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Child Abuse Education Reprints from others.

At least 135 teachers, aides charged with child sex crimes this year alone.

Views: 22

The whole article is at local station KTVU.

At least 135 teachers and teachers’ aides have been arrested so far this year on child sex-related crimes in the U.S., ranging from child pornography to raping students.

An analysis conducted by Fox News Digital looked at local news stories week by week featuring arrests of teachers and teachers’ aides on child sex-related crimes in school districts across the country. Arrests that weren’t publicized were not counted in the analysis, meaning the true number may well be higher.

The analysis found that at least 135 teachers and teachers’ aides have been arrested in 41 states between January 1 and May 13, which works out to about an arrest a day on average. The vast majority of the arrested educators were men.

 

Teachers-arrested-in-2022.jpg

Of the 135 arrests, at least 102, or 76%, involved alleged crimes against students.

Teachers-arrested-in-2022-statistics.jpg

The 135 educators included 117 teachers, 11 teachers’ aides and seven substitute teachers.

Teachers-teachers-aides-and-substitute-teachers-arrests-graphic.jpg

On April 11, police in California charged Anthony James Phillips, a 61-year-old former teacher at Cupertino Middle School in Sunnyvale, with aggravated sexual assault of a child, forcible penetration with a foreign object, and forcible penetration with a foreign object upon a child.

Phillips is accused of raping a student in 2009 when he was still a teacher at Cupertino.

Anessa Paige Gower, a 35-year-old former biology teacher at Making Waves Academy in Richmond, California, was charged with 29 counts of child molestation on April 8.

Gower is accused of sexually abusing seven students between 2021-2022 when she was a teacher at Making Waves, with allegations including forcible sodomy of minors and sharing sexually graphic photos over online platforms. She is due back in court on June 2.

 

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Reprints from others. Opinion Politics

Candace Owens Drops New Trailer for ‘The Greatest Lie Ever Told: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM’

Views: 34

The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens released a new trailer on Tuesday, teasing her upcoming documentary, titled “The Greatest Lie Ever Told: George Floyd And The Rise Of BLM.”

The trailer shows a sneak peek of Owens’ look behind the curtain in Minneapolis, Minnesota — where George Floyd’s death at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin sparked a firestorm of protests and riots across the nation — on the two-year anniversary of his death.

 

“Get a look at the fiery new documentary that only Candace Owens and The Daily Wire would dare bring you. On the 2-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death, Candace revisits Minneapolis and the violent, racially-divided aftermath that fueled BLM’s global rise—and filled its coffers. Tune in May 23 for the global premiere event,” the website added to the tease.

Owens has been critical of Floyd from the beginning, and of the political Left for rushing him to sainthood. In an opinion piece for The Daily Wire, Owens mocked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for claiming that Floyd’s name would “always be synonymous with justice.”

“George Floyd’s name will always be synonymous with justice? You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “I am not an intellectual coward who will simply accept the lie about George Floyd and the way that he lived as the truth just because the mob demands it. And believe me, it’s a lie.”

Watch the trailer:

 

 

 

The Daily Wire.

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Uncategorized Reprints from others.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories.

Views: 26

Article was first printed  here on the Morning Dispatch. here.

Happy Wednesday! Start your day off with impeccable vibes by watching 22-year-old Cubs prospect Christopher Morel hit a 417-foot home run in his first-ever major league at bat before a roaring Wrigley Field crowd.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Oregon, Idaho, and Kentucky held their primary elections last night ahead of November’s midterms. Some highlights:
    • Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman sailed to victory over Rep. Conor Lamb in the Democratic U.S. Senate primary. He will face either Dr. Mehmet Oz or Dave McCormick in the general election; the Republican primary was too close to call as of this newsletter and is likely headed to an automatic recount.
    • Rep. Ted Budd defeated former Gov. Pat McCrory in North Carolina’s Republican U.S. Senate primary. He will face former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, in November.
    • Also in North Carolina, beleaguered GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn was narrowly defeated by state Sen. Chuck Edwards.
    • Trump-backed state Rep. Doug Mastriano easily won Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial primary, and will face Josh Shapiro—currently the state’s Democratic attorney general—in the general election.
    • Idaho’s Republican Gov. Brad Little was renominated, fending off a primary challenge from Janice McGeachin, the state’s Trump-backed lieutenant governor.
  • Ukrainian forces that had held out in a Mariupol steel plant for months laid down their arms on Tuesday, ending a battle for the city that tied up Russian forces, slowing Russian advances elsewhere. Ukraine hopes to organize a prisoner exchange to return the more than 260 Ukrainian fighters from Russian custody.
  • Senior White House officials told reporters on Tuesday the Biden administration is planning to ease some sanctions on Venezuelan oil in an effort to both increase global supply and encourage negotiations between President Nicolas Maduro’s government and the U.S.-backed opposition. The move will potentially allow Chevron to restart operations in the country, and let European companies divert more Venezuelan crude back to Europe.
  • The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday it is amending the emergency use authorization of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine to allow children between the ages of 5 and 11 to receive a booster dose at least five months after their initial shots. A CDC panel will meet later this week to make its formal recommendation.
  • Nestlé—the parent company of Gerber baby food—said it will begin flying extra baby formula to the United States from Switzerland and the Netherlands after the FDA announced it would be more “flexible” allowing imports from overseas producers in light of ongoing shortages. The company is prioritizing formula made for children with allergies, but ramping up production across the board.
  • The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that U.S. retail sales increased 0.9 percent in April, a drop from the 1.4 percent month-over-month increase in March but the fourth straight month of growth. The statistic is not adjusted for inflation, however, so higher prices likely accounted for much of the increase.
  • The Chinese Communist Party’s near-total lockdown of Shanghai appears to be nearing an end, with select stores and manufacturers allowed to resume activity in recent days as local officials report community Omicron transmission has slowed. Hundreds of thousands of people reportedly remain in mandatory isolation—either in facilities or at home—as the country continues to pursue a zero-COVID strategy.
  • The Department of Justice is suing businessman and Republican fundraiser Steve Wynn in an effort to force him to register as a foreign agent, alleging he lobbied Trump in 2017—on behalf of the Chinese government—to extradite a businessman who had criticized the Chinese Communist Party.

Pennsylvania Senate Too Close to Call

We’ll have to wait at least one more day—and probably more than that—to update the narrative about former President Donald Trump’s lasting grip on the Republican Party. After helping J.D. Vance win a come-from-behind victory in Ohio last month, Trump’s next big test was in Pennsylvania, where he endorsed TV personality Dr. Mehmet Oz over businessman and former Treasury official Dave McCormick and commentator Kathy Barnette to replace retiring Sen. Pat Toomey. As of this writing, the race remained too close to call.

McCormick—an Army veteran who went on to serve in the Bush administration and as CEO of a large hedge fund—led for almost the entire night, blowing his sagging late poll numbers out of the water. But Oz hung around and finally surpassed McCormick around midnight, when more than 90 percent of the vote had come in. When we hit send on this newsletter, Oz led by 0.2 percentage points—about 2,700 votes—with 94 percent of the electorate tabulated.

North Carolina Says Goodbye to Madison, Hello to Ted

North Carolina Rep. Madison Cawthorn. (Photo By Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images.)

In North Carolina, at least, actions may still have consequences. Rep. Madison Cawthorn—the 26-year-old who embarrassed his fellow Republicans with stories about being invited to orgies and witnessing cocaine use, labeled Ukrainian President Volodymy Zelensky a “thug,” was caught trying to carry a loaded gun onto a plane (twice), encouraged activists to “lightly threaten” members of Congress over 2020 election claims, was charged for driving with a revoked license, and faced accusations of insider trading from a GOP colleague and of sexual harassment from multiple women—lost to a primary challenger on Tuesday.

Cawthorn had several built-in advantages as an incumbent, plus support from former President Donald Trump and strong fundraising numbers. But in addition to the aforementioned scandals, Cawthorn earned himself some high-powered Republican enemies—GOPposition, if you will—when he briefly sought to leave his district for another one, before returning to the 11th when redistricting made it what he thought would be an easier win. “He made a self-interested calculation,” J. Michael Bitzer, a politics and history professor at North Carolina’s Catawba College, told The Dispatch. “That, I would have to believe, would leave a sour taste in voters’ mouths.”

While Cawthorn was exploring other options, state Sen. Chuck Edwards entered the race. The more traditional 61-year-old businessman ran primarily on securing the border, balancing the budget, pursuing energy independence, and improving education—and he picked up a few key endorsements in the process. “There’s no one thing that put me in a position to where [for] the first time in my career I’m opposing a sitting Republican,” GOP Sen. Thom Tillis—also of North Carolina—told CNN, explaining his disdain for Cawthorn. “I’ve never done it. But it’s the totality. It’s a lack of seriousness.” Tillis endorsed Edwards, and a super PAC aligned with the senator spent more than $1 million on ads opposing the 26-year-old representative.

Republican Self-Sabotage?

The McCormick-Oz race may still be too close to call, but the other high-profile GOP election in Pennsylvania last night very much wasn’t. State Rep. Doug Mastriano—whom Trump endorsed last weekend—ran away with the gubernatorial primary, securing 44 percent of the vote to former Rep. Lou Barletta’s 20 percent and Bill McSwain’s 16 percent.

Audrey was at Mastriano HQ last night, and drove home from Pennsylvania at 1 a.m. to make sure this story was up on the site today.

Mastriano is popular among Republican primary voters, but he may have a … bit of an electability problem come November.

Winning the general election will be no cakewalk for Mastriano in a state that in the past has skewed more purple than red. An ardent supporter of Trump, Mastriano attended the “Save America” march that preceded the storming of the U.S. Capitol last year, and was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee investigating the events of January 6 for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Both Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report had initially rated the general election race a tossup but changed the race to “leans Democrat” after Mastriano’s victory.

 

Worth Your Time

  • John McWhorter’s latest New York Times column argues we need multiple terms to describe the many different concepts “racism” has come to encompass. “We increasingly apply the term in reference both to violent hate crimes and to the fact that, for example, in the aggregate, Black students don’t perform as well on standardized tests as some of their counterparts,” he writes. “But while we tend to use the term ‘racism’ for both things, it isn’t readily obvious to most how both prejudice and a differential in performance are versions of the same thing, referred to with one word. One of the thorniest aspects of today’s race debate is that we have come to apply that word to a spread of phenomena so vast as to potentially confuse even the best-intended of people.”
  • McDonalds’ decision to permanently pull out of Russia is about a lot more than just burgers and fries, Ian Birrell argues at UnHerd. “Removal of the Golden Arches from Moscow spotlights the arrival of another Cold War between democracy and dictatorship,” he writes. “For the moment, it is focused on Russia after Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine. But his allies in China are looking hungrily at Taiwan as they watch this war play out—another reason why this fight is so important. The retrenchment by McDonalds comes after the pandemic focused corporate minds on the pitfalls of long supply chains while exposing how Beijing’s rulers could not be trusted after a global battle broke out against a mysterious new disease that emerged within its borders. Even now, they resist global efforts to discover the truth about Covid’s origins. Russia was already cutting itself off from the West—like China—with a war on foreign media and technology firms to protect the ruling circle of thieves even before the imposition of wartime sanctions and exodus of foreign firms. Now McDonalds is the perfect illustration of how Ukraine’s existential struggle for survival is accelerating the divide between autocracies and liberal democracies.”

Presented Without Comment

Twitter avatar for @JacobRubashkinJacob Rubashkin @JacobRubashkin

Madison Cawthorn could run for president in 2070 and he would be younger than Joe Biden was in 2020.

Liam Donovan @LPDonovan

Magnanimity is wise when you have another 40+ years left for a comeback https://t.co/vXLQ76j0jy

Also Presented Without Comment

Twitter avatar for @nycsouthpawsouthpaw @nycsouthpaw

For every week’s tactical Republican message, the State of Florida gets a new criminal law. https://t.co/fcXGaK0C1E

ABC News @ABC

People who protest in front of private residences in Florida can face jail time and fines under a bill signed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. https://t.co/YCA2uT0sWM

Toeing the Company Line

  • In Tuesday’s Uphill, Haley outlines a bill congressional Democrats will attempt to pass in the wake of Saturday’s mass shooting. “The legislation would create dedicated domestic terrorism offices in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Justice, and the FBI,” she notes. “But Republicans and some progressives have raised concerns that new authorities could infringe on Americans’ civil liberties.”
  • Political scientist Yascha Mounk returned to The Remnant on Tuesday for a conversation with Jonah about his new book on sustaining diverse democracies. What are the true dangers of tribalism and populism? What does healthy patriotism look like?
  • David’s latest French Press (🔒) takes the Heritage Foundation to task for opposing Congress’ latest Ukraine aid package. “The sheer pettiness of the objections—especially in light of the urgency of the tactical and strategic situation—is remarkable,” he argues. “The Ukraine aid represents a whopping .06 percent of federal expenditures. It is relatively immaterial to our national spending crisis. It’s a rounding error in the American budget. But it’s not a rounding error on the battlefield.”
  • Steve, Jonah, and Andrew were joined on last night’s Dispatch Live by GOP strategist David Kochel. What have the primaries held thus far told us about the Republican Party? If you missed the discussion—or want to watch it again—Dispatch members can do so here.
  • On the site today, Charlotte shares details from Mark Esper’s new book, Eric Edelman explains what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is up to with efforts to oppose Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership, and Vlad Kobets and David J. Kramer warn that the West can’t let Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko off the hook.

 

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Back Door Power Grab Opinion Politics Reprints from others. Uncategorized

Slightly more than 30 percent of the country, told the Associated Press they strongly or somewhat agree there are people in the United States who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views.

Views: 29

The great replacement can be very scary. I myself don’t believe that there’s a movement to get rid of white people. I do believe that some loon politicians and progressives want the undocumented here in order to change the political balance. Over 50% of the people ( 20% Democrats ) believe this.

Last December, the Associated Press and NORC conducted a large national poll examining conspiratorial ideas including this one.

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Biden Pandemic Corruption COVID Crime Drugs Economy Education Elections Faked news How funny is this? How sick is this? Leftist Virtue(!) Opinion Politics Progressive Racism Reprints from others. Stupid things people say or do. The Courts

Ding Dong the wicked witch is gone.

Views: 48

Friday the 13th was Jen Psaki’s last day as the Bagdad Ali of the White House. I want to thank Joel B. Pollak for this list.

Yes some — particularly in the establishment media — have called her the “best ever,” perhaps because the job of explaining Joe Biden’s failures is simply so difficult. Here are some of the most memorable moments of her tenure, for better or for worse:

17. COVID and masks. Despite sanctimonious lectures about pandemic precautions, Psaki somehow managed to contract COVID twice. She also struggled to explain the White House’s double standards on wearing masks on federal property.

16. “Circle back.” Psaki drew mockery from conservatives over her repeated promises from the podium to “circle back” with reporters when she did not know the answer to questions — or perhaps when she knew, but preferred not to answer.

15. Hoaxes. Psaki repeated some — not all — of the famliar liberal hoaxes about Trump, most notably the “bleach” hoax, insisting — despite glaring evidence to the contrary — that he had told Americans to inject bleach to cure COVID (he did not).

14. Defaming Kyle Rittenhouse. In the midst of the Rittenhouse trial, Psaki criticized “vigilantes with assault weapons.” After Rittenhouse was acquitted, she refused to walk back Biden’s false claim that Rittenhouse was a “white supremacist.”

13. War on “misinformation.” Psaki vowed her briefings would fight “misinformation,” and defended — to her last week — the Biden administration’s “disinformation” office. But she herself spread disinformation about Russia, and Hunter Biden.

12. Space Force snub. Psaki appeared to snub the sixth branch of the U.S. armed forces when she mocked a reporter’s query about whether Biden intended to continue Donald Trump’s addition to the military. She later clarified that she supported it.

11. Major dog cover-up. When Biden’s dog, Major, was accused of biting a Secret Service agent, Psaki downplayed the incident. Later, documents suggested that Psaki misled the public about the real threat the dog posed to agency staff.

10. Border denial. Psaki made it clear she did not want reporters to ask about the crisis at the southern border, chastising reporters for “maddening” questions about it. She claimed Biden’s policy was more “moral” and “humane” than Trump’s.

9. Refusing to condemn protests at Supreme Court justices’ homes. It took Psaki days to condemn violence after a draft opinion reversing Roe was leaked, and she actually encouraged the arguably illegal protests outside the homes of justices.

8. Dismissing the idea of free COVID tests. Psaki initially scoffed at the idea of sending free COVID tests to every American as too costly to undertake. A few days later, mid-omicron wave, the administration belatedly began doing so.

7. “Don’t Say Gay’ demagoguery. It was Psaki who started the false — yet effective — claim that Florida had passed a law that literally prohibited people from saying “gay.” The law actually restricts sexual instruction of any kind to K-3 children.

6. Doocy. Among many examples of the Biden administration failing to respect the press, one of the worst was Psaki saying that Fox News made Peter Doocy — one of the few critical voices in the press corps — sound like a “stupid son of a bitch.”

5. Defending inflation. Psaki test-drove several excuses for inflation, first claiming that it was transitory (“inflation is going to come down next year”), then trying to put a positive spin on it as the by-product of an otherwise wonderful economy.

4. Admitting Biden skipped D-Day. Among other clean-up jobs, Psaki had to explain Biden’s unfortunate failure to commemorate the anniversary of D-Day in 2021. She told reporters that the historic occasion was still “close to his heart.”

3. Vacationing while Afghanistan fell. Psaki and many other members of the administration had to be called back from summer vacation when Afghanistan began to fall to the Taliban, a failure that has since defined perceptions of the president.

2. Hunter Biden dodges. Psaki repeatedly (and successfully) dodged questions about Hunter Biden, his laptop, and his connection to his dad’s finances, claiming they were a private matter or the under the purview of the Department of Justice.

1. Baby formula. Psaki’s advice, when asked what parents should do if worried about their babies amid a national shortage of baby formula, was to “call their doctor.” Neither she nor the White House had any solace to offer American families.

One example when Psaki called it right: she did, finally, admit that communism is a “failed ideology,” as Cubans protested in the streets against their oppressive regime. But that, sadly, is all the Biden administration was willing to do to help them.

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Reprints from others. Politics

Today’s Top Stories

Views: 22

 

  • Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö and Prime Minister Sanna Marin announced Thursday the country plans to apply for NATO membership “without delay,” arguing such a move would strengthen both Finland’s own security and the defense alliance as a whole. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the accession process will be “smooth and swift” once Finland formally applies, and Pentagon spokesman John Kirby praised the decision as “historic.” The Kremlin, meanwhile, threatened to retaliate with “military-technical” measures if Finland follows through on the move.
  • The Interior Department canceled plans this week to auction off oil and gas leases for two regions in the Gulf of Mexico and one off the coast of Alaska, citing legal challenges and “a lack of industry interest” in the drilling rights. Industry groups disputed that characterization, noting the decision likely means the Biden administration will not auction off any leases for offshore drilling until at least 2023.
  • In light of ongoing shortages, President Joe Biden announced Thursday he had instructed his administration to crack down on any “price gouging or unfair market practices” related to baby formula, cut some restrictions on baby formula imports, and allow states to loosen certain Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) requirements.
  • North Korea conducted another set of ballistic missile tests on Thursday, according to Japanese and South Korean military officials. The country—which is currently dealing with an unmitigated COVID-19 outbreak—launched three missiles off its east coast yesterday, each traveling about 225 miles before landing in the sea between Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
  • At least 11 people were confirmed dead on Thursday after a boat believed to be carrying migrants capsized near Puerto Rico. A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman said a Customs and Border Protection aircraft spotted the makeshift vessel Thursday morning, and that at least 31 survivors were rescued.
  • The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday the producer price index—a measure of what suppliers and wholesalers are charging their customers—increased 0.5 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from March’s 1.6 percent month-over-month increase and February’s 1.1 percent. Annual PPI inflation came in at 11 percent, just shy of last month’s record-high 11.2 percent.
  • The Senate voted 80-19 on Thursday to confirm Jerome Powell for a second four-year term as chair of the Federal Reserve. The central bank’s board of governors is nearly full, as the chamber also voted 91-7 this week to confirm economist Philip Jefferson to the board.
  • The January 6 Select Committee announced Thursday it had issued subpoenas to five Republican House members—Reps. Jim Jordan, Mo Brooks, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—citing their refusal to voluntarily testify before the committee about their “relevant knowledge of the events on or leading up to January 6th.” It’s unclear whether the lawmakers will comply with the subpoenas—there’s little precedent of an investigative committee using such tactics against fellow House members—or whether the Justice Department will pursue contempt charges if they don’t.
  • The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial jobless claims—a proxy for layoffs—increased by 1,000 week-over-week to 203,000 last week.

A New Leader in the Philippines …

Ferdinand Marcos Jr., president-elect of the Philippines. (Photo by TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images)

In 1986, Philippine ruler Ferdinand Marcos Sr. fled to Hawaii with his wife and kids, 90 of his closest friends, and a few essentials: jeweled cufflinks, gold bricks, tiaras, and crates of cash. (His wife Imelda’s 3,000-pair shoe collection stayed behind.) A military-backed, pro-democracy uprising had ended a decades-long rule characterized by human rights abuses and corruption that earned the family as much as $10 billion.

Marcos Sr. died three years into his self-exile, but his family has spent years working its way back into power in the Philippines—his son Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos Jr. served as a provincial governor and senator and in 2016 lost a bid for vice president. This week, Marcos Jr. was elected president of the Philippines by about a 15 million vote margin, as public polling predicted. He’ll take office June 30, and President Joe Biden called Wednesday to congratulate him on the win.

“To the world: Judge me not by my ancestors, but by my actions,” Marcos Jr. said in a statement delivered by his spokesman this week. He campaigned on national unity and—with the help of social media—portrayed his father’s rule as a golden age. Fact check group Tsek.ph found 92 percent of false posts it checked about Marcos Jr. were favorable toward him, while 96 percent of posts with misinformation about his primary competitor were negative toward her. The independent news outlet Rappler—founded by journalist Maria Ressa, whom Charlotte profiled last year—has suggested Marcos Jr. conducted a disinformation campaign on social media to launder his family’s reputation, beginning as early as 2014.

Critics worry he’ll shut down efforts to investigate his family’s crimes. Amnesty International estimates Marcos Sr.’s security forces imprisoned more than 70,000 people, torturing many of them. The Presidential Commission on Good Government has recovered less than $4 billion of the wealth the Marcos family and associates accrued. Imelda Marcos, 92, was found guilty of graft in 2018 but posted bail and has appealed the conviction. As president, Marcos Jr. could close the commission and scrap the case against his mother.

Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” killed more than 7,000 people, according to Human Rights Watch, and he promised after leaving office to “search for drug peddlers, shoot them, and kill them.” Filipinos elected Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte-Carpio, as Marcos Jr.’s vice president, and he says he’ll allow International Criminal Court officials investigating Duterte’s killings into the country—“but only as tourists.”

… and in Hong Kong

A hop, skip, and a two-hour plane ride from the Philippines, Hong Kong also chose a new leader this week.

Britain returned Hong Kong to China’s sovereignty in 1997 under the “one country, two systems” agreement, under which Hong Kong could keep its political freedoms and market economy for 50 years. But this agreement has come under pressure in recent years as Beijing exerts more control over the “special administrative region’s” governance. Many critics regard the city’s new leader as a further departure from Hong Kong’s promised freedoms.

Beijing loyalist and former Deputy Secretary for Security John Lee is best known for leading the brutal police crackdown on Hong Kong’s 2019 pro-democracy protests. He has also helped implement the city’s new National Security Law, which outlaws “secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces” and has led to the arrests of more than 150 people and squashed most pro-democracy political groups and independent news outlets. (The city’s foreign correspondents club recently suspended its human rights award for fear of violating the new laws.) The U.S. sanctioned Lee in 2020 for undermining Hong Kong’s autonomy and its citizens’ freedom of expression.

Lee’s election Sunday is the first since changes to Hong Kong’s election laws last year that Beijing implemented to ensure only “patriots” hold office. In his role as chief secretary last year, Lee led the vetting of members of the approximately 1,500-person committee that, this year, was responsible for electing him. The only candidate in Sunday’s election, he won 99 percent of the vote and will be sworn in on July 1 when his predecessor, Carrie Lam, steps down after a five-year term marked by crackdowns on pro-democracy protests and a tumultuous COVID-19 situation.

“[The election result] fully demonstrates the new vitality of the democratic practice in Hong Kong and the true democratic spirit,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Tuesday. After all, a full 1,416 of Hong Kong’s approximately 7.5 million residents voted for Lee.

Other countries pointed out the disconnect. In a joint statement on Sunday, the G7 nations expressed “grave concern” over “a continued assault on political pluralism and fundamental freedoms.” Days after the election, Hong Kong national security officers arrested four prominent pro-democracy activists—including 90-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen—under the national security law. They’ve since been released on bail pending investigation.

“I look forward to all of us starting a new chapter together, building a Hong Kong that is caring, open and vibrant, and a Hong Kong that is full of opportunities and harmony,” Lee said in a victory speech. He’s pledged to improve Hong Kong’s governance and housing, as well as enact laws fighting treason, secession, sedition, and subversion.

“In Lee, Beijing gets its ‘designated enforcer,’” said Samuel Chu, founder of pro-democracy advocacy group The Campaign for Hong Kong. “Lee is a puppet elected through a sham process who will face no political opposition, no independent and free press, and no freedom of speech, assembly, or expression. Today, John Lee won and the people of Hong Kong lost.”

Capital Tensions High After Draft Supreme Court Opinion Leak

When Politico published a leaked draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito showing the Supreme Court was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, it wasn’t just Washington, D.C. that was turned upside down. A couple of quiet neighborhoods in Maryland and Virginia, were too.

Abortion-access activists have organized a handful of protests outside conservatives justices’ homes in recent days, hoping to use public pressure to influence the court’s final ruling. Harvest and Audrey observed some protests outside Alito’s home in Alexandria and Brett Kavanaugh’s in Chevy Chase, and they report what they saw in

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Uncategorized Corruption Crime Elections The Courts

Democrat County Supervisor indicted on 82 counts of voter fraud

Views: 41

The original article is here.

But we were told that voter fraud doesn’t exist. One loon in Northern California went as far as saying that in all 50 states that there was one case of voter fraud and it was a Republican.

A Democrat Virginia Board of Supervisors’ member has been indicted on 82 mostly election-related felony charges a Commonwealth Attorney announced May 3.

“The Special Grand Jury indicted Trey Adkins and Sherry Lynn Bailey for several election related offenses,” said  Commonwealth Attorney Zack Stoots in a Facebook statement. “Adkins was also indicted for embezzlement of public funds while being in a position of public office.”

“During each election cycle, Mr. Adkins relied on a number of absentee ballot applications and votes,” Clevinger reportedly said. “He personally campaigned to a number of homes in the Knox District and in 2019, took hundreds of ballot applications to residents, filled them out and turned them in to the local Registrar.”

 

 

 

 

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Politics Faked news Progressive Racism Reprints from others. The Courts

Did Alito and Barrett Claim That America Needs a ‘Domestic Supply of Infants’? Fake News.

Views: 28

Article was originally here.

A viral tweet claims that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito justified overturning Roe v. Wade in the leaked draft majority opinion because “the US needs a ‘domestic supply of infants.’”

In a reply to the tweet, the tweet author shared a screenshot from the opinion showing the line in question.

Twitter avatar for @DrGJackBrownDr. Jack Brown @DrGJackBrown

Addendum:

Image

The draft was written by Alito, not Barrett and Alito as the tweet suggests. The section of the opinion from which the quote is pulled is a footnote, with the line not being written by Barrett or Alito, but coming from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper on adoption. The line reads: “[N]early 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand of a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”

This paper is cited in a paragraph summing up arguments from pro-life Americans, specifically being cited in a sentence noting that a newborn put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a home. The footnote appears in the following section, following the italicized portion (italicization added):

“Americans who believe that abortion should be restricted press countervailing arguments about modern developments. They note that attitudes about the pregnancy of un-married women have changed drastically; that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,42 that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases,43 that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance44; that States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously45; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home46.”

From the context of the footnote, it’s clear that the CDC quote appeared in the footnote only to highlight the fact that unwanted babies put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a family—not, as the tweet implies, that domestic birth rates need to increase to meet adoption demands. What’s more, the paragraph in which the footnote appears is about the arguments of pro-life Americans, taking place in a summary of the public debate surrounding abortion. Immediately preceding the above paragraph is another summing up the beliefs of pro-abortion Americans, which reads:

“Defenders of Roe and [Casey v. Planned Parenthood] do not claim that any new scientific learning calls for a different answer to the underlying moral question, but they do contend that changes in society require the recognition of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Without the availability of abortion, they maintain, people will be inhibited from exercising their freedom to choose the types of relationships they desire, and women will be unable to compete with men in the workplace and in other endeavors.”

Following both summaries, the opinion continues:

“Both sides make important policy arguments, but supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh those arguments to the people and their elected officials.”

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The Courts Crime Reprints from others.

Parishioners Eject Pro-abortion Protesters from Los Angeles Cathedral

Views: 29

Whole original article can be found here.

Parishioners confronted several pro-abortion protesters in costumes from The Handmaid’s Tale who attempted to disrupt Sunday mass at Our Lady of the Angels, the “mother church” of the L.A. archdiocese.

The Catholic News Agency confirmed the disruption, and reported:

The description of the protesters’ attire provided by the parishioner, Bradford Adkins, resembles costumes worn by members of the pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us, which threatened to disrupt Catholic Masses on Sunday, Mother’s Day.

As of 10 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the group did not appear to have taken responsibility for the protest in Los Angeles. Representatives of the group did not respond to CNA’s request for comment prior to publication.

Ruth Sent Us has taken responsibility for disrupting Catholic churches before, such as at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco in February. During Mass at St. Mary’s, video footage shows protesters walking down the aisle toward the altar wearing red robes and white bonnets or “handmaids” costumes frequently worn by abortion activists. The costumes symbolize enslaved women who are raped and forced to give birth, inspired by Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

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Biden Pandemic COVID Reprints from others.

Herd Immunity Was Entirely Possible! Many Low-Vaccination Countries Achieved it and We Could, too

Views: 23

 

The whole article is here.

Controversy over “herd immunity” has been with us since beginning of Covid-19. “Herd immunity” is defined as a critical percentage of people who are immune to the virus, that is so high that the pathogen does not have enough susceptible hosts to jump to and from to sustain transmission, and thus the pandemic stops or remains at extremely low level.

Narratives of mainstream media and the so called “health experts” about herd immunity changed several times. Before vaccines, “herd immunity” and the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for smart ways to reach herd immunity, were vilified and declared to be a very dangerous concept:

Later, during the period of promoting “Covid Vaccine’“, herd immunity was declared to be the a desirable, but elusive goal requiring higher and higher percentage of people to be vaccinated:

Lastly, as vaccine failure became most evident to all except the most ardent supporters, herd immunity was declared unattainable by the same “health experts”:

It turns out that all three of these messaging campaigns were false:

  • Herd immunity is a good thing when it is reached
  • Herd Immunity is attainable
  • Many countries in the world reached herd immunity already

Look at the chart: the herd immunity countries listed above, barely register on the bottom of this graph. You have to make a visual effort even to identify their recent curves, way below the crazy infection curves of vaccinated countries.

The Mistake of Vaccination is NOT Reversible. Unfortunately, there is no way to “un-vaccinate” people. The highly vaccinated countries and regions will have to suffer endless Covid infections and reinfections for a long time.

 

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