WORLD NEWS
Social credit scores are already in use in various places around the world, but nowhere more than in the communist hell hole that is China. The dystopian measurement acts in a similar fashion to a traditional credit score, however, as the name indicates, one’s score has little to do with their financial prospects or ability to pay off debt on time – social scores are all about your level of compliance to the regime and acceptance of the approved narrative.
For example, if social credit scores were in full effect in the United States and you were to donate money to a company like the National Rifle Association (NRA) or buy stocks in oil – pretty much anything deemed far-right or environmentally damaging by the establishment – your score would take a hit. Too many hits and, you guessed it, there goes your purchasing power and ability.
With this dystopian coercion tool being used in an authoritarian dictatorship like China, where there is no such thing as individual rights or free speech, it could be easily assumed that this system would not be compatible with the United States, or even the West more broadly, but sadly that’s not the case.
Governments across the western world are exploring using this tool, especially in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which proved that the government can obtain almost limitless power in a crisis and set the stage for the next phase of the World Economic Forum’s project 2030 – where the plan is that you will “own nothing and be happy.”
Proposed ‘Pandemic Treaty’ Sets Up The WHO For Technocratic Globalism
Technocracy is seen as the force behind the proposed “pandemic treaty” that would give the World Health Organization total sovereignty over global health. The Presidents of Burundi and Tanzania banned the WHO from their borders, refusing to go along with the pandemic narrative: Both died unexpectedly within months and were replace with pro-WHO Presidents.
Obviously, the WHO doesn’t care about global health or the life or death of any particular citizen. The warning has been sent out to national leaders: take our deal or we will eliminate you. ⁃ TN Editor
he first public hearings on the proposed “Pandemic Treaty” are closed, with the next round due to start in mid-June.
We’ve been trying to keep this issue on our front page, entirely because the mainstream is so keen to ignore it and keep churning out partisan war porn and propaganda.
When we – and others – linked to the public submissions page, there was such a response that the WHO’s website actually briefly crashed, or they pretended it crashed so people would stop sending them letters.
Either way, it’s a win. Hopefully one we can replicate in the summer.
Until then, the signs are that what scant press coverage there is, mostly across the metaphorical back-pages of the internet, will be focused on making the treaty “strong enough” and ensuring national governments can be “held accountable”.
U.S. NEWS, POLITICS & GOVERNMENT
SCOTUS to Hear Case Over Joe Biden Ending ‘Remain in Mexico’ Border Policy
The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is scheduled to hear a case on Tuesday that will decide whether President Joe Biden illegally terminated the Migration Protection Protocols, known as former President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program.
In 2019, Trump instated the Remain in Mexico program that helped effectively eliminate the policy of Catch and Release at the U.S.-Mexico border. Rather than apprehending and releasing border crossers into the U.S. interior, the program required officials to return border crossers to Mexico while awaiting their asylum and immigration hearings in U.S. courts.
On June 1, 2021, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued a memorandum terminating Remain in Mexico. A district court then ruled that DHS violated federal immigration law when it terminated Remain in Mexico and that Mayorkas had not adequately detailed his reasoning for terminating the program.
The district court ordered DHS to reinstate the Remain in Mexico program, though Breitbart News sources have said for months that the agency has slow-walked its reimplementation and is hardly making an effort to utilize it.
When Mayorkas, again, tried to terminate Remain in Mexico in October 2021, the court of appeals affirmed the district court’s preliminary injunction and ordered that the program remain implemented.
Now, SCOTUS will hear the case on whether federal immigration law requires the administration to continue implementing Remain in Mexico and whether the court of appeals was correct in determining that the program must remain implemented.
The Advocates for Victims of Illegal Alien Crime (AVIAC), the American First Legal Foundation, and the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) are among the organizations backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s lawsuit against the Biden administration in the case.
“Congress has established a detailed practice for how DHS processes aliens arriving from Mexico. Only Congress can change that practice,” lawyers representing AVIAC wrote in their amicus brief. “DHS cannot refuse to exercise its discretionary option to have aliens remain in Mexico and it cannot ignore a mandate of Congress to craft a third option that fits its desired immigration policy. That is lawmaking by [the] agency in its rankest form.”
The case is Biden v. Texas, 21-954 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
A Record 10 Republicans File Petitions Vying for Nomination to Take on Whitmer
Ten GOP candidates for governor of Michigan filed nominating petitions to place their name on the Aug. 2 primary election ballot.
All 10 Republican hopefuls turned in signatures in excess of the 15,000 required by the April 19 filing deadline.
Three of the original 13 declared candidates have dropped out of the race.
If the signatures survive examination for validity by state officials and the challenges of opposing campaigns, the field of 10 will set a record in Michigan for the most candidates within a single party filing for the nomination for the office of governor, according to Michigan Information and Research Services.
The winner of the Aug. 2 primary will earn the right to run against Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, in the Nov. 8 general election.
State GOP communications director Gus Portela told The Epoch Times, “Our large field is a real advantage for us. It speaks volumes about our enthusiasm level that starts with the grassroots on up.
“We have filled rooms on the county convention level. There is an evident enthusiasm gap between us and the Democrats.
“Our polling shows Whitmer can’t even beat a generic Republican. She is vulnerable. We are excited about our chances to unseat her in November,” he said.
Whitmer, who has no primary opponent, has amassed more than $10 million for the fall election campaign in which she hopes to win a second and final four-year term.
Michigan law limits a governor to two four-year terms.
Judge Finds Trump in Contempt in Legal Fight With New York Attorney General
A New York judge on April 25 found former President Donald Trump in civil contempt for not proving he responded to a subpoena issued by the state’s Attorney General.
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay a fine of $10,000 per day.
“Mr. Trump, I know you take your business seriously, and I take mine seriously,” Engoron said before issuing the ruling in a Manhattan courtroom, following a hearing.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat whose office is probing the Trump Organization, asked for the ruling, alleging Trump failed to comply with a subpoena issued in late 2021 and an order from Engoron earlier this year that found the subpoena valid and enforceable.
Trump’s attorneys informed James on March 31 that a search for documents and communications responsive to the subpoena turned up nothing.
“After conducting a diligent search and review, respondent’s counsel determined that respondent was not in possession of any documents responsive to the subpoena and that all potentially responsive documents were in the possession, custody or control of the Trump Organization,” Alina Habba, one of the lawyers, said in a recent filing.
“The contempt motion is inappropriate and misleading,” Habba added in court, insisting that Trump complied; she recounted traveling to Florida to ask Trump whether he had any documents in his possession that would be responsive to the subpoena.
“There are no more documents left to produce by President Trump.”
But Engoron said a contempt finding was appropriate because Trump and his lawyers hadn’t shown that they had conducted a proper search for the records sought by the subpoena.
“Today, justice prevailed,” James said in a statement. “For years, Donald Trump has tried to evade the law and stop our lawful investigation into him and his company’s financial dealings. Today’s ruling makes clear: No one is above the law.”
Habbas told The Epoch Times in an email: “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision. All documents responsive to the subpoena were produced to the attorney general months ago. The only issue raised by the attorney general at today’s hearing was with an affidavit submitted which copied the form mandated by the attorney general. This does not even come close to meeting the standard on a motion for contempt and, thus, we intend to appeal.”
Trump has said James, who ran for office vowing to investigate the Republican if she won, is selectively prosecuting him and his family.
Court to Block Biden Administration From Ending Title 42 Border Order
A federal judge on April 25 is set to block President Joe Biden’s administration from ending an emergency order that has been helping officials control the U.S.–Mexico border.
U.S. District Judge Robert Summerhays, a Trump appointee, told parties during a closed status conference that he intends to grant a motion for a temporary restraining order, according to minutes of the meeting released by the court.
“The parties will confer regarding the specific terms to be contained in the temporary restraining order and attempt to reach agreement,” the court reporter said.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican and one of the plaintiffs, celebrated the judge’s ruling.
“Joe Biden’s reckless decision to rescind Title 42 would have flooded our already stressed southern border with illegal immigrants,” Landry told The Epoch Times in a statement. “Fortunately, today a judge has granted our request to halt this enormous threat to our national security.”
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican and another plaintiff, called the ruling a “big win!”
Arizona, Louisiana, and Missouri on April 4 lodged a complaint against the government over its announced ending of Title 42, an emergency order that enables immigration agents to quickly expel illegal immigrants because of concerns the immigrants have COVID-19.
The order has been in place since early 2020 but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with support from the Department of Homeland Security and the White House, announced in early April that it would terminate the order in May.
Arizona Judge Dismisses Lawsuits Aimed at Disqualifying Reps. Gosar, Biggs
An Arizona judge has tossed lawsuits that attempted to disqualify Reps. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) from holding office.
The suits, which also took aim at state Rep. Mark Finchem, a Republican, failed because the U.S. Constitution does not provide for private action to enforce Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, Superior Court Judge Christopher Coury ruled.
The section, known as the Disqualification Clause, says that no person shall hold a federal office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the government.
Two groups linked to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described socialist, filed the complaints, claiming that Gosar, Biggs, and Finchem violated the clause because they “helped facilitate” the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
But the clause clearly states that Congress is the body that has the power to enforce the section, a determination also outlined in one of the few cases that deal with it, Coury said.
“Congress has not created a civil private right of action to allow a citizen to enforce the Disqualification Clause by having a person declared to be ‘not qualified’ to hold public office,” the judge ruled.
Plaintiffs, expecting such a judgment, also argued that the ability of citizens to challenge candidates is created by a state law, but Coury also disagreed.
The law says that “Any elector may challenge a candidate for any reason relating to qualifications for the office sought as prescribed by law.”
“In sum, even assuming arguendo that the court were to accept plaintiffs’ argument that Arizona (and not just Congress) had the power to create a private right of action to enforce the Disqualification Clause, A.R.S. § 16-351(B) does not do this,” Coury said. “To expand the inquiry to include disqualifications—or who is proscribed from holding office—would re-write the applicable statute and create a cause of action and remedy in a statutorily-created body of law. This would be contrary to established precedent.”
The qualifications for members of Congress are exclusively determined by each chamber, as outlined in Article 1, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution. The qualifications for officials in Arizona’s Executive Branch—Finchem is running to be secretary of state—are stated in the Arizona Constitution.
FBI Warns of Targeted Cyberattacks on Food Plants Amid Heightened Coverage of Fires
The FBI’s Cyber Division has issued a warning about potential cyberattacks on agricultural cooperatives and food plants amid increasing media coverage of recent fires and explosions at food processing plants across the United States.
“Ransomware actors may be more likely to attack agricultural cooperatives during critical planting and harvest seasons, disrupting operations, causing financial loss, and negatively impacting the food supply chain,” the FBI’s recent notice reads (pdf), noting that ransomware attacks in 2021 and early 2022 could disrupt the planting season by affecting “the supply of seeds and fertilizer.”
“A significant disruption of grain production could impact the entire food chain, since grain is not only consumed by humans but also used for animal feed. In addition, a significant disruption of grain and corn production could impact commodities trading and stocks.”
Detailing a spate of recent cyberattacks on food processing facilities and agricultural companies, the FBI listed at least four separate incidents since last summer.
“In July 2021, a business management software company found malicious activity on its network, which was later identified as HelloKitty/Five Hands ransomware. The threat actor demanded $30 million USD ransom,” the agency stated in one of its examples.
Last month, a grain company that operates in several states experienced a Lockbit 2.0 ransomware attack, according to the FBI. The firm also processes fertilizer and seeds and provides logistics for agricultural services.
“Six grain cooperatives experienced ransomware attacks” between mid-September 2021 and October 2021, the agency stated. “A variety of ransomware variants were used, including Conti, BlackMatter, Suncrypt, Sodinokibi, and BlackByte. Some targeted entities had to completely halt production while others lost administrative functions.”
The warning comes as an increasing number of fires—and even explosions—have been reported at food processing facilities across the country, according to reports, which were even featured during a segment on Fox News’s “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on April 22.
On April 14, a fire destroyed a food processing plant in the agricultural hub of Salinas, California, officials confirmed. City officials said at the time that an ammonia-triggered explosion sparked the fire at the Taylor Farms Processing Facility.
The most recent fire occurred on April 21 in Georgia, when a plane crashed into a General Mills plant just east of Atlanta, killing two people in the crash, officials told local media outlets. Officials said the plane took off from a nearby airport and appeared to suffer a mechanical failure before crashing into an isolated area of the plant where tractors are located.
Days before that, a fire destroyed parts of the Azure Standard Headquarters in Oregon, local media outlets reported.
Wikipedia Deletes Hunter Biden Investment Firm Entry
Wikipedia editors deleted an entry for Hunter Biden’s investment company Rosemont Seneca Partners, according to comments on the Talk Page of the entry.
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, co-founded U.S. investment and advisory firm Rosemont Seneca Partners in 2009, along with Chris Heinz, the stepson of former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and Devon Archer, one of his business partners. The firm has been under congressional scrutiny and has faced questions about the younger Biden’s overseas business dealings.
According to the Wikipedia Talk Page, the Rosemont Seneca entry was deleted on April 20. Some editors said the entry was “not notable” and suggested that it was thin on details.
“This organization is only mentioned in connection with its famous founders, Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz,” said Wikipedia editor “Alex,” who claimed that “keeping [the page] around” could turn it into “a magnet for conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden.” That editor didn’t elaborate or provide any evidence.
“It’s a non-notable company with a tangential connection to some conspiracy-related thing that didn’t happen,” another wrote.
Other editors, meanwhile, suggested the entire page be merged with the main Hunter Biden entry, which briefly mentions his involvement with Rosemont Seneca. However, arguments in favor of merging the pages were rejected, according to the Talk page.
“There are no in-depth references that discuss the company, only passing references with a mention here and there of a transaction,” one editor wrote. “That fails our criteria for establishing notability. The Hunter Biden article already mentions this firm so I don’t see any need for a Merge or Redirect.”
Rosemont Seneca Partners became a shareholder of a Chinese investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), which was incorporated in Shanghai in 2013. Biden resigned from his seat on BHR’s board of directors in 2019.
Curtis Houck, of the Media Research Center, told the New York Post that the decision suggests a double standard.
“If a Trump-linked company had its Wikipedia page wiped or one from the Russia probe, it’s more than a safe bet to say that CNN would be dedicating multiple reporters to following the internet trail,” he told the outlet.
The decision is sure to draw further criticism against Wikipedia’s editors, who have often been accused, including by one of its founders, Larry Sanger, of tilting far to the left.
“There’s a very big, nasty, complex game being played behind the scenes to make the article say what somebody wants them to say,” Sanger said in 2021, accusing the website of disseminating “propaganda.”
For example, editors have attempted to delete the page “Mass killings under communist regimes,” which includes documented atrocities committed by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Chinese Communist Party founder Mao Zedong, Ethiopian communist leader Mengistu Haile Mariam, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, and North Korean founder Kim Il-Sung.
Representatives of Wikipedia didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
LA’s Crime Surge Migrates to Wealthy, Whiter Zip Codes of Boldface Names (Power Hour Guest John Lott is featured in this story!)
On March 22, in the broad daylight of a typically gorgeous day in Beverly Hills, thieves in hoodies and sunglasses took a sledgehammer to the plate glass window of Peter Sedghi’s boutique and furiously rummaged through the shards. In less than 90 seconds, the robbers stole more than $3 million worth of jewels. Two days later, in response to a wave of high-end robberies, the Los Angeles Police Department announced there would be no arrests. Instead, it cautioned Hollywood residents not to wear high-quality jewelry in public.
“Beverly Hills is one of the most affluent, safest neighborhoods in the world and now everyone is scared,” Sedghi said. “All of my clients—no one wears anything.”
Crime has risen dramatically in Los Angeles, as well as in many other major cities, since the start of the pandemic and last summer’s protests against police violence resulted in the slashing of many law enforcement budgets. News stories document rising fear across LA and crime has become the major issue in both the upcoming mayor’s election and a possible recall of the district attorney. It may not be surprising that issues of race and class are driving this concern, though they have a new twist.
Wealthy and predominantly white neighborhoods have experienced the sharpest upticks in a wide array of crimes, according to an analysis conducted for RealClearInvestigations by criminologist John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
The zip codes showing the largest increases are home to film and pop stars, including Beverly Hills, of “90210” fame, where Beyonce and Jay-Z have their West Coast house; Bel Air, of “Fresh Prince” Will Smith fame, where Jennifer Lopez now resides; and Los Feliz, where Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom share a house and where Angelina Jolie has resided since her divorce from Brad Pitt. Nearby, the U.S. Postal Service has suspended delivery to one neighborhood in Santa Monica—a town where celebrities including Tom Cruise, Christian Bale and Sandra Bullock reportedly have homes—because “multiple carriers have been subjected to assault and threats of assault.”
Lott’s analysis (data here), which correlates census and LAPD crime statistics for the period January 2019 to January 2022, also reveals that those neighborhoods now account for much greater shares of the total number of crimes committed in Los Angeles. It shows that the richer and whiter the area, the greater the increase in both raw crime totals and percentages of total city crime. This includes a wide range of felonies, from robbery, burglary, shoplifting and car theft to aggravated assault and rape. Although poor and minority neighborhoods still experience the largest total number of crimes, including violent crimes such as murder, the shift to relatively safer neighborhoods is pronounced.
We Need to Focus on State and Local Governments
- Have you noticed that most of society tries to keep us focused on the President and the Federal Government?
- While everyone is looking toward Washington, D.C. to save us, they are not the only ones taking away your rights.
- Why should we focus on grassroots government rather than Washington, D.C.?
Misdirection is the stock and trade of both magicians and politicians. Over the years, the American people have been conditioned to focus on Washington, D.C. as both the source of our problems and their solution. In doing so, we are allowing those in our state and local government to steal our rights and our liberties right out from under our noses.
Property Laws
The list of infringements of your rights based on property laws are too numerous to go into detail here, but a few of the more egregious examples are worth looking at.
Let’s start with Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws. These state, and sometimes local laws, generally allow law enforcement to confiscate your property if they suspect it was used in, or came from, the proceeds of a crime. You do not need to be charged with a crime to have your property confiscated. In many jurisdictions, law enforcement charges your property with a laughable crime in an effort to get around those pesky constitutional protections of your rights. Many of these laws include “bounties” for the agency that confiscates your property, providing an incentive for them to do so.
Abuses of Eminent Domain, have been around for as long as people have owned property. One of the more famous examples is the case Kelo v. The City of New London, where the city condemned Ms. Kelo’s property in order to give it to the Bayer corporation to build a new complex. Most people who are aware of the case remember because it made it all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in 2005, who sadly decided in favor of the city. Of course, that famous case would not have existed if the City of New London had not first tried to benefit by stealing Ms. Kelo’s property and her rights. Today, Fredericksburg Virginia is using tax foreclosures to transfer property to a private corporation that is run by the city manager, using a non-profit run by the city mayor.
Probably the most frequently used abuse of private property rights are state and local zoning laws. Sure, they claim these laws are to keep your property safe for you and others, but frequently these regulations are more about controlling your property than keeping you safe. How has the number of outlets in a room, how far back a structure must be from the property line, or what you are allowed to keep in your yard, become a question of safety? By far the worst of these offenders are Homeowners Associations (HOAs). These private organizations act like mini governments, often enforcing draconian control over what is ostensibly your property.
Another Layer of Corruption in the Opioid Scandal Revealed
In 2021, McKinsey & Company, one of the largest consultants to corporations and governments worldwide, settled a lawsuit brought by 47 state attorneys general over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis
A U.S. House investigation reveals McKinsey was advising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on the safety of opioids, while at the same time advising Purdue how to maximize sales
Jeff Smith, a senior McKinsey consultant, worked on a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) for OxyContin while simultaneously advising the FDA about the drug’s safety
McKinsey promoted its FDA connections when pitching services to its pharmaceutical clients. The FDA, meanwhile, claims it had no idea McKinsey was working with Purdue
Purdue knew the dangers of its drug, covered it up, and hired FDA insiders to advise its sales strategy and how to influence the FDA. They also hired Publicis to manage its marketing. Publicis, the world’s largest PR company, funds and partners with “fact checking” organizations to suppress and censor the truth
DOJ Appeals Court Decision Lifting Mask Mandate, Experts Say Move Could Backfire
The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday appealed Monday’s ruling by a federal judge in Florida that struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate for public transport. Legal experts say the move could backfire if the case goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday appealed Monday’s ruling by a federal judge in Florida that struck down the Biden administration’s mask mandate for public transit.
The news followed a statement from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), issued at the DOJ’s request, recommending the continued use of masks on planes, trains and other public transportation.
The CDC said:
“It is CDC’s continuing assessment that at this time an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health. CDC will continue to monitor public health conditions to determine whether such an order remains necessary. CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC’s legal authority to protect public health.”
The DOJ filed the appeal in the U.S. District Court Middle District of Florida, Tampa Division, and said it may ask the court to stay the judge’s injunction while the case proceeds.
For now, the Florida ruling vacating the mandate stands.
Prior to filing the appeal, the federal government sent mixed signals regarding its willingness to appeal the April 18 decision of U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, Politico reported.
Mask Mandates Make Comeback to US College Campuses
Two months after the federal government eased mask recommendations for most Americans, some colleges and universities have reinstated mask mandates, along with other measures, citing surges in COVID-19 cases on their campuses.
Several prominent institutions—including American University and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; Columbia University in New York; Johns Hopkins University in Maryland; and Rice University in Texas, to name a few—have brought back indoor mask requirements that were phased out not too long ago.
Many of these schools already have vaccine and booster mandates. For example, Columbia required all students and employees to submit proof of their booster vaccination before March, boasting an overall 99.9 percent compliance rate for the campus community. Yet it now demands that students wear surgical masks in classrooms because of an uptick of COVID-19 cases on campus and elsewhere in New York City.
“Based on the current situation and in an abundance of caution, we will require wearing of non-cloth masks in classrooms,” the Ivy League school announced on April 10. In a more recent update, the university said the requirement wouldn’t go away any time soon, despite an overwhelmingly high level of vaccination among the campus population.
“We anticipate making no changes in our current campus COVID-19 guidance, unless New York City puts in place measures that we would be required to follow,” Columbia officials said on April 22, noting a “gradual increase in COVID-19 cases” in the city.
Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True The Vote, said the goal of the organization is to present their findings to authorities and advance state-specific investigations into the alleged widespread ballot harvesting that they uncovered during their two-year-long inquiry. Most recently, Georgia has advanced an investigation into this issue.
“There’s also been an update from the [Georgia] secretary of state, and that we understand that we’re going to soon be receiving subpoenas for information, which is great. That hasn’t happened yet, but we’re very optimistic that when it does, we’re going to have an opportunity to get to the bottom of it,” Engelbrecht told the host of Facts Matter, Roman Balmakov, during a recent interview.
True The Vote is an election integrity watchdog group that has been investigating alleged ballot harvesting operations that took place in six states during the last presidential election. It has found data to prompt official investigations by law enforcement and estimates that over 4 million ballots were allegedly harvested.
The state legislature in Georgia was presented with True The Vote findings and opened a formal investigation into the claims earlier this year. Engelbrecht said she is appreciative of the fact that although Georgia’s authorities are facing challenges in advancing the investigation, they have not been deterred.
“They [Georgia] are following the rule of law. They have been met with serious headwinds in trying to advance this investigation. So kudos to them for sticking with this because it’s not an easy path that they followed, and we’re very appreciative of their diligence,” said Engelbrecht.
“In the case of Georgia where we have active investigations going, they have access to everything, they have all the names, they have all the information that we have, and then they can choose what to do with it.”
True Voted Vote, which began its work probing a local Texas election in 2009, now works nationally to keep U.S. elections free and fair. “Since that time, we’ve very focused on what citizens can do to improve election integrity, to improve the process of their local election. But of course, in 2020, as we all know, things took a very different turn.”
The organization’s work has focused on ballot drop box sites, specifically in the states that had a questionable voting process or interruptions or delays in vote counting.
“What we were looking at was what we believe is the proof of exploitation of ballot drop boxes—the privately funded CTCL (Center for Technology and Civic Life) money, Mark Zuckerberg money, ballot drop boxes,” said Engelbrecht. “And what we presented in the hearing was laying out the research of those specific jurisdictions in which we geo-fenced around the privately funded drop boxes, and then monitored how many individual times the same device went to that drop box, and then from that formed patterns … and presented that to the committee, hopefully helping them achieve some solid legislation that prevents those drop boxes from being used in the future.”
Cause of Spike in Homeless Deaths in LA During First Year of Pandemic Revealed
There was a more than 50 percent spike in deaths among Los Angeles County’s homeless population during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to recently released data, which found that it was mainly driven by overdoses—not COVID-19.
Los Angeles County, which has been dominated by Democratic executives and elected officials for years, said that between April 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, some 1,988 overall deaths among the homeless were recorded. That’s up about 56 percent from 1,271 deaths during the same time period one year earlier, said a report from the LA Department of Public Health, dated April 22.
As a result, the county concluded that drug overdoses remained the top cause of death among homeless individuals during that timeframe. Overdose deaths also increased 78 percent “from the pre- to post-pandemic onset year,” the country wrote.
There were 402 fatal overdoses in the pre-pandemic year, the country said. That “nearly doubled” to 715 in the first year of the outbreak, LA County said.
“The findings in this report reflect a true state of emergency,” said LA County First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis said in a statement. “In a civil society, it is unacceptable for any of us to not be profoundly disturbed by the shocking needs documented in this year’s homeless mortality report.”
Heart disease was the second leading causing of death—increasing 29 percent year-over-year—and COVID-19 was the third leading cause of death, said the report. Traffic injuries and homicide were the fourth and fifth leading causes of death, respectively, during that time period, according to officials.
“The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on people experiencing homelessness has clearly extended beyond the immediate effects of this new and deadly virus,” Los Angeles Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said in a statement. “The pandemic has exacerbated stressors already burdening this vulnerable population.”
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Foreclosures Are Rapidly Rising. Is Another Crisis Headed Our Way?
Foreclosures are soaring, but real estate experts say it’s not a repeat of the housing crisis of the mid-2000s.
They hit a pandemic high in the first quarter of 2022 as foreclosure moratoriums around the nation expired, according to a recent report from ATTOM, a real estate information firm. The moratoriums were put in place to protect homeowners during the early days of COVID-19 when unemployment spiked as the nation shut down.
There were 78,271 foreclosure filings in the U.S. in the first quarter of the year. That’s up 39% from the last quarter of 2021 and represented a 132% jump from a year ago. A surge of foreclosures could bring down record-high home prices.
While those numbers might bring to mind the foreclosure crisis the nation suffered through in the 2000s, no one should panic just yet.
The number of folks who can’t make their mortgage payments is actually still well below where it was before the pandemic began and the moratoriums were instituted. Foreclosures are still about only 57% of where they were in the first quarter of 2020.
Who Will Eventually Own Everything, Including You?
The vast majority of the world’s assets are owned by just two investment firms — BlackRock and the Vanguard Group. Combined, they have ownership in nearly 90% of all S&P 500 firms, and through their investment holdings they secretly wield monopoly control over all industries
By now you may be familiar with the World Economic Forum slogan, “By 2030, you will own nothing.” To that end, BlackRock and other investment firms are buying up every single-family home they can find, making cash offers of 20% to 50% above asking price
Buying a home has been part of the American dream since the founding of this country. It’s been a significant part of financial success, security and freedom. George Washington declared that “Private Property and freedom are inseparable.” Now, lower to middle class Americans are being intentionally positioned to become permanent renters, which means they cannot build equity
This is wealth redistribution from the low- and middle-class to the upper, and it’s in line with plans for societal reorganization described under banners such as The Great Reset, Build Back Better, Agenda 21 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
These agendas all work together toward the same goal, which is a global monopoly on ownership and wealth, with a clear separation of the haves and have nots; the owners and the owned; the rulers and the ruled; the elite and the serfs
Coffee Shortages in Latin America Spells Trouble for US Consumers
On the shaded side of a jungle mountain, local coffee farmer Fernando Jordan points to a row of bushes loaded with clusters of red berries.
“If you plant one hectare of land here, it will cost you $20,000 to $30,000 dollars to actually produce coffee,” he told The Epoch Times.
Jordan’s words strike a chord and reflect one of several problems Latin America’s coffee growers face, including a significant spike in demand, supply chain issues, and high operating and transport costs.
The combination of factors has occurred in lockstep with recent production shortages due to poor harvests, particularly in Brazil, the world’s leading grower of the commodity.
Dwindling stockpiles and price hikes per cup made the world sit up and take notice in the first half of 2021 as Brazil struggled with the worst year for coffee productivity in decades.
Prolonged drought conditions in South America’s largest country have impacted the entire nation’s Arabica coffee crop since the end of 2020, meaning the 2021-2022 harvest season was going to be short even before other factors come into play.
During July last year, frost events also affected farmers’ crops in the Minas Gerais, Sao Paulo, and Parana growing regions of Brazil.
This translates into a shortfall of 13.6 million bags of coffee for the 2021-2022 season, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Coffee growers echo Jordan’s sentiments about the crippling high production costs in some Central American countries with high-income instability.
In Honduras, many farmers are giving up on turning a profit from the delicate plant to head north with other migrant caravans bound for the United States.
El Laurel is a village in northeastern Honduras where Maria Bonilla and her husband cling to the hope of squeezing a profit from their family’s coffee plantation.
“If I didn’t have my Mom, I would also go to the United States … nobody here is solvent,” Bonilla said.
She also admitted her four children had already left the farm and began the treacherous journey north toward the U.S. border, choosing the life of an undocumented migrant over the family’s struggling coffee farm.
Elon Musk Creates 3 Holding Companies in Effort to Buy Twitter
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has created three Delaware-based holding companies in his recent bid to acquire Twitter, raising the possibility of a broader umbrella company for the investor’s numerous business interests.
These holding companies, named “X Holdings I,” “X Holdings II,” and “X Holdings III,” were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, stating that all three companies were established in order to acquire or merge with Twitter.
The naming convention revolving around the letter “X” is a perennial feature of Musk’s business enterprises. Musk launched his career on the success of X.com, which was merged with Confinity to form the company now known as PayPal in 2000, and he continued his loyalty to the 24th letter in the names of his aerospace startup SpaceX and the Tesla SUV Model X. The letter has even featured prominently in the names of Musk’s children, with the most infamous example being his son “X Æ A-Xii Musk,” for whom the letter stands alone as a legally given name.
The creation of these companies hints at the possibility of roping Musk’s business empire under a single umbrella company called “X,” a concept that the tech entrepreneur first floated in 2020.
At its most expansive, such a company would include Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, and The Boring Company, making for a diverse and multifaceted enterprise. At current levels, the other subsidiaries of this hypothetical umbrella corp would be dwarfed by Tesla, which is by far the most valuable of Musk’s business interests with a market cap of over 1 trillion dollars.
However, such an eclectic umbrella company is still a long way from fruition, as Musk’s takeover of Twitter remains an ongoing process with no guarantee of success.
Throughout the controversy, Musk has presented himself as a proponent of free speech, disillusioned with Twitter’s content moderation and censorship policies. Fears that a Musk takeover of Twitter could result in a more open information policy have galvanized the progressive left, who complain that Musk’s views about free speech would have a deleterious effect on women and minorities on the platform.
On Tuesday, Musk made further headlines in the ongoing battle over Twitter, when the electric car tycoon tweeted, “_______ is the Night.” Though cryptic, this statement is widely interpreted as a reference to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “Tender is the Night”, alluding to the concept of a “tender offer”—a proposal to buy shares of a company directly from stakeholders, bypassing the approval of the company’s board of directors.
Twitter Accepts Elon Musk’s $44 Billion Takeover Bid
Company agrees to billionaire’s $54.20-per-share offer
Twitter’s board of directors has approved Elon Musk’s offer to purchase the social media firm and take it private in a transaction valued at about $44 billion, the company announced on April 25.
The company accepted the billionaire entrepreneur’s proposal of $54.20 per share in cash.
“Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important,” CEO Parag Agrawal said in a company statement.
Musk said in a statement: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential—I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
It’s been a roller coaster ride since Musk first acquired a 9.2 percent stake in the tech company earlier this month. From rejecting a seat on the company’s board to multiple Twitter polls sponsored by the billionaire CEO, there have been many twists and turns in recent weeks.
Twitter shares rallied more than 5 percent on the news, topping $51 a share. Shares are up nearly 30 percent since April 4 when Twitter confirmed that Musk had acquired a significant stake in the company.
The board members initially resisted Musk’s offer by adopting a “poison pill” defense to prevent a hostile takeover.
The agreement came after Musk confirmed last week that he had secured $46.5 billion in funding commitments to finance the takeover. This included $25.5 billion in debt financing te to have it repealed. From March 28, the day the company issued the statement, through Morgan Stanley and other financial firms.
Musk plans to take the company private when the transaction is completed. The deal is expected to finalize this year. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Allen & Co. are working as financial advisers to Twitter, while Morgan Stanley is serving as lead financial adviser to Musk.
Disney Has Lost $34 Billion in Value Since Embarking on Culture War With Florida
Disney’s market cap has shrunk by nearly $34 billion since the company expressed its full-throated opposition to a Florida law banning instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools for kindergarten through third grade.
Florida lawmakers in March passed HB 1557, dubbed by opponents as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which was signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on March 28.
That same day, Disney waded deeply into the controversy, issuing a statement that was highly critical of HB 1557, saying it was the company’s objectivo April 22, Disney’s market cap has fallen by roughly $33.9 billion.
Backers of the legislation say it gives parents more power around deciding how and when topics relating to LGBT issues can be introduced to their children. It also gives parents the opportunity to sue school districts for violations of the rules set out in the legislation.
“Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” the measure (pdf) reads.
DeSantis said on the day he signed the legislation that “parents have every right to be informed about services offered to their child at school and should be protected from schools using classroom instruction to sexualize their kids as young as 5 years old.”
On the day DeSantis signed the measure, Disney issued a statement saying that “Florida’s HB 1557, also known as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, should never have passed and should never have been signed into law.”
Disney noted that it was the company’s goal “for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.”
Disney’s declaration of opposition to the bill prompted some parents’ groups to call for boycotts of the company’s products, movies, theme parks, and shows.
Based on 1.82 billion outstanding shares and on the March 28 share price of $136.90, Disney’s market cap stood at about $249.2 billion. With its shares having fallen to $118.27 on April 22, Disney’s value as measured by market capitalization has declined to $215.3 billion, a drop of $33.9 billion.
On April 22, DeSantis signed a legislature-passed measure to dissolve Walt Disney World’s self-governing status in Florida, with potential tax implications for the company.
DeSantis made reference on April 22 to Disney’s pledge to have HB 1557 repealed.
“I was very clear about saying, ‘You ain’t influencing me. I’m standing strong right here,’” he said. “Incredibly, they say, ‘We are going to work to repeal parents’ rights in Florida.’
“And I’m just thinking to myself, you’re a corporation based in Burbank, California, and you’re going to marshal your economic might to attack the parents of my state. We view that as a provocation, and we’re going to fight back against that.”
Elon Musk Rebuffs Bill Gates’s Climate ‘Philanthropy’ Request in Scathing Text
Elon Musk has said he confronted fellow billionaire Bill Gates over the Microsoft founder’s supposed holding of roughly $500 million in Tesla shorts in a series of testy text messages in which Musk rebuffed Gates’s request to discuss climate change philanthropy.
In an April 22 Twitter post, Musk confirmed the veracity of a text message exchange between him and Gates in which the Microsoft founder admitted he was short-selling shares of Tesla, meaning that he was betting on the stock dropping in price.
“Do you still have a half billion dollar short position against Tesla?” Musk wrote in one of the messages, a screengrab of which was shared by the @WholeMarsBlog account on Twitter.
“Sorry to say I haven’t closed it out,” Gates reportedly replied, following it up with a request “to discuss philanthropy possibilities.”
Musk responded by saying he couldn’t take Gates’s proposal seriously if the latter was betting on a drop in Tesla shares.
“Sorry, but I cannot take your philanthropy on climate change seriously when you have a massive short position against Tesla, the company doing the most to solve climate change,” Musk said.
The @WholeMarsBlog account posted a follow-up Twitter post to the screengrabs, tagging Musk and asking him whether the exchange was real.
Musk replied by confirming its accuracy, although he said he hadn’t leaked it and that it must have gotten out “through friends of friends.”
“I heard from multiple people at TED that Gates still had half billion short against Tesla, which is why I asked him, so it’s not exactly top secret,” Musk wrote.
Trump Reveals His Stance on Returning to Twitter After Musk’s Bid Prevails
Former President Donald Trump, banned from Twitter, said he will not return to the platform even after businessman Elon Musk takes over.
“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on Truth,” Trump told Fox News. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth.”
Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX founder, announced April 25 on Twitter that he plans to buy the California-based company for about $44 billion.
Musk pledged to make the platform better by respecting free speech and rolling out new features.
Twitter has increasingly cracked down on users, particularly conservatives, in recent years, and banned Trump while he was still president in 2021.
At the time, Twitter executives said Trump’s posts were inciting violence. Trump had called for peace at the U.S. Capitol and for people who were there carrying out violence to leave but also said his supporters were “very special.”
Facebook also banned Trump. Facebook put the ban at two years after its independent court ruled describing the suspension as “indefinite” was not permissible.
Twitter also banned some Trump administration officials, including former trade adviser Peter Navarro.
Trump’s rival company, Truth Social, started accepting signups in February.
EDUCATION
More Secret Gender Transition Closets Discovered in Public Schools
They started in colleges, but trans closets—rooms stocked with transgender clothes and accessories for students to change into after arriving to school and back out of before going home—are being discovered in public schools with some indication they are being kept a secret from parents.
In a recent TikTok video, a California teacher implies that the trans closet he started at the high school where he works is meant to be kept from parents.
“The goal of the transition closet is for our students to wear the clothes that their parents approve of, come to school and then swap out into the clothes that fit who they truly are,” the teacher said.
The California Family Council and others eventually confirmed the identity of the teacher as Oakland Unified School District Spanish teacher Thomas Martin-Edwards, who is also the founder of “Queer Teacher Fellowship.”
Martin-Edwards, the teacher who runs the trans closet, is also transgender. He has posted videos of himself in the classroom showing off the stilettos he wears to school.
Neither Martin-Edwards, a former assistant principal in another school district, nor the school responded to inquiries by The Epoch Times about the trans closet.
HEALTH
Who Will Eventually Own Everything, Including You?
The vast majority of the world’s assets are owned by just two investment firms — BlackRock and the Vanguard Group. Combined, they have ownership in nearly 90% of all S&P 500 firms, and through their investment holdings they secretly wield monopoly control over all industries
By now you may be familiar with the World Economic Forum slogan, “By 2030, you will own nothing.” To that end, BlackRock and other investment firms are buying up every single-family home they can find, making cash offers of 20% to 50% above asking price
Buying a home has been part of the American dream since the founding of this country. It’s been a significant part of financial success, security and freedom. George Washington declared that “Private Property and freedom are inseparable.” Now, lower to middle class Americans are being intentionally positioned to become permanent renters, which means they cannot build equity
This is wealth redistribution from the low- and middle-class to the upper, and it’s in line with plans for societal reorganization described under banners such as The Great Reset, Build Back Better, Agenda 21 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
These agendas all work together toward the same goal, which is a global monopoly on ownership and wealth, with a clear separation of the haves and have nots; the owners and the owned; the rulers and the ruled; the elite and the serfs
VIdeo: Monopoly – Follow The Money
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
GARDENING, FARMING & HOMESTEADING
Deregulate Home Food Businesses
The pandemic has created lasting changes to the economy. More employees are working from home, videocalls are replacing business travel, and home‐based entrepreneurship is booming. The internet is a key driver of home entrepreneurship—the number of arts‐and‐crafts businesses on Etsy.com, for example, jumped from 2.6 million in 2019 to 7.5 million by 2021.
Another thriving area of internet‐driven entrepreneurship is home‐based food production for retail sale, often called the cottage food industry. Popular cottage foods include baked goods, canned goods, pickled goods, chocolates, candies, jams, fruit pies, honey, and pasta.
Home‐based food businesses offer entrepreneurs cost savings and lifestyle advantages. Aspiring entrepreneurs may not be able to pursue their dreams if they have to rent commercial kitchen space and pay for childcare and commuting. Homes are a low‐cost incubator to test business ideas before making larger investments. The vast majority of commercial craft brewers, for example, got their start brewing at home.
However, cottage food industry growth faces a major barrier: government health and zoning rules that ban, restrict, or raise costs for home‐based businesses, as I discuss here. State and local rules vary widely regarding food items that can be sold, where they can be sold, and the sales volume allowed. At one end of the freedom spectrum, Wyoming home businesses can sell any type of food except meat within an annual sales limit of $250,000. At the other end of the spectrum, Rhode Island only allows farmers to sell food made in their homes, and even sales from farmers are tightly restricted
A number of U.S. government officials recently took part in a virtual agriculture event co-hosted by a Beijing-backed influence association that has ties to Bill Gates.
The United States Heartland China Association (USHCA), a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded in 2003, held the online 2022 U.S.-China Agriculture Roundtable earlier this month. The online event was co-hosted by the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC).
The Trump administration warned about CPAFFC. In February 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, called out the association as “the public face of the Chinese Communist Party’s official foreign influence agency, the United Front Work Department.”
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses the United Front Work Department (UFWD) to run its foreign influence operations. In the United States, the CCP has also deployed grass-roots level “united front” groups as part of its effort to infiltrate America’s civil and political institutions.
CPAFFC is “tasked with co-opting subnational governments” and “has sought to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] global agenda,” the U.S. State Department warned in October 2020, when designating another group, a Washington-based Chinese organization, as a foreign mission.
The roundtable featured a number of U.S. state officials, including Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture Blayne Arthur, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Mike Beam, Missouri Director of Agriculture Chris Chinn, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, and Rep. Darin LaHood (R-Ill.)
The 2022 roundtable event was initially reported by the National Pulse. The inaugural roundtable was held in April 2021.
The state-run Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) was one of the partners of the event. Several CASS officials and scholars also took part in the roundtable, including Wang Wei, director-general of the academy’s bureau of international cooperation.
COVID RELATED NEWS
Mass Testing: The Fatal Conceit
A few decades ago, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) robots, DNA sequencers, and high-speed computers fostered and accompanied quite a scientific revolution in virology. Acknowledging this radical change, some illustrious scholars alerted their scientific community on a hazardous drift away from investigating the viral ecology, pathogenesis, and disease potential, along with viral identification by testing. “In summary”, wrote Calisher and al. (2001),
remarkable advances in molecular genetics have allowed rapid and precise identifications of viruses and of their genomes; however, such characterizations thus far can provide only limited information about the phenotype and disease potential of a virus.
Their position paper was noticed and its lead author, Professor Charles H. Calisher, was interviewed by Science (Enserink 2001):
Thanks to techniques such as PCR and sequencing, diagnostic labs everywhere can perform high -sensitivity tests for a battery of viruses in a matter of hours. […] Although all that is terrific, says Calisher, a string of DNA letters in a data bank tells little or nothing about how a virus multiplies, which animals carry it, how it makes people sick, or whether antibodies to other viruses might protect against it. Just studying sequences, Calisher says, is “like trying to say whether somebody has bad breath by looking at his fingerprint.”
The fundamental issue raised by Calisher et al. (2001) was that, without complementing genomic testing with phenotypic and epidemiologic information, “it will be much harder to understand and fight the next dangerous virus that comes along” (Enserink 2001). In other words, ‘miasma’ and ‘germ’ theories should go along together, complementing each other.
Calisher et al. (2001)’ claim has proved to be quite prophetic. That issue shakes the very foundation on which the dominant approach to COVID-19 pandemic management and policy lays upon. Once the virus was identified, testing positive was conflated with being sick. And mass testing has been advocated and deployed in quite an impossible effort to trace the viral diffusion in real time. On 9 March 2022, the WHO renewed once again its call for mass testing:
WHO is concerned that several countries are drastically reducing testing. This inhibits our ability to see where the virus is, how it’s spreading and how it’s evolving. Testing remains a vital tool in our fight against the pandemic, as part of a comprehensive strategy.
Here’s Why No One Wants to Talk About Sweden
When, the summer before last, the results of the first Covid wave began to be tallied in the media, there were different ways of measuring the devastation. One way of looking at the pandemic was to focus on how many people died — more than half a million around the world by the end of June. Another was to try assessing the complicated impacts of the various measures taken to combat the virus. When a lot of the functions in society were frozen, people struggled — especially the most vulnerable.
For those who preferred the first perspective, there was plenty of data to lean on. Meticulous records of the death toll were being kept in most countries, especially the wealthy ones, and presented in stylish graphs on various sites: the Johns Hopkins University website, Worldometer, Our World in Data.
It was a lot harder to measure the consequences of the lockdowns. They appeared here and there as scattered anecdotes and figures. Perhaps the most striking data point came from the US: by the end of the academic year, a total of 55.1 million students had been affected by school closures.
But still, the death toll was more interesting. In early summer, The New York Times had published a front page completely devoid of pictures. Instead, it contained a long list of people who had died: a thousand names, followed by their age, location, and a very brief description. “Alan Lund, 81, Washington, conductor with ‘the most amazing ear’”; “Harvey Bayard, 88, New York, grew up directly across the street from the old Yankee Stadium”. And so on.
It was The New York Times’s national editor who had noticed that the US death toll was about to pass 100,000, and so wanted to create something memorable — something you could look back on in 100 years to understand what society was going through. The front page was reminiscent of what a newspaper might look like during a bloody war. It brought to mind the way American TV stations had reported the names of fallen soldiers at the end of every day during the Vietnam War.
The idea spread quickly across the world. A few weeks later, in Sweden, the front page of Dagens Nyheter was covered with 49 colour photographs below the words: “One Day, 118 Lives.” Those 118 people had passed away on 15 April. It was the highest daily death toll recorded throughout the Spring. Since then, it had steadily been falling.
When the epidemiologist Johan Giesecke read the paper, it left him a little puzzled. On any normal day, 275 people die in Sweden, he thought. He’d spent a large part of his life studying just that: where, when, and how people die. The way the world currently thought about death was, to him, completely alien. When he’d taken part in an online conference in Johannesburg, one participant had pointed out that, in that year alone, more than 2 million people had died of hunger in the world. During the same period, Covid-19 had claimed between 200,000 and 300,000 lives.
Lawmaker Pushes Bill With Harsh Recurring Fines for Unvaccinated Rhode Islanders
Rhode Island state Sen. Sam Bell has urged the state to pass his COVID-19 vaccine mandate that would fine residents in the state who choose not to get the shot.
Bell cited a poll by a Boston Globe columnist showing 64 percent of Rhode Islanders “support a universal vaccine mandate,” adding that he believes “it’s time for us to pass my mandate bill.”
The legislation (pdf), first introduced by a group of Democratic senators in March, states that all eligible citizens in Rhode Island over the age of 16 who reside, work, or pay personal income taxes are required to get the shot or face two different civil penalties.
Under the policy, those who are eligible for the jab and are under the age of 16 would also be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine “with the responsibility for ensuring compliance falling on all parents or guardians with medical consent powers”—meaning parents or guardians of non-compliant minors are mandated to force children into taking the shot.
Anyone who would violate the order will face a $50 monthly fine and “shall owe twice the amount of personal income taxes as would otherwise be assessed,” the bill states.
In addition, employers who fail to require proof of vaccination from workers and knowingly violate this rule will be forced to pay a penalty of $5,000 per month for each violation.
“It’s really important that we take all of the precautions we can to make sure that everyone in Rhode Island is vaccinated,” Bell told WPRI. “Plenty of people break all sorts of rules and if they get caught they pay a fine. It’s not a particularly severe penalty.”
The legislation has drawn a lot of opposition since it was first introduced last month by a group of Democratic senators: Tiara Mack, Jonathon Acosta, Kendra Anderson, James Seveney, Cynthia Mendes, and Bell.
Republican Rhode Island state Sen. Jessica de la Cruz expressed her view on the bill after people across the state had asked her about it, explaining she believes it unfairly penalizes residents over a personal medical decision.
In a letter to her constituents, she said the legislation has “extraordinary financial penalties” and she would “never support legislation that penalizes a person for making personal medical decisions.”
“I have not, nor will I ever support, legislation that coerces Rhode Islanders into making medical decisions or face steep financial damages,” De La Cruz said. “I hear my constituents and others around the state loud and clear—this is dangerous legislation and sends the message that our government doesn’t trust you to make the right choice for you and your family.”
Bell’s legislation has been referred to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee for consideration, though de la Cruz said it likely won’t pass.
‘Long COVID’ Plagues COVID-19 Patients About 30% Of The Time
Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are still learning about the effects of the virus, including how many people suffer from “long COVID” – When symptoms of the disease linger long past infection.
New University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) research finds that 30% of people treated for COVID-19 developed Post Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), most commonly known as “long COVID.”
According to the study, which was recently published in Springer, patients with a history of hospitalization, diabetes, and higher body mass index were most likely to develop the condition, while those covered by Medicaid, as opposed to commercial health insurance, or had undergone an organ transplant were less likely to acquire it.
Surprisingly, demographics that are linked with severe illness and greater risk of death from COVID-19, such as ethnicity, older age and socioeconomic status, were not associated with long COVID syndrome.
The UCLA researchers studied 1,038 people who were enrolled in the UCLA COVID Ambulatory Program between April 2020 and February 2021. Of those, 309 people were living with long COVID. In hospitalized patients, the most persistent symptoms were fatigue and shortness of breath (31% and 15%, respectively). Loss of sense of smell (16%) was the most reported symptom in outpatients.
“This study illustrates the need to follow diverse patient populations longitudinally to understand the Long COVID disease trajectory and evaluate how individual factors such as pre-existing co-morbidities, sociodemographic factors, vaccination status and virus variant type affect type and persistence of Long COVID symptoms,” said Dr. Sun Yoo, health sciences assistant clinical professor at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and medical director of the Extensivist Program. “Studying outcomes in a single health system can minimize variation in quality of medical care. Our study also raises questions such as: Why were patients with commercial insurance twice as likely to develop Long COVID than patients insured through Medicaid? Because persistent symptoms can be subjective in nature, we need better tools to accurately diagnose Long COVID and to differentiate it from exacerbations of other emerging or chronic conditions. Finally, we need to ensure equitable access to outpatient Long COVID care.”
Heart Inflammation More Prevalent Among Vaccinated Than Unvaccinated: Study
Heart inflammation requiring hospital care was more common among people who received COVID-19 vaccines than those who did not, according to a new study of tens of millions of Europeans.
Rates of myocarditis or pericarditis, two types of heart inflammation, are above the levels in an unvaccinated cohort, pegged at 38 per 100,000 after receipt of a second dose of a vaccine built on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology in males aged 16 to 24—the group studies have shown are most at risk of the post-vaccination condition—researchers with health agencies in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway found.
“These extra cases among men aged 16–24 correspond to a 5 times increased risk after Comirnaty and 15 times increased risk after Spikevax compared to unvaccinated,” Dr. Rickard Ljung, a professor and physician at the Swedish Medical Products Agency and one of the principal investigators of the study, told The Epoch Times in an email.
Comirnaty is the brand name for Pfizer’s vaccine while Spikevax is the brand name for Moderna’s jab.
Rates were also higher among the age group for those who received any dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, both of which utilize mRNA technology. And rates were elevated among vaccinated males of all ages after the first or second dose, except for the first dose of Moderna’s shot for those 40 or older, and females 12- to 15-years-old.
Researchers pulled data from national health registers, analyzing 23.1 million people aged 12 or older. The analysis was of data from Dec. 27, 2020, to incidence of myocarditis or pericarditis, or the end of the study time period, which was Oct. 5, 2021.
“The risks of myocarditis and pericarditis were highest within the first 7 days of being vaccinated, were increased for all combinations of mRNA vaccines, and were more pronounced after the second dose,” researchers wrote in the study, which was published by the Journal of the American Medical Association following peer review.
CANCEL CULTURE
Truth Social Migrates to Rumble Cloud, Trump Platform Preparing to Onboard Millions
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media platform—Truth Social—migrated to Rumble Cloud on April 22 as it attempts to onboard millions of internet users on the network.
Truth Social, created by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), “successfully” migrated its website and mobile applications to Rumble’s cloud infrastructure, according to an April 22 news release.
This migration will ensure that the network can easily “scale significantly” on a “cancel-culture-free” cloud platform, the release said.
Truth Social is the first significant customer to onboard Rumble’s cloud business service.
Devin Nunes, CEO of TMTG, said the migration was “a major stride toward rescuing the internet from the grip of the Big Tech tyrants.”
“Our teams have worked tirelessly to realize this great endeavor,” Nunes said. “Rumble’s cloud infrastructure is second to none and will be the backbone for the restoration of free speech online for ages to come.”
GOOD NEWS
Confronted by a stray driver traveling the wrong way on the interstate, a sheriff’s deputy in Colorado put his life on the line by placing his cruiser between the reckless motorist and the rest of the traffic on the highway.
The subsequent collision likely saved lives.
The Adams County Sheriff’s Office first received a call from Colorado State Patrol around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, April 12. They were informed of a vehicle headed westbound in the eastbound lanes of the I-70, at mile marker 328, the sheriff’s office stated.
Deputies headed to the scene and were able to stop eastbound traffic at mile marker 310 in hopes of preventing a crash.
Positioning himself between the dozen or so stopped vehicles and the wayward driver traveling at high speeds, one deputy “bravely put himself and his vehicle in harms way,” stated the sheriff’s office, and allowed himself to be struck in order to protect the other motorists.
Third-Grade Teacher’s Quick Response Saves 9-Year-Old Student Choking on a Bottle Cap
A third-grade teacher sprang into action when a 9-year-old student ran to her desk with a bottle cap stuck in his throat. Calmly and swiftly, she performed the Heimlich maneuver, dislodging the cap and saving the child’s life.
“We were starting our math class. Robert was a little thirsty from returning from gym class,” Janiece Jenkins, who has taught at New Jersey’s East Orange Community Charter School for five years, told The Epoch Times. “He tried to screw up the bottle cap and couldn’t do it, so he tried to use his teeth. He squeezed the bottle, so all the water pushed the cap down his throat.”
ATTN SW FLORIDA (AND ALL OTHER PHILANTHROPIC DONORS: Tuesday is the Giving Challenge. If you’re in Southwest Florida (or elsewhere if you see fit), you can contribute to any of the various non-profit organizations out there simply by going to the following link:
https://www.givingchallenge.org/donate?campaign_id=127508
The Patterson Foundation will match 100% of all donations from $25-$100 to any charity organization. Giving Tuesday starts at noon (Eastern Time) April 26th and ends Wednesday at noon (Eastern Time), April 27th (2022). Local charities can use your help and we appreciate your kindness!
ICYMI
Man Who Set Himself on Fire in Front of Supreme Court Dies
The male who set himself on fire in front of the U.S. Supreme Court has died, the Metropolitan Police said on April 23.
Authorities identified the man as 50-year-old Wynn Bruce from Boulder, Colorado, and said he died from the injuries after he set himself on fire.
A police report states that Wynn lit himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court at about 6:30 p.m. on April 22. He was airlifted to a local hospital after the incident.
Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe told media outlets in a statement that the event took place on the plaza in front of the Supreme Court building.
The Supreme Court Police, U.S. Capitol Police, and the Metropolitan Police had responded to the incident. No one else was injured.
There was no threat to public safety, McCabe told media outlets.
“The area remains closed for further investigation, but this is not a public safety issue,” she said in a statement.
The U.S. Capitol is located across the street from the Supreme Court.
The incident comes after a shooting in Washington, where at least four people were hit.
Police said the suspect was found dead hours later inside a residence in the area of Connecticut Avenue and Van Ness Street in the Van Ness neighborhood of Washington.
The identity of the suspect wasn’t released.
Police believe the man erected a “sniper-type setup” with a tripod and rifle in his apartment and began firing indiscriminately at people walking below, Metropolitan Police Chief Robert Contee said. The shooting was recorded and posted online on 4chan, an online message board.
A shelter-in-place order was issued after the shooting and was lifted at roughly 9:30 p.m. after the suspect was found dead.
The four victims of the shooting include a 54-year-old man who’s a retired police officer, a woman in her 30s, a woman in her mid-60s who was grazed by a bullet, and a 12-year-old girl who was shot in the arm.
They’re all expected to recover, police said.
Man Arrested Over Alleged Bomb Threats to Merriam-Webster Over Gender Definitions
A California man was arrested and charged on Tuesday after allegedly threatening to bomb a publishing company over its dictionary definitions of the words “girl,” “woman,” or “female.”
Jeremy David Hanson, 34, of Rossmoor was charged on April 20 and faces one count of interstate communication of threats to commit violence, according to a U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) news release. He was released on conditions, and his next court appearance will be in Massachusetts next week.
If convicted, Hanson could be sentenced to up to five years in prison, of which three years would be supervised release, and be fined $250,000.
According to a criminal complaint, Merriam-Webster Inc. received a number of threatening messages and comments between Oct. 2, 2021, and Oct. 8, 2021, that targeted specific gender identity definitions through the website’s “contact us” page.
As a result of these threats, the Springfield-based publisher had to close its offices in Springfield and New York City for approximately five business days.
Hanson was apparently angered over how the website defines different gender identities. For example, a female is defined as “having a gender identity that is the opposite of male,” while a girl is described as “a female child from birth to adulthood” or “a person whose gender identity is female.”
“You [sic] headquarters should be shot up and bombed. It is sickening that you have caved to the cultural Marxist, anti-science tranny [sic] agenda and altered the definition of ‘female’ as part of the Left’s efforts to corrupt and degrade the English language and deny reality. You evil Marxists should all be killed. It would be poetic justice to have someone storm your offices and shoot up the place, leaving none of you commies alive,” Hanson allegedly sent to the publisher’s contact us section.
The affidavit further alleges that on Oct. 2, 2021, Hanson used the handle “@anonYmous” to post several other messages on the website, saying there is no such thing as “gender identity.”
“It is absolutely sickening that Merriam-Webster now tells blatant lies and promotes anti-science propaganda. There is no such thing as ‘gender identity.’ The imbecile who wrote this entry should be hunted down and shot,” he allegedly sent.
“Everyone has a right to express their opinion, but repeatedly threatening to kill people, as has been alleged, takes it to a new level,” said FBI Boston special agent Joseph R. Bonavolonta. “Threats to life are most certainly not protected speech and they cause real fear in victims,” he added.
A Tradition Called Freedom: The People, The Times, The Belief—Part II
Rebellions sometimes serve two masters at the same time—righteousness and evil. It’s not always simple telling them apart; while struggling for one, we may inadvertently find the other, despite the best of intentions, with woeful consequences. History is rife with examples of revolutions proclaiming freedom yet serving enslavement, usurpation, even genocide.
Legitimate freedom movements have sprung up in Western traditions in the past. Both Exodus and the resurrection of Jesus are examples attesting to emancipation from bondage while advocating freedom to follow God-given, revealed laws.
Dubious rebellions in the name of freedom, but achieving the opposite, also exist. Particularly in politics and power struggles, often motives are murky, evil is hidden, and words like liberty are easily abused.
Taiwan Broadcaster Apologizes for Accidental False Alerts Reporting Chinese Invasion
Chinese Television System (CTS) News and Info, Taiwan’s key broadcaster, issued an apology for a blunder that caused newsfeeds to scroll text onscreen saying the Chinese military had attacked Taiwanese cities with missiles.
On April 20, during the 7:00 a.m. morning news broadcast, text appeared at the bottom of the CTS screen declaring “New Taipei City hit by communist China’s missiles;” “Vessels exploded, facilities and ships damaged in Taipei harbor;” “The Chinese Communist Party goes to war preparedness frequently;” “President issues emergency order effective at 8:00 p.m. on March 6;” and “War threatening to break out.”
After recognizing the error, the host immediately clarified the situation and apologized to viewers. Soon afterwards, CTS apologies appeared in scroll bars on all its channels, including on YouTube, to spread the correction message.
“Please don’t panic,” CTS said in an emergency statement. “We hereby clarify and apologize for a news alert setup mistake by our post-production staff that led to airing yesterday’s disaster prevention drill videos as news.”
The incident triggered an uproar across the island. However, Taiwan media reported that while the public reacted to the misinformation mainly with dismay and surprise, there were no signs of panic on the streets of Taiwan.
Later, CTS provided more details about the incident in a statement, saying it had recently recorded educational videos for the New Taipei City Fire Department designed to let the public how to survive a disaster, on April 19, which were mistakenly scrolled during the news broadcast because staff forgot to resume the connection to regular files after the completing the recording.
Following the incident, CTS held an urgent internal disciplinary meeting to examine this mistake, and decided to punish relevant personnel, supervisors, and managers.
On April 22, Yu Xiu Chen, chairperson of Taiwan Broadcasting System (TBS), and Yalin Chan, General Manager of CTS, declared their resignations, according to a statement by CTS.
The National Communication Commission (NCC) of Taiwan conducted an administrative inspection at CTS. A preliminary check suggested that CTS faces a fine of NT$200,000 to NT$2 million (about $6,800 to $68,000) on a charge of disrupting public order under the Broadcasting Act, according to the NCC officials.
Moreover, the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan also apologized for the error, saying CTS, as a member of Taiwan Broadcasting System, should have avoided.
On April 20, Chiu Kuo-cheng, the current Minister of National Defense, at the Legislative Yuan described the incident as a lesson for news outlets. He said the Taiwan military has its own intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, which would immediately respond to any incident.
Controversial messages would significantly impact the morale of Taiwanese citizens, the minister warned media outlets.
Houston mandates spying outside bars and other businesses. Officials in Houston, Texas, have voted to require an array of businesses—including bars, convenience stores, and strip clubs—to install surveillance cameras and make footage from them readily available to police. The dystopian move is a transparently unconstitutional attempt by city leaders to circumvent Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.
To access video from the cameras, police officers will not need a warrant.
The rules apply to all Houston bars, convenience stores, game rooms, nightclubs, or sexually-oriented businesses.
Owners of these establishments must install (on their own dime) surveillance cameras in outdoor areas “providing video coverage from the exterior of the building to the property line.” Businesses must keep these cameras running 24 hours a day, and store camera footage for at least 30 days.
If surveillance footage is requested by the Houston Police Department, businesses must turn it over within 72 hours. Failure to comply would mean fines of $500 per day.
The Houston City Council approved this privacy-killing measure on Wednesday by a vote of 15–1.
“Their vote demonstrated a willingness to push aside constitutional protections and subject Houstonians to overbroad police searches,” said Savannah Kumar of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas. “But a city cannot override the Constitution. We are here to help you protect your rights. If the police come knocking on your door, tell them to get a warrant, whether it’s your home or your business.”
The measure is set to take effect in 90 days.
“In addition to trampling on the Fourth Amendment rights of business owners, Houston’s new law also infringes on property rights,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Jared McClain. “This ordinance unfairly saddles certain businesses with thousands of dollars in new expenses to install high-definition surveillance cameras and to archive their footage so it’s available for police on demand.”
“If you commit a crime, you can rest assured that we will be right on your trail,” said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner at a press conference about the new law.
Biden Admin Extends COVID-19 Vaccine Requirement for Noncitizens at Borders
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has extended a COVID-19 vaccine requirement for noncitizens arriving by land or boat, according to a Thursday announcement.
The agency said it would extend its Title 19 requirements, which gives the administration the power to continue to enforce COVID-19 vaccine mandates for noncitizen travelers. Those travelers who try to enter the country will need to produce a written record of vaccination from a government health agency or ministry as they show their passport and other documentation to Customs and Border Protection agents.
“These requirements will continue to apply to non-U.S. travelers who are traveling both for essential and non-essential reasons, and do not apply to U.S. citizens, Lawful Permanent Residents, or U.S. nationals,” the agency said, adding that those requirements are being done in “consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several other federal agencies.”
Testing for COVID-19, however, won’t be mandated to enter the United States, the agency said. Migrants also will have to verbally attest to their vaccination status along with producing the relevant documents to enter the country.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to protecting public health while facilitating lawful trade and travel, which is essential to our economic security,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement.
He added: “That is why, after consulting with CDC and other federal agencies, DHS will continue to require non-U.S. individuals entering the United States via land ports of entry and ferry terminals to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and provide related proof of vaccination upon request.”
The department didn’t provide an expiration date for the COVID-19 vaccine requirement, although it noted that it could “amend or rescind the requirements at any time.”
“In determining whether and when to rescind this order, DHS anticipates that it will take account of whether the vaccination requirement for non-U.S. air travelers remains in place,” DHS’s statement continued.
Several weeks ago, the CDC said that it would rescind the Title 42 rule that blocked numerous illegal immigrants from entering the United States, saying that the order would end on May 23. Republicans and even some Democrats flagged the decision as one that would potentially trigger a huge wave of illegal immigration for the remainder of the 2022 fiscal year.
This week, more Democrats sounded the alarm on ending the policy and suggested that it would imperil their chances of reelection in 2022.
Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), who is running for Ohio’s Senate seat, told Fox News that removing the policy is “wrong and reckless.”
“The administration’s decision to roll back Title 42 is wrong and reckless,” Ryan said on Wednesday. “Prematurely ending this policy without a path forward does nothing to keep Americans safe, support our Border Patrol agents, protect asylum-seekers, or bring about the comprehensive fix our immigration system needs.”
PET NEWS
Owning a Pet Over Age 65 May Help Keep You Mentally Fit As You Age, Study Finds
Researchers from the University of Michigan studied senior citizens with pets and those without pets over a period of six years, and the results were encouraging for pet owners. Treats all around!
Pets improve our health and well-being in numerous ways, from helping to alleviate depression symptoms and relieve stress, to encouraging us to walk more. And now there’s more good news for those with pets: a new study has found that owning a pet over the age of 65 may also help prevent cognitive decline as you age.
Researchers at the University of Michigan tested older people’s cognition—the ability to gain and retain knowledge through memory, problem-solving, and judgment—over a six-year period. Lead study author Tiffany Braley, MD, a clinical professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, and her colleagues found that long-term pet owners logged a higher composite score on those tests than non-pet owners.
“Prior studies have suggested that the human-animal bond may have health benefits like decreasing blood pressure and stress,” Braley said in a news release from the American Academy of Neurology. “Our results suggest pet ownership may also be protective against cognitive decline.”
The researchers used cognitive data from participants in U of M’s longitudinal Health and Retirement Study. These individuals included 1,369 older adults with an average age of 65. Fifty-three percent of them owned pets while 32 percent had owned pets for five years or more, the academy said.
At the beginning of the study, these participants had normal cognitive skills. Through a series of cognitive tests that focused on subtraction, counting, and word recall, each person earned a score ranging from zero to 27. On average over six years, results indicated that long-term pet owners had cognitive composite scores that were 1.2 points higher compared to non-pet owners. Participants who were male, Black, or college-educated seemed to benefit most.
This goes beyond the occasional interaction with therapy animals, so what might make the difference?
“As stress can negatively affect cognitive function, the potential stress-buffering effects of pet ownership could provide a plausible reason for our findings,” said Braley.
She added that companion animals prompt an increase in physical activity—walks, playtime—which might also improve cognitive health. More research is needed, however, to confirm their results, Braley said. The preliminary findings will be presented in April at the American Academy of Neurology’s annual meeting.
Honestly? We’re not surprised to learn this. We hear stories all the time about the incredible love shared between older foster parents and their pets and how seniors who adopt rescue animals find new purpose and joy. So we’re happy to do our part to ensure healthy, happy lives!
EDUCATION
Marxists Seek to Destabilize American Society Through Sexualization of Young People: Expert
Young people in the United States are being subjected to communist-style sexualization, according to author and expert James Lindsay.
The goal is to destabilize society to make it ripe for communists to grab power, Lindsay, author of “Race Marxism” and “Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity―and Why This Harms Everybody,” recently told EpochTV’s “China Insider” program.
And their plan has been afoot for more than a century.
“This is a deliberate program that Marxists have employed since at least the 1910s, starting in Hungary, to try to sexualize children to cause sexual and gender confusion so that they become political activists on behalf of some other agenda,” he said.
Lindsay pointed to Georg Lukacs, a devout Hungarian Marxist who served as deputy commissar of education in 1919 during the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. He introduced sex education to children at the elementary level, he said.
“[Lukacs] sexualized the children of Hungary in order to separate them from their family, to separate them from their religion, their nation and their culture,” Lindsay said. “Essentially getting children … all into these ideas so that when they go home, they would tell their parents, ‘you know, things have changed, or the Bible is wrong, or whatever our religion is wrong, our traditions are wrong.’”
Next came Herbert Marcuse, a prominent member of the Frankfurt School, who focused his efforts on “trying to free sexual energy,” according to Lindsay. Marcuse in his 1965 work “Eros and Civilization” applied Marxist ideology to delve into these topics, becoming the intellectual basis for the sexual revolution of the 1960s. This in turn led to the comprehensive sexual education programs that are in American schools today, Lindsay noted.
Later on, in the 1980s and 1990s saw the rise of the “post-structural feminism” movement. These feminist activists used postmodern theory to advocate the notion that gender was socially constructed, and that sex roles are a form of oppression, according to the expert.
“They used postmodern theory to break down all boundaries whatsoever—not just the idea of gender being a social construct, but sex and sexuality and everything becoming socially constructed, as well,” he said.
“And those people have basically taken over.”
Modern-day Marxists “focus more on gender and on the social fluidity of these concepts than you would have seen 100 years ago from older school Marxists. But the general thrust is the same,” he added.
Meanwhile, with young people as their target group, Marxists find a population who are highly vulnerable and impressionable, Lindsay noted, as they’re at a stage of their lives when “they’re trying to find their identity, they’re trying to go grow up, and go through puberty and discover what it means to be who they are.”
As a result, young people are being victimized. “They’re being injected full of all of these ideas about the fluidity of their gender, the fluidity of their sex, the socially constructed nature of sexuality. And it’s actually victimizing those people in particular,” he said.
“Meanwhile, they [activists] hide behind saying that this is actually about protecting LGBT people, who are also being victimized,” he said.
The Marxist movements back then and nowadays all share the same goal, noted Lindsay, which is “to soften children up to get them to be more accepting of the gender and sexual instruction that’s going on in their schools.”
“So the purpose is actually to weaken and destabilize in the short term, so that power can be seized,” he said. “And then it’ll be up to whoever’s in charge to decide what they think is acceptable and not acceptable afterward.”
With children being inundated by such Marxist ideas from all angles, especially when “the schools are doing a terrible job, are failing at educating our students,” Lindsay stressed that this places more responsibility on parents.
“They’re having to take up the role of actually educating … their children, first of all. And then second of all, they’re also having to de-program their kids about what they’re learning about race, about history, about sex, about … sexuality and gender,” he said.
The situation, Lindsay said, is also forcing parents to have conversations about sex and sexuality with their children at far younger ages than parents think is appropriate, as the schools and the media are dragging them into having these conversations.
“The job that parents have right now is enormously harder than it was 10 or 15 years ago,” he said.
“But I stress this has been going on pretty rampantly at least over the last decade anyway. And so primarily, parents are just now becoming aware that this is being taught to their children in such a large quantity.”
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