Christians, which included children, were reportedly attacked by “ruthless” Antifa members during a prayer event held in Portland’s Tom McCall Waterfront Park last Saturday.
The Blaze said that an “appalling video” revealed Antifa’s “ruthless” attack on Christians during a worship event entitled “Courageous Truth” organized by renowned Canadian-based Pastor Artur Pawlowski. The video shows that the Antifa used a flash bomb on a group of children and also threw rotten eggs on other attendees. One woman described the children attacked by the Antifa to be “four months old to like 10” while another man said “they’re toddlers.”
Meanwhile, CBN News highlighted that the almost two-minute “shocking video” retweeted by The Post Millenial Editor-At-Large Andy Ngo showed the militants carrying weapons and shields while yelling profanity to the worshipping crowd. The militants were later showed as becoming “more aggressive and violent” such that Pawlowski was sprayed with mace on his face.
“Shocking video recorded in Portland show a large group of antifa carrying shields & weapons move in to attack & shut down a family Christian prayer & worship event on the waterfront. Police did not intervene,” Ngo described the The Daily Sneed‘s video, which has already received 1.3 million views.
Shocking video recorded in Portland show a large group of antifa carrying shields & weapons move in to attack & shut down a family Christian prayer & worship event on the waterfront. Police did not intervene. pic.twitter.com/8JZuI1LPHo
The video showed the Antifa wearing a full black gear that also concealed their faces and head while holding shields, weapon, and umbrellas. They barged in the assembly and disrupted it before throwing “projectiles” at those praying.
When one of the participants tried to stop them by saying, “I speak to you in Jesus’ name,” that was when they became more aggressive by spraying mace and toppling off the sound system. The man who tried to stop the Antifa explained he did so because he was concerned for the children.
“Walked up to ask them to stop throwing things at the children. There’s kids down there, I mean they’re toddlers and they sprayed me too,” the man said in the video.
Some Antifa members carried off the sound system, which was later reported to have been thrown into the Willamette River. The militants also carried with them stolen food and beverages from those they attacked.
“According to one of the militant Antifa members who witnessed the violent direct action, Antifa threw the Christian group’s sound equipment into the Willamette River. The attendees, which included children, were hit with projectiles & pepper spray,” Ngo added.
Human Events Senior Editor Jack Posobiec pointed out that there are members of the media who are gaslighting the Antifa attack by reporting that it was not done against Christians. Posobiec posted the poster of the event, which was entitled “Courageous Truth.”
I see deceitful journalists trying to gaslight that it was not a Christian event that Antifa attacked yesterday in Portland
On Sunday, Pawlowski expressed gratituted to those who attended the event despite its unexpected turnout. He called the attendees “Patriots” because they stood “strong” in the face of the militants.
“Fantastic time with the real Christians and Patriots in Portland! Thank you all for coming and standing strong! Be blessed!” Pawlowski announced.
Pawlowski, Polish who migrated to Canada, was previously reported for conducting the “Courageous Faith” tour where he reveals the persecution he received from Canadian authorities during the pandemic. Pawlowski was imprisoned for violating COVID-19 rules for in-person worship along with his brother. While in America for the tour, Canadian authorities were reported to be targeting Pawlowski again for “flaunting” the COVID-19 rules through a new lawsuit filed by the Alberta Health Services.
“It’s abusive to force kids who struggle with them to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults,” write Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Tufts Children’s Hospital doctors.
QUICK FACTS:
Dr. Makary is an American professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, editor-in-chief of Medpage Today. He’s also pro-vaccine.
Dr. H. Cody Meissner is chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Tufts Children’s Hospital and served on the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) external advisory panel for the Covid-19 vaccines.
Doctors Makary and Meissner published an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal arguing against mandating masks for children.
While the “adverse developmental effects of requiring masks for a few weeks are probably minor,” the doctors warn, “We can’t say that with any confidence when the practice stretches on for months or years.”
“[T]here’s no science behind mask mandates for children,” write the doctors.
From @WSJopinion: It’s abusive to force kids who struggle with wearing masks to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults, writes @MartyMakary and H. Cody Meissner https://t.co/sv7DzXglKQ
The doctors found “only a single retrospective study on the question” of whether masks reduce Covid-19 transmission in children.
Moreover, that single study’s “results were inconclusive.”
Children “who have myopia can have difficulty seeing because the mask fogs their glasses.”
“Masks can cause severe acne and other skin problems.”
“The discomfort of a mask distracts some children from learning.”
“By increasing airway resistance during exhalation, masks can lead to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood.”
“And masks can be vectors for pathogens if they become moist or are used for too long.”
WHY IRELAND’S HEALTH DEPARTMENT WON’T MANDATE MASKS IN SCHOOLS:
Makary and Meissner noted how in March, Ireland’s Department of Health refused to require masks in schools.
This was because masks “may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students.”
“Some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths.”
“Chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development. It is well-documented that children who mouth-breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face.”
PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM:
“The possible psychological harm of widespread masking is an even greater worry,” write the doctors.
“Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children, who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion and happiness.”
They go on to say, “Covering a child’s face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety and depression.”
But “Seeing people speak is a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment.”
COVID POSES “MINIMAL RISK” IN CHILDREN:
The doctors point out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had reported “that for the week of July 31 the rate of hospitalization with Covid for children 5 to 17 was 0.5 per million.”
This amounts to “roughly 25 patients.”
Moreover, the CDC “acknowledges that not all of these children were in the hospital for Covid: Viral testing at admission is routine, even for patients who have no Covid symptoms.”
Makary and Meissner also note that “Children who do develop Covid symptoms” experience minimal risk of “long Covid,” as shown by a Lancet study published Aug 3.
The study says, “Almost all children had symptom resolution by 8 weeks, providing reassurance about long-term outcomes.”
CHILDREN TRANSMIT COVID “LESS OFTEN”:
Children transmit Covid “far less often than adults do,” write the doctors.
They point to a North Carolina study conducted before vaccines were available, which “found not a single case of student-to-teacher transmission when 90,000 students were in school.”
CLOTH MASKS NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS RESPIRATORS:
The doctors claim that “Cloth masks aren’t nearly as effective as N95 respirators,” although the “CDC directives ignore the distinction.”
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm—who was on Biden transition team’s Covid task force—recently told CNN that “Many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.”
Media regular Dr. Osterholm (@mtosterholm): "We need to talk about better masking. We need to talk about N-95 respirators, which would do a lot for both people who are not yet vaccinated or not previously infected” pic.twitter.com/xqgArTOGrt
“The CDC’s mask decrees are perversely permissive as well as needlessly strict,” write Makary and Meissner.
“In the absence of data, mask mandates have ignited a culture war. Yet if masks do reduce asymptomatic transmission in children, they likely rank no higher than fourth among mitigation strategies that schools can adopt, after ventilation, distancing and dividing students into small groups known as pods.”
“Any child who wants to wear a mask should be free to do so,” the doctors go on to say, “But forcing them to make personal, health and developmental sacrifices for the sake of adults who refuse to get immunized is abusive.”
“Before we order the masking of 56 million Americans who are too young to vote and don’t have a lobby,” conclude the doctors,” let’s see data showing the benefits and weigh them against the long-term harm.”
Boom 💥 The resistance to medical tyranny starts NOW! Sen. Rand Paul is right. All we have to do is #JustSayNo & stop complying just like Obama did w/ his bday bash. Our rights to liberty come from GOD.. not Joe Biden & Tony Fauci pic.twitter.com/0qsL3DjIg7
When the January 6th defendants sought to move their trial from the highly politicized D.C. circuit, prosecutors insisted that the Defendants would get a fair trial, and actually cited my trial as an example. The government pointed out that the judge ruled in my case that even though it was likely that a majority – if not all – the Jurors in D.C. would be anti-Trump, there was no reason to believe that the Jurors knew that I was a longtime associate of Trump and therefore, I was given a fair trial. This would assume that the jurors had not seen anything of the avalanche of pretrial publicity, and were living under a rock. It also ignored the clear political nature of the charges against me.
The truth is, I was subjected to a Soviet-style show trial in which my first, fourth, and fifth amendments were violated. The notion that my trial was fair is ludicrous on its face. The sham of a trial featured bias from Judge Amy Berman Jackson, federal prosecutors, and flagrant misconduct from both the Jury and Jury forewoman. These were among the reasons President Donald J. Trump ultimately issued my unconditional Presidential Pardon.
Prosecutors were allowed to pick the judge most favorable to their case by insisting that my case was related to their indictment of 17 alleged Russian Intelligence Officers who they claimed gave stolen data to Wiki-leaks at the DNC. In fact, the Prosecutors in my case promised the Judge that they would produce evidence against me at trial that was collected with search warrants from the Russian hacker’s case. They produced no such thing at trial – defrauding the court and violating my Due Process rights.
My constitutional rights were also violated by the Judge in a series of pre-trial rulings. The fact that the first 5 pages of my indictment clearly state that the Russians hacked the DNC and gave the stolen data to Wikileaks. However, the FBI was forced by my lawyers to admit, before the trial even began, that they never inspected the DNC computer servers. Amazingly, the Judge refused to allow me to use expert testimony or forensic evidence to prove that the DNC was not hacked, or that it was far more likely any stolen data was downloaded to a portable drive and taken out the back door.
The Judge also ruled that I could not raise misconduct by the Special Counsel’s Office, the FBI, The Department of Justice, or any individual member of Congress. Why would the government make such a motion unless there was misconduct? We already knew there was during Lt. Gen Flynn’s prosecution, which was conducted by the same office. This ruling was unconstitutional because the Supreme Court decision of Kyles v. Whitley held that the integrity of the investigation is always legitimate grounds for defense.
There is also the makeup of the Jury itself. It is statistically impossible to select a jury in which every Juror was a Democrat and numerous Jurors had served as political appointees in the Clinton or Obama Administrations. The Jurors in my case included individuals who had direct relationships with the FBI or in some cases, the Special Counsel’s Office. The Judge refused to dismiss any juror for political bias.
Most shocking was the conduct of the Jury forewoman. The Jury forewoman attacked me by name regarding the very case in which she was selected as a juror on Facebook and Twitter in 2019. The Jury Forewoman kept these accounts private during jury selection and the trial and only deleted them after the verdict in my case. The Judge insisted that this did not constitute any evidence of bias and refused a request by my Attorney to subpoena the deleted material despite the fact that we had screenshots proving the Jury forewoman’s offenses. In any other courtroom, outside the District of Columbia, the jury forewoman would have been prosecuted.
The Judge also imposed an unconstitutional gag on me insisting that any public comment or defense of myself had the potential to influence the pool of jurors. The judge offered no empirical evidence that my then dissipated social media presence would affect the jury pool and had no problem with the Washington Post and CNN, two dominant media voices in the District of Columbia, attacking me on a mere daily basis in the run-up to the trial. When I appealed this unconstitutional gag, which the Judge left in place after my conviction and prior to my sentencing, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals sat on my motion for months while I sustained damage and ultimately ruled that I had to first ask Judge Jackson to remove the gag – an obvious waste of time. It didn’t matter, the Appeals court ran out the clock and my trial were imminent.
Overseeing the case against me for the Office of Special Counsel was Jeannie Rhee, who represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation in the email case and who gave the maximum contribution to Hillary’s campaigns in 2008 and 2016 as well as Obama in 2008. The reason Jeannie got this assignment is that she was a partner at Robert Mueller’s law firm, which had represented Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation in the “Illegal Server/missing Email” case. Judge Jackson, in her tongue lashing of about me at sentencing said my case was” really about the search for Hillary Clinton’s missing emails.” If so, then both Rhee and Mueller had a conflict of interest and should never have been allowed to investigate the President or myself.
Despite the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Prisons regulations on COVID-19, which held that individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes over the age of 65 be sent to serve their sentence in home confinement, Judge Jackson sentenced me to a 4-year prison term in a rural Georgia prison where the government insisted there were no known COVID-19 cases. In fact, the head of the Prison Guard Union stated that the government was hiding over 219 positive cases in that facility, and none of the CDC guidelines regarding masks or isolation were being followed in the correctional facility. Only days after the date I was to report to this hellhole, the US Bureau of Prisons website showed over 200 cases at the facility. At 68 years old, and with a lifetime history of asthma, mine was a death sentence.
Most outrageous about my trial was the deliberate suppression of exculpatory evidence by both the Prosecutors and the Judge. On Nov. 3, 2020, by Court Order, the DOJ in a rare midnight press release, published the last remaining, and long-hidden, sections of the Special Counsel’s final report which sought to obfuscate the fact that Mueller could find no “factual evidence of Russian Collusion, Wikileaks collaboration or involvement of the alleged heist of John Podesta’s embarrassing emails.” It also concluded that even if such evidence had been discovered, which it was not, such activities would not have been illegal. Had this been turned over to my defense attorneys as required by Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150, decision, it would have undermined the government’s contorted and fabricated case against me. How does one lie to Congress about events that one is not involved in and knows nothing about?
Prosecutors ignored over 30 pages of exculpatory evidence of text messages by government witness Randy Credico, which indisputably proved that Credico was in fact, the source who told me that the Wikileaks material would be released in October. They also disregarded the first hand testimony of at least 3 Grand Jury witnesses who told the Grand Jury that Credico had confided in them directly that he was my source. Mueller’s thugs ignored a written threat by Credico to “put a hole in the head” of another witness who went to the Grand Jury if he contradicted Credico. Yet they charged me with one count of Witness Tampering for ‘threatening to steal Credico’s dog” – a charge even Credico said he never took seriously.
Steve Bannon, who was Mueller’s surprise lead witness, said under oath that he had discussed Wikileaks disclosures with me in virtually every phone conversation we had in 2016, directly contradicting his sworn testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. After reviewing both transcripts Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University Law School told the New York Post, “There does appear a glaring and irreconcilable conflict in what Bannon stated in testimony before Congress and the court. What is striking is that this was not a peripheral point but one of the main areas of inquiry.He has two diametrically opposite sworn statements in a high-profile controversy with dozens of attorneys in attendance.” Turley told The Post Prosecutors surely knew of these discrepancies and therefore they suborned perjury on the stand by Sloppy Steve. Bannon also said I was the Trump campaign’s “access point” with Wikileaks. This came as news to me because I had no role in the Trump campaign, and my one on-line attempt to email the Wikileaks flack on Twitter DMs resulted in a brush-off. Prosecutors also had an obligation to tell my defense attorneys that Bannon was under criminal investigation at the time of my trial as the text of his subsequent indictment showed. They failed to do so.
Prosecutors then proposed a 7-9 year prison sentence for me, in which they repeatedly “enhanced” the length of my sentence based on crimes I had been neither charged with nor convicted of. Mueller prosecutor, Aaron Zelinsky, testified before the House Judiciary Committee that he was subjected to political pressure by Senior Officials at the Justice Department to “go easy on Stone” in sentencing. According to the Washington Post, the three top career non-political Prosecutors at the Justice Department have all testified under oath to the DOJ Inspector General, denying that any such pressure was exerted on the Prosecutors in my case. In view of the fact that I was prosecuted for allegedly “lying to congress,” one wonders when Mr. Zelinsky will be prosecuted.
The conduct of the Prosecutors, Judge, and Jury in all of the Mueller-related cases demonstrates precisely that no supporter of Donald Trump and no Republican can get a fair trial in the District of Columbia. The January 6th defendants are no exception.
Over 20 percent of illegal immigrant unaccompanied minors and 18 percent of family units who recently crossed the U.S.-Mexico border have tested positive for COVID-19 prior to being released from U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody over the last several weeks, according to a Department of Homeland Security document prepared for President Joe Biden and reviewed by NBC News Saturday.
The document also said some flights being used to deport illegal immigrants had over 25 percent of the passengers test positive before leaving, forcing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to remove the sick illegal immigrants and place them in quarantine.
and Border Protection custody over the last several weeks, according to a Department of Homeland Security document prepared for President Joe Biden and reviewed by NBC News Saturday.
Agency data obtained by NBC News revealed that as of Wednesday, over 15,000 illegal immigrants are in Border Patrol custody. Homeland Security officials also noted that illegal immigrants who test positive by ICE are quarantined and their deportation is stalled.
The document recommended that DHS provide additional medical staffing at processing centers, highlighting the Rio Grande Valley facility where just three EMT’s oversee 3,000 illegal immigrants.
A second document said the high positivity rates are “straining the capacity of the NGO’s and local government that DHS currently partners with to care for them.”
According to the document, the rise in cases among illegal immigrants is largely attributed to “the highly transmissible Delta variant combined with lengthier stays in crowded [Customs and Border Protection] facilities.”
Two sources familiar with the situation said the skyrocketing rates have prompted emergency meetings between the White House, Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security.
“DHS and CBP takes its responsibility to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and other diseases very seriously,” a White House spokesperson said in a statement. “CBP provides migrants who can’t be expelled…or are awaiting processing with PPE from the moment they are taken into custody, and migrants are required to keep masks on at all times, including when they are transferred or in the process of being released.”
“If anyone exhibits signs of illness in CBP custody, they are referred to local health systems for appropriate testing, diagnosis, isolation and treatment,” the spokesperson continued.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s DHS is not vaccinating illegal immigrants, but “other international organizations” are vaccinating them as they cross the border.
When asked about how the Biden administration’s measures are keeping people safe in places like McAllen, Texas, where 7,000 COVID-positive illegal immigrants have been released since February, including 1,500 in the last week, Psaki responded, “Well, I think it’s important to note what’s actually happening in McAllen. So, there’s actually been a — they signed a disaster declaration, approved setting up a temporary emergency shelter to provide a space — to create an isolated space to mitigate this issue.”
Philip Morris International has raised its bid against Carlyle to acquire Vectura, a U.K.-based drug manufacturer specializing in inhaled medicines, to 1.02 billion pounds ($1.41 billion). The U.K.’s Takeover Panel said that the deal could enter a rare head-to-head auction.
Why it matters: The Swiss spinoff from the Big Tobacco company is on a quest to remake its image, and its investments range from cigarette alternatives to treatments for respiratory illnesses.
Also on Monday, the company announced its acquisition of OtiTopic, a U.S. drugmaker working on a treatment for acute myocardial infarction.
Details: Under the new offer, Vectura shareholders will get 165 pence a share in cash, up from PMI’s previous offer of 150 pence a share and Carlyle’s offer of 155 pence on Friday.
The bottom line: “The tobacco firm’s determination to outmaneuver Carlyle highlights Chief Executive Officer Jacek Olczak’s belief that Vectura offers a unique opportunity to reinvent his company. He’s argued that developing new products in the inhaled-therapies space without the expertise of the U.K. company would take far longer.” — Corinne Gretler and Dinesh Nair, Bloomberg
While the US has its problems, future global Chinese supremacy won’t be one. Far from being in a position of overwhelming strength, China and its Communist leadership face imminent multifront domestic crises that will threaten the existence not only of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) but the existence of the Chinese state as a unified whole. Further, there are several insurmountable obstacles to it seriously disturbing core US interests or expanding its influence much beyond its own coasts before this happens.
First, China’s geography is terrible if projecting power is a state aim. Endless flatlands to the north running into Mongolia and Siberia, deserts and mountains to the west, more mountains and dense jungle to the south, while its eastern coast is ringed by states terrified of an expansionist China. Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, along with other affected regional actors such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and India will work hard to keep China boxed in. One of the most trade-dependent countries of the existing order, China faces hazardous supply chain access in the event of any conflict in the South or East China Seas.
China’s internal geography breeds its own problems. For one thing, it is seriously strapped for foodstuffs. A shocking statistic: on a per capita basis it has less arable agricultural land than Saudi Arabia. What farmland China does have requires enormous amounts of petrochemical fertilizers and laborers to keep even moderately productive. Further, lacking interconnected east-west-flowing waterways, moving mass amounts of produce around internally is expensive and inefficient over the vast distances required to get locally produced foodstuffs to the highly populated eastern seaboard provinces. The world’s largest food importer by far, it is heavily reliant on the continued stability of global supply chains and access to markets.
In terms of maintaining its internal stability, China’s sheer vastness creates ethnic and regional problems as well. With large populations of Uighurs and Tibetans inconveniently located in strategic areas far from Beijing, as well as a variety of much smaller ethnic groups in the mountainous jungles to the south, the CCP faces multiple permanent secessionist dangers far from its core. They are not alone. Further such threats follow directly from the geography of the country, with wealthier eastern coastal provinces such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang wanting and having far more to do with wealthier Japan and Korea and the rest of the outside world than with the hinterlands of China’s western barrens. Such provinces have historically resisted Beijing’s control, and the CCP’s most recent moves against the Shanghai-centered tech sector and its billionaire class ought to be understood in this light; so, too, its decision not to try and duplicate the US shale revolution because of the location of Chinese shale deposits, large, wealthy, and culturally distinct Sichuan.
On the demographic front, the CCP’s social engineering projects are going to add to its problems. From a combination of more or less forced mass urbanization, state-induced famine, and two-child, then-one child policies, the CCP faces demographic collapse. Specifically, it is going to run out of taxpayers, laborers, and consumers. Even worse, not only did changing to a one child policy in the 1980s amplify the severity of the coming crisis, but it led to an epidemic of selective sex abortion. Basically, right about the time China’s economy collapses in on itself it is going to have tens of millions of young men unable to find a job or a girlfriend—this while by 2030 China will have four retirees for every two workers and one child. Ouch.
About that coming economic collapse—because of its unique position over the past twenty years as a mass global exporter, the CCP has managed to stave off any potential economic slowdowns with boundless state credit, industry subsidies, and dumping thereby maintaining near full employment. However, decreasing returns on additional debt and continued overproduction, combined with domestic underconsumption and low-cost labor competition in its region, mean the bill is about to come due. It’s going to be enormous. Total debt is now three times the output of the Chinese economy annually, and the expansion of debt and credit has accelerated in recent years. Until the past year, the Chinese financial system was creating five times the money supply of the Federal Reserve system per month. According to Citigroup, for example, in 2018 alone the Chinese financial system accounted for 80 percent of all private credit creation globally. Because of centrally directed malinvestment, the total amount of these loans that are not performing total an estimated $7 trillion. For some perspective, the subprime crisis that crippled western financial markets was saddled with less than a trillion dollars of such bad loans. Further, much of the debt is short term, meaning it is frequently rolled over with new debt. This ongoing practice is yielding ever decreasing returns. According to The Economist, fully three-quarters of new loans in China go simply toward paying the interest on existing debt. Meanwhile, total factor productivity, which had soared during the first decade of the new century, has more or less flatlined since then.
The BRI is only making things worse: spawning even more Yuan, and these being lent and spent on projects of questionable economic value and equally dubious means of repayment. Again, however, CCP policies that privilege employment and state stability over efficiency and productivity mean China’s industrial overproduction has to have somewhere to go.
To summarize: the belt and road isn’t working—nor will the vaunted China 2025. Xi has already shown repeatedly that the economy can’t be seriously reformed. Most of its high technology was bought or stolen, and as recent evidence has shown the CCP absolutely cannot tolerate a vibrant and freewheeling Shanghai tech sector. It faces demographic collapse, and is one of the most existing order dependent countries, relying on global supply chains and open access to foreign consumer markets. It is freighted with restive minorities, resistant elites, trillions in bad debts hidden away in its murky financial system, and at this point can’t seriously float the Yuan as a challenger to the hegemony of the US dollar—that too has already been tried and failed.
For all the CCP’s propaganda, fragmentation rather than unity has defined Chinese history. Spanning approximately two millennia, for only three hundred of those years were the borders of more or less today’s China united under a Han dominated central political authority. Left to itself, locked in the South and East China seas, it would likely face the threat of serious collapse and fragmentation by the late 2030s.
However, in just the last week Biden has publicly accused China of being behind a string of high profile cyber operations and, in the same speech, said such actions in the future could lead to a hot war. Following on the heels of Biden’s bellicose EU performance, and amidst a string of high-level meetings with China’s regional rivals, the new administration’s actions and rhetoric are playing right into the CCP’s grateful lap. Facing imminent multifront disasters, such an openly confrontational US attitude is ultimately only likely to give the CCP its best chance of staying in power as these crises all come to a collective head: by arguing that only it, the CCP, has been able to make China great again and prevent its exploitation by looming foreign imperialists, and that only it can protect China from a United States newly determined to subvert and dominate it.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed on Friday a Border Patrol agent who was patrolling near the Rio Grande in the El Paso Sector fired upon from two individuals on the Mexican side of the border. The agent took cover and was not hit.
In a statement, CBP said around 20 rounds from a rifle were used to shoot at the agent:
“On August 6, 2021, at approximately 3 AM, a BPA assigned to an area east of the Jonathan Rogers Water Treatment Plant reported hearing gunshots near his location and immediately drove to cover behind an obstruction. Camera operators confirmed the presence of two subjects with what appeared to be a rifle shooting north from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande River. Approximately 20 rounds were fired towards the agent from approximately 150 yards away. Fortunately, none of the rounds struck the agent. The two subjects were observed entering a sedan on the Mexican side and fleeing the scene. Mexican law enforcement authorities were immediately notified and officers were dispatched to the area.”
The FBI will be taking over the investigation into the shooting.
Friday’s shooting comes almost a month after cartels in Juarez, Mexico, the border town south of El Paso, put up banners facing the United States warning U.S. law enforcement that “bullets also can cross the river and the [border] wall…”
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is aware of the threat and the matter has been referred to the appropriate investigative entities. As with any threat made against CBP personnel, it will be handled accordingly and not taken lightly,” CBP said in an email at the time, according to Border Report.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said in a planned phone call on Monday with Vice President Kamala Harris he would urge the United States to reopen the two countries’ shared southern border “completely.”
The pair of leaders would also, hopefully, discuss migration and new COVID-19 vaccine donations from the U.S., AMLO said.
“I have a call today with Vice President Kamala Harris. We are going to give continuity to the agenda that we have in common on migration issues, of course, the issue of opening the border, the support that they have been giving us, and that we thank you very much for having enough vaccines in our country,” AMLO said in a press conference in Ciudad Juarez, south of El Paso, Texas. Coronavirus cases have spiked in the U.S. and Mexico as new, more transmissible variants continue to spread.
A White House official confirmed the call between Harris and AMLO but did not say whether Harris planned to discuss a new shipment of vaccinations with the Mexican leader. The U.S. government provided 1.35 billion Johnson & Johnson vaccines to Mexico in June, which health authorities vowed to use to vaccinate people living in border states.
“Today, Vice President Harris will speak with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico. Following the call, the office of the vice president will provide a readout,” the official said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
Mexican officials have urged Washington to reopen the border as soon as possible to allow business to resume between the two countries. But high coronavirus rates have delayed the prospect. Border crossings deemed nonessential have been off-limits since March 2020.
“It must be said that the border is open, not completely, but it has never been completely closed. However, we need to open this one, and it is an issue that we are going to discuss today,” AMLO said.
In remarks one day earlier, AMLO appeared to preview new COVID-19 vaccine shipments from the U.S., stating, “There are commitments for us to have more vaccines, provided by the United States government.”
“We’re going to talk on Monday in order to keep working on our joint agenda of collaboration,” he added.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended the Title 42 rule that allows migrants to be expelled from the country due to COVID-19 concerns.
Harris was tasked with addressing the so-called root causes of migration from Central America to the southern border, a political liability for Democrats and the Biden administration who have so far failed to wrest control of the numbers. The swell of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has reached a two-decade high.
A federal judge in Miami has ruled that Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings can require passengers to provide proof of vaccination, bucking Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts to ban “vaccine passports” in the state.
In a ruling issued Sunday, U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams granted the cruise line a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the state from enforcing its ban.
The judge determined that DeSantis’ “vaccine passport” ban, signed into law in May, jeopardizes public health and infringes upon the cruise line’s constitutional rights, Reuters reported.
She wrote in the ruling that Florida failed to “provide a valid evidentiary, factual, or legal predicate” for banning proof of vaccination requirements and argued that the ban will likely fail in court.
The law “does not prohibit businesses from subjecting unvaccinated customers — and those who decline to verify their vaccination status and are deemed unvaccinated — to restrictions, requirements, and expenses that do not apply to vaccinated patrons,” Williams stated.
“In sum, if combatting discrimination were the goal, merely banning the exchange of COVID-19 vaccination documentation is an ineffective way to accomplish this objective because the statute does not directly prohibit the treating of unvaccinated persons or those who decline to verify their vaccination status by businesses and employers differently,” she added.
Norwegian plans to resume operations on Aug. 15, setting sail from Miami with a fully vaccinated ship.
In a statement following the decision, Norwegian’s executive vice president, Daniel Farkas, said, “We are pleased that Judge Williams saw the facts, the law and the science as we did and granted the Company’s motion for preliminary injunction allowing us to operate cruises from Florida with 100% vaccinated guests and crew.”
Neither DeSantis nor his lawyers responded publicly to the news before this article was published.
The governor initially sought to prohibit businesses and government agencies from discriminating against unvaccinated individuals by requiring vaccine passports with an executive order in April. Then in May, the state legislature passed a bill expanding the order.
In July, the cruise line sued, arguing that the law prevented it from complying with U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines that mandate at least 95% of passengers and 98% of its crew be vaccinated.
DeSantis has been an outspoken opponent of draconian restrictions put in place by government bureaucrats, specifically as it pertains to a pivotal industry in his state.
“Do you want one unelected bureaucracy to be able to have the power to indefinitely shut down a major industry in this country?” he asked during a news conference in May.
Records obtained by Just the News provide unprecedented glimpse into human adjudication of thousands of ballots, where marks for candidates like Trump were sometimes removed so ballots could count for Biden.
day after the November election, as Donald Trump and other Republican candidates clung to evaporating leads in Georgia, vote counters in Atlanta were confronted by a paper ballot known only by its anonymizing number 5150-232-18.
A Dominion Voting machine had rejected the ballot on election night because the voter had filled in boxes for both Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden, an error known as an “overvote.” The machine determined neither candidate should get a tally, and the ballot was referred for human review.
The image of the ballot, obtained by Just the News, shows the voter messily scribbled a large blob in the box to select Trump as president while also putting a thinner check mark next to Biden’s name.
At 6:10 p.m. ET on Nov. 4, 24 hours after the ballot was first scanned and rejected by Machine 5150, a panel of humans decided the vote should be awarded to Biden, with the notation “mark removed for Donald J. Trump.” You can see that ballot here:
Scores of additional ballots that same day had checks manually removed next to Trump’s name as well as many other candidates up and down the ticket — Libertarians, Democrats and write-ins alike — and the votes awarded instead to other candidates.
Welcome to the arcane process known as adjudication, where human judgment is substituted for machine scanning in cases where voters incorrectly filled out a paper ballot. Election officials and official observers have dealt with it for years, with everyday citizens mostly oblivious to the process.
But in 2020, adjudication played a much larger role in states like Georgia, which allowed hundreds of thousands of additional citizens to vote absentee for the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In all, more than 5,000 of the 148,000 absentee ballots cast — or about 3% — in Georgia’s largest county required some form of human intervention, according to logs obtained from Fulton County by Just the News under an open records act request.
The adjudication ballots alone are not enough to change a Georgia election in which Biden and Trump were separated by less than 13,000 votes. However, they reveal an imperfect system vulnerable to chaos, subjectivity, or political dirty tricks, especially in a county like Fulton where state officials documented widespread irregularities and misconduct and now want to take over election counting.
Just the News reviewed 1,604 pages of adjudication logs from Fulton County and reviewed 4820 of the 5064 ballot images where human vote counters reviewed or overrode the Dominion Voting machines. The JTN review provided an unprecedented window into the extraordinary discretion accorded adjudication judges to interpret a voter’s intent on a flawed ballot.
It also raised another troubling question, at least in Georgia, where election regulations create two conflicting imperatives. One regulation, which is quoted on each absentee ballot, emphatically declares that a paper ballot should be deemed “spoiled” and uncountable if a voter makes any mistakes or unauthorized marks.
“If you make a mistake or change your mind or change your mind on a selection do not attempt to mark through the selection or attempt to erase. Write ‘Spoiled’ across the ballot and across the return envelope” and get a new ballot, language on each ballot reads.
Just the News reviewed hundreds of ballots that met the “spoiled” definition — ballots that voters had in some way altered, defaced, or corrected — that were still allowed to count after adjudication. The reason? Another Georgia regulation gives election officials broad discretion to try to determine the intent of a confused voter, and actually encourages them to find a way to make flawed ballots count.
The Georgia code stipulates that voting tabulators must be programmed to “reject any ballot, including absentee ballots, on which an overvote is detected,” with those ballots to be “manually reviewed” by a review panel following their rejection.
If a voter “has marked his or her ballot in such a manner that he or she has indicated clearly and without question the candidate for whom he or she desires to cast his or her vote,” the state code says elsewhere, then the ballot “shall be counted and such candidate shall receive his or her vote.”
Yet state law also directs that a ballot should be considered “spoiled” if, in part, a voter has used it to “cast more than the permitted number of votes.” A spoiled ballot “shall not be reinstated,” the code states, suggesting that any ballots deemed as such should not be counted.
“If you inadvertently make an error, spoil, or otherwise deface the ballot, IMMEDIATELY contact your local county board of registrars or the municipal absentee ballot clerk, whichever is applicable, to receive a replacement ballot,” the instructions dictate.
Just the News identified hundreds of ballots that met that definition but nonetheless were counted as lawful votes after election judges intervened. Some counted ballots even had the word “spoiled” written across them and still were counted.
For instance, “spoiled” was clearly written on ballot number 729-98-76, which had boxes for both Trump and Biden selected. Election judges awarded the vote to Biden and removed the mark for Trump. You can see that here:
But another ballot, 5162-207-61, had the word spoiled written on it and a vote solely for Trump. But it was rejected by the same process, showing just how uneven the system was. You can see that here:
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office said it did not have an immediate response on whether such spoiled ballots should have been allowed to go to adjudication, saying it was studying the matter. Raffensperger has said, however, Fulton County’s election processes are so flawed he believes the state of Georgia should take it into receivership.
State officials said Fulton County should have adjudicated ballots using a panel of two Democrat judges, two Republican judges and one independent judge, but they did not know for sure whether each ballot went through that process.
Raffensperger’s handpicked election monitor for Fulton County compiled a 29-page report identifying voting irregularities that occurred in the Atlanta vote counting center, including documented problems with spoiled and adjudicated ballots.
Fulton County refused to answer any questions about the records they provided to Just the News.
But Bridget Thorne, who has worked for years in various election jobs in Fulton County, said officials there did not have clear instructions for handling spoiled or adjudicated ballots last fall.
“According to a Fulton County Board member, there were no written adjudication processes given to adjudicators,” Thorne told Just the News. “Processes were given verbally. In the event the Democrat and the Republican adjudicators could not agree, [county executive] Ralph Jones would decide.
“Based on my experience, it is not surprising that they did not have a standard written process for adjudicators,” she added. “An internal audit financial report that came out on Wednesday also states that they are missing Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).”
The Just the News review shows adjudication judges have the power to “remove marks” and or “add marks” to reflect a voter’s assumed intention and did so hundreds of times in Fulton County alone. They also can reject them. And at least in Georgia last November, they made such decisions one to four days after Election Day had ended, when preliminary vote counts showed who was leading or losing in close races. The entire scenario makes some extremely squeamish.
Scores of adjudicated ballots ultimately were resolved with the notation “removed mark” next to Trump’s name, in most cases allowing a second mark next to Biden’s name to count. But at times it happened in reverse too, or to the detriment of third-party candidates.
Ballot number 729-4-39, for instance, included blob marks for the Libertarian candidates for president (Jo Jorgensen) and U.S. Senate (Shane Hazel) as well as Democrats Biden and Senate winner Jon Ossoff. The adjudication team awarded the ballot to Biden and Ossof, the logs and ballot images showed. To do so, they had to remove the marks for the Libertarian candidates.
On another ballot, a voter messily scribbled in the bubble to select Donald Trump as president; the voter also gave a small check mark next to Joe Biden. The adjudication log shows the choice being flagged as an “over-vote,” after which an adjudication review awarded the ballot to Biden.
In one particularly striking example, a ballot clearly marked “spoiled” was apparently adjudicated and counted by an election staff worker, raising the question of whether or not that voter or other voters managed to vote twice in the election. In that case, Trump would have been the beneficary.
In all, 1,341 marks were removed from the names of candidates on the 5,000 ballots, a computer analysis of the logs showed.
The alteration and counting of flawed ballots were spread across all races, including state constitutional amendments and local legislative campaigns.
One of the clearest patterns involved the highly watched special U.S. Senate election that pitted Republican incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler against Democratic activist Raphael Warnock. The Just the News review showed the design of the ballot by Raffensperger’s office clearly confused many in the race because it offered 20 candidates, most of them Democrats. Voters often selected two or more of a party’s candidates, causing their votes ultimately to be rejected even after adjudication. Democrats were more likely to be negatively affected in that instance.
Just the News is fighting for adjudication logs in other states like Arizona, where its largest election metropolis, Maricopa County, recently told the news organization there were about 27,000 adjudicated ballots in November but so far has refused to provide the logs or images.
The release of the ballot images comes after a bombshell Just the News report that revealed an election watchdog’s searing criticism of Fulton County’s handling of the absentee ballot counting process at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. The watchdog, Carter Jones — who had been assigned by Raffensperger’s office to monitor the State Farm Arena operations — highlighted what he said were several key security problems with the absentee ballot operation there.
Jones at one point wrote of witnessing absentee ballots arriving at the arena “in rolling bins 2k at a time.”
“It is my understanding is that the ballots are supposed to be moved in numbered, sealed boxes to protect them,” he wrote, also noting “too many ballots coming in for secure black ballot boxes.”
Jones also made numerous citations raising concerns about how absentee ballots and spoiled ballots were handled. Here are some direct excerpts from his notes:
“My math is still not zeroing out, so I get a staffer to explain it to me and they realize (after I talk to three and no one listens) that their math doesn’t add up, which prompts a search for more spoiled ballots to make up for the missing seven.”
“We missed one ballot! — Found during cleanup → I pointed it out to Ralph, otherwise he would’ve missed it or left it unsecured. → Turns out that it was spoiled but written in small print on the back.”
“Big problem! Rick just called me to explain that Fulton did not verify their numbers on the backend after adjudication last night, so their provisional number is off by 484 from what it should be. Their current plan is to re-scan all of yesterday’s batch to make sure that everything is done properly.”
“Press release yesterday said that there were 3,604 accepted provisionals. My count shows that last night they scanned 3,420. Rick says that they’re 484 short, but my math says it’s only 184.”
With such chaos and mismanagement observed by the state, some wonder whether any of the adjudicated ballots were counted correctly and consistently in Georgia’s biggest metropolis, or other major urban areas for that matter.
“Similar actions took place in Detroit, Philadelphia, Green Bay and other major urban centers in swing states where tens of thousands of ballots were interpreted and counted by review panels,” said Phill Kline, the former Kansas attorney general and head of the Amistad Project, which has filed lawsuits to gain transparency in elections nationwide. “This happens every year. But in 2020 laws requiring both parties to review this process weren’t followed.
“With COVID as an excuse, election observers were kicked out of the counting room and private billionaires invited in,” Kline added, citing Mark Zuckerberg’s donations to election judges. “Americans deserve to know how this shadow government managed the election, and state election officials, rather than fighting efforts to understand what happened, should open the doors and support the effort to get at the truth!”
‘The Case Against Masks for Children’: WSJ
“It’s abusive to force kids who struggle with them to sacrifice for the sake of unvaccinated adults,” write Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Tufts Children’s Hospital doctors.
QUICK FACTS:
WHY CHILDREN SHOULDN’T WEAR MASKS:
WHY IRELAND’S HEALTH DEPARTMENT WON’T MANDATE MASKS IN SCHOOLS:
PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM:
COVID POSES “MINIMAL RISK” IN CHILDREN:
CHILDREN TRANSMIT COVID “LESS OFTEN”:
CLOTH MASKS NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS RESPIRATORS:
CONCLUSION:
Jon Fleetwood is Managing Editor for American Faith.