CHICAGO—One person has died and five others including a teenage girl have been injured in a shooting on Chicago’s South Side, police said.

A group of people was walking toward their vehicles in the city’s West Pullman neighborhood around 9:40 p.m. Saturday when someone inside another vehicle “fired multiple rounds, striking the victims,” according to police.

A 42-year-old woman who was shot in the arm and armpit was taken to a hospital where she later died. Authorities have not identified her.

A 32-year-old man who was shot in the face was listed in critical condition. The other victims, ranging in age from 15 to 28, were listed in fair condition at area hospitals.

No one had been arrested in the shooting, police said Sunday as the investigation continued.

No further details were released.

Police: 1 Killed, 5 Others Wounded in Chicago Shooting (theepochtimes.com)

Planning, according to the American author Alan Lakein, involves “bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” If you want to buy a new house in five years, it helps to start saving today. To have a thriving economy going forward, it helps to have well-trained, highly-skilled graduates. That’s good news for China.

Last month, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), a think tank based in Washington, published a rather telling report. When it comes to the production of STEM PhD graduates, as the authors note, China is fast outpacing the United States. For the uninitiated, STEM refers to the “integrated teaching and learning” of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In other words, it involves a deep understanding of the very subjects that make our lives possible, and the very subjects that are vital for the progression of humanity. Since the “mid-2000s,” as the report notes, “China has consistently graduated more STEM PhDs than the United States, a key indicator of a country’s future competitiveness in STEM fields.”

The gap between China and the United States, we’re told, “will likely grow wider in the next five years.” Chinese universities, once known for rampant plagiarism and questionable teaching practices, are most definitely improving. The authors findings “suggest the quality of doctoral education in China has risen in recent years, and that much of China’s current PhD growth comes from high-quality universities.” If current enrollment patterns continue on this current trajectory, the authors project that “by 2025 Chinese universities will produce more than 77,000 STEM PhD graduates per year compared to approximately 40,000 in the United States.” With more than “three-quarters of Chinese doctoral graduates” specializing in STEM fields, China’s “robust” education system threatens to undermine the “long-term economic and national security” of the United States.

Why is this report important, and why is it a must read for the Biden administration?

From cancer detecting software to virus protection software, drone strikes to drone deliveries, space travel to air travel, modern society is inextricably linked with STEM subjects. This is not good news for the United States, where a precipitous drop in educational standards can be seen in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and elite universities. A number of American educators consider math to be inherently racist. Some people argue that math needs to confront its “white, patriarchal past.” What does this even mean? Empiricism has become the bête noire of many a leftist. Science is not racist. Although science can be carried out by racists, it’s important to make the distinction. A car can be driven by a xenophobe, but we don’t call the car xenophobic. To continue this brief exercise in stating the obvious, math is not racist. Without math, nothing is possible. More importantly, no one gets paid. Regardless of a person’s skin color, we all benefit from math. In a recent piece for Quillette, the authors—three mathematicians “who came to the United States as young immigrants”—describe the ways in which “the nationwide effort to reduce racial disparities, however well-intentioned” only serve to weaken “the connection between merit and scholastic admission.” When everything, including math and science, is viewed through the prism of race, the country suffers.

The trio lament “the deplorable state” of the K-12 “math education system.” A pitiful number of American public-school children, they argue, are prepared for careers in STEM. Not surprisingly, this leaves the United States all too “dependent on a constant inflow of foreign talent, especially from mainland China, Taiwan, South Korea, and India.” As “curricula increasingly shift from actual mathematics knowledge to courses about social justice and identity politics,” expect this trend to continue.

The United States is home to a number of outstanding universities. However, it’s little use having such extraordinary establishments if they’re not being used to breed extraordinary minds. If the United States is to have any chance of competing with China, serious changes are needed, and they’re needed fast.

Sadly, the only changes we’re seeing are harmful ones. If in doubt, let me point you to Oregon. Governor Kate Brown recently signed Senate Bill 744 into law. For the next five years, all Oregonian high school students who wish to graduate will be exempt from having to demonstrate proficiency in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics to graduate. The bill, according to reports, was introduced in order to help “Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.” One wonders how dumbing down graduation requirements helps anyone.

Many progressive-minded educators are determined to “reimagine” the way subjects like math and science are taught in schools. But they don’t need to be “reimagined.” They need to be left alone and they need to be taught properly. The United States is currently ranked 31st in math literacy out of 79 countries. China, meanwhile, ranks 1st in mathematical proficiency. Now, with the average IQ of American children continuing to fall, and the dumbing down of education in full swing, expect the proficiency gap to widen. Without enough STEM graduates, how is the United States expected to compete with China? This is an important question that requires immediate answers.

Who Benefits From the Dumbing Down of American Education? China (theepochtimes.com)

The estate of a man who was shot dead in Portland, Oregon last year is suing the city over its approach to public safety.

Portland Mayor and Police Commissioner Ted Wheeler, Multnomah District Attorney Mike Schmidt, and other city officials “created a vacuum where peacekeeping efforts and criminal accountability should be; in its place, an environment of vigilantism emerged that ultimately led to the death of Aaron Danielson,” states the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Portland, and obtained by The Epoch Times.

Danielson was killed in Portland on Aug. 29, 2020. Michael Reinoehl, a self-described member of the far-left, anarcho-communist Antifa network, later admitted to shooting Danielson, who was wearing a hat with the logo for Patriot Prayer, a right-wing group, and has been described as a Patriot Prayer supporter.

The two groups clashed in Portland before the shooting, with little intervention by police officers.

The Portland Police Bureau, overseen by Wheeler, chose to let rioters attack a federal courthouse in the city during the spring of 2020, triggering a deployment of federal officers to protect the building and leading to nightly clashes that drew nationwide attention.

Rioters, including members of Antifa, later turned their attention on other facilities, such as police precincts and the headquarters of the Portland police union. While some arrests were made, many of those arrested saw their charges dropped or their cases not pursued by prosecutors, under an unusual policy implemented by Schmidt’s office shortly after he became the district attorney.

The new suit says the approach used by police and prosecutors also included delegating the authority to engage in crowd control and crime prevention to individuals who provided security services for Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and right-wing groups like Patriot Prayer.

The defendants knew that a large-scale demonstration was planned the night Danielson was killed and was aware that members of Antifa and others planned to confront demonstrators but chose to deploy a minimal police presence while also ordering officers to “stay out of sight” and allow the demonstrators and protesters to “express their emotions,” the suit also alleges, quoting Wheeler.

Danielson was deprived of his constitutional rights to assemble peacefully and to have equal protection under the law, his estate’s lawyer said.

“This case is about accountability. We are seeking justice for the preventable death of a young man, gunned down in a city with a dangerous and deadly hands-off approach to public safety,” Christopher Cauble, the lawyer, told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Time and time again, city leadership and law enforcement has failed to find an effective response to clashing groups of protesters. For well over a year, they have known when and where these rallies would occur and the likelihood of escalating violence. Yet no strategy of protective intervention has been utilized to this day. This reckless dereliction of duty cost Aaron Danielson his life. We seek justice for the Danielson family and for a community that deserves far better safety and responsibility from those sworn to protect and serve,” he added.

The suit is seeking $13 million in damages.

Wheeler’s spokesman and Schmidt’s office did not return requests for comment.

Reinoehl was shot dead by law enforcement officers carrying out a warrant days after the Danielson killing. William Barr, the attorney general at the time, said what unfolded was “a significant accomplishment in the ongoing effort to restore law and order to Portland and other cities.”

Another shooting took place in a daylight clash in Portland on Sept. 4 after Chuck Lovell, Portland’s police chief, announced that officers would not intervene in physical clashes.

Wheeler, a Democrat, initially defended the strategy despite the firefight, but on Wednesday, during a City Council hearing, said the tactics needed to be rethought.

“It is clear, based on the public outcry, on the media outcry, on the national front, that that strategy was not the right strategy. I think we can all acknowledge that. I take full responsibility for it,” he said.

“I think we all acknowledge we want to do better. So for me, it’s about proper training, it’s about clear directives, it’s about making sure the community feels safe to express their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and assembly, but also to hold anybody—and I mean anybody, regardless of their politics—hold anybody accountable who thinks violence or criminal destruction is the right answer.”

Estate of Man Killed by Antifa Member in Portland Sues City Over ‘Hands-Off Approach to Public Safety’ (theepochtimes.com)

A Missouri police chief said that he and all of his officers tendered their resignations, saying the pay rate is too low and that his officers don’t have the proper equipment to perform their duties.

Kimberling Mayor Bob Fritz confirmed to local media outlets that the officers and former chief Craig Alexander submitted their resignations.

“Have I ever said no to you guys? No, you haven’t. So how can I explain this right here? I have no idea,” the mayor said, according to Ozarkfirst.

To deal with the issue, Fritz said he will lean on help from the Stone County Sheriff’s Department and the nearby city of Branson West.

“A mutual aid agreement with Stone County Sheriffs Office and the City of Branson West in that they’ll assist Kimberling City until our police department is at full capacity,” the mayor said in a statement. “As of today, we have eight resumes and some of them are unbelievable. And like I told the city administrator, start setting up interviews and everything too. I think we can have this taken care of this, I’m hoping in the next few weeks or so.”

Letters signed by several of the officers cited different reasons for leaving the department, including low pay, a lack of staffing, better employment opportunities, and more, according to the local news website.

Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader said that his office will handle emergency calls until the Kimberling department is fully staffed, although he admitted that it will be difficult to find qualified individuals to work there.

“It will be a struggle to fill the police department back up with qualified officers, but hopefully they can start working on that soon and get that accomplished,” Rader said regarding the resignations at the Kimberling City Police Department.

But until the staffing is complete, “we will be answering all the calls in Kimberling City, we can’t enforce city ordinances, but any other calls we will be handling at this time,” he continued.

Their resignations come in the midst of a wave of anti-police animus that was triggered during last summer’s riots and protests following the death of George Floyd. FBI data also suggests that crime, including violent crimes like homicide and rape, are on the rise across the United States.

An analysis from The Epoch Times earlier this year revealed that numerous officers are retiring earlier or are simply resigning in the country’s largest police departments, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Missouri Police Chief Suddenly Resigns Along With Every Officer (theepochtimes.com)

California once was run by conservatives and mostly centrist Democrats.

True paleo-liberal governors like Pat Brown greatly expanded the welfare state. But they also believed in pushing integration and building freeways, dams, aqueducts, and power plants, while preventing forest fires, directing the mentally ill into state hospitals, and ensuring that the state enhanced the housing, timber, oil and gas, nuclear and agricultural industries.

So, why would anyone deliberately destroy that heritage?

Why allow California to have the highest aggregate basket of income, sales, property, and capital gains taxes in the nation, the highest gas and power prices in the continental United States, and nearly the worst schools and infrastructure? California also has the country’s largest populations of homeless, welfare recipients, and undocumented immigrants.

Remember that the left wing of the Democratic Party became hyper-wealthy through globalization and the tech revolution. Coastal universities such as Caltech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, USC, and UCLA became global nexuses of millions who flocked to California to learn business, engineering, science, math, and the professions.

University endowments were no longer measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars but in the billions.

Hollywood and professional sports now had a lucrative worldwide audience of billions.

The market capitalization of Silicon Valley was to be measured in the trillions of dollars, as the world bought iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks to do Google searches, tweet, and use Facebook. The result was the greatest concentration of wealth in such a small space in the history of civilization.

Within 40 years, California had created a new plutocracy of Eloi, whose wealth exempted them from all worries about the mundane problems of the distant and despised Morlock others.

The wealthier the long thin line from San Diego to Berkeley grew, the more the overseers felt they were nearing Utopia, at least in their own lives.

The new Democratic Party liked to redistribute money for the poor and so obeyed the orders from the rich. But they ignored old-fashioned infrastructure that once had allowed the middle class to drive quickly and safely, ensured them water during droughts, curbed their forest fires, and allowed their children to leave school competitively educated.

Reaction, not prevention, was the new mantra. Govs. Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom failed to thin out forests, build water storage, and allow affordable housing.

When those problems exploded, they reacted by citing climate change or some other bogeyman as the culprit rather than government dereliction. They preferred utopian high-speed rail solutions to pragmatic problem solving. And they ensured that none of their crackpot ideas ever affected themselves.

Why worry about affordable housing and electricity for the masses when all the right people had the means to live in the right ZIP codes without much worry about turning on the air conditioning or heat, since there were rarely any scorching days or frigid nights in coastal paradise?

Why worry about immigration when labor became even cheaper?

Why worry that California public schools had sunk near the bottom of state ranks, when there were more prestigious prep schools than ever on the coast?

And why worry about producing lumber for houses, irrigated crops for food, or oil for gasoline, when the right Californians would always have the money to import their hardwood floors, arugula, and fuel from grubby others far away who would make or grow what was needed?

Yet ideas eventually have consequences. Soon, even the left-wing paradise on the coast would be infected by the anarchy the rich had created for less important people elsewhere.

The homeless did not just camp on the streets of Fresno, but in Venice Beach and on Market Street in San Francisco.

Fires began to smoke out not just the brush of the inland foothills, but near-saintly Lake Tahoe, home to the right skiers and the chosen shore owners.

Thieves even smashed the windows of Bay Area BMWs and Volvos.

The current California recall election is a choice between Gavin Newsom, who embodies the woke, old-boy privilege of the Bay Area, and an alternative direction. Newsom is the epitome of the virtue-signaling elite who patronize the poor and drive out the despised middle class.

Gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder did not give us the current California. Indeed, he spent most of his life warning us where Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom, and the rarified society of the coastal corridor was taking the state.

A careening California is heading for a colossal train wreck. Voters will have to pick between the incompetent engineer snoring at the wheel or the private passenger who rushes into cab to get the engine back on track.

Recall Election Could Reverse the California Ideology (theepochtimes.com)

Critical race theory (CRT) aims to indoctrinate students and turn them into “Red Guards,” akin to those during the Cultural Revolution in China, warned Xi Van Fleet, a Chinese-American living in northern Virginia’s Loudoun County, at a “Rally to Save Our Schools” event on Sept. 8.

She called CRT “communist race tactics” with the goal of “indoctrinating our kids, dividing Americans, and controlling Americans.”

She added that she would talk to Chinese-language media to tell Chinese-Americans not to stay silent.

“If you still want to enjoy the prosperity and the freedom of this country, now it’s your turn—join the fight,” she said.

She said that upon taking over China in 1949, the first thing the CCP did was to indoctrinate teachers with Marxist ideology so they could teach it to students. Red Guards were the “full display” of what indoctrinated children could do, she said.

The Red Guards were communist youth led by then-CCP leader Mao Zedong to persecute those identified as the CCP’s “class enemies” during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. They beat up their teachers in public and tore down temples and statues.

“They became Mao’s bulldogs,” said Van Fleet, adding that she saw a similar phenomenon in America during the “so-called summer of unrest,” referring to the riots during Black Lives Matter protests.

CRT adherents believe America is systemically racist, that racial oppression exists in every institution, and that an individual is either an oppressor or oppressed based on the color of their skin.

Monica Gill, a Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) teacher who teaches Advanced Placement government, said that the LCPS was indoctrinating teachers with CRT tenets to trickle down the effect onto students. Though LCPS is not explicitly telling teachers to teach CRT to students, it is “imposing this very distorted lens of race on kids,” Gill said.

“Our kids are in this cultural battle with us … And we have been asleep at the wheel, just thinking that everything in public schools is okay with the majority of teachers—they are teaching our kids the right things—and that’s not the case,” Gill added.

LCPS Public Information Officer Wayde Byard stated in an email to The Epoch Times, “As LCPS has stated, repeatedly, Critical Race Theory is not part of its student curriculum.” He didn’t comment on Gill’s assertion of the LCPS indoctrinating teachers and students.

Political Action

Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin also attended the event. He accused his opponent, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, of introducing CRT in Virginia’s schools during his administration in 2015 and that McAuliffe called concerns of CRT a “right-wing conspiracy.” The Epoch Times contacted McAuliffe’s campaign for comments and didn’t receive them by press time.

On June 30, in front of the LCPS school administration building in Ashburn, Virginia, Youngkin promised to ban CRT if elected on day one of his administration. “He will end the use of divisive critical race theory in professional development and as an approach to education,” a Youngkin campaign spokesperson wrote in an email to The Epoch Times on Sept. 9.

“I will preside over the largest education budget in the history of Virginia … to reestablish expectations of excellence in the school systems across Virginia that used to be known nationally for the best place to send your kids,” said Youngkin.

McAuliffe’s campaign announced that Youngkin’s tax cut plan would result in Virginia’s schools losing funds, based on a new study by Virginia Excels, an education advocacy organization.

“Between the available surplus, remaining one-time federal funds, and expected future revenue growth, Glenn’s plan can provide significant tax relief to address the cost of living while making a significant investment in education,” a Youngkin campaign spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

Polls have shown a close race for the next Virginia governor. A new one by WPA Intelligence conducted for the Youngkin campaign shows him leading McAuliffe for the first time at 48 percent versus 46 percent. The poll, released on Sept. 8, surveyed 734 likely Virginia voters between Aug. 30 and Sept. 2. Its margin of error is 3.6 percent.

Early voting in Virginia starts next week.

Critical Race Theory Aims to Turn Students Into ‘Red Guards,’ Chinese American Warns (theepochtimes.com)

Interview with the Antichrist is a must-see film, especially for Christians. In the movie, the Antichrist interviewee made a warning that soon he would take all lukewarm Christians to Hell, instead of being saved by God. Who is this guy? And who are the lukewarm? Could this happen in the real world, and how to prevent it? You will get an answer to these questions after watching this feature.

Director Timothy A. Chey shared he was an atheist until in his 30s. Since then, he has become very spiritual and committed to making faith-based films. Chey does not think the movies he made are merely fictional or for entertainment. “My one and only goal is to bring people true salvation in Christ in these very last days,” Chey said, “the Lord is coming sooner than we think.” And what he is most interested to illustrate is the battle of Armageddon described in the book of Revelations—the destruction of humanity by the Antichrist before God returns and how mankind would go through this great tribulation.

“I believe the Antichrist is alive right now,” Chey stated, “so it intrigued me to show a live broadcast with the Antichrist to ask him every question under the sun.” That is why, in the film, the Antichrist is peppered with stark questions including media domination, the battle between pastor John MacArthur and the California governor, the ACLU, Netflix and couch potatoes, the 9/11 terrorist attack, mass shootings, radical left movements, communist China, the evils of political correctness, pandemic lockdowns, and other mandates.

In the movie, the Antichrist mocks Pope Francis’ Interfaith Unity movement and lukewarm Christians spending more hours watching food channels than reading the Bible. Is even the Pope lukewarm? Some churchgoers may be shocked.

Lukewarm is neither hot nor cold. Lukewarm Christians are people who claim they have faith in Lord, but in the real world, are on and off. Are you lukewarm? Maybe you’re thinking, “No, I’m a devout believer of God.” That is remarkable. But wait for a minute. Is this your resolution or actual daily practice?

When the apostles worried about their clothes and bread, and when frightened by the storm, they were called “ones of little faith.” Peter denied his identity three times, even though he was the first disciple to acknowledge the Messiah.

Like water being cooked, every molecule of water in the pot is lukewarm until it boils. So lukewarm might not be name-calling, but a description of certain status or phase in the spiritual journey. And a person’s spiritual level is not static throughout one’s life; shifts in both directions are possible.

Viewer Joan Enderman agrees this movie is a wake-up call because she has found herself “slipping,” “being a Christian and sealed by the Holy Spirit does not give us immunity from sin and slipping backward.” Another viewer Christine Kenyon notes, “it now becomes harder and more of a spiritual battle because our eyes and hearts have been opened.” The movie talked about people being deceived or attached to worldly desires. For example, the lure of pornography is everywhere, from movies to TV shows, from advertisements on the street to the internet.

The Antichrist in the film is an anthropomorphized character. Through the dialogue between host Alex Carter and the Antichrist, the film conveys that the Antichrist is alive and is everywhere, as many politicians and influential figures believe more in the power of man than in God. This is exactly the spirit of the Antichrist.

Undoubtedly, communism or Marxism has been a collective representation of the Antichrist for the last hundred years. Opposing capitalism and preaching common prosperity through violence are just the political slogans of communists. But anti-God and anti-humanity are their hidden intentions.

The communist regimes have killed hundreds of millions of innocent people simply because of their spiritual beliefs. Affirmed by the China Tribunal, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime has committed forced organ harvesting for years on a significant scale, “an unprecedented evil on this planet.” The reason the communists denigrate and eliminate all traditional beliefs and values is that they want humans to worship them as god or savior.

If you were thinking the Antichrist would only appear in the Western world, that might be a mistake. Revelation 14:9 reads that the worshippers of the beast will receive “the mark on his forehead or on his hand.” Think about the communist posture of raising their hands to take the oath, and then you may understand the verses better.

Likewise, Revelation 17:1-2 says, “The great whore… With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.” Who better to be called the great whore than the CCP that has lured the leaders on earth with money and coaxed the inhabitants of the earth with poor quality and low-priced goods?

Stressed in the movie, the Antichrist and his secular agents are most adept at creating and exploiting various forms of crisis to panic people into ceding their rights to the government and totalitarians. Hence, many people fear that America might become like a communist country.

If you are someone who wants to take your faith seriously, or is concerned about the future of America, or cares about the health and well-being of yourself and your family, I suggest you watch this film. It is available on EpochTV, a streaming platform for exclusive programming that includes investigative news analysis, in-depth interviews, and award-winning documentaries and films.

Lukewarm Christians, Watch This Before It’s Too Late (theepochtimes.com)

A couple of weeks before the completion of the catastrophe of the American presence in Afghanistan—or, if you believe President Joe Biden, the “extraordinary success” of the American evacuation—a Russo-British comedian named Konstantin Kisin published a brilliantly funny thread on Twitter headed: “You’re struggling to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant. Let me help you.”

The “let me help you” megathread, as he called it, consisted of example after example of so-called “expert” opinions that have turned out to be completely wrong—beginning with the British vote for Brexit and the American vote for President Donald Trump in 2016, both of which elections the top experts at the time confidently assured us would go the other way.

Actually, Kisin’s spiel could be considered as a belated gloss on one of the most famous quotations to come out of the Brexit referendum, that of the Brexiteer and veteran government minister Michael Gove who said: “I think the people of this country have had enough of experts.”

I think that Trump was striking the same responsive chord with Americans when he disparaged what he called “political correctness”—still ravaging the county after four years of his administration—which was also the product of that breed of experts who call themselves “intellectuals.”

If people were fed up with experts in 2016, think how much more reason they have to be so five years later! Kisin does, and he goes ruthlessly through the whole catalog of errors from Russian collusion to “systemic racism” and “white supremacy” to “toxic masculinity” and the abolition of sex in favor of the nebulous idea of “gender.”

And of course we mustn’t leave out the conflicting and often mendacious pronunciamentos of “the Science” on the coronavirus, which have culminated in the distrust, not so much of the vaccines themselves, but of “the experts’” attempts to demonize those who remain skeptical about them.

And all this was before the collapse of the Afghan government and army under the onslaught of the Taliban gave us what may be the best reason ever for thinking that we, too, have had enough of experts in this country.

“Afghanistan: the graveyard of experts,” wrote Tim Black at Spiked Online.

“US ‘experts’ who created Afghanistan mess should be fired for malpractice,” wrote Rebekah Koffler for The New York Post—though of course they won’t be. They never are. They’re the experts.

A writer on Substack named Richard Hanania compared the galaxy of American Ph.D.’s (including the now-deposed president of Afghanistan himself, Ashraf Ghani, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia) who got us into Afghanistan with the madrassa-educated Taliban and wrote that, “It’s as if Wernher von Braun had been given all the resources in the world to run a space program and had been beaten to the moon by an African witch doctor.”

Unsurprisingly, there were a great many negative comments appended to Kisin’s bonfire of the experts, most of them to the effect that, just because some people have been wrong about some things it doesn’t mean that other people are going to be wrong about other things—especially when those things include vaccines which, as there are sound scientific reasons for believing, can be life-saving.

Nor should we neglect to consider that the lives saved are not only of those who receive the vaccines but also those of the immunosuppressed and other vulnerable people who come in contact with them.

They have a point. But so has Kisin. The latter is certainly right in thinking that the experts, particularly those who write for the partisan media, have taken too little care of their own credibility in the past, instead expecting to be trusted and believed as right, just because of who they are. When they then turn out to be wrong, they have no one but themselves to blame if people don’t believe them the next time.

Some people are always going to be wrong about almost everything, but the case is altered when the people who are wrong have set themselves up in the profession of being right. These are the people we call “experts” solely because they have the recognized credentials of experts—advanced degrees from top universities or awards for their expertise from other experts—whether or not they have any real-world experience or expertise.

Their authority is what the anthropologists call “positional”—like that of the parent who answers a child’s question of why? by replying: “Because I said so!” or “Because I’m your mother.”

The experts treat us all like those children—and then they wonder why they are resented and distrusted.

They are the people who identify themselves with their beliefs to the extent that they can never admit it—and so never learn from their mistakes—when those beliefs turn out to be wrong.

That’s how you get to Biden’s calling an obvious disaster of the first water an “extraordinary success”—with no more than an occasional raised eyebrow from the compliant media.

Much publicity in the last week or so was given to a Reuters report of a conversation between Biden and Ghani in the dying days of the latter’s government, as the Taliban were closing in. What he had to worry about, said the American president to the Afghan one, was the “perception” that he was losing the war, not the fact that he actually was losing it.

All he had to do to get American help, said Biden, was change this perception, “whether it is true or not.”

I think a lot of the criticism of this extraordinary conversation was misdirected. The problem wasn’t that Biden told Ghani to lie. Lying to the enemy has a long and honorable tradition in the history of warfare.

No, the problem was that he was foolish enough to think he could lie in that situation: that he (or Ghani) could get away with spinning the enemy as he himself was used to spinning the American media—as, of course, he would go on to do again with the claim of an “extraordinary success.”

A man whose self-assurance and self-absorption is such that he believes reality can make no claim against him that he can’t pay off with the experts’ counterfeit currency of interpretive ingenuity and rhetorical sleight-of-hand is a man who can only lead his country and himself into more disasters.

Bonfire of the Experts (theepochtimes.com)

The son of leftist billionaire George Soros tweeted an image of himself and his father meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday, saying, “In Pelosi we trust!”

“In Pelosi we trust! Was good seeing [Pelosi] this weekend,” Alexander Soros tweeted on Thursday.

In Pelosi we trust! Was good seeing @SpeakerPelosi this weekend. pic.twitter.com/dguGCxDm37

— Alexander Soros, PhD (@AlexanderSoros) September 9, 2021

According to his Twitter profile, Alexander Soros serves as deputy chair of the Open Society.

According to its website, the organization is “the world’s largest private funder of independent groups working for justice, democratic governance, and human rights.”

George Soros is the founder and chair of Open Society Foundations. The elder Soros also leads a variety of other business and non-profit endeavors.

In July, Federal Election Commission records revealed that Soros is a major financial backer of the “defund the police” movement, pouring $1 million into an organization associated with the cause.

Campaign finance data publicly available on the FEC’s website shows that Soros contributed to the Color of Change Political Action Committee on May 14.

Color of Change describes itself as “the nation’s largest online racial justice organization” on its website.

“We help people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by 7 million members, we move decision-makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people in America.”

Color of Change has an online petition bearing the title: “TAKE ACTION: Defund the police, and invest in communities now!”

The “defund the police” campaign calls for lawmakers to slash the budgets of traditional police departments and instead invest in social programs and alternative means of law enforcement.

Though the movement enjoyed some success in the months after George Floyd’s death, people gradually began to become disillusioned with it as crime rates rose across the country.

Soros is also known for financially backing Democratic candidates. He reportedly donated $1 million to California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recall campaign.

According to records from the California Secretary of State’s office, the left-wing financier’s first donation was on June 22, with $250,000 given to a committee called “Stop the Republican Recall.”

Then, on Aug. 3, he dropped another $250,000.

Finally, on Aug. 30, Soros doubled down, putting in a $500,000 donation.

Photo Emerges of Nancy Pelosi Meeting with George Soros and His Son (westernjournal.com)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder on Wednesday vowed to “save California” shortly after he was forced to prematurely end a walk-through of his planned campaign stop at Venice Beach, when over 10 hecklers harassed him, throwing projectiles.

Elder, who is vying to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom if he is recalled this month, was touring Venice Beach’s homeless encampments with campaign team members when he was harassed.

Footage of the incident uploaded to social media shows two hecklers repeatedly shouting racial slurs at Elder. A lady in a pink gorilla mask, riding a bike, appeared on video throwing an egg that appeared to narrowly miss Elder’s head.

One of Elder’s security staff attempted to separate the woman from the crowd, to keep her from continuing to throw projectiles.

In videos surfacing on Twitter, the woman slapped the security staff in the face. Another protester hit the same security staff member seconds later.

A white SUV drove up to the crowd, which was walking down Hampton Drive towards Sunset Avenue.

Elder’s team escorted him to his vehicle and drove away.

“Today I kicked off the Recall Express bus tour. Before we even left Los Angeles, my security detail was physically assaulted, shot with a pellet gun, and hit with projectiles. The intolerant left will not stop us. We will recall Gavin Newsom. We will save California,” Elder said in a statement on Twitter late Wednesday, responding to the attacks.

Elder, 69, is an Epoch Times contributor and host of “Larry Elder with Epoch Times” on EpochTV.

The conservative talk radio host first announced in July that he will run in California’s recall election of Democratic Gov. Newsom, which has been set for Sept. 14.

He said in a statement on his campaign website that he’s running for governor “because the decline of California isn’t the fault of its people,” adding: “Our government is what’s ruining the Golden State.”

On his website, Elder calls for “returning to the bedrock Constitutional principles of limited government and maximum personal responsibility.”

Other top Republican candidates include businessman John Cox, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and state Rep. Kevin Kiley. Nine Democrats are running, including financial analyst Kevin Paffrath and actor Patrick Kilpatrick.

The recall election of Newsom, a first-term Democrat, follows mounting criticism from within his party and across the aisle over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues.

He faced intense backlash after he was seen dining at the French Laundry restaurant with lobbyists after telling Californians to stay home. Newsom apologized for his actions.

The last time a governor was recalled in the state was Gray Davis in 2003. Residents voted “Yes” on recalling Davis by 55.4 percent and selected one of 135 candidates on the ballot to replace him.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, California is one of 19 states where recalls are permitted.

Last month, President Joe Biden publicly backed Newsom, saying in a statement that he the Democratic governor “is leading California through unprecedented crises—he’s a key partner in fighting the pandemic and helping build our economy back better.”

“To keep him on the job, registered voters should vote no on the recall election by 9/14 and keep California moving forward,” Biden added.

The California Republican Party has declined to endorse a candidate, however, several recent polls show that Elder is in the lead.

Jack Bradley contributed to this report.

Larry Elder Responds to Venice Beach Walk-Through Assault, Vows to ‘Save California’ (theepochtimes.com)

PALM COAST, Fla. – (FCSO) – On Tuesday, September 7, 2021, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) executed a Search Warrant for 17 Blasdell Court in Palm Coast, resulting in the seizure of 916 grams of fentanyl. The owner of the home, identified as Brian Pirraglia and a tenant of the home, Michael Connelly, were arrested on various Drug Paraphernalia charges.

Connelly resides at the home and was located in the front right bedroom of the home. During the search, 41.2 grams of Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim, a prescription-only narcotic, were recovered, as well as used hypodermic syringes, multiple spoons with white powdery residue, a silicone smoking pipe with burnt cannabis residue, and multiple glass containers with residue.

Pirraglia was located in the master bedroom of the home. During the search of the bedroom, deputies recovered multiple used hypodermic syringes, multiple spoons with white powdery residue, a glass vial and metal grinder located in a black backpack on the floor, and multiple plastic bags with residue. During a search of the kitchen, deputies recovered a large plastic baggie containing 510 grams of fentanyl and a plastic jar labeled “Protein” containing 406 grams of fentanyl. Upon questioning, Pirraglia stated the white powdery substance in the plastic jar was “Protein” and that the plastic baggie was a gift from his neighbor and he was unaware of the contents. Pirraglia advised he does not allow drugs to be sold in his home.

Connelly’s criminal history with the FCSO dates back to 2007. He’s previously been charged with Violation of Probation, Fail to Return Leased/Hired Property, Fraud, Failure to Appear, Grand Theft of a Motor Vehicle, Possession of Cocaine, Possession of Hydromorphone, and Unlawful Use of a Two-Way Communications Device. Pirraglia’s criminal history with the FCSO dates back to 2014. He’s been previously charged with Shoplifting, Violation of Probation, Failure to Appear, Driving While License Suspended with Knowledge, Possession of Fentanyl, Possession of Drug Paraphernalia/Equipment, and Resisting Officer Without Violence.

“These two are frequent guests at the Green Roof Inn and have yet to learn their lesson,” Sheriff Staly said. “Between these two poison peddlers, they had enough fentanyl to kill 481,000 people, which is more than the population of Flagler and St. Johns County combined! This is another great job by our Special Investigations Unit. I’m proud of their persistence to get 916 grams of poison off our streets and of our SWAT team that safely served the search warrant.”

Both Connelly and Pirraglia were arrested and transported to the Sheriff Perry Hall Inmate Detention Facility. Connelly is being charged with Possession of Drug Paraphernalia/Equipment and Possession of a Legend Drug Without Prescription. He is being held on a $3,000 bond. Pirraglia is being charged with Possession of Drug Paraphernalia/Equipment. He is being held on a $500 bond. Additional charges for Trafficking Fentanyl are pending Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) lab results.

Florida Drug House With Enough Fentanyl to Kill 481K People Raided by Police – Breaking911

A report highlighting Chinese government-backed influence campaigns on social media platforms found that the effort sought to mobilize protests against “racial injustice,” CNN has finally admitted.

The network’s summary of the recently released Mandiant Threat Intelligence and Google report notes how bot accounts linked to a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) disinformation network attempted to incite Asian Americans to protest against racism and those claiming COVID-19 originated in China.

“US officials believe the operation is linked to the Chinese government,” the article adds.

As the CNN article admits:

In April for example, experts saw thousands of fake accounts calling on Asian Americans to protest racial injustice in the US and “disinformation about the virus’ origins.” While experts found no evidence these posts were successful in mobilizing protesters, the report says “it does provide early warning that the actors behind the activity may be starting to explore, in however limited a fashion, more direct means of influencing the domestic affairs of the US.”

The report identifies how the bot network attempted to catalyze a protest on April 24th in New York City:

In April 2021, thousands of posts in languages including English, Japanese, and Korean, images, and videos were posted across multiple platforms by accounts we assess to be part of this broader activity set that called on Asian Americans to protest racial injustices in the U.S. The accounts specifically called on Asian Americans to protest on April 24 in New York City and “fight back” against the purported “rumors” caused by Dr. Li-Meng Yan, Guo Wengui, and Steve Bannon, and in some instances provided an address that they claimed Guo lived at.

Posts shared by the fake accounts included messages such as “the racism is the virus.”

MUST READ:

High School Teacher With Antifa Flag in Classroom Praises Chinese Communist Party.

“This direct call for physical mobilization is a significant development compared to prior activity, potentially indicative of an emerging intent to motivate real-world activity outside of China’s territories,” the report says.’

“While experts at Mandiant and Google say they have not seen these specific pro-Chinese accounts wade into election specific content to date, they did warn that the actors responsible could be gearing up for a more expansive disinformation push,” CNN adds. Platforms such as TikTok, however, have been used to sabotage Trump rallies during the 2020 election cycle.

The National Pulse first reported on the existence of a Beijing-backed, online bot army in early 2020, which, at the time, was used to criticize former President Donald Trump and his COVID-19 response.

More recently, over 20 advocacy groups comprising the “Stop AAPI Hate” coalition sent a letter demanding the Biden White House terminate the Department of Justice’s Trump-era “China Initiative” – which identifies and prosecutes Chinese Communist Party espionage operations – and publicly discredit the COVID-19 “lab leak” theory.

No evidence of a quid pro quo over the CCP’s attempts to bolster these campaigns digitally and the campaigns’ attempts to shift U.S. government policy on China has yet emerged.

The White House on Thursday withdrew the controversial nomination of David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), releasing a statement explaining the decision.

President Joe Biden accused congressional Republicans of “us[ing] gun crime as a talking point instead of taking serious steps to address it.” These same Republicans, the White House says, have “moved in lockstep to block David Chipman’s confirmation,” because they “side with gun manufacturers over the overwhelming majority of the American people.”

Biden in the statement thanked Chipman for his service in the ATF, saying he “would have been an exemplary Director of the ATF and would have redoubled its efforts to crack down on illegal firearms traffickers and help keep our communities safe from gun violence.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington that the White House is in active discussions with Chipman on finding him another role in the administration.

In its 50-year history, the ATF has had recurring difficulties in getting Senate confirmation for appointed directors, with only one nominee—B. Todd Jones, appointed by President Barack Obama—ever being confirmed by the Senate.

Chipman’s withdrawal is the second failure by the president to secure confirmation for his nominees. The other was Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for the White House Office of Management and Budget, after inflammatory tweets from the nominee alienated moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), one of the most critical swing votes in the upper chamber for Democratic policy priorities.

Chipman, a staunch gun control advocate, has faced significant criticism from moderate members of the Senate Democratic caucus, gun rights groups, and Republican leadership since his nomination.

Like Tanden, controversy surrounding Chipman fractured the Democratic unity needed for a confirmation, with Manchin, along with moderate Sens. Angus King (I-Maine) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.) signaling strong skepticism toward the nominee.

The National Association for Gun Rights (AGR), a strongly pro-Second Amendment organization, issued a statement on the withdrawal.

“This morning, the White House and anti-gun Democrats admitted defeat and withdrew their nomination of David Chipman to head the ATF,” the AGR said in its release. It referenced the split among Senate Democrats, saying that the “staunch gun control advocate could not garner enough support in the U.S. Senate to make it through the nomination process.”

The AGR quoted its president, Dudley Brown, saying Chipman’s nomination was “a slap in the face to gun owners across the country. Now, thanks to the pro-gun grassroots, we’ve put Chipman back where he belongs: at home, without a job.”

While Brown celebrated the defeat, he predicted that “President [Joe] Biden will prop up another anti-gun pawn in the near future.” He added that AGR and its members “stand ready to oppose their unconstitutional actions.”

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) in July unleashed a torrent of accusations at Chipman and the party that nominated him on the Senate floor. He criticized Democrats for allowing crime rates to rise dramatically by “implicitly supporting ‘defund the police’ by staying silent.”

Thune said that Democrats, now concerned about their prospects in 2022, are turning their attention to “creating new laws that will only serve to further burden the constitutionally guaranteed Second Amendment rights of law-abiding individuals.” Rather, he suggested that this rise in crime should be dealt with by more stringent enforcement of current laws and punishment of criminals. Thune called the crime surge “a convenient excuse for [Democrats to push] some of their gun control priorities.”

Finally, Thune turned to Biden’s nomination of Chipman. “Nowhere are President Biden’s priorities more clear than in his choice of nominee to lead the ATF.” Chipman, the senator noted, “would come to the ATF directly from an organization where he has spent the past five years as a gun control advocate.”

Before his nomination, Chipman worked as a senior policy adviser at Giffords Law Center. The organization, founded by Arizona state Rep. Gabby Giffords, announces on its website landing page, “We’re on a mission to save lives from gun violence.” Giffords herself began the group after being wounded in a 2011 shooting in Tuscon.

Thune continued, saying that Chipman “is known for his sometimes extreme views on gun control and restricting the Second Amendment.”

Prominently, Thune said, Chipman would work to ban “probably the most popular rifle in the United States,” the Armalite Rifle-15 (AR-15). He also, said Thune, “supports a so-called ‘assault weapons ban,’ which usually refers to banning certain guns for their accessories and their appearance of lethality.”

Thune then pointed to a former hearing for the nominee, where Chipman “could not give a clear representation of how he would define such a policy.”

Earlier this year, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) of the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Chipman, “Do you believe in private ownership of assault weapons?” Chipman quickly responded in the affirmative, but declined to say what ones he owned himself.

Kennedy then put forward a corollary question, asking the nominee “Do you believe in banning assault weapons?” Again, Chipman responded that he does.

Kennedy then asked as a follow-up how Chipman would define “assault weapons.” Chipman said that “assault weapons would be something that members of Congress would define.”

“Well, how do you define it?” Kennedy asked. After a short back-and-forth, Chipman said, “There’s no way I could define an assault weapon.”

Biden Withdraws Nomination of Gun Control Advocate David Chipman to Head ATF (theepochtimes.com)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder on Wednesday vowed to “save California” shortly after he was forced to prematurely end a walk-through of his planned campaign stop at Venice Beach, when over 10 hecklers harassed him, throwing projectiles.

Elder, who is vying to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom if he is recalled this month, was touring Venice Beach’s homeless encampments with campaign team members when he was harassed.

Footage of the incident uploaded to social media shows two hecklers repeatedly shouting racial slurs at Elder. A lady in a pink gorilla mask, riding a bike, appeared on video throwing an egg that appeared to narrowly miss Elder’s head.

One of Elder’s security staff attempted to separate the woman from the crowd, to keep her from continuing to throw projectiles.

In videos surfacing on Twitter, the woman slapped the security staff in the face. Another protester hit the same security staff member seconds later.

A white SUV drove up to the crowd, which was walking down Hampton Drive towards Sunset Avenue.

Elder’s team escorted him to his vehicle and drove away.

“Today I kicked off the Recall Express bus tour. Before we even left Los Angeles, my security detail was physically assaulted, shot with a pellet gun, and hit with projectiles. The intolerant left will not stop us. We will recall Gavin Newsom. We will save California,” Elder said in a statement on Twitter late Wednesday, responding to the attacks.

Elder, 69, is an Epoch Times contributor and host of “Larry Elder with Epoch Times” on EpochTV.

The conservative talk radio host first announced in July that he will run in California’s recall election of Democratic Gov. Newsom, which has been set for Sept. 14.

He said in a statement on his campaign website that he’s running for governor “because the decline of California isn’t the fault of its people,” adding: “Our government is what’s ruining the Golden State.”

On his website, Elder calls for “returning to the bedrock Constitutional principles of limited government and maximum personal responsibility.”

Other top Republican candidates include businessman John Cox, former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, and state Rep. Kevin Kiley. Nine Democrats are running, including financial analyst Kevin Paffrath and actor Patrick Kilpatrick.

The recall election of Newsom, a first-term Democrat, follows mounting criticism from within his party and across the aisle over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues.

He faced intense backlash after he was seen dining at the French Laundry restaurant with lobbyists after telling Californians to stay home. Newsom apologized for his actions.

The last time a governor was recalled in the state was Gray Davis in 2003. Residents voted “Yes” on recalling Davis by 55.4 percent and selected one of 135 candidates on the ballot to replace him.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, California is one of 19 states where recalls are permitted.

Last month, President Joe Biden publicly backed Newsom, saying in a statement that he the Democratic governor “is leading California through unprecedented crises—he’s a key partner in fighting the pandemic and helping build our economy back better.”

“To keep him on the job, registered voters should vote no on the recall election by 9/14 and keep California moving forward,” Biden added.

The California Republican Party has declined to endorse a candidate, however, several recent polls show that Elder is in the lead.

Jack Bradley contributed to this report.

Larry Elder Responds to Venice Beach Walk-Through Assault, Vows to ‘Save California’ (theepochtimes.com)

A Hennepin County judge tossed proposal ballot language asking voters if they want to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a department of public safety.

The current language of the city council’s explanatory note accompanying the ballot proposal “is insufficient to identify the amendment clearly, it does not assist the voter in easily and accurately identifying what is being voted on, and it is vague and ambiguous to the point of misleading voters, all of which make it unjust,” Hennepin County Judge Jamie Anderson wrote.

Bruce Dachis, Sondra Samuels, and former City Council Member Don Samuels sued, alleging the explanatory note didn’t provide voters with enough context to make an informed decision.

The proposal would ask voters if they want to approve a plan to replace the police department with a new public safety department focused on a “comprehensive public safety approach” that would include police officers “if necessary to fulfill the department’s responsibilities.”

Anderson wrote that the parties disagreed on three issues of the current ballot language as to whether: 1. The Minneapolis Police Department will cease to exist as of Dec. 2, 2021; 2. The position of police chief would be eliminated; or 3. A funding mechanism exists for the proposed Department of Public Safety.

“These three issues are additional ambiguities in the Current Ballot Language,” the judge wrote. “All of these ambiguities risk creating a ‘chaotic situation’ in Minneapolis.”

Anderson explained:

“For example, does ‘striking’ the Police Department mean renaming it (as the Petitioners suggest it could be interpreted) or taking it apart, as one would ‘strike a set’ after a play is done? The end of the Current Ballot Language says ‘ … to fulfill its responsibilities for public safety.’ To whose responsibilities does that refer? The Police Department? The new Department of Public Safety?”

Anderson did not set a new deadline for approving ballot language.

Attorneys for Yes 4 Minneapolis, which supports replacing the police department, had argued the language provided enough information.

The City Council called an emergency meeting Tuesday and passed revised language for an explanatory note.

City Attorney Jim Rowader said the ballot language could still be rejected by Hennepin County if it finds the new note is “substantially similar” to the language rejected by Anderson.

Judge Tosses Minneapolis Policing Ballot Language (theepochtimes.com)

Violent criminals in the United States were less likely to be rearrested if they spent more time in prison before release, a large, long-term study has shown.

Nearly 77 percent of people imprisoned for a violent crime were arrested again within 10 years of release. The rate was lower, though, for those who served harsher sentences than for those who served lighter ones, according to the study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BLS).

Of those who spent less than the median time in prison prior to release, 78.3 percent got rearrested. For those who served more than the median time, 66.4 percent were rearrested. Among those with the harshest sentences of more than 80 months, 57.5 percent were rearrested, according to the recently released report on the study (pdf).

The study followed a sample of 76,000 state prisoners selected from more than 400,000 released in 24 states in 2008. It saw more than four in five arrested again within a decade, recording nearly 2.2 million rearrests. Among those released, about a quarter were serving time for violent crimes.

The study also looked at sentencing data in 18 states, concluding that more than 60 percent of those released in 2008 ended up with another sentence within 10 years.

Among violent ex-cons, the most common reason for a rearrest was a public order offense, such as illegal gun possession, driving under the influence, probation or parole violation. Nearly two in three were busted for such a crime within a decade.

The second most common reason was a drug offense (36.3 percent) and the third was assault (35.4 percent). The distant fourth was car theft (22.1 percent).

Murderers were about twice as likely than others to be rearrested for murder, but overall, they were much more likely to get rearrested for a different, lesser offense.

Drug offenders were more likely than others to be rearrested for a drug offense, but 75 percent of them ended up rearrested for a different crime, more than a third of them for a violent crime.

Those who managed to avoid arrest in the first few years after release were progressively less likely to fall off the wagon later on. Among those not arrested in the years 1-3 after release, less than 15 percent were arrested in year 4. The percentage kept dropping to about 4 percent for those rearrested for the first time in year 10.

Prior to their release in 2008, nearly four in five of all the tracked prisoners were already arrested five times or more. The average number of prior arrests was over 12.

Most likely to be rearrested were those with the most prior arrests and those youngest (under 17) when first arrested in their lives, nearly 90 percent for both groups. But even among those with two or fewer prior arrests, nearly 60 percent were rearrested.

The study covered nearly 70 percent of prisoners released in 2008 and included all five of the most populous states, California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania. It didn’t include some other states with large populations, such as Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Tennessee.

Violent Criminals with Harsher Sentences Less Likely Rearrested, Study Shows (theepochtimes.com)