Tlaib said in March 2020.

Tlaib has at times portrayed landlords as preying on their renters.

“Always tons of agreement for tools of war and destroying families abroad, but never this much enthusiasm for protecting American families at home from landlords and bill collectors in the midst of a pandemic,” she tweeted in December.

Tlaib did not disclose the address for the rental property on her financial statement, though details from her filings and local real estate records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon suggest she purchased the property using a $118,600 loan in 2016. Two years later, Tlaib listed the property for $2,000 a month rent before lowering the asking price to $1,800. Assuming Tlaib has not changed the monthly price, she collected rent for at least eight months in 2020, meaning she received payments throughout the pandemic.

According to local real estate records, Tlaib refinanced the three-bedroom home as a multifamily investment property in April 2019. The designation requires the Democrat to maintain rent loss insurance.

Neither Tlaib nor Pressley returned requests for comment.

Rent Cancellation Advocate Rashida Tlaib Cleaned Up as Landlord During Pandemic (freebeacon.com)

Rudy Giuliani was still the mayor the last time New York City saw so many people shot. By mid-August, 1,163 were shot in the Big Apple. That’s the most recorded by this time of the year since 2000, according to NYPD data.

The wave of violence started in May last year coinciding with the mass protests and rioting initiated after the killing of George Floyd, a black man, during an arrest in Minneapolis. High incidence of shootings has been plaguing the city ever since.

Last weekend alone, 35 people were shot, all non-fatally, The New York Post reported.

While the total number of more serious crimes has slightly declined compared to last year, shooting incidents are up nearly 11 percent. The data indicates more people are surviving the shootings as murder is up only 0.7 percent.

In 2020, more than 1,850 were shot, fatally and non-fatally. That’s more than double the year before.

Meanwhile, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) is down about 1,500 officers since 2019 due to a wave of retirements and resignations. Some officers and experts previously told The Epoch Times that people are leaving the department because of anti-police sentiments in the city as well as obstacles to the profession created by the city and state governments.

Last year, the state outlawed officers from using a knee on a suspect’s back or chest as a restraint technique during an arrest. Police officers and experts have criticized the law for criminalizing martial arts techniques used by police to safely subdue resisting subjects.

The city implemented new laws regarding bail that banned judges from requiring cash bail for most nonviolent and some lower-level violent crimes, resulting in criminals returning to the street after an arrest. Some officers called the policy demoralizing.

Less than two weeks ago, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared “a disaster emergency on gun violence,” calling for the targeting of crime hotspots, curbing the sale of illegal firearms, rebuilding trust between communities and local law enforcement, and other initiatives. Cuomo has since resigned.

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, the frontrunner in the November mayoral election, is a former NYPD officer running partly on public safety platform.

New York City used to be notorious for high levels of violence and street crime, particularly during the crack epidemic in the 1980s. Shooting numbers dropped precipitously during the 1990s and continued a gradual decline, reaching historic lows of less than 1,000 people shot a year in 2017-2019.

NYC: 1,163 Shot so Far This Year, Two-Decade Record (theepochtimes.com)