Border Patrol agents apprehend a busload of illegal immigrants in Penitas, Texas, on March 10. 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Immigration & Border Security
The number of migrants who are illegally entering into the United States via the Southern Border has spiked during President Joe Biden’s first two months in office, said the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Tuesday.
“We are on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement.
Mayorkas, whose agency oversees Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defended the Biden administration’s response to what some have described as a growing crisis along the U.S.-Mexico border. Previously, White House officials and top Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have said it was the previous administration’s policies that triggered the crisis, although Republicans said President Joe Biden’s moves to rescind Trump-era executive immigration orders essentially served as a welcome mat for illegal immigrants.
“There is understandably a great deal of attention currently focused on the southwest border,” Mayorkas added. “The situation at the southwest border is difficult. We are working around the clock to manage it and we will continue to do so. That is our job. We are making progress and we are executing on our plan.”
Illegal aliens cross the Rio Bravo to get to El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico, on Feb. 5, 2021. (Herika Martinez/AFP via Getty Images)This file photo shows a hole cut into Southern California’s border fence with Mexico on March 3, 2021. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection via AP)
Mayorkas avoided using the term “crisis” as conservative-leaning media and Republicans have insisted that the administration use stronger descriptive terms.
“We will also not waver in our values and our principles as a nation,” Mayorkas added. “Our goal is a safe, legal, and orderly immigration system that is based on our bedrock priorities: to keep our borders secure, address the plight of children as the law requires, and enable families to be together. As noted by the President in his Executive Order, ‘securing our borders does not require us to ignore the humanity of those who seek to cross them.’ We are both a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. That is one of our proudest traditions.”
A tent facility operated by the Border Patrol in Donna, some 500 miles south of Dallas, is holding more than 1,000 children and teenagers, some as young as 4 years of age. Lawyers who inspect immigrant detention facilities under a court settlement told The Associated Press they interviewed children who reported being held in packed conditions in the tent, with some sleeping on the floor and others not able to shower for five days.
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a statement Monday asserting the Biden administration’s “reckless open door policies have created a humanitarian crisis for unaccompanied minors coming across the border” and that “his policies are risking the health and safety of Texans and putting children at risk from cartels and human traffickers.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.
Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, speaks at the “Let the Church ROAR” National Prayer Rally on the National Mall in Washington on Dec. 12, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) Tech News
MyPillow founder and CEO Mike Lindell says a social media platform he will launch in coming weeks will be a “safe place” for those who have been “canceled” by big tech platforms such as YouTube and Twitter.
“You won’t have to walk on eggshells anymore,” said Lindell, whose personal and MyPillow accounts were suspended by Twitter last month, noting that the release of his platform, Vocal, is scheduled within the next fortnight.
“It’s YouTube and Twitter kind of combined. There’s nothing like it out there. Journalists can actually go out and invite guests on and speak the truth,” Lindell told NTD’s “Focus Talk” host Jenny Chang. “I’m really looking forward to it. It’s been four years in the making, and it is absolutely amazing. There’s technology out there that nobody else has.”
Lindell’s site would compete with the likes of Parler and Gab, which have attracted conservatives and supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Twitter suspended Lindell’s accounts over his claims about the 2020 presidential election. When Lindell released his video on YouTube, the Google-owned platform deleted it, citing its “presidential election integrity policy.” The video was also taken down by Vimeo.
He has been sued by Dominion Voting Systems over his statements about the election technology vendor after the election. The company filed a lawsuit against Lindell on Feb. 22 in the District of Columbia.
The suit alleges that Lindell, a staunch supporter of Trump, harmed Dominion’s brand by raising questions about the company’s vote-counting equipment. The company is seeking damages in excess of $1.3 billion.
Mike Lindell of MyPillow speaks at a Make America Great Again rally in Rochester, Minn., on Oct. 4, 2018. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Trump and his advisers have said the former president is considering starting his own social media company. Lindell, when asked about the possibility of a platform launched by Trump, said, “I think it’s great to have more than one place to speak out the truth.”
“For me, my platform is made for more for the influencers out there—people that have podcasts, people that have radio, and TV stations that they can’t speak the truth or they lose their YouTube or they get threatened to being sued by Dominion or whatever it is,” Lindell said.
“I have so many friends of mine that lost their followers on Facebook, they lost their Twitter, they lost their YouTube channels, they maybe lost Vimeo. … That’s their livelihood. I know a friend of mine had 12 employees. They’re all laid off right now because they took away his whole platform, and just for speaking out his opinions.
“I want to be able to talk about election fraud with the machines, and I want to talk about the vaccine, which I don’t believe in. I want the word to get out.”
Lindell told NTD that his company has so far lost 22 retailers. In a recent interview with Business Insider, he said that he lost about $65 million in revenue this year due to mass boycotts from various firms such as Kohl’s and Bed Bath & Beyond.
“Right now, my company has been attacked,” he said. “Google has attacked me; they won’t let me buy my own name. My Twitter is taken down; my company Twitter is taken down; my YouTube is down; Vimeo’s down; Facebook won’t let me live stream—all these attacks.”
The MyPillow CEO said he intends to countersue Dominion because “this is about our First Amendment right of free speech.”
“What’s coming is communism and socialism. It came into our country, they’re suppressing free speech, and right now, it’s terrible,” Lindell said. “Even Democrats see that’s not who they voted for. This is terrible, what is happening. It’s happening to everybody.”
Jenny Chang contributed to this report.Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.
House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy held a press conference on the Texas border to discuss ‘Biden’s border crisis’.
McCarthy was Tuesday’s KVML “Newsmaker of the Day”. Here are his words:
“I want to thank every man and woman for the border patrol, for the exceptional job they’re doing and under extraordinary times. Their attitude, their work was exceptional. The security of our nation and our border is first and foremost the responsibility of our president. I came down here because I heard of the crisis. It’s more than a crisis, this is a human heartbreak. The sad part about all of this, it didn’t have to happen. This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration. There’s no other way to claim it, then a Biden border crisis.
Every part of what we sat and talked to, we learned more of how it was created. Congressman Gimenez talked to a family from Honduras and asked, “How long have they been traveling?” 22 days, just in coincidence of the actions taken by President Biden of why people think they come here to break the law. We went through a new facility that was built just more than a year ago. They built it with the capacity they thought they could never meet, 1,040 people be processed. Today, broke that record today. Today, they’re beyond capacity. They’re having to build into the parking lot a makeshift facility. Even though the US Congress just passed a $1.9 trillion bill, not $1 in there to help them. It’s taken away the operation costs for the border to be protected. But for all these children, that are on a company that’s sitting in there, there’s 120 border agents that are now inside that unit that are not on the border protecting us when a surge is coming.
As we went up to Monument Three, speaking to the men and women on the front lines, they catch from a hundred to 200 people a night. As we talked to the medical units… And as I tell you, not as a member of Congress, but as a father of a son and a daughter, and you look in the eyes of these children, they came unaccompanied. They tell the story of a one, a three and a five-year-old holding their hands, walking up to an agent with no parents, no adults in sight, who brought them? When you talk to the medical units, talk about the percentage of that get trafficked, they get harmed along the way, who knows what dangerous and who doesn’t make it. All because the policies of our president has changed and told them something different, told them to risk their lives and broke families apart.
We were better as a nation than this. This is about the safety and security of our border, but it’s also about the opportunity that Americans want, and the prosperity. I know the president is going to travel this week. This is where he should bring Air Force One. This is where he should look the people in the eye. This is where he should talk to the border agents and let them know that this is beyond a crisis. He can continue to deny it, but the only way to solve it is to first admit what he has done. And if he will not reverse action, it’s going to take congressional action to do it. And that’s why we’re here, we want to find solutions.
Before we even came here, I sent a letter to the President to work together, to solve this problem. I thought maybe he would reach out. Maybe he’d set an appointment. He doesn’t even acknowledge a letter, let alone a crisis that his policy has created. So we will work together, across the aisle, within our own party, because we know the solutions that it will take. When you talk about what’s coming across, I just left a few border agents and I asked them, ” Who are the individuals you’re catching?” “Yeah, they’re from Central America.” But you know who else? Iran, Yemen, Sri Lanka. When I walked through the facility, there was more Haitians than any other nationality I saw. And why were they coming now? You asked the border agents, they were shocked themselves because they’re being released into the country.
When I talked to the doctor to see when they’re being tested for COVID, when they get out. More than 10% are testing positive, while you’re being stored together. In a time when the president will keep our country closed, when maybe we have hope for a 4th of July to get together just with our family, how much spread of COVID is he creating every single day by his policies along this border? It’s wrong, and it has to end and it needs to end now.”
The “Newsmaker of the Day” is heard every weekday morning at 6:45, 7:45 and 8:45 on AM 1450 and FM 102.7 KVML.
“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.
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.
“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.
Adam Molon and his poem. (Courtesy of Adam Molon)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a press conference at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, on May 18, 2020. (Lynda M. Gonzalez/The Dallas Morning News Pool)Border Patrol agents apprehend a busload of illegal immigrants in Penitas, Texas, on March 10, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
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.
Help us spread the truth. Share this article with your friends.
