“THAT’S NOT SO BAD. IN _____________________ WE WERE PAYING……$$$$”

Well I guess the good news is it probably won’t bother the newcomers to this area who are likely already thrilled with the lower cost of living compared to city life. Perhaps that’s part of the County’s timing gimmick of attempting to hand off another development failure whose ultimate outcome of substantial expense was clearly foreseeable by those who took the time to understand what was actually being “sold to the LDPCSD MANDATORY CUSTOMERS”….a BIG financial problem.

Another classic “bait and switch” while taxpayers pay more and more and receive less and less – that’s the traditional cost for unrestrained government and unaccountable officials.

The original agreement involved …..

too bad Mariposa County Planning/LAFCO records of all this Don Pedro area development have been prohibited from pubic review for well over one year now ….as it would be helpful to review and see exactly how such a regulatory failure occurred. I recall exactly when all these public county annexation records were withheld from further public review……when it was discovered that there was an alleged 20+ year old LAFCO [LocaL Agency Formation Commission] ANNEXATION of property along the shores of Lake McClure into the Lake Don Pedro Community Services District (LDPCSD) in 1995 (crooked PETER KAMPA strikes again) for a “slumbering 900ac proposed residential subdivision” that was completely hidden from public view (even from directors on the board at the time who had asked about a rumor of a major development across from the LDPCSD administration office!) for over TWO DECADES HIDDEN FROM THE PUBIC? (Or was the annexation just “manufactured as completed” upon Peter Kampa’s return to the LDPCSD to finish the annexation corruption by finally furnishing the groundwater necessary for developments he assisted in planning 20 years earlier before being caught resulting in a quick resignation?)

…. a sewage treatment facility on the golf course THAT WAS WITHIN the water license PLACE OF USE for Merced River water.

WHY ARE PUBLIC RECORDS BEING CONCEALED FROM THE PUBLIC?

Anyway, public records have been concealed by the County regarding this proposed subdivision annexation into the LDPCSD along with many others that defied not only logic and the law, but LAFCO’s own governing regulations on how such annexations into existing special districts would be processed! LAFCO RESOLUTION 76-4…… also still concealed from the public – essentially stated without the availability of water/septic for the development clearly identified in the annexation application, such annexation would not even be considered by LAFCO! Ahhh, but what happened? Some annexations didn’t even mention the project name or property location in the paperwork but were approved! Even stated there was no duty to advise the public of the annexation process! WHAT?????

The County doesn’t obey their own operating regulations but now wants to simply push the tremendous negative financial effects caused by their own irresponsibility on the innocent, AND ALREADY VICTIMIZED and over taxed, MERCED RIVER WATER ENTITLED CUSTOMERS of the Lake Don Pedro subdivision! I’d say this is all a bunch of bullshit, but actually, it’s human waste going back many years.

ORBITS AROUND THE SAME SIMPLE UNDENIABLE FACT

So much of this can be traced to one clear fact…. local governments were intent upon continuing their annexations into the LDPCSD regardless of the mounting violations of CALIFORNIA STATE WATER LICENSE 11395 (held by the MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT) which restricts Merced River water use (impounded and pumped from Lake McClure) to the Lake Don Pedro residential subdivision and golf course.

Why? So vast areas of rural foothill drought prone property could be developed and taxed by the county while passing the financial costs for the necessary water service to the unsuspecting owners of LDP subdivision property. (LAFCOs also set it up so that these LDP Property owners would ALSO BE MANDATORY CUSTOMERS OF THE LDPCSD WHILE LAFCOS EXPLOITED WATER LICENSE 11395 TO THEIR BENEFIT.

Think about how devious that was…….What property owner in the subdivision would have ever imagined they would be subsidizing brand new subdivision developments many miles away through extremely expensive groundwater wells developed through the intentional misrepresentation of LDPCSD area service maps (and other information) to state and federal granting authorities during an emergency drought (thanks again to crooked Peter Kampa and his CSDA…..CALIFORNIA SPECIAL DISTRICT ASSOCIATION for re-configuring our former SURFACE WATER TREATMENT PLANT into a SUBSIDIZED GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION FACILITY FOR LAFCO ANNEXATIONS INTO THE LDPCSD!)

SHOULDN’T MID PROTECT 11395?

You would think the Merced Irrigation District would protect it’s own license right? Wrong. They have encouraged such violation for decades by ignoring what they also created in their desire to secure as many water rights to that Merced River water as possible. Heck, they even worked out deals where they received the proposed LAFCO annexed property’s water rights in exchange for the promise that the LDPCSD would provide water service in the future for the property development KNOWING FULL WELL PROVIDING MERCED RIVER WATER OUTSIDE THE SUBDIVISION/GOLF COURSE WOULD VIOLATE EXTREMELY CLEAR PLACE OF USE (POU) RESTRICTIONS IN THEIR OWN FRIGG’N LICENSE! Want to talk about duplicity and betrayal of legal duties and responsibilities of their own organization and shareholders?

COUNTY WOULDN’T HAVE TO FUND WATER WELLS – MANDATORY CUSTOMERS OF THEIR LDPCSD WOULD!

Tuolumne and Mariposa counties would clearly benefit from this deal through taxable developments while MID quietly picked up more water rights (of course the Piney Creek ISLAND OF PROPOSED SERVICE never even had the water rights to give MID but was annexed by Mariposa County LAFCO anyway – as an island of potential future water service? Islands of service? Supposedly that is something to be avoided by LAFCOs. Yup, real estate, land developers, contractors, engineers, blah blah blah…. everyone making money and doing business while the Lake Don Pedro subdivision property owner paid for all the added costs in developing water services for properties the district had no legal duty or moral obligation to provide SQUAT! Yeah, an old worn out story right? Welcome to GOV CORRUPTION 101. lol

CRAP! I have things to do….. anyway, as FINALLY recognized by the District and County in this agenda (when on the LDPCSD board years ago I told our LDPCSD attorney that the new facility was OUTSIDE THE POU – THE ATTORNEY DID NOT EVEN KNOW!) ….this new sewer treatment facility is OUTSIDE THE MERCED IRRIGATION DISTRICT PLACE OF USE FOR MERCED RIVER WATER and therefore, must be provided expensive GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION for operation in order to circumvent the water use restrictions in MID’s WL11395. (The original disposal system was on the golf course and within the Place of Use for Merced River water – a completely different situation.)

SO?…..expensive groundwater from government grant funded ground wells….. that were SPECIFICALLY DEVELOPED TO PRODUCE POTABLE WATER FOR DOMESTIC HUMAN CONSUMPTION DURING AN EMERGENCY DROUGHT is being used to process sewage outside the Place of Use. Thank you Mariposa County for the opportunity to accept yet another financial nightmare due to county officials failing to obey their own department regulations and state water law.

My best to you and yours, Lew

President Donald Trump at a MAGA rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on March 28, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Viewpoints

Adam Molon January 20, 2021 Updated: January 21, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Commentary

We should be watching your second inauguration ceremony today, and toasting the continuation of a presidency that is aligned in underlying competence, stated policy, and actual deed with the interests of the United States, the prosperity of the American people, and the continued defense of freedom and democracy, not only in the United States, but also around the world.

Instead, we say thank you for all that you have done for the United States and the world as president during your first term, for the superhuman perseverance you have continuously demonstrated in the face of relentless and irrational opposition, and for answering the call to serve when you knew that the time to do so had arrived.

You didn’t set out to become President of the United States, but it seems to have been your destiny. You possessed the keen intellect, innate drive, and family support to confidently pursue fortune, fame, and an outsized American dream that has captured the world’s imagination. And, where so many others with similar qualities have failed, you succeeded.

You could have chosen to be content with your success and ride off comfortably into the sunset. But, as the decades passed, you could no longer countenance standing by as the hard-earned foundations of America’s wealth and power were continuously chipped away for the unaligned benefit of special interests and an ossifying political class.

You were born in 1946, just as the United States had become a global superpower following our victory in World War II. You had a dynamic upbringing in New York City, where you honed your ability to interact with and relate to people from a variety of backgrounds, from captains of industry to construction workers, and you moved comfortably among them all. To paraphrase Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If,” you have walked with kings, but have never lost the common touch.

As a new graduate of the New York Military Academy and the University of Pennsylvania, you saw the United States drafting our young people into the military to serve as fodder for foreign adventurism in Vietnam, where they were cut down in their prime and severely wounded, both physically and psychologically. These young people, many your own age, had hopes, dreams, and talent that went unfulfilled as a result. You never forgot them, and when you became Commander in Chief, you were judicious in your deployment of our armed forces, not entangling the United States in new wars, and drawing down our once staggering military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan to less than 6,000 total troops in the wake of costly and misguided intervention spanning well over a decade.

As an up-and-coming entrepreneur, you saw your older brother, whom you had looked up to and admired, slide into alcoholism, which slowly took away his looks and his life. You never forgot him, or what substance addiction does to someone, and have worked tirelessly to secure our borders and stop the flow of drugs that have ruined the once bright futures of so many young Americans and killed so many who were once so full of life.

As a bona fide business mogul and television star who had become an international household name, you saw authoritarian China allowed into the World Trade Organization, despite prescient warnings from many against this, and observed the decades of deceit and systematic abuses of good faith and free trade that China has continuously perpetrated upon the United States to the detriment of our economy and our workers. You stood up to these blatant abuses with the principle of reciprocal trade, by raising tariffs on Chinese goods, and by actively working to repatriate factories back to the United States.

As a result of your work, unemployment levels in the United States fell to 50-year lows, stock markets reached all-time highs, and our economy was firing on all cylinders before China’s CCP virus spread around the world and entered the United States. You helped further awaken Americans and the rest of the world to the fact that authoritarian China continues to pose the greatest external threat to the United States and to global freedom, democracy, and human rights.

You had already made billions and won international fame, and chose to donate your presidential salary back to the U.S. government with the same nonchalance as an average American adding tips for the baristas at their local coffee shop over the course of a year.

You didn’t need the presidency. But, for the sake of its future success, the United States needed your leadership.

You spoke and acted on common sense and noble principle in a way that others wished that they had the strength to, and you stood firm against endless clouds of slings and arrows that others would have retreated from long ago. When accepting the nomination as the Republican presidential candidate in 2016, you told the American people, “I am your voice.” You made good on these words by showing us—through your actions—your unwavering allegiance to the interests of the United States and American citizens.

In your speech at the 2016 Republican National Convention you said, “Every day, I wake up determined to deliver a better life for the people all across this nation that have been ignored, neglected, and abandoned. I have visited the laid-off factory workers, communities crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten men and women of our country. And they are forgotten. But they’re not going to be forgotten long. These are people who work hard, but no longer have a voice. I am your voice.”

We used our voices and our votes to elect you to a second term, but our voices and our franchise as voters may have again been taken away through alleged election fraud, as outlined in a series of reports completed by Trump adviser Peter Navarro. Now that our country’s laws and constitution have been trampled upon, many new questions have arisen.

How will we continue the renewed trajectory of national ascent that you initiated during your first term? How long can the United States withstand continued plunder by a corrupt political class that too often doesn’t take the country’s best interests as its top priority? And, given the possible fraud that we have witnessed in the 2020 presidential election, how can we be certain that future elections will be held with integrity and result in fair outcomes?

These are issues that we will all be grappling with in the coming months and years but, for now, basic guidance can be taken from the title of one of your books, which reads simply, “Never Give Up.” We know that you have never given up on our country and its future, and have full confidence that you never will. The American people won’t give up either and, today, after all that you have done for us these past four years, we again want to say something that should have been said more often during your first term: thank you, President Trump.

Adam Michael Molon is an American writer and journalist. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and undergraduate degrees in finance and Chinese language from Indiana University-Bloomington.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.

LinkedIn logos are displayed on an iPhone and computer screen in London, England, on Aug. 3, 2016. (Carl Court/Getty Images) Viewpoints

Adam Molon March 11, 2021 Updated: March 14, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Commentary

“In America, I post comments without fear of disgrace
In China, they’re censored, what a great loss of face!”

Ironically, these lines about online censorship, translated here from the original Chinese, were what led to me being censored for the first time in my life.

As an American exchange student in Nanjing completing the U.S. Defense Department’s Chinese Language Flagship Program, I competed in a Chinese-language competition for foreign students, co-sponsored by China Central Television and the Confucius Institute headquarters. I’d been invited to participate by an administrator at Nanjing University, and, rather than emulate the studious and self-serious efforts that other students made to showcase their “true knowledge” of Chinese language and culture, I instead decided to speak the truth.

I wrote an irreverent poem in Chinese, titled “Forever a Foreign Devil,” which humorously addressed the reality, learned over time while living in China, that no matter how advanced my Chinese language skills became or how deeply I came to understand Chinese culture, I would always be identified in China’s insular society, first and foremost, as a foreigner.

Following my performance, judges selected me to advance from the regional competition in Jiangsu province to the televised national competition in Beijing, and my poem was printed the next day in The Yangtse Evening Post, one of China’s most widely circulated newspapers.

The poem—included under the headline “Foreign Students Are ‘Cool,’ Local Students Are ‘School’: Young Foreigner’s ‘Hip Poem’ Leaves Chinese Audience in Stitches”—was printed in its entirety, with the exception of my lines critiquing censorship in China. There were other portions of the poem that I thought to be edgier, but pointing out the systematic suppression of speech in authoritarian China turned out to be the real red line for censors.

In The Yangtse Evening Post and, later, when the poem was reprinted in a Chinese-language textbook published by Peking University Press, the lines on censorship were deleted and replaced by an ambiguous row of dots.

At the time, as a student in my early twenties, I was proud of the censorship of my poem, and saw it as a badge of honor. Authoritarian China is afraid to acknowledge to its own people the suppression of their fundamental human rights, including freedom of speech, I realized. I felt secure in the knowledge that in the United States, freedom of speech without censorship is a fundamental right that is strongly protected.

US Censorship

Fast forward a decade to 2021 and, within the last two months, my free speech has been censored for the first time on U.S. social media. The problem, as anonymous censors apparently see it, is that I had the audacity to point out the allegations of widespread fraud that took place in the 2020 presidential election, which was plainly witnessed by Americans across the nation and documented in detail in a series of scholarly reports by Peter Navarro, a professor who holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

It’s evident that the inconvenient truth of the undermining of the integrity of our electoral system during the 2020 election is viewed with trepidation by many members of the political establishment and allied social media platforms. And, given the near-impossibility of convincingly disputing the evidence and statistical receipts of the allegations documented in Navarro’s reports, major social media firms have decided to forego intellectually honest debate and instead resort to the blunt force of censorship.

I was first censored by Facebook. I was then censored for the first time by LinkedIn on Jan. 8. Both of these instances were detailed in the piece, “I’m Sounding the Alarm: PRC-Style Censorship Has Arrived in the United States.”

Perhaps even more surprising, I was later censored for a second time by LinkedIn. My post, which included the simple statement, “My latest piece. Today, Americans say, ‘Thank You, President Trump,’” was removed by LinkedIn the next day without explanation.

After this second post was censored by LinkedIn, I reached out to an executive contact at LinkedIn to ask why my posts were censored and suppressed, and was then put in touch with a LinkedIn representative via LinkedIn’s help page.

I wrote to the LinkedIn representative, “I would appreciate detailed information on why and how my posts were censored. … Will censorship of free speech continue on LinkedIn?

“My experience with social media censorship in the U.S. this past month reminds me of the social media environment I witnessed firsthand when living in authoritarian China, where there is systematic censorship and suppression of speech. This is truly alarming, not only to me, but to other Americans who care about the fundamental right of free speech without censorship.”

After several days of what felt like a stonewalling back-and-forth process in which I provided detailed information about the censored posts, including screenshots, the representative flatly and falsely denied that my posts had been censored, and attempted to close the inquiry. She stated in writing, “LinkedIn has not removed any of your content Adam. If we did, I would be happy to explain what happened and why; however, that is not the case with your account.”

After several more days of correspondence, the representative apologized and acknowledged LinkedIn’s censorship of my posts.

One of the many written messages I received from the LinkedIn­ representative included the following apology: “I apologize for any errors or incorrect information I initially gave you with regards to your case. While there is certain information I can’t divulge regarding your post/content, I assure you that LinkedIn doesn’t suppress or censor content simply because it differs in opinion. We welcome content and articles that are robust, meaningful, and factual.”

The representative advised that the post containing the link to the article “Thank You, President Trump,” had finally been restored nearly a week after it had first been censored by LinkedIn. She later told me via phone that they had given it a second review and found it hadn’t violated any of their policies.

Of course, I had to initiate and go through a long and tedious process with LinkedIn for them to eventually restore this post.

Objectionable Information

My first censored post containing the article “Why I’m Protesting for the First Time on Jan. 6” continues to be censored by LinkedIn, however.

While unwilling to answer specific questions in writing about why and how my posts were censored, the LinkedIn representative offered to provide further information via a phone call. During the call, the representative told me that she couldn’t go into detail about why my posts were censored by LinkedIn.

But the issue was that any allegations of fraud in the 2020 election had not been confirmed.

In response to this, I noted Navarro’s extensively sourced series of scholarly reports prominently cited in the article attached to the censored post in question.

But that was not sufficient, the representative told me, because they could not verify it themselves.

The representative stated that LinkedIn checks with multiple sources regarding the accuracy of posts that are flagged to be censored. When I asked for specifics regarding which sources LinkedIn utilizes, she responded that she couldn’t divulge specific sources, but that they were basic sources such as CNN.

As has been widely reported, recordings of conversations with CNN employees during the past two years, including raw recordings of numerous internal CNN conference calls from late 2020, were leaked, revealing and confirming a heavy anti-Trump bias among CNN executives and reporters.

After exchanging dozens of written messages with LinkedIn over the course of weeks and receiving multiple apologies from LinkedIn, in writing and verbally, for the acknowledged “errors or incorrect information” that LinkedIn made and provided regarding my censored posts, I had finally received some meaningful information—seemingly given in unplanned candor—from the LinkedIn representative via phone.

The representative admitted that while the information in my censored post pertaining to protesting election fraud “could be accurate,” LinkedIn may have deemed it “objectionable” after checking with sources that include CNN, which is demonstrably anti-Trump in its bias.

As we have seen recently, the type of politically driven censorship that I’ve experienced during the past two months has also been experienced by countless other Americans across major social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And, as an American who has experienced and witnessed systematic censorship in authoritarian China, I understand how important it is that we protect our freedom of speech in the United States and stop censorship here before it becomes a new normal.

In the final lines of my poem, I closed with this statement, translated here from the original Chinese:

“But don’t worry about me, my story’s an epic,
And when all’s said and done, I’ll use English to tell it.”

Censorship of this poem is just the tip of the iceberg of what I experienced during years living in authoritarian China.

And now, after being censored in the United States, I’m exercising my freedom of speech to share this truth today: As Americans, we cannot take for granted—and must continue to maintain and defend—the free society and fundamental rights, including free speech, that we’ve built up over generations.

Adam Michael Molon is an American writer and journalist. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and undergraduate degrees in finance and Chinese language from Indiana University-Bloomington.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.

Tyree Conyers-Page, also known as Sir Maejor Page, in a booking photo from a 2019 arrest. (Toledo PD) Social Issues

By Jack Phillips March 14, 2021 Updated: March 14, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

A prominent Black Lives Matter activist was indicted for defrauding donors by a federal jury in Toledo, Ohio, last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a news release.

Sir Maejor Page, also known as Tyree Conyers-Page, was indicted on three counts of money laundering and one count of wire fraud, according to the DOJ. The department said that he allegedly created a Facebook page called “Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta” before defrauding donors of more than $450,000 after it was revoked by the Internal Revenue Services (IRS) as a tax-exempt charity.

Page sent told local media that he didn’t “intentionally” commit any crimes.

“It is to no surprise that the government wishes to move forward in a criminal case against a social justice activist,” he told the Toledo Blade last week. “I maintain my position that I did not intentionally commit any crimes, as it is my only purpose in life to fight for those whose voices have been muffled and or silenced. Had I violated any state of federal laws I have no problem owning that and working to correct my actions. I believe that I acted in good faith. I look forward to a fair and just due process under the law.”

But according to the DOJ, Page set up the allegedly false charity in May 2020, and it lasted over the summer of 2020, where mass protests, riots, and violence racked major U.S. cities following George Floyd’s death. Page, according to the department, said the funds “would be used to combat racial and social injustices when in truth, the organization was no longer an established charity and the defendant was using the donations for his personal benefit.”

Four years before that, he created the Facebook page called “Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta” as a 501(c)(3) domestic non-profit corporation with the Georgia Secretary of State Corporation’s Division. In 2019, Black Lives Matter of Greater Atlanta’s charity status was revoked due to failure to submit IRS Form 990 for three consecutive years.

“It is alleged that the defendant failed to notify Facebook of these revocations or ask that Facebook stop displaying BLMGA as a non-profit organization. As a result, BMLGA’s Facebook page continued to be displayed as a non-profit organization with a donation button through the end of September 2020, and Facebook continued to collect and disperse the purported charity donations on a bi-monthly basis,” according to the news release.

Page then allegedly used a “substantial portion” of the donations to purchase personal items such as hotel rooms, guns, clothing, and various forms of entertainment, officials said.

“The defendant is accused of using the largest sum of funds to purchase a property and the adjoining vacant lot on Glenwood Avenue and Maplewood Avenue in Toledo, Ohio,” said the DOJ. “This property was to be used as a personal residence for the defendant, the indictment states. The defendant allegedly attempted to conceal the purchase of the property by titling it to ‘Hi Frequency Ohio’ and requesting that the seller’s realtor enter into a nondisclosure agreement,” which “prevented the seller from disclosing that the defendant was the true buyer and that he used BLMGA funds to make the purchase.”

Page is scheduled for arraignment next week, the Toledo Blade reported.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.

A stock photo of a judge’s gavel. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Politics

By Jack Phillips March 14, 2021 Updated: March 14, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

One of the Democratic Party’s top lawyers, Marc Elias, was hit with sanctions by a federal court for an ethics violation and for submitting a “redundant and misleading” filing.

Marc Elias, a lawyer for Perkins Coie who was involved in elections-related lawsuits during the 2020 elections, was punished and criticized by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit on Thursday. Several of his colleagues were also admonished.

“Appellees did not notify the court that their latest motion to supplement the record filed on February 10, 2021 was nearly identical to the motion to supplement the record filed several months ago by the same attorneys, on September 29, 2020. Critically, Appellees likewise failed to notify the court that their previous and nearly identical motion was denied,” Judge Edith Clement and Judge Jennifer Elrod ruled (pdf). “This inexplicable failure to disclose the earlier denial of their motion violated their duty of candor to the court.”

Elias and the other Perkins Coie LLP attorneys were ordered to pay legal fees and “double costs” to Texas, the order stipulated. The judges also suggested that the lawyers review the section of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct on “Candor Toward the Tribunal” and complete an hour of “Continuing Legal Education in the area of Ethics and Professionalism, specifically candor with the court.”

Perkins Coie told Bloomberg News that it still backs Elias, who notably hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which then hired British ex-spy Christopher Steele in 2016—whose infamous dossier, which contained unverified claims and falsehoods, was used by the FBI to surveil former President Donald Trump’s campaign in the “Crossfire Hurricane” operation.

“We do not normally respond to requests for comment on pending litigation, but the firm and the attorneys involved in this matter strongly disagree with the appellate court’s ruling and its order of sanctions in this case,” the firm said in a statement. “The firm fully and completely supports our attorneys in this case.”

In 2020, Elias led a team of attorneys to file lawsuits to expand ballot access in swing states during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic. Republicans and Trump himself criticized Elias, saying that he was being used by Democrats to “steal” the 2020 election.

The Perkins Coie lawyers represented the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in a suit against Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughes, who was represented by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, according to the Washington Examiner.

They argued that a Democratic bid to re-impose straight-ticket voting in Texas is “shaky” and said Democrats have no evidence. The court ultimately agreed with the Texas Secretary of State’s office and rebuffed the Democrats.

“Elias has no valid explanation for the misleading submissions to the Fifth Circuit. Even when they were notified that they violated ethical rules, they refused to withdraw their motion. They were aware of their violations and blatantly chose to ignore them,” Paxton said Friday in a statement. “I thank the Court for issuing these much-needed sanctions. Perkins Coie cannot continue to mislead the Court, especially in a matter as important as election integrity.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to Elias for comment.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.

An Aztec dancer participates in a march on May 1, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (David McNew/Getty Images) US News

By GQ Pan March 12, 2021 Updated: March 12, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

The California Department of Education has proposed a new curriculum that would involve teachers leading students in prayers to Aztec gods in an effort to build unity in the classroom.

The latest draft of the proposed Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum, which will undergo a vote for approval next week, seeks to “center and place high values” of the traditions and experiences of the pre-Columbian America, and to critique “white supremacy and racism” that led to their marginalization in the modern world.

This guiding narrative is reflected in the design of sample lessons and various class activities, including the model curriculum’s official “ethnic studies community chant,” in which students directly appeal to the deities of the Aztec pantheon for the power to become “warriors” of “love, ecological and social justice.”

In the community chant of “In Lak Ech,” which translates to “You Are My Other Me,” teachers are instructed to first lead the group of students in chanting and clapping to Tezkatlipoka, a cannibalistic wizard-god who, according to the Aztec tradition, brought the downfall to the Toltec civilization in favor of the human-sacrificing Aztecs.

The students then chant to other deities including Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec sun god, seeking “healing epistemologies” and a “revolutionary spirit.” Seeing themselves as people of the sun, the Aztecs believed that Huitzilopochtli needed daily nourishment of human blood and hearts, and brutally sacrificed hundreds of thousands of people in offering to him.

The chant ends with a request for “liberation, transformation, decolonization,” after which students shout “Panche beh! Panche beh!” which translates to “seeking the roots of the truth” or “think critically.”

The document includes a linked to a video showing what a unity chant looks like in practice. The video was taken at Social Justice Humanitas Academy in the Los Angeles Unified School District, where many indigenous songs and chants like In Lak Ech were developed.

Christopher Rufo, the journalist who first reported about the chant to Aztec gods promoted by California’s new curriculum, wrote in his City Journal article that such practice almost certainly violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause that prohibits the state from showing a preference for one religion over others.

“Public schools are prohibited from leading state-sanctioned Christian prayers; they would presumably be similarly prohibited from leading state-sanctioned chants to the Aztec god of human sacrifice,” Rufo wrote.

The curriculum, if approved, would serve as guide to California’s K-12 education system of more than 6 million students. It was originally proposed in 2019 as a part of the state’s effort to teach students about the accomplishments of non-Christian people, groups, and ethnic minorities to address “issues of ethnicity, identity, service, and social justice.”Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends

Border Patrol agents apprehend a busload of illegal immigrants in Penitas, Texas, on March 10, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) US News

By Jack Phillips March 14, 2021 Updated: March 14, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that the White House has refused to tell Texas officials how many illegal immigrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border have tested positive for COVID-19.

When asked in a Fox News interview on Sunday about whether illegal immigrants are spreading the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, the Republican governor responded, “I have not seen any data about what the COVID rate is” while adding that agents have reported to his office that there are illegal immigrants coming across the border with the virus.

“We need the total number of migrants who have been apprehended at the border who have tested positive for COVID-19,” Abbott said, accusing the Biden administration of having “refused” and “failed to give to our state the total number of migrants who have COVID-19.”

“We expect that data,” Abbott added.

In recent weeks, the number of border crossings and the number of illegal immigrants held in federal facilities has sharply increased, with Republicans like Abbott saying that it’s being driven by President Joe Biden’s relaxation in immigration policies.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said that it had 100,441 enforcement encounters at the southwest border, which is almost triple the enforcement actions from February 2020 when Border Patrol encountered about 36,687 individuals. It’s also significantly higher than the 76,545 encounters in February 2019, which was at the beginning of the last border crisis.

It comes as the Biden administration on Saturday announced that it has directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the U.S. southwest border in response to the arrival of “record numbers” of illegal immigrants, including unaccompanied minors.

“I am incredibly proud of the agents of the Border Patrol, who have been working around the clock in difficult circumstances to take care of children temporarily in our care. Yet, as I have said many times, a Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.

“We are working in partnership with HHS to address the needs of unaccompanied children, which is made only more difficult given the protocols and restrictions required to protect the public health and the health of the children themselves. Our goal is to ensure that unaccompanied children are transferred to HHS as quickly as possible, consistent with legal requirements and in the best interest of the children,” Mayorkas added, referring to the Department of Health and Human Services.

And in early March, about 108 illegal immigrants released by Border Patrol into Texas over a several-week period tested positive for the CCP virus, officials said.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the DHS, which oversees CBP, for comment.

Janita Kan contributed to this report.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.

Amazon workers are seen at a facility in Douai, France on Feb. 2, 2021. (Michael Spingler/AP Photo) Censorship & Socialism

By Petr Svab March 12, 2021 Updated: March 12, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

The author of a book that criticizes transgender ideology, has said Amazon banned the book from its inventory based on a false argument.

Amazon quietly removed the book, titled “When Harry Became Sally,” last month without explanation. When probed for the reason by several Republican senators, the online retail giant said it has chosen to not sell books “that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” in a March 11 letter to the lawmakers obtained by The Wall Street Journal (pdf).

But the book does no such thing, author Ryan Anderson told The Epoch Times.

“Nowhere have I ever said or framed LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness,” he said via email. “The phrase ‘mental illness’ does occur in the book twice—but not in my own voice: once quoting a ‘transwoman’ writing in The New York Times, and once quoting the current university distinguished service professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.”

Anderson makes a distinction between transgenderism, which he describes as a belief system that’s in major part political, and gender dysphoria, an established mental condition of extreme and persevering discomfort with one’s biological sex. He acknowledges that the discomfort is genuine, not imagined.

“The book also discusses the American Psychiatric Association’s classification of gender dysphoria in the most recent edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Amazon, curiously, still sells that. Gender dysphoria is listed in the most widely respected and consulted book on psychiatric disorders because it is a serious condition that causes great suffering,” he said.

“There is a debate, however, which Amazon is seeking to shut down, about how best to help patients who experience gender dysphoria. ‘When Harry Became Sally’ is an important contribution, praised by medical experts, to that conversation. Amazon’s delisting of it cuts off vital political and cultural discussion about important matters when we need it most.”

Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The claim that the book portrays transgender people as mentally ill has been repeated multiple times since its publication three years ago.

The Washington Post, which is owned by Amazon, ran a story about the book on Feb. 2, 2018, making several false statements that were removed later that day. The article was furnished with a short notice that it “has been updated.”

Matthew Franck, associate director of the James Madison Program at Princeton University who reviewed Anderson’s book, called the article “a journalistic disgrace,” in a series of tweets at the time.

“The newspaper needs to do much more than an anodyne note about an ‘update,’” he said.

Recently, he commented on Twitter that Amazon’s explanation proves its ignorance about the book.

Anderson also noted the parallel with the Post article.

“Three years ago Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post made false statements about me and my book … Now Bezos-owned Amazon is repeating those falsehoods as justification for cancelling my book,” he commented in a March 12 tweet, referring to Amazon’s chief executive Jeff Bezos.

He noted that Amazon’s censorship move comes during a major push to enshrine transgender ideology in law.

“The timing of Amazon’s move is highly suspicious, coming the weekend before Congress voted on a radical transgender bill—the so-called ‘Equality Act’—of which I am one of the most out-spoken critics,” he said in the email. “It seems that Amazon is using its massive power to distort the marketplace of ideas and is deceiving its own customers.”

The act would allow men who identify as women to compete in womens sports as well as women’s locker rooms, restrooms, and showers at any establishment providing service to the public, including schools. It explicitly invalidates religious objections, meaning religious institutions could be forced to hire homosexuals, undermining precepts in orthodox religions against homosexual behavior.

Roughly coinciding with its censorship of Anderson’s book, Amazon updated its policy to ban books that contain “hate speech.” It hasn’t specified what would fall under that label.

The move fits into a pattern across American society of censoring certain political perspectives using methods that result in a culture of self-censorship. A large part of that censorship is imposed by big tech companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

“Big Tech offers the Left the holy grail of speech regulation: censorship with no accountability to voters and no constitutional restraints,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) commented in a March 11 tweet. “This is why liberals not-so-secretly love these monopolies. They do the Left’s bidding.”

Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Ken Buck (R-Colo.) recently requested Amazon hand over documents and communications related to censorship and content policing activities. They gave the company until March 25 to respond. Follow Petr on Twitter: @petrsvabHelp us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends

The logo of Google is displayed on a carpet at the entrance hall of Google in Paris, France, on Nov. 18, 2019. (Michel Euler/AP Photo) Censorship & Socialism

By Masooma Haq March 12, 2021 Updated: March 12, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Clay Travis, founder of conservative sports website Outkick Media, says that big tech companies have too much power and are infringing on Americans’ First Amendment rights.

“Big Tech controls the country. And they control the country by deciding what you see. And Big Tech’s power is only growing in the wake of Joe Biden’s election,” Travis told lawmakers at the House Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Subcommittee at a hearing Friday.

Travis recounted how after President Donald Trump joined his radio show on Aug. 11, 2020, on Outkick the Coverage, traffic for the website soared only to crash the next day.

“Because Facebook killed our traffic. Overnight, our readership vanished on their site. We lost 68 percent of our Facebook users and 76 percent of our new users on the site,” Travis told lawmakers.

He said his team concluded that because of the positive coverage of Trump, his organization was censored and lost thousands of dollars in revenue. Travis said the data from his site proved this.

“If we wrote too often and too favorably about the president, Facebook punished our site,” Travis said during the hearing titled “Reviving Competition, Part 2: Saving the Free and Diverse Press.”

“If we didn’t mention Trump very much, our site traffic grew. The power of Facebook was clear and their message was too: if you post content we don’t like, your audience will vanish.”

As a part of the effort to “save free press,” Antitrust committee Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) and Ranking Member Ken Buck (R-Colo.) reintroduced the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCP Act) in the House this week. The bill creates a temporary safe harbor for smaller news publishers to negotiate fees with online platforms like Google and Facebook—that share their content for free.

Another witness at the hearing, Microsoft President Brad Smith, who said he supports the JCP Act House legislation, criticized Google’s dominance in the digital advertising market.

“News organizations have ad inventory to sell, but they can no longer sell directly to those who want to place ads. Instead, for all practical purposes, they must use Google’s tools, operate on Google’s ad exchanges, contribute data to Google’s operations, and pay Google money,” Smith said in his written testimony.

A companion bill to the JCP Act was also introduced this week in the Senate by Antitrust Subcommittee Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).

Chairman Cicilline said that this bill would be one in a series of bills that would attempt to reign in Big Tech’s monopoly. He said part of the reason for having the hearing was to see how to improve the bill that was recently introduced.

“Those who won our independence believed that public discussion is a political duty, that the greatest threat to freedom is an uninformed citizenry,” said Cicilline. “And that the freedom of thought and speech is indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth.”

Ranking Member Buck said Big Tech has too much power to decide what information and news consumers get.

“We are now seeing Big Tech making content-related decisions for people around the world, including here in the United States. What content is available to a free citizenry is driven and shaped by the political agendas of these tech corporations, not consumer preferences,” he said.

Others who testified at Friday’s hearing were News Media Alliance President & CEO David Chavern; Graham Media CEO Emily Barr; NewsGuild President Jonathan Schleuss; and journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends

President Donald Trump walks off stage after an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held in the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 28, 2021. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Donald Trump

By Samuel Allegri March 13, 2021 Updated: March 14, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

The Alabama GOP gave former President Donald Trump a framed copy of a resolution the party passed unanimously, declaring him to be “one of the greatest and most effective presidents” in the history of the United States.

The framed resolution was presented to Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday evening.

“Whereas, President Donald J. Trump was one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245-year history of this Republic,” the resolution honoring Trump reads at the start.

“President Trump put the American people and the American worker first in all his decisions and policies,” it continues.

It then goes on to mention other achievements by the 45th president, such as “Operation Warp Speed,” the largest tax cuts in American history, and withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), replacing them with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA.)

“The resolution, basically, it just talks about the greatness of Donald J. Trump, how he made America great again and I hope other states will follow suit,” Perry Hooper Jr., a member of the state party’s executive committee, told Fox News.

Hooper was Trump’s Alabama campaign co-chairman in 2016 and worked on Trump’s campaign finance committee ahead of the 2020 election.

“He’s just done so many great things,” Hooper said. “I was a kid when Reagan was elected and I thought nobody would top the great things Ronald Reagan did. But then comes along Donald J Trump and in my opinion, he’s not just one of the great presidents, he is the greatest president we’ve had in America.”

The resolution also praises Trump for standing up to China and revitalizing American manufacturing.

“He stood up to China,” the resolution states, “bringing back manufacturing industry to the U.S. and by increasing ‘made in the U.S.A.’ production while securing access to new markets for America’s farmers.”

The article also mentions his building up of the military and assigning 220 federal judges “who will interpret the Constitution as written,” as well as confirming three judges to the Supreme court.

It says that Trump showed “strength and leadership” internationally by withdrawing from the “shady” Iran nuclear deal and installing the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

“President Trump accomplished more in 48 months than Joe Biden did in 48 years as a senator and vice president,” the resolution reads.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.