Black Lives Matter, as led by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), is now collapsing visibly, as its supporters and indeed some of its leaders distance themselves from it like rats from a sinking ship. Even as long ago as 2016, the movement was condoning and even encouraging Black people to threaten people on the street, commit arson , and drag people from cars — actions that can result in the justifiable deployment of the deadly force about which BLM complains. The violence escalated in 2020 with widespread rioting, looting, arson, and physical assaults, and Kyle Rittenhouse's Caucasian assailants were among those who were shot justifiably by the people they threatened.
Menacing somebody with a handgun is of course a deadly force situation because one cannot retreat in complete safety from a bullet — although, and no thanks to BLM, this one was resolved without violence. Hakim Littleton , however, was shot justifiably after he fired a gun at the head of a law enforcement officer, but BLM's partner Color of Change nonetheless libeled the officer's partner with a false public accusation of murder.
Let's keep this simple, boys and girls. If you don't want to be bitten by a dog, don't kick the dog or threaten its human family. If you don't want to be shot by a police officer or an armed citizen, don't menace him with deadly force .
Another BLM partner is the Movement for Black Lives, whose website still depicts Israel as "apartheid " and calls for a boycott of Israel. The Movement for Black Lives also says, "We’ve always understood that Black and Palestinian liberation is linked to one another," as if African-American citizens who were once subjected to segregation, discriminated against in housing and employment, and told to sit in the back of the bus (all of which are legally and socially unacceptable today) are somehow morally equivalent to terrorists who fire rockets into Israeli cities the same way Russia fires them into Ukrainian cities, gun down Israeli athletes and German police officers in Munich, blow up a pizza shop and kill fifteen people, smash in a little girl's head with a rifle butt , cut up the Fogel family in its own home, and commit school shootings like the one in Ma'alot. As Aesop told us long ago, birds of a feather flock together, and if you partner with an enabler or whitewasher of terroristic violence against the Middle East's only country that does in fact have equal rights for all of its citizens and legal residents, that's "who you are."
BLM "protesters" have meanwhile aimed high-powered lasers at the eyes of law enforcement professionals and also at police aircraft , and the latter is a federal felony. An action that blinds a pilot even momentarily can get people killed. The organization, as represented by its leader, Patrisse Cullors , has denied the right of Israel to exist, which the Anti-Defamation League and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance define as anti-Semitic. The dean of Cornell's famous Law School, Eduardo Peñalver , nonetheless put his organization on record as supporting Black Lives Matter, and the university's president and trustees have so far failed to correct this use of an official Cornell website to attack a faculty member publicly.
Peñalver wrote, "In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them. I found his recent posts to be both offensive and poorly reasoned." Neither Peñalver nor Jacobson's other critics present objective evidence that Jacobson's "aspersions" are unfair or unfounded, even though attorneys and presumably those who train attorneys rely on objective evidence to win cases. There were obvious problems with BLM more than two years ago, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots Sues BLMGNF
It was known more than two years ago that BLMGNF was campaigning against Donald Trump while accepting 501(c)(3) tax-exempt money under the fiscal sponsorship of Thousand Currents and then the Tides Foundation, and with money collected via ActBlue Charities. The objective evidence consists of BLM web pages, including one that compared Trump to a Nazi with a neck tattoo, along with an interview with Patrisse Cullors in her capacity as BLM's leader. The issue is not what anybody thinks of Donald Trump because 501(c)(3) entities are forbidden to participate in political campaigns. A recent lawsuit filed by BLM Grassroots Inc (BLMG) against BLMGNF and others now alleges, among other things, unfair business practices, fraud, conversion, and unjust enrichment.
The lawsuit alleges that a "rouge administrator" (I think they mean "rogue administrator"), Shalomyah Bowers, took actions that led BLMGNF into "multiple investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and various state attorney generals." Paragraph 37 alleges further that BLMGNF "is now under investigation by various state attorney generals and, under information and belief, the IRS for misuse of funds, self-dealing and other actions." The lawsuit does not, however, contend that Bowers was behind BLM's alleged use of 501(c)(3) resources to influence the 2020 election, and there is no evidence that he was. That was Patrisse Cullors and whoever was responsible for the content of the BLM website.
There are two sides to any story, and BLMGNF denies the allegations . The lawsuit's reference to the IRS is, however, very revealing. While the IRS does not publicize whether it is conducting an investigation, this lawsuit suggests that there is indeed a problem, and the fact that BLM no longer solicits tax-deductible contributions on its website reinforces this perception.
The Tides Foundation, BLM's fiscal sponsor, reported, meanwhile (paragraph 46), that it received numerous letters from donors concerned about BLMGNF's "reported failure to file tax documents, the source of funds for the purchase of GNF's house in 2020, from state agencies investigating consumer interests, and from GNF itself." It seems, therefore, that Jacobson's so-called "aspersions" were far from groundless.
Does Corporate Virtue-Signaling Conflict with Fiduciary Duty?
Corporations that have supported BLM, and New York City, which named a street for BLM, also need to take a second look as to exactly what they have found themselves holding. Investors need to question whether corporate donations to BLM, or indeed any cause, constitute a breach of fiduciary duty because money so donated must be reflected in higher prices for customers, lower wages for employees, and/or less profit for investors.
This widening scandal is meanwhile a gift to the Republican Party, right in time for the midterm elections, and the party will have only itself to blame if it wastes this opportunity as it wasted the one presented by BLM in 2020.
Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way. The author is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.
Image : Annettet via Wikimedia Commons .
DC firm with ties to the Clintons operating a
‘grassroots’ scheme in the shadows
If you were to think back to the months leading up to the 2020 presidential election, what sticks out most to you? If you were decently involved in current political events, you might remember the extreme (and apparently criminal) bias against conservatives across Big Tech social media outlets; or you might recall the suppression of damning evidence which allegedly revealed the illicit activities of the Biden crime family, in what we all call “the Laptop from Hell.”
And despite being ‘in the know’ on so many things, it’s unlikely you’ve ever heard of Arabella Advisors — I myself was unaware until just yesterday.
Well, according to one outlet:
The Atlantic has called it ‘the massive progressive dark-money group you’ve never heard of’ and ‘the indisputable heavyweight of Democratic dark money.’ The Washington Post believes its potent lobbying arm is reason enough for Congress to enact forced donor disclosure laws, while Politico labelled [sic] it a ‘dark-money’ behemoth.’ ‘The system of political financing, which often obscures the identities of donors, is known as dark money,’ wrote The New York Times , ‘and Arabella’s network is a leading vehicle for it on the left.’
Arabella is the nefarious offspring of a man named Eric Kessler, who was a former staffer in the Clinton administration. It acts as central command for a vast web of far-left (or flagrantly Marxist) nonprofit organizations. Subsequently, which in turn:
These nonprofits manage and supervise a vast array of ‘pop-up’ groups—mainly political attack-dog websites, ad campaigns and ‘spontaneous’ demonstrations staffed by Arabella’s network of activist professionals who pose as members of independent activist organizations.
Now, why does that sound so familiar?
Given my fascination/horror with Marxism, if I were to reflect back on the pre-election time of 2020, I would recall the emergence of a long-buried video. And in this particular video, Patrisse Cullors, the cofounder of Black Lives Matter, referred to herself and her comrades as “trained Marxists.” Here’s the full quote :
The first thing, I think, is that we actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [cofounder] in particular are trained organizers[.] We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories.
Cullors also mentioned they were “trained organizers” — immediately my mind went to Alinksy.
Another point worth noting is that the BLM website initially stated their support for the “disruption” of the nuclear family — which as we all know, is “the most infamous proposal of the Communists” according to Marx and Engels.
Would it surprise you to learn that Arabella is vocal about their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and organization?
In a post to social media in June of 2020, the official account for Arabella stated :
Black lives matter. And advancing racial equity—both in philanthropy and through it—is essential to the future of our sector, our society, and our world.
In a blog posted to Arabella’s website, BLM was touted as a great grassroots success story, with the firm praising the organization’s ability to quickly “achieve impact on a major scale.”
Arabella is much more of a lurking menace than BLM though. Instead of simply enriching themselves like every other good communist — it was revealed that Cullors had used BLM’s Los Angeles mansion for private parties, and just the other day, news emerged that another leader now stands accused of stealing $10 million from the organization — they’re actually using it to garner political influence and affect all things political.
Just in 2020 alone, the vast network of nonprofits managed by Arabella doled out nearly one billion dollars , with a majority of the money going to “left-leaning and [other] politically active nonprofits.”
The dark money web consists of many nodes, but Arabella is the brain.
Image: Free image from Pixabay, no attribution required.
Black Lives Matter Executive Accused of ‘Siphoning’ $10 Million from Donors
AP Photo/Brynn Anderson 3:27
Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (GNF) executive Shalomyah Bowers has been accused of “siphoning” off more than $10 million from donors.
The grassroots wing of the far-left activist organization (BLM Grassroots) alleged last week Bowers “siphoned” the money to pay his consulting firm after he joined the board of the foundation.
“Bowers is accused of paying the cash to his own Bowers Consulting Firm, and diverting resources from a new group called Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Inc.,” according to the New York Post . “BLM Grassroots was launched three months ago, records show. It claims to represent BLM chapters across the country.”
Attorney Walter Mosley, who founded the grassroots group, said in the lawsuit filed that Bowers “could not let go of his personal piggy bank.”
“Instead, he continued to betray the public trust by self-dealing and breaching his fiduciary duties. Instead of using the donations for its intended purposes, Mr. Bowers diverted these donations to his own coffers and intentionally took calculated steps to prevent those same resources from being used by BLM for on-the-ground movement work,” the lawsuit claimed.
Shalomyah Bowers (right) poses with colleagues for a portrait on Friday, May 13, 2022, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
Bowers has dismissed that lawsuit as little more than a “power move by someone hellbent on achieving power and control” of the Black Lives Matter movement, adding activists headed by California State University Pan-African Studies professor Melina Abdullah have been working to steal power away from the BLM foundation board of directors.
“It’s the most insane thing I’ve read in a court pleading, and it’s signed under penalty of perjury when they know it’s a lie,” Bowers told the Post while again proclaiming his innocence.
Bowers noted the foundation recently underwent audits that disprove the allegations brought against him.
“We are in the process of correcting things, of fixing things and dealing with disgruntled people who want to take over the group,” he said.
Bowers is just the latest high-ranking member of Black Lives Matter (BLM) to be accused of misappropriating funds.
In May, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors admitted to using the group’s $6 million property to host private parties after she had previously resigned from the organization amid scrutiny over her spending of charitable funds. As Breitbart News reported at the time:
One of those events took place in January 2021, where she apparently sought “refuge at the property amid threats on her life.” However, at that time, she chose to host an inauguration party celebrating the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, along with roughly 15 people, “including BLM Los Angeles chapter members and other prominent movement supporters,” according to the AP.
Two months later, Cullors threw her son a birthday party at the BLM property, but she told the outlet “she intended to pay a rental fee to the foundation.”
Tax documents filed with the IRS also showed that Cullors would spend lavish funds for her brother and child’s father to perform various services.
“The tax documents as seen by numerous media outlets reveal BLM paid a company owned by Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ child, nearly $970,000 to help “produce live events” and provide other “creative services,'” noted Breitbart News .
McDonald's CEO yells help in Chicago
The latest chapter in the ongoing violence in Chicago comes from a CEO who can't find people to work in his restaurants. Check this out :
McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski has big concerns about surging crime in Chicago, where the fast food giant is based, saying it is impacting the company’s restaurants and making it harder to recruit corporate talent.
Crime is “seeping into every corner of our city,” Kempczinski said during an event at the Economic Club of Chicago Wednesday.
"Everywhere I go, I’m confronted by the same question these days -- what’s going on in Chicago? While it may wound our civic pride to hear it, there is a general sense out there that our city is in crisis.”
Kempczinski said that McDonald’s (MCD) restaurants in the city are suffering, noting that there are about 400 of the chain’s locations across Chicago. "We have violent crime that’s happening in our restaurants… we’re seeing homelessness issues in our restaurants. We’re having drug overdoses that are happening in our restaurants,” he said. “So we see in our restaurants, every single day, what’s happening in society at large.”
The Chicago Mayor’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Kempczinski’s remarks.
Concern, Mr. Kempczinski? More like scared to death that they may go to work and get killed in the many skirmishes in Chicago.
So what is the invisible governor of Illinois doing about this? He is declaring an emergency and calling on the National Guard because migrants are showing up from Texas. Chicago is a killing field every weekend, people are getting killed, children as well, but Governor Pritzker wants to show he is tough because a busload of basically harmless people show up in his primary city.
In the meantime, if you are traveling through the Windy City and you see those legendary arches don't stop to get a burger. It may be closed or no one will be on duty. It's living in Chicago 2022, a city that has turned over control of its streets to criminal elements. Just ask the CEO who can't find people to flip those burgers!
P.S. Check out my videos and posts .
Image: McDonald's
WATCH: Man Allegedly Beats Woman During Fight on Cruise Ship @divamarie03/TikTok 2:00
Two groups were seen arguing onboard a Carnival Sunrise cruise ship recently but the argument eventually became physical.
“The violence culminates with a man pummeling a woman while she’s on the ground and he leans over her,” the Daily Mail reported Friday.
The scene unfolded near the Tides Bar when a man in a blue shirt apparently began hitting someone else who was laying on the deck.
Several people tried to break up the fight, but others appeared to join in. At one point, someone blew a whistle and the crowd appeared to calm down for a few seconds:
When the group began fighting again, several people appeared to drag a woman out from under everyone else.
The crowd dispersed and she finally got up off the deck while the others nearby continued a verbal argument.
The woman who posted the video online, Laura Bryant, reportedly said the fight was over someone’s seat and “personal space.”
The incident reportedly happened on September 9 and “Records show that the Carnival Sunrise made stops in Ocho Rio, Jamaica, Grand Cayman Island and Miami, Florida, around the time that beating took place,” the Mail article said.
Social media users expressed their opinions of the scene, one person writing , “And people think I’m crazy bc I won’t go on a cruise.”
“Getting bruised and scratched up over a chair. what ever happened to pick your battles,” another user commented , while someone else said , “Remember when taking a cruise was the height of luxury? Now it’s like taking a Greyhound.”
A similar instance happened in June when a fight broke out on the dance floor of a Carnival cruise ship, Breitbart News reported.
The brawl occurred after an alleged threesome among passengers whose significant others found out, according to a witness named Theresa James.
She said it began just before 2:00 a.m. and dragged on for an hour as people fought on five floors of the ship.
Memo to Democrats: Let the police do their job, and you will see how quickly the "lawlessness" will disappear.
PHOTO: Grandma Accused in San Francisco $1 Million Looting Spree https://www.breitbart.com/crime/2021/12/14/photo-grandma-accused-san-francisco-1-million-looting-spree/
Senate Conservatives Call on Biden to Fight Violent Crime Wave by Deploying Federal Resources to Cities
TNDC/Facebook/Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
You might have thought that when you hear a newscaster or reporter call a major U.S. city a “war zone” because of the high crime and murders occurring there that it was just an exaggeration. It turns out that it isn’t.
“Per capita murder rates in major U.S. cities such as Chicago, Baltimore and St. Louis are outpacing Ukraine’s recorded civilian death rate from Russia’s invasion,” according to Just The News .
Think about that. Cities that get touted as examples of successful progressive places to live have more people dying, relatively, than a nation at war. Cities that held “most peaceful protests” are less safe than a nation at war.
Now ask yourself this: If we are so upset with what is happening in Ukraine, why aren’t we even more upset with what is happening in our own country?
The website compiled information from the United Nations Human Rights Office , U.S. Census Bureau , and other sources to calculate the murder rates between the Ukraine and U.S. cities.
In Ukraine, 5,401 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s attack began in February (this is actually believed to be an underestimate). With a population of about 41,167,300, this makes Ukraine’s civilian death rate 13.12 per 100,000 people using official statistics from the United Nations, according to Just The News.
Sadly, there are American cities where this would be an improvement. Baltimore’s homicide rate is 37.3 so far this year or 215 deaths. If the city had the Ukraine’s war-time death rate, the city would have had only 76 murders.
St. Louis’s murder rate is 38.2 per 100,000 so far in 2022. Chicago’s is 14.8 per 100,000.
“Using pre-pandemic data, 52 U.S. cities had worse homicide rates than Ukraine’s civilian death rate. However, crime in the United States has skyrocketed since then, meaning that there may be more cities that qualify as deadlier than Ukraine under assault by Russian forces,” Just The News reported.
How scary is that?
Maybe an investigative reporter should compare property damage between the Ukraine and these major U.S. cities that suffered, in some cases, billions of dollars of damage. How comparable would those numbers be?
What’s worse is that the Democrat leadership of these U.S. cities has not done anything to make the situation better. Crime is still rising and property damage is often not even prosecuted in some cities. In fact, with defunding the police, bail reform, strict controls of what police can and can’t do, it has actually made things worse in those cities.
The Democrat-controlled Congress has also been largely behind pushing aid for Ukraine to help them because they have been so hard hit in their war. However, perhaps that money might be better spent helping major U.S. cities fight crime and lower their crime rates to a level equal or less than that of war-torn Ukraine.
It turns out that our American cities are war zones, and just like in a declared war, it is often the civilians, the innocent, who suffer the most. That’s the case in Ukraine, and that’s the case in America.
Michael A. Letts is the CEO and Founder of In-VestUSA , a national grassroots non-profit organization helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs.
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