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Table of Contents: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World22 Share Now 3732TelegramFacebookTweetEmailTellMeWeRedditCopy Link

A convoy of People’s Liberation Army tanks pass in front of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Oct. 1, 1999, during a national day parade. (Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images) Chinese Regime

By Nicole Hao June 30, 2021 Updated: June 30, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

News Analysis

Editor’s Note: Some of the accounts in this article contain graphic and disturbing details of torture and other forms of degrading treatment.

Founded in July 1921, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has wreaked death and destruction on the Chinese populace for a century.

Armed with the Marxist ideology of “struggle” as its guiding principle, the CCP has launched scores of movements targeting a long list of enemy groups: spies, landlords, intellectuals, disloyal officials, pro-democracy students, religious believers, and ethnic minorities.

With each campaign, the Party’s purported goal has been to create a “communist heaven on earth.” But time and again, the results have been the same: mass suffering and death. Meanwhile, a few elite CCP officials and their families have accumulated incredible power and wealth.

More than 70 years of Party rule have resulted in the killing of tens of millions of Chinese people and the dismantling of a 5,000-year-old civilization.

While China has advanced economically in recent decades, the CCP retains its nature as a Marxist-Leninist regime bent on solidifying its grip on China and the world. Millions of religious believers, ethnic minorities, and dissidents are still violently repressed today.

Below is a summary of some of the major atrocities committed by the CCP in its 100-year history.

Anti-Bolshevik League Incident

Less than a decade after the Party’s founding, Mao Zedong, then the head of a communist-controlled territory in southeast China’s Jiangxi Province, launched a political purge of his rivals known as the Anti-Bolshevik League Incident. Mao accused his rivals of working for the Anti-Bolshevik League, the intelligence agency of the Kuomintang, which was China’s ruling party at the time.

The result was that thousands of Red Army personnel and Party members were killed in the purge.

The one-year-long campaign that started in the summer of 1930 marked the first in a series of movements helmed by the paranoid leader that only grew bloodier and broader with time. The mass carnage lasted until Mao’s death in 1976.

While there’s no record showing exactly how many CCP members were killed during the campaign, Chinese historian Guo Hua wrote in a 1999 article that within a month, 4,400 of the 40,000 Red Army members had been killed, including dozens of military leaders. Within a few months, the CCP committee in southwestern Jiangxi had killed more than 1,000 of its non-military members.

At the end of the movement, the Jiangxi CCP committee reported that 80 to 90 percent of the CCP officials in the region had been accused of being spies and executed.

Family members of senior officials were also persecuted and killed, the report said. The torture methods inflicted on CCP members, according to Guo, included burning their skin, cutting off females’ breasts, and pushing bamboo sticks underneath their fingernails.

Yan’an Rectification Movement

After becoming Party leader, Mao kickstarted the Yan’an Rectification Movement—the first ideological mass movement of the CCP—in 1942. From the CCP’s base in the secluded mountainous region of Yan’an in the northwestern Shaanxi Province, Mao and his loyalists employed the familiar tactic of accusing his rivals of being spies in order to purge senior officials and other Party members.

All told, about 10,000 CCP members were killed.

During the movement, people were tortured and forced to confess to being spies, wrote Wei Junyi in a 1998 book.

“Everyone became a spy in Yan’an, from middle-school students to primary school students,” Wei, who was then editor of state-run news agency Xinhua, wrote. “Twelve-year-olds, 11-year-olds, 10-year-olds, even a 6-year-old spy was discovered!”

The tragic fate of the family of Shi Bofu, a local painter, was recounted in Wei’s book. In 1942, CCP officials suddenly accused Shi of being a spy and detained him. That night, Shi’s wife, unable to cope with her husband’s likely death sentence, took her own life and that of her two young children. Hours later, officials found her and the children’s bodies and publicly proclaimed that Shi’s wife had a “deep hatred” toward the Party and the people, and thus deserved to die.

Land Reform

In October 1949, the CCP took control of China, and Mao became the regime’s first leader. Months later, in the regime’s first movement, named Land Reform, Mao mobilized the nation’s poorest peasants to violently seize the land and other assets of those deemed landlords—many of whom were just more-well-off peasants. Millions died.

Mao, in 1949, was accused of being a dictator and admitted to it.

“My dear sirs, you are right, that is just what we are,” he wrote, according to China File, a magazine published by the Center on U.S.–China Relations at Asia Society. According to Mao, communists in power should be dictatorial against “running dogs of imperialism,” “the landlord class and bureaucrat-bourgeoisie,” and “reactionaries and their accomplices,” who were associated with the opposition Kuomintang.

Of course, the communists decided who would qualify as a “running dog,” a “reactionary,” or even a “landlord.”

“Many of the victims were beaten to death and some shot, but in many cases, they were first tortured in order to make them reveal their assets—real or imagined,” according to historian Frank Dikötter, who has painstakingly chronicled Mao’s brutality.

The 2019 book “The Bloody Red Land” chronicles the story of Li Man, a surviving landlord from southwest China’s Chongqing. After the CCP came into power, officials claimed that Li’s family had stashed 1.5 metric tons of gold. But this wasn’t true, as the family had been bankrupted years earlier due to Li’s father’s drug addiction.

Having no gold to give to the CCP, Li was tortured to the brink of death.

“They took off my clothes, tied my hand and feet to a pole. They then tied a rope around my genitals and tied a stone to my feet,” Li recounted. He said that they then hung the rope on a tree. Immediately, “blood gushed out from my belly button,” Li said.

Li was ultimately saved by a CCP official who sent him to the home of a doctor of Chinese medicine. Even after suffering severe injuries to his internal organs and genitals, Li still counted himself as lucky. Another 10 people who were tortured at the same time as Li all died. Over the next few months, Li’s close relatives and extended family would be tortured to death, one after another.

As a result of the torture, Li—who was 22 years old at the time—lost his manhood. During the CCP’s subsequent movements, Li would be tortured several more times, costing him his eyesight.

Great Leap Forward

Mao launched the Great Leap Forward in 1958, a four-year campaign that sought to push the country to exponentially increase its steel production while collectivizing agriculture farming. The goal, as Mao’s slogan goes, was to “surpass Britain and catch up with America.”

Peasants were ordered to build backyard furnaces to make steel, leaving farmland in severe neglect. Moreover, overzealous local officials who were afraid of being branded as “laggards” set unrealistically high harvest quotas. As a result, peasants had nothing left to eat after turning over the bulk of their crops as taxes.

What ensued was the worst man-made disaster in history: the Great Famine, during which tens of millions died of starvation, from 1959 to 1961.

Starving peasants turned to wild animals, grass, bark, and even kaolinite, a clay mineral, for food. Extreme hunger also drove many to cannibalism.

There are recorded cases of people eating the corpses of strangers, friends, and family members, and parents killing their children for food—and vice-versa.

Jasper Becker, who wrote the Great Leap Forward account “Hungry Ghosts,” said that Chinese people were forced to engage—out of pure desperation—in selling human flesh on the market, and the swapping of children so they wouldn’t eat their own.

Across 13 provinces, there were a total of 3,000 to 5,000 recorded cases of cannibalism.

Becker notes the cannibalism in China in the late 1950s and early ’60s likely occurred “on a scale unprecedented in the history of the 20th century.”

Chinese historian Yu Xiguang in the 1980s found an archival photo from his hometown in Hunan Province. It purportedly showed a man named Liu Jiayuan standing beside his 1-year-old son’s head and bones. Liu eventually was executed for murder.

Yu later interviewed Liu’s surviving family members in the 2000s to verify the story. He wrote in a report: “Liu Jiayuan was extremely starved. He killed his son and cooked [the flesh into] a big meal. Before finishing his food, his family members found his crime and reported him to the police. He then was arrested and executed.”

As many as 45 million people died during the Great Leap Forward, according to historian Dikötter, author of “Mao’s Great Famine.”

Cultural Revolution

After the catastrophic failure of the Great Leap Forward, Mao, feeling that he was losing his grip on power, launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 in an attempt to use the Chinese populace to reassert control over the CCP and country. Creating a cult of personality, Mao aimed to “crush those persons in authority who are taking the capitalist road” and strengthen his own ideologies, according to an early directive.

Over 10 years of mandated chaos, millions were killed or driven to suicide in state-sanctioned violence, while zealous young ideologues, the infamous Red Guards, traveled about the country destroying and denigrating China’s traditions and heritage.

It was a whole-of-society endeavor, with the Party encouraging people from all walks of life to snitch on co-workers, neighbors, friends, and even family members who were “counter-revolutionaries”—anyone with politically incorrect thoughts or behaviors.

The victims, who included intellectuals, artists, CCP officials, and others deemed as “class enemies,” were subjected to ritual humiliation through “struggle sessions”—public meetings where the victims would be forced to admit their supposed crimes and endure physical and verbal abuse from the crowd, before they were detained, tortured, and sent to the countryside for forced labor.

Traditional Chinese culture and traditions were a direct target of Mao’s campaign to exterminate the “Four Olds”—old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas. As a result, countless cultural relics, temples, historical buildings, statues, and books were destroyed.

Zhang Zhixin, an elite CCP member who worked in the Liaoning provincial government, was among the victims of the campaign. According to an account reported by Chinese media after the Cultural Revolution, a colleague reported Zhang in 1968 after she commented to that co-worker that she couldn’t understand some of the CCP’s actions. The 38-year-old was then detained at a local Party cadre training center, where more than 30,000 staff members of the provincial government were being held.

While in detention, she refused to admit to doing anything wrong and stood by her political opinions. She was firmly loyal to the Party but disagreed with some of Mao’s policies. She was sent to prison.

There, Zhang suffered horrendously as officials tried to force her to give up her viewpoints. Prison guards would use iron wire to keep her mouth open and then push a dirty mop into it. They handcuffed her hands behind her back and hung a 40-pound block of iron from the chains. Provincial CCP officials even ripped out all of her hair, and guards would often arrange for male prisoners to gang-rape her.

Zhang attempted to commit suicide but failed, which caused prison officials to step up their control. Her husband was also forced to divorce her. By early 1975, Zhang had descended into madness. In April of that year, she was executed by firing squad. Before being shot, the prison guards cut her trachea to silence her. She died at the age of 45.

During Zhang’s detention, her husband and two young children were forced to renounce their relationship with her. Upon learning of her death, they didn’t even dare cry—for fear that they would be heard by neighbors who might report them for bearing resentment toward the Party.

The disastrous movement ended in October 1976, less than a month after Mao’s death.

The legacy of the Cultural Revolution goes far beyond the lives destroyed, according to Dikötter.

“It is not so much death which characterized the Cultural Revolution, it was trauma,” he told NPR in 2016.

“It was the way in which people were pitted against each other, were obliged to denounce family members, colleagues, friends. It was about loss, loss of trust, loss of friendship, loss of faith in other human beings, loss of predictability in social relationships. And that really is the mark that the Cultural Revolution left behind.”

One-Child Policy

In 1979, the regime launched the “one-child policy,” which allowed married couples to have only one child, in a campaign ostensibly aimed at boosting the standard of living by curbing population growth. The policy caused widespread forced abortions, forced sterilizations, and infanticide. According to Chinese Ministry of Health data cited by Chinese state media, 336 million fetuses were aborted from 1971 to 2013.

Xia Runying, a villager from Jiangxi Province who experienced forced sterilization, wrote in a public letter in 2013 that her family requested to postpone the surgery because of her poor health. The local official, however, said that they would do the surgery even if she had to be tied up with ropes.

She began to urinate blood and have headaches and stomachaches after the surgery. Later, she was forced to stop working.

The regime discontinued the one-child policy in 2013, allowing two children. On May 31, it announced that families could have three children.

Tiananmen Square Massacre

What started as a student gathering to mourn the death of reform-minded former Chinese leader Hu Yaobang in April 1989 morphed into the largest protests the regime had ever seen. University students who congregated at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square asked the CCP to control severe inflation, curb officials’ corruption, take responsibility for past faults, and support a free press and democratic ideas.

By May, students from across China and Beijing residents from all walks of life had joined the protest. Similar demonstrations cropped up all over the country.

CCP leaders didn’t agree to the students’ requests.

Instead, the regime ordered the army to quash the protest. On the evening of June 3, tanks rolled into the city and surrounded the square. Scores of unarmed protesters were killed or maimed after being crushed by tanks or shot by soldiers firing indiscriminately into the crowd. Thousands are estimated to have died.

Lily Zhang, who was head nurse at a Beijing hospital a 15-minute walk from the square, recounted to The Epoch Times the bloodshed from that night. She woke up to the sound of gunfire and rushed to the hospital on the morning of June 4 after hearing of the massacre.

She was horrified when she arrived at her hospital to find a “warzone-like” scene. Another nurse, sobbing, told her the pool of blood from injured protesters was “forming a river at the hospital.”

At Zhang’s hospital, at least 18 had died by the time they were carried into the facility.

The soldiers used “dum-dum” bullets, which would expand inside the victim’s body and inflict further damage, Zhang said. Many sustained grave wounds and were bleeding so profusely that it was “impossible to revive them.”

At the hospital gate, a critically injured reporter with the state-owned China Sports Daily told the two health workers who carried him that he “didn’t imagine that the Chinese Communist Party would really open fire.”

“Shooting down unarmed students and commoners—what kind of ruling party is this?” were his final words, Zhang recalled.

Then-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, who ordered the bloody clampdown, was quoted in a British government cable as saying that “two hundred dead could bring 20 years of peace to China,” a month before the massacre in May 1989.

To this day, the regime has refused to disclose the number killed in the massacre or their names, and heavily suppresses information about the incident.

Persecution of Falun Gong

A decade later, the regime decided to carry out another bloody suppression.

On July 20, 1999, the authorities began a wide campaign targeting the estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that includes meditative exercises and moral teachings centered around the values of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, a website for Falun Gong-related information, millions of practitioners have been fired from their jobs, expelled from school, jailed, tortured, or killed simply because they refused to give up their belief.

In 2019, an independent people’s tribunal in London confirmed that the regime had carried out forced organ harvesting “on a significant scale” and that imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners were “probably the principal source.”

He Lifang, a 45-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Qingdao, a city in Shandong Province, died after being detained for two months. His relatives said there were incisions on his chest and back. His face looked as if he was in pain, and there were wounds all over his body, according to Minghui.org, a website that serves as a clearinghouse for accounts of the persecution of Falun Gong.

Suppression of Religious and Ethnic Minorities

To maintain its rule, the CCP regime transferred a large number of Han ethnic people to Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia, where ethnic groups live with their own cultures and languages. The regime forced local schools to use mandarin Chinese as the official language.

In 2008, Tibetans protested to express their anger at the regime’s control. The regime, in response, deployed the police. Hundreds of Tibetans were killed.

Since 2009, more than 150 Tibetans have self-immolated, hoping their deaths might stop the regime’s tight control in Tibet.

In Xinjiang, the regime authorities have been accused of committing genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, including detaining a million people in secretive “political reeducation” camps.

Last year, the regime in Beijing set a new policy that mandated Mandarin Chinese-only teaching in some Inner Mongolia schools. When parents and students protested, they were threatened with arrest, detention, and job loss.

The regime also uses a surveillance system to monitor ethnic groups. Surveillance cameras were set up in Tibetan monasteries, and biometric data are collected in Xinjiang.

Eva Fu, Jack Phillips, Leo Timm, and Cathy He contributed to this report.

A Fulton County election worker removes absentee ballots for the U.S. Senate runoff elections from envelopes at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Ga., on Jan. 5, 2021. (Elijah Nouvelage) Regional News

By Jack Phillips July 1, 2021 Updated: July 1, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he is pursuing taking over Fulton County’s elections operations, claiming the Atlanta-area county has habitually failed to count votes.

“I think people are saying, enough is enough,” Raffensperger told Just the News on Wednesday, adding: “I’m tired of it, but so is everyone else who lives in the other 158 counties” in Georgia.

Raffensperger, a Republican who was frequently criticized by former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election, added that he will invoke Georgia’s recent election integrity law that allows Georgia’s Elections Board to take over elections operations in localities that have issues with counting ballots.

The law, SB 202, was passed and signed into law earlier this year. The Department of Justice last week announced it would be filing a civil rights lawsuit against the measure.

When asked during the podcast about whether he would recommend the Elections Board to take over Fulton County by using the law, “Yes is the answer to your question,” Raffensperger responded.

“With SB 202, habitually failing counties can—actually the state election board can come in and replace the election director and really take over the governance of that,” he added, noting that he sought the ouster of a top Fulton County elections official but the county declined to do so.

During the podcast interview, Raffensperger cited a report released by an elections monitor, Carter Jones, in June that detailed alleged irregularities at a Fulton County vote-counting center in November.

“What [Jones] said was it’s all this mismanagement,” the secretary of state said, adding that county “mismanagement” and “dysfunction” erodes the public’s trust in the election system and “really lends itself to conspiracy theories.”

“So it needs to be fixed. It’s our largest county,” he said.

The Epoch Times has contacted Fulton County for comment.

His announcement comes in the midst of an investigation into Fulton County election forms regarding ballots’ chain of custody that allegedly went missing.

Amid claims that Fulton County can’t “produce all ballot drop box transfer documents,” Raffensperger said in a June 14 statement that his office is investigating. “Other counties that failed to follow Georgia rules and regulations regarding drop boxes” are also being reviewed, he added.

A spokesperson for Fulton County at the time appeared to dismiss the reports, telling The Epoch Times that officials “followed procedures for the collection of absentee ballots from Fulton County drop boxes.”

“We maintain a large quantity of documents and researching our files from last year to produce the ballot transfer forms. We have been in communication with the Secretary of State’s office to update them of our progress on this matter,” the spokesperson said.

Published Jun 30, 2021 11:59 am

Stock Photo Gas pump View Photo

Sacramento, CA — Thursday is the beginning of the new fiscal year for the state government, and it also brings a small increase to California’s gas tax.

Senate Bill 1, passed in 2017, increased both the gasoline tax and vehicle licensing fees. The extra revenue helps fund road projects in the state.

The initial gas tax increase was 12-cents, followed by a 5.6-cent increase in 2019 and a 3.2-cent increase in 2020.

SB1 allows the tax to increase with inflation, and the Board of Equalization reports that it will go up by another 0.6-cents on Thursday. The BOE notes that it will bring the state’s gas tax to 51.1-cents, which will continue to be the highest in the nation.

Written by BJ Hansen.

A Palestinian worker unloads a shipment of the Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccines donated by Beijing in the West Bank city of Nablus, on March 29, 2021. (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images) Chinese Regime

By Frank Fang and Jan Jekielek June 28, 2021 Updated: June 28, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

The communist regime in China uses healthcare and apps as weapons as part of its playbook, said an expert on China and the Indo-Pacific.

Cleo Paskal, an associate fellow at Chatham House and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that lessons could be learned from China’s neighbors, particularly India and the Solomon Islands, in understanding the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), in a recent interview on Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” program.

“It is understanding how invasive and destructive and coercive the mentality of the Chinese Communist Party is—in terms of an individual’s right to think anything they want or believe anything they want, is imperative for understanding what we’re dealing with,” Paskal said.

She added: “In a Chinese-run world or Chinese-influenced world healthcare is used as a weapon to punish political dissidents.”

Paskal pointed to the example of Daniel Suidani, the premier of Malaita Province in the Solomon Islands and a prominent China critic. Since the South Pacific country ended its 36-year diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China in September 2019, Suidani has continued to voice support for the self-ruled island and rejected Chinese investment in Malaita.

Suidani’s continued support for Taiwan—a de facto independent nation that China claims as a part of its territory—has put him at odds with the Solomon Islands’ Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who enjoys a close relationship with Beijing.

About six months ago, Suidani came down with a brain disease that required CT scans but the Solomon Islands does not have the medical device. As a result, the premier began seeking foreign medical care but was financially strapped to pay for it.

Suidani approached the Sogavare government for financial aid for his medical care, but he rejected the money after learning that there were strings attached to it—he had to shake the hands of Sogavare in public. Earlier this month, Suidani’s senior advisor Celsus Talifilu told Al Jazeera that the premier refused the offer because “it would be like shaking hands with China.”Current Time 9:43/Duration 52:45 1x

Taiwan offered Suidani medical assistance and the premier arrived in Taiwan on May 26. His trip to Taiwan has angered both the Sogavare government and Beijing—with the former saying that it was an “unauthorized” trip that undermined the South Pacific country’s “one China” policy.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued on May 30, the Chinese embassy in the Solomon Islands said it had “registered concerns” with the Sogavare government over Suidani’s trip, and added that it “opposes any official contacts” between Taiwan and other countries.

“This is a situation where his [Suidani’s] personal position on China meant he was going to be declined healthcare. This is essentially an extraterritorial social credit system type control over the healthcare of an individual person,” Paskal explained.

She added: “If you don’t accept China in your heart, you’re going to be left to die. That’s fundamentally what was happening with Premier Suidani.”

The Chinese regime enforces a social credit system, which assigns each citizen a score of “social trustworthiness.” People can have points taken away from their social credit score by committing behaviors deemed undesirable by the CCP such as jaywalking. Those with low social credit scores are deemed “untrustworthy,” and thus deprived access to services and opportunities. They could be barred from traveling by plane or attending schools, among other things. Critics have slammed the system as a violation of human rights.

Apps

Beijing could also weaponize Chinese mobile apps in order to sow divisions within other countries, according to Paskal. She applauded the Indian government for banning Chinese apps, particularly popular video-sharing app TikTok and messaging app WeChat.

India has banned more than 200 Chinese apps, citing the apps’ collection of user data as a national security risk. China’s national intelligence law requires all organizations and citizens to “support, assist, and cooperate with national intelligence efforts.”

Beijing could use the data collected by different Chinese apps for coercion and blackmail, Paskal warned.

Additionally, Paskal explained that since the Chinese apps also curated information, Beijing could try to “manipulate the people who have the app into believing certain things or heading in certain directions politically.”

“If you can create social division or exacerbate social division in another country, and paralyze it socially, damage it socially, China wins. It doesn’t mean countries don’t have social problems. It just means that there is a vested interest from Beijing; making those situations worse. And you can do that through apps like TikTok,” Paskal explained.

There have been media reports on how TikTok censored certain topics, including the Tiananmen Square Massacre and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim ministries.

On June 9, the Biden administration revoked former President Donald Trump’s executive orders effectively banning TikTok and WeChat, and required the Commerce Department to conduct its own review of both apps.

Paskal warned that ultimately the CCP wants to influence the mind of every individual.

“So, be very aware. You are targeted. … The goal now of the Chinese Communist Party is political warfare—which is the front line of its attempt to achieve that number one position in terms of comprehensive national power is your mind,” she explained. Follow Frank on Twitter: @HwaiDerFollow Jan on Twitter: @JanJekielek

Portland Police deploy in Portland, Oregon on Nov. 4, 2020, during a demonstration called by the “Black Lives Matter” movement, a day after the US Presidential Election. (Kathryn Elsesser/AFP via Getty Images) Regional News

By Katabella Roberts June 18, 2021 Updated: June 18, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

The entire Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response Team (RRT) has left their voluntary positions after an officer was indicted on a protest assault charge.

The team, which is responsible for providing public safety at crowd events when there was a threat of harm to the community, consisted of approximately 50 officers, all of whom resigned on June 16, the bureau announced.

Despite no longer serving as volunteers with RRT, the officers will continue with their regular assignments, the bureau said.

It comes just a day after Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt announced his team had indicted one member, Officer Corey Budworth, on one count of fourth-degree assault for physically injuring someone during an Aug. 18, 2020, protest.

“In this case, we allege that no legal justification existed for Officer Budworth’s deployment of force, and that the deployment of force was legally excessive under the circumstances,” Schmidt said in a statement on Tuesday. “My office will continue to do everything we can to ensure justice is done without error or delay and that we make sure our work and practices are rooted in fairness and equity.”

Schmidt noted that other use-of-force incidents are still under review and that his office has referred an investigation into Portland Police Det. Erik Kammerer’s use of force during protests to the Oregon State Department of Justice for review.

The indictment marks the first time a Portland police officer has faced prosecution for striking or firing at someone during a protest, according to The Oregonian.

Budworth was assigned to the Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response Team at the time of the alleged assault and prosecutors allege he used an “excessive and unlawful use of force” when he struck activist photographer Teri Jacobs in the head with a baton during a demonstration outside the Multnomah Building.

Multiple videos posted to social media show an officer, identified as Budworth, running after Jacobs and hitting her once in the head from behind, and then hitting her head again after she falls to the ground.

The Portland Police Association claim that Ms. Jacobs fell to the ground and that officer Bedworth had reason to believe she was getting back up to re-engage in her unlawful activities.

“Officer Budworth employed one last baton push to try and keep her on the ground, which accidentally struck Ms. Jacobs in the head. The location of Officer Budworth’s last baton push was accidental, not criminal,” they said in a statement on Wednesday.

“He faced a violent and chaotic, rapidly evolving situation, and he used the lowest level of baton force—a push; not a strike or a jab—to remove Ms. Jacobs from the area.”

However, in February, the city agreed to a $50,000 civil settlement for Jacobs in the case.

The Portland Police Bureau placed Budworth on administrative leave Tuesday, officials said.

“Unfortunately, this decorated public servant has been caught in the crossfire of agenda-driven city leaders and a politicized criminal justice system,” the Portland Police Association said in their statement on Wednesday.

“It is also important to know that Officer Corey Budworth is a committed public servant of the highest integrity. He has spent four of his six years as a PPB officer as a highly trained member of PPB’s Rapid Response Team (RRT). In his service with RRT and his deployment at hundreds of protests and demonstrations, Officer Budworth has never faced any sustained force complaints,” they added.

Portland has dealt with unrest—as riots have regularly taken place—since the spring of 2020. Some of the people who have committed crimes are members of the far-left, anarcho-communist Antifa network. Others have identified as Black Lives Matter activists.

Portlanders who spoke to The Epoch Times anonymously said that the violence is becoming worse and is unacceptable, despite being largely underreported by mainstream media.

One 44-year-old man who lives in a Portland suburb said, “There are brazen shootings and killings in broad daylight which did not happen before this past year. The violence is no longer limited to nights or certain neighborhoods.”

Another 64-year-old woman who works in the information technology field said that companies are also struggling to recruit new employees because Portland is now being perceived as dangerous.

Last week, the Portland Police Association announced it was relocating its headquarters because of repeated attacks by rioters, including members of the far-left network Antifa.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Portland Police Bureau for comment.

A man kneels to pray in front of seats cordoned off with caution tape due to the CCP virus at the International Church of Las Vegas in Las Vegas, Nev., on May 31, 2020. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Constitutional Rights

By Alex Newman June 13, 2021 Updated: June 15, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Elected commissioners in two Nevada counties declared that the Bill of Rights will be upheld in their jurisdictions, even if it means standing against unconstitutional acts by state and federal authorities.

According to a resolution approved in Elko County on June 2, abuse of the constitutionally protected rights of citizens in Elko and Lander counties will be “dealt with as criminal activity.” Officials in Lander County approved a similar effort.

Under the leadership of constitutionally minded sheriffs and elected commissioners, the two rural counties in Nevada have decided to become “constitutional counties,” where the rights of citizens will be protected from all attacks.

That means local authorities intend to uphold the entire Bill of Rights in those jurisdictions, and that even federal and state officials must comply with the U.S. Constitution when there, they said.

As part of the effort to become a constitutional county, the two county governments also became the first in the country to officially join the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA).

The national organization, made up of sheriffs and other law enforcement officials dedicated to upholding their oaths of office to the U.S. Constitution and their state constitutions, has been training sheriffs about their constitutional role for years.

Countless law enforcement officers from across America are individual members. But before 2021, no county government had ever requested to join as a county, and CSPOA didn’t even have that available as a membership option.

Now there are two that joined in the last month.

Sheriff Mack Speaks

“The people of these counties and their elected officials have had it up to here with unconstitutional dictates and mandates,” retired Sheriff Richard Mack, the founder and chief of CSPOA, told The Epoch Times.

Under the measure, county officials, including sheriffs and deputies, are strictly bound by their oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and protect the rights of constituents—even if that means defying what they view as unconstitutional orders, mandates, decrees, or statutes from state or federal authorities.

The two rural counties in question both overwhelmingly approved the decisions to become official members of CSPOA and warn officials from every level of government to abide by the oath of office.

“The leadership of Elko County is an example to all Nevada and the entire country that tyranny will no longer be acceptable,” Mack said.

He also noted that elected officials in these counties understand they have a duty to protect the liberties of their people against anyone who may seek to undermine them.

For years, Mack has traveled the country educating sheriffs and communities on what he claims is their duty to protect the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of their constituents from efforts to undermine them—even from federal and state governments.

He said that having locally elected officials tell federal and state authorities that the Bill of Rights will be upheld in their jurisdictions helps protect the God-given freedoms that each citizen was born with.

“This is the peaceful and effective solution millions of Americans have been praying for to take back America county by county and state by state,” Mack said.

“These public officials are actually doing something that has been lost in political correctness for a very long time; they are courageously keeping their oaths of office to uphold, defend, and preserve the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Nevada.

“God bless Elko County.”

Mack has challenged the federal government on constitutional matters himself, famously winning a Supreme Court case against the Clinton administration while still serving as a sheriff.

In his landmark 1997 lawsuit against federal gun-control programs, the Supreme Court delivered a major win for proponents of the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which reserves all powers not delegated to the U.S. government for the states or the people.

Constitutional scholars have argued that the case was among the most important Supreme Court rulings protecting states’ rights.

Under what has come to be known as the Constitution’s “anti-commandeering doctrine,” the high court’s opinion in Printz v. United States also reiterated that sheriffs aren’t bound to help enforce federal statutes or regulations.

The Elko County Resolution

The resolution adopted by Elko County included language indicating that county officials will protect the rights of all citizens within their jurisdiction, even if it means going against federal or state authorities.

“The people of these United States are, and have a right to be, free and independent, and these rights are derived from the ‘Law of Nature and nature’s God,’” the resolution states, echoing the language of America’s Founders in the Declaration of Independence.

“As such, they must be free from infringements on the right to keep and bear arms, unreasonable searches and seizures, capricious detainments, and every other natural right whether enumerated or not, pursuant to the 9th Amendment.”

The document, approved unanimously by the Elko County Board of Commissioners, also reaffirms the U.S. Constitution’s 10th Amendment protecting states from the federal usurpation of unauthorized powers.

Next, the resolution notes that no federal agency can create policies that supersede the Constitution and that the executive branch of government isn’t authorized to make law under America’s system of government.

The document then goes on to list a variety of “abuses” that “will not be tolerated.”

At the top of the list are orders infringing on the rights to freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and other liberties guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.

Other acts that won’t be tolerated include efforts to register firearms, gun confiscation, violations of privacy or property rights without a warrant, and detainment or arrest without following constitutional procedures.

Commissioner Behind the Effort Speaks Out

Speaking to The Epoch Times, Elko County Commissioner Rex Steninger, who proposed the resolution, called on counties across the United States to take similar actions in defense of the Constitution.

“We need a majority of counties in all the freedom-loving states to join,” Steninger said after his resolution passed unanimously last week.

Right now, “the Swamp controls our federal government” and “our nation is in decline,” he said.

Citing Mack, the Elko County commissioner argued that “the only way to take our country back” is to do it “county by county, sheriff by sheriff.”

“My advice to other Americans is that they had better wake up and fight back or we will lose our wonderful country,” Steninger said. “We are slipping quickly from the Republic of our founding into a dictatorship.”

Becoming a “constitutional county” and joining the CSPOA is one way local authorities can resist the escalating abuses, he said.

“I feel joining the CSPOA was needed to signal to our leaders up the ladder that we are tired of their unconstitutional orders and we are not going to obediently follow them anymore,” Steninger said.

According to Steninger, the public has been “overwhelmingly supportive” of the county’s move.

At a meeting last week, the commissioners voted to set up a fund so citizens could voluntarily pay for a patriotic celebration of the effort on June 20. They quickly collected more than what was needed.

“That tells me the citizens of Elko County are eager for some resistance,” he said.

Leaders of Lander County, which approved a similar move last month, have also been receiving a positive response from citizens. All but one of its commissioners voted to join CSPOA and become a constitutional county as well.

In the end, Steninger and other local officials argue that the Constitution must be protected, starting at the local level.

“The Constitution is the framework of our Republic,” he said. “It is what enabled us to rise from a fledgling collection of immigrants into the most powerful nation on Earth in just 150 years – a historical blink of the eye.”

“It was the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution that allowed our citizens to flourish and excel.”

Every elected official swears an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, as well as the constitution of his or her state.

But the pandemic “has really illustrated how far we have fallen,” Steninger said in a public speech supporting the initiative, pointing to what he views as government attacks against even the most basic freedoms.

The First Amendment guarantees the right to freely exercise one’s religion and peacefully assemble—among the most fundamental rights protected in the Constitution.

“Yet governors across the nation told us we could not leave our houses or gather with our friends,” Steninger said. “They told us to close our churches and avoid celebrations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And most of us obeyed.”

The Fifth Amendment “says we shall not be deprived of our property without the due process of law,” he said. “But the governors ordered us to close our businesses and most obeyed.”

That was a mistake, in Steninger’s estimation.

“We should not have obeyed,” said the commissioner, who is reaching out to other elected officials across the state and encouraging them to follow Elko County’s lead. “We should have revolted.

“Adopting this resolution and joining the CSPOA is a first step in reclaiming our Republic and the God-given rights guaranteed by our Constitution.”

Just the Beginning?

Sheriffs from across Nevada were at the rally held in Lander County in support of becoming constitutional counties.

As the word spreads and citizens across the United States get involved, these two counties are likely just the beginning, Mack told The Epoch Times.

CSPOA Operations Manager Sam Bushman, who worked closely with the county officials on the effort, emphasized to The Epoch Times that this is “a citizens push and partnership with all public officials.”

“It’s important to remember that without the people, these efforts would be for naught,” he said.

“This is a peaceful stand for the rule of law. It’s accountability for all—including and especially those who work for the people and take an oath.”

Bushman said he was already working with other elected officials on the issue.

Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment by press time.

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Sens. Cotton, Ernst Introduce Bill to Prevent Agricultural Tech Theft by Chinese Regime41 Share Now 236TelegramFacebookTweetEmailTellMeWeRedditCopy Link

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) speaks during a hearing to examine United States Special Operations Command and United States Cyber Command in review of the Defense Authorization Request for fiscal year 2022 and the Future Years Defense Program, on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 25, 2021. (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images) Censorship & Socialism

‘Hundreds’ of Whistleblowers Say Military Forcing ‘Anti-American Indoctrination’ on Them: Sen. Cotton

By Jack Phillips June 10, 2021 Updated: June 10, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on June 10 that “hundreds” of military whistleblowers have reported being forced to receive “anti-American indoctrination” training, including critical race theory (CRT).

In a Senate hearing with Austin, Cotton claimed that within the military, there’s “plummeting morale, growing mistrust between races and sexes where none existed just six months ago and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone.

One whistleblower, Cotton alleged, said that military history training was replaced with training about police brutality, “systemic racism,” and “white privilege.” Another said that his unit had to read “White Fragility” by feminist author and critical theory proponent Robin DiAngelo, according to the senator.

In May, the Space Force confirmed it relieved Lt. Col. Matthew Lohmeier, a former instructor and fighter pilot, as commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron. While it didn’t specifically name the reason why Lohmeier was terminated, the Space Force cited comments made by Lohmeier during a podcast in which he denounced CRT and warned about the spread of Marxism within the Space Force’s ranks.

CRT, which draws heavily upon Marxist critical theory and postmodernist writers, denounces U.S. and Western culture as oppressive, and often claims American culture and institutions are promoting “systemic racism” or “white supremacy.” Some critics have said the ideology’s proponents apply the Marxist tactic of “class struggle” to drive people along the lines of gender, race, and ethnicity, rather than between the “proletariat” and “bourgeoisie.”

In the hearing, Austin told Cotton that some training is designed to make sure that the armed forces are “welcoming to everyone who can qualify and who is fit to serve.”

“We ought to look like the America we support and defend, and senior leadership should look like what’s in the ranks,” Austin said.

But Cotton suggested that claims the military is attempting to foster diversity with such training are incorrect.

“[It’s] about a very specific kind of anti-American indoctrination that is seeping into some parts of our military, based on the whistleblower complaints we have received,” he said.

“The military for decades has been one of the institutions in society where you are most likely to get ahead based on your own performance, your own merit, irrespective of the color of your skin, where you came from, who your parents were.”

Austin agreed with Cotton’s sentiment.

“I absolutely agree with that. I am an example of that,” he said.

Austin went on to state that the military needs to be “a bit better,” be “absolutely inclusive,” and promote “equity.” The terms “inclusive” and “equity” have been used in social justice circles for years.

Austin then argued that by doing so, it’ll be the “most effective and lethal fighting force in the world.”

A full-scale mock-up of a high-speed train is displayed at the Capitol in Sacramento, Calif., on Feb. 26, 2015. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File) US News

By Tom Ozimek June 11, 2021 Updated: June 11, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Thursday that the Biden administration and the State of California have reached a deal to restore a bullet train grant of nearly $1 billion that was revoked by President Donald Trump, who called the project a “disaster.”

The U.S. Department of Transportation and California officials on Thursday finalized settlement negotiations to restore the money for the train, which the Trump administration revoked in 2019, Newsom said in a statement.

“Restoring nearly $929 million in grant funding back to California’s High-Speed Rail project will continue to spur job creation, advance the project and move the state one step closer to getting trains running in California as soon as possible,” Newsom said.

California voters in 2008 approved nearly $10 billion in bond money to build a high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco that was supposed to be running by 2020. But the project was plagued by cost overruns and delays. Officials now hope to have trains running on a segment through the state’s central valley agricultural region by 2029.

Critics have derided the segment as a “train to nowhere,” while advocates say it’s a necessary test and precursor to linking more populated areas.

Republican candidate for California governor Caitlyn Jenner said Thursday she would take the $929 million grant and spend it on finishing Trump’s border wall.

“Right now we’re spending billions on a high-speed train to nowhere,” she told KABC in an interview. “Take some of that money, go down to the border wall and completely finish on state land. Completely finish the wall. We need protection.”

Her remarks come as U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported it had apprehended 180,034 individuals illegally entering the United States in May, the highest monthly tally in 21 years, fueling calls to tighten border security.

The project’s business plan anticipates environmental approval for the 500 miles between Los Angeles and San Francisco by 2023. Completion of the full line depends on funding and other unknowns. Newsom last month unveiled a budget proposal that includes $4.2 billion for the project, including the bond money approved by voters in 2008.

In February 2019, Newsom announced a scaled back version of the $77 billion high-speed rail project, saying the current plan “would cost too much and take too long,” prompting Trump to demand California return the $3.5 billion it had received from the federal government for the project.

“California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “They owe the Federal Government three and a half billion dollars. We want that money back now. Whole project is a ‘green’ disaster!”

Later, the Trump administration pulled the $929 million in outstanding federal grant money from the beleaguered train project. In a letter (pdf), the U.S. Department of Transportation explained its decision, saying California officials had “failed to make reasonable progress” and had not held up their part of the funding agreement.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

2021-6-21-Reg-Meeting-Agenda-Packet

<Sigh> Just like the 2020 Presidential Election. TRUTH & FACTS DO NOT ALTER A DISINGENUOUS AND MISGUIDED PATH by the SPECIAL INTERESTS WHO RIGGED THIS CALIFORNIA SPECIAL DISTRICT FRAUD AND CONTINUE TO PULL THE STRINGS of “BUSINESS AS USUAL” all the while MR WECS (Merced River Water Entitled Customers of the Lake Don Pedro residential subdivision) continue to pick up the escalating costs of a 40 plus year complete deception of the facts. Where is the ACCOUNTABILITY for those who designed this nightmare?

Yup, business as usual and the public pays more and more yet receives less and less. Sure employee pay raises are just another aspect of the “business as usual facade of credibility”, but fair employee compensation is not the issue which has torn this community apart since the district’s formation, rather, the issue has been the DECADES OF DISHONEST SERVICE BY A CALIFORNIA SPECIAL DISTRICT AND THE BETRAYAL OF THE LEGALLY ENTITLED WATER CUSTOMERS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO SERVE.

Why have PUBLIC RECORDS been withheld (from the public – that’s called a clue) for well over one year regarding how this FRAUD OF A CALIFORNIA SPECIAL DISTRICT was intentionally created and designed by COUNTY LAFCOS

(Local Agency Formation Commissions, ie, STATE POWERS exercised on a LOCAL PLANNING LEVEL)

to exploit STATE WATER LICENSE 11395 while simultaneously designating thousands of innocent subdivision property owners as the “DEEP POCKET VICTIMS” to quietly SUBSIDIZE an extremely expensive GROUNDWATER SUBSTITUTION PROGRAM TO CIRCUMVENT WATER LICENSE PLACE OF USE RESTRICTIONS – all intended to provide a SPECIAL BENEFIT BLENDED WATER SERVICE FOR THE MANY LAND ANNEXATIONS INTO THE LDPCSD THAT THESE VERY COUNTY LAFCOS HAD APPROVED FOR DEVELOPMENT DESPITE CONTRADICTION OF THEIR OWN REGULATIONS? MARIPOSA COUNTY LAFCO RESOLUTION 76-4. Look it up on the County Website!

<gasp> OOPS! Think I answered the question within the question yeah?

Public records withheld from the public? Yup, a big clue. Just like more ballots being certified than there were actual voters……. or dead people voting? Nothing is too outrageous for those manipulating a system to their benefit while claiming to work “for the people”.

My best to you and yours, Lew

RELATED

Sen. Ron Johnson Says Green New Deal Would Make US Grid More Vulnerable to Cyberattacks239 Share Now 62TelegramFacebookTweetEmailTellMeWeRedditCopy Link

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks as White House press secretary Jen Psaki looks on during a daily press briefing at the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on April 7, 2021. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Companies

By Masooma Haq June 7, 2021 Updated: June 7, 2021 biggersmallerPrint

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said Sunday that cyberattacks will only increase in the future and that she and the administration are urging all businesses to shore up their own cybersecurity systems, while the federal government works to strengthen national cybersecurity.

“So, I think the first thing we have to recognize is, this is a reality, and we should assume and businesses should assume that these attacks are here to stay and if anything will intensify,” said Raimondo.

Raimondo made the comment during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, who questioned her about the eight cyberattacks against companies occurring each day.

The secretary pointed to the White House’s June 3 letter in which the cybersecurity adviser at the National Security Council, Anne Neuberger, warned business leaders about the growing risk of ransomware attacks, urging them to beef up their digital security measures.

“The threats are serious and they are increasing,” Neuberger said in the letter obtained by media outlets.

“All organizations must recognize that no company is safe from being targeted by ransomware, regardless of size or location. Much as our homes have locks and alarm systems and our office buildings have guards and security to meet the threat of theft, we urge you to take ransomware crime seriously and ensure your corporate cyber defenses match the threat.”

Raimondo repeated the White House’s warning for businesses to increase cybersecurity without delay.

“The only good news here George is that some very simple steps, like two-factor authentications, having proper backups and backup technology can be enormously helpful against a wide variety of these attacks,” Raimondo added.

“So, it is clear that the private sector needs to be more vigilant, by the way, including small and medium-sized companies. And also, President Biden has been clear that we are going to do more. In fact, certain components of the American Jobs Plan (AJP), provide for investments to shore up the nation’s cyber infrastructure, which is just another reason why it’s so important that the AJP passes,” she said.

The commerce secretary’s warning comes after a number of recent high-profile cyberattacks, including one targeting Colonial Pipeline last month, leading to a disruptive shutdown and gasoline shortages. Earlier this week, a hack against America’s largest beef producer, JBS, led to a shutdown of many of its meat production plants, sparking fears of food supply interruptions. In late May, Microsoft announced that it believes the Russia-based hackers behind the SolarWinds cyber attack had begun a fresh campaign targeting over 150 government agencies, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations.

To counter the increased cyberattacks on May 12, the Biden administration issued an executive order to bolster the federal government’s ability to “identify, deter, protect against, detect, and respond to these actions and actors.”

The Biden administration said they will take a whole-of-government approach to combatting the security threat by removing barriers to sharing information about these threats, modernizing the federal government’s cybersecurity, enhancing the software supply chain, establishing a cyber safety review board, standardizing how the government responds to attacks, improving the federal government’s ability to detect cyber threats, and improving its ability to investigate and correct the problems.

Raimondo said the Biden administration is leaving the security of each business to itself, instead of mandating anything at this point.

“I think that as I said at this point we are urging businesses … and at the moment we’re going to pursue that versus, what you’re talking about, a little bit more heavy-handed approach.”

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.