THE DOCTRINE OF THE N.A.F.T.A. GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS IS TO SERVE THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ENDLESS WAVES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR SUBSIDIZED WITH WELFARE FUNDED BY TAXES ON MIDDLE AMERICA.
In many speeches, Mayorkas says he is building a mass migration system to deliver workers to wealthy employers and investors and “equity” to poor foreigners. The nation’s border laws are subordinate to elites’ opinion about “the values of our country,” Mayorkas claims.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
BLACK LIVES MATTER HOAXER - SEN BRIAN BENJAMIN BUSTED ON BRIBERY CHARGES - ANY BLACK POLITICIAN NOT YET PUT IN JAIL?
The facts that have emerged demonstrate that Black Lives Matter is largely a creation of the corporate media and the Democratic Party, not a genuine expression of insurgent popular opposition to the pervasive brutality and social inequality of American society. The revelations illustrate the venal and privileged social layers whose interests are expressed by the elevation of race, rather than class, as the essential dividing line in society.
BLACK MAN IS 15xs TO 30xs TIMES MORE LIKELY TO PERPETRATE VIOLENCE!
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Sen. Brian Benjamin wanted to defund the NYPD, but he should have fought to defund the FBI because it was the feds that busted the “progressive politician” on bribery charges.
“Last year we made historic strides towards ending mass incarceration with major reforms," Sen. Benjamin had boasted when he was in the legislature. “But there is still more work to do.”
Benjamin’s current work will be avoiding incarceration on five bribery charges.
The busted radical had fought to end bail, turning arrests into a revolving door, close down the Rikers Island prison, limit police enforcement options, and protect parole violators.
While the leftist crook has claimed that there is a school-to-prison pipeline, the real pipeline is the politics-to-prison pipeline in Albany. Governor Spitzer was forced out in a prostitution scandal, his Lt. Governor, David Paterson, was pushed to the door in a sex scandal, and his successor, Andrew Cuomo, well you may have heard that story.
No sooner did Cuomo’s Lt. Gov, Kathy Hochul step into his shoes, then she decided to pick Benjamin, a prog with impeccable police-hating credentials to stay on the right side of the Left.
Now, Hochul, who courted the pro-crime vote, is stuck with a criminal on her ticket.
"I'm going to name someone that I believe the state will be familiar with and very proud of," Hochul had said, announcing Benjamin as her pick for her old job after Cuomo stepped down.
There’s a lot to be proud of. Benjamin has set a new state record of being on the job for only 8 months before having to resign to, in his own words, "focus his energies on explaining in court why his actions were laudable-- not criminal."
Also, like Cuomo, Spitzer and Weiner, Benjamin "looks forward to when this case is finished so he can rededicate himself to public service."
At the rate New York Dems are going, his replacement will have also been indicted by then freeing up a spot for Benjamin to just go right back to his old job of helping criminals.
Asked by reporters now about Benjamin's arrest, Hochul piously scolded, “Let’s focus on the fact that there are people in a hospital right now fighting for their lives.”
And some of those people were even shot because of her opposition to bringing back bail.
You can understand why Hochul and the Dem Albany establishment oppose bringing back bail for criminals or enforcing the law. The only people who support criminals… are criminals.
The New York Dem campaign slogan might as well be, "Vote for Us, Until We're Indicted."
Cuomo began his career as Attorney General of New York. His predecessor was Eliot Spitzer, his successor, Eric Schneiderman was forced to resign after multiple women accused him of choking and assaulting them. And that’s without delving into the conflicts of interest.
And now Hochul will be forced to run for the top spot with Benjamin’s name right after hers.
“I have utmost confidence in my lieutenant governor,” Gov. Hochul told reporters on Thursday.
On Tuesday, her confidence may have waned after Benjamin turned himself in to face justice.
Why did Hochul pick Benjamin? Let’s look at his credentials. In his failed bid for State Comptroller, the Harlem politician ran on a platform of defunding the police.
"I support the movement to defund the police," he had declared. After a wave of shootings, the indicted pol falsely claimed that, “more police don’t lead to more community safety”.
Benjamin's anti-police crusade was backed by former Women's March leader Tamika Mallory who claimed that, “Brian has already been an important leader in the Black Lives Matter movement."
The politician in turn presented an official state proclamation honoring the Farrakhan supporter while hailing Mallory as a “freedom fighter like the ones we read about in the history books”.
When Benjamin helped to bring a Black Lives Matter mural to Harlem, Al Sharpton was there. He was endorsed by Calvin Butts and the rest of the race-baiting royalty at the heart of city politics. By embracing him, Hochul hoped to get the support of Sharpton and the gang.
But it’s not as if the charges could have possibly come as a surprise to anyone with a pulse.
There have been lawsuits, ethics charges, and allegations around him ever since Benjamin won a 4% turnout election that took him to the State Senate and then an appointment as Lt. Gov, a position he was as qualified to hold as Hochul, his former boss, or a small ball of earwax.
Many of those scandals involved Benjamin's relationship with Harlem real estate developers and finance people whom he berated in press releases, but cozied up to and profited from.
“I want to thank the entire village of Harlem who helped create this young man who’s going to help us lead the state into better days and prosperity,” Hochul said when picking Benjamin.
Harlem hasn’t been a village since the 17th century.
And the last Harlem politician to become Lt. Governor was David Paterson who had boasted, "The only way I'm not going to be governor next year is at the ballot box and the only way I'll be leaving office before is in a box" before he had to leave office anyway. Unboxed.
Now Benjamin has made everyone proud by, among other things, accepting a $250 campaign donation from a 2-year-old. It may take a village to raise a child, but it takes a child to write a $250 check to the progressive enabler of criminals who is now allegedly a criminal.
And the pro-crime movement once again loses one of its own to crime on the perpetrating end.
That’s nothing new for New York politicians who couldn’t be left alone in a room with a locked safe or a baby with a lollipop without making off with the safe’s contents and the lollipop.
But as New Yorkers wrestle with an unprecedented crime wave brought on by the dismantling of the criminal justice system by police defunders like Benjamin who worked to eliminate bail, shut down prisons, and set criminals loose, this case is a reminder of why they love criminals.
The Black Lives Matter movement and the Left are thick as thieves because they are thieves.
Fighting for the rights of criminals was never really about race, it was about the entitlement of the sorts of people who lie, steal, and kill their way to the top and then want to help their own.
In the wake of escalating violent attacks due to Democrat pro-crime policies, like eliminating bail, Hochul and Benjamin co-wrote an op-ed titled, "Don’t Blame Bail Reform; Do Improve It".
Since Benjamin’s arrest, there has been no word on bail for the police defunder.
When Governor Hochul’s turn comes, maybe she’ll be luckier.
Report: South Carolina Democrat James Clyburn Showers Relatives with Thousands in Campaign Cash
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) has reportedly given multiple family members over $200,000 in campaign cash over the recent years.
The number two Democrat in the House showed on his campaign expenditures, reviewed by Fox News, that five relatives have enjoyed the payday from some of his hefty campaign hauls, equaling upwards of $200,000. Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show that those relatives include two of his daughters, their husbands, and a grandson.
The Democrat’s daughter, Jennifer Clyburn Reed, has taken in $45,000 under “consulting” and campaign management fees” from July and December 2020, according to FEC records.
Fox noted that she has also taken in tens of thousands in “office rent,” but the checks are made out to a limited liability company her husband owns rather than making the checks out to them personally. The campaign has spent $62,500 on rent to a company called 49 Magnolia Blossom LLC since March2020. Business records from the state show that Jennifer Clyburn Reed’s husband, Walter A Reed, is the agent on the LLC.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), accompanied by House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC), speaks to reporters at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on November 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The address from the LLC is the same as Jennifer and Walter’s former home address, which the two purchased in February 2003 but sold the property in April 2021, according to Richland County property records. Payments were reportedly also made to Walter for $650 in May 2021 for “office maintenance lighting.” The campaign’s most recent payment to the LLC was this past fundraising quarter worth $7,500.
Another daughter, Angela Hannibal, has taken in more than $20,000 for truck rentals, canvassing, voter outreach, and catering between April 2018 to October 2019, according to FEC records. Angela Hannibal’s husband, Cecil Hannibal, has also taken in about $70,000 for community and district outreach and travel reimbursements from the campaign committee.
Lastly, Clyburn’s grandson Walter A.C. Reed has received six payments totaling $21,000 from the campaign committee during the first quarter of 2022 for a “campaign management fee.” Overall, Fox News reported that checks to his grandson date back to October 2021 and add up to $35,000.
Clyburn, a top Democrat in the Capitol and who held influence over President Joe Biden during his presidential election, has also appeared to get presidential favors granted for his family. One of his daughters, Jennifer Clyburn Reed, was nominated by Biden to be a federal co-chair of the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission last year and was only narrowly confirmed by the Senate.
On March 29, California governor Gavin Newsom denied parole for Leslie Van Houten, 72, involved in murders committed by followers of Charles Manson in 1969. On April 3, six people were killed and 12 wounded in a mass shooting in downtown Sacramento. The two events are related, but not in the way Californians might suspect.
In the wake of the April 3 massacre, police arrested Dandre Martin and his brother Smiley, who was in possession of a machine gun. Both suspects are African American, both have criminal records, and both were released early from prison.
As the Sacramento Bee reported, Smiley Martin has a record stretching back to 2013, and last year Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert opposed early release from his 10-year sentence for domestic violence and assault with great bodily injury. Hours before the April 3 shooting, Martin appeared in a Facebook video brandishing a handgun.
Dandrae Martin was released from jail in Arizona in 2020 after serving one and a half years on a probation violation. That violation stemmed from a 2016 guilty plea in an aggravated assault. The younger Martin pleaded guilty to punching, kicking and choking a woman who refused to work for him as a prostitute.
Sacramento police also arrested a third suspect, Daviyonne Dawson, 31, seen carrying a firearm in the aftermath of the shootings. As people emerged from bars, the shooters fired more than 100 rounds, killing three women: Johntaya Alexander, 21; Melinda Davis, 57; and Yamile Martinez-Andrade, 21. The three men killed were Sergio Harris, 38; Joshua Hoye-Lucchesi, 32; and Devazia Turner, 29.
Gov. Newsom’s 119-word statement twice decried “gun violence” but named no victims or suspects. The “mass casualty shooting,” Gov. Newsom said, was a “terrible tragedy.” The statement contained no pledge to find the criminals responsible for the murders, and keep such killers off the streets.
Newsom is on record that “there’s no greater political mind in our lifetime than Governor Brown,” a reference to recurring governor Jerry Brown, who twice denied parole to Van Houten. In similar style, Newsom uses a high-profile case to pose as a tough-on-crime governor. The record shows otherwise.
One of Newsom’s first actions as governor was to reprieve 737 convicted murders on California’s death row, the worst of the worst. He also failed to show up for events honoring Ronil “Ron” Singh, a police officer shot dead in late 2018 by an Mexican national with gang connections, illegally present in the United States, and protected from deportation by California’s sanctuary law. For some reason, this particular murder did not launch a crusade against “gun violence.”
For all their savagery, the Sacramento shootings and Manson murders are far from the worst in California history. That distinction belongs to previously deported Juan Corona.
In the early 1970s, Corona murdered and mutilated Charles Fleming, Melford Sample, Donald Smith, John J. Haluka, Warren Kelley, Sigurd Beierman, William Emery Kamp, Clarence Hocking, James W. Howard, Jonah R. Smallwood, Elbert T. Riley, Paul B. Allen, Edward Martin Cupp, Albert Hayes, Raymond Muchache, John H. Jackson, Lloyd Wallace Wenzel, Mark Beverly Shields, Sam Bonafide and Joseph Maczak.
Four others were not identified and not a single victim was Mexican. All but three were white American workers and the others black or Native American. By all indications, nobody wondered whether Corona might have been motivated by racism. Politicians did not blame the knives and machetes Corona used to kill and mutilate his victims.
In 1973, a jury found Corona guilty of murder and sentenced him to 25 consecutive life terms. The mass murder died in prison in 2019 at the age of 85, outliving fellow Corcoran prison inmate Charles Manson, who died at 83 in 2017.
Former Manson follower Leslie Van Houten has been recommended for parole five times, but according to Gov. Newsom, “gaps in insight,” still make her a danger to society. When it comes to violent crime, the governor and many Democrats demonstrate a similar insight gap.
“Gun violence” is a gutless dodge. Criminals disregard gun laws. Early release of violent criminals poses a danger to society. And so on, just kind of a simple thing.
Meanwhile, after the Sacramento shootings, support surged for the recall of San Francisco district attorney Chesa Boudin, named after cop-killer Joanne Chesimard. Black Lives Matter bosses venerate the fugitive, now known as Assata Shakur.
Chesa Boudin has declined to prosecute many criminals and backs the release of most repeat offenders. On June 7, voters get the opportunity to give Boutin the boot. As Donald Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.
2021 was the deadliest year Chicago has witnessed in a quarter of century. The Hill pointed out Chicago police confirmed the city witnessed 797 homicides during the course of 2021.
The Media Set Out To Incite the Next Subway Shooter
Alleged 'execution-style' killing was nothing of the sort
A Washington Free Beaconreport last week from our colleague Charles Lehman put data behind what we all know to be true: that the media harp on violence carried out by whites and downplay it when the perpetrator is black—or should we say "Black."
That report went up on Thursday, the day after police arrested the black nationalist who gunned down 13 people in a Brooklyn subway station. His race—and his professed bigotry against whites and Jews—were either excluded from media reports entirely or described in an anodyne way. The New York Timesdescribed his "harshly bigoted views"—against whom, they could not say.
Then came the release of video from a police shooting in Grand Rapids, Mich., an incident with a white "perpetrator" and a black victim. Video shows 26-year-old Patrick Lyoya fleeing from the unidentified officer before grabbing for the officer's taser. The two struggle on the ground before the officer fatally shoots Lyoya.
The incident became the subject of wall-to-wall news coverage, with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and CNN referring to Lyoya as an "unarmed Black man"—even though he had grabbed the cop's taser.
Add to that the media's uncritical promulgation of the grieving family's claim that Lyoya was "killed like an animal" and family lawyer Benjamin Crump's characterization of the incident as an "execution." Crump pushed his claim on air with MSNBC's racial agitator Al Sharpton, who is set to deliver the eulogy this week. It's no wonder Michiganders spent the weekend protesting. (The press apparently doesn't use pompous fact-checking clauses like "claimed without evidence" unless it's former president Donald Trump or one of his allies who's doing the talking.)
The coverage of the Grand Rapids shooting was so over-the-top that the sober commentary offered by a former cop, Baltimore's Anthony Barksdale, seemed almost out of place. "When you have an individual … trying to take control—or has control—of the officer's equipment, especially a taser, then lethal force is the next level above a taser," Barksdale told CNN. "The test is, what would a reasonable officer do? The issues with the taser, I could see lethal force being used by this officer."
The hysterical media coverage of the incident is surely being consumed by the next subway shooter out there, whose motivations will then be dutifully buried in paragraph 21 of the New York Times report on the tragedy, if they get a mention at all.
Fourteen people were shot, one of them fatally, Friday into Sunday morning in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.
FOX 32 / Chicago Sun-Timesreported that the shooting fatality occurred Sunday morning about 2:20 a.m. “in the 8400 block of South Aberdeen Street.” The victim, a 27-year-old man, was standing outside when the shot rang out. He was hit in the leg and transported to a hospital, where he died.
Breitbart News noted 27 people were shot, six of them fatally, last weekend in Lightfoot’s Chicago.
The Chicago Tribunereported 145 homicides in Chicago January 1, 2022, through April 9, 2022.
2021 was the deadliest year Chicago has witnessed in a quarter of century. The Hill pointed out Chicago police confirmed the city witnessed 797 homicides during the course of 2021.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.
BLACK MAN IS 15xs TO 30xs TIMES MORE LIKELY TO PERPETRATE VIOLENCE!
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A man accused of fatally pushing a woman in front of a freight train in Southern California has been arrested, authorities said.
The woman, whose name has not yet been made public, was hit by the train Monday morning in the city of Riverside, about 55 miles (89 kilometers) from downtown Los Angeles, police said Thursday.
Riverside police said in a statement that the woman and the man, Kevin Errol Lewis, were in an argument next to the railroad tracks that turned physical.
During the altercation, Lewis allegedly shoved the woman he was in a dating relationship with into the path of the train, killing her, police said.
Officers found Lewis, 41, nearby and detained him, police said. He is being held in jail without bail on suspicion of murder and domestic violence, as well as several outstanding warrants for theft and narcotics violations.
Lewis, whom police described as a transient man, is scheduled to appear in court on April 25, online jail records showed. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
The killing was similar to a death in New York City in January that shocked the city after after a woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train beneath Times Square in an apparently unprovoked attack. Police charged Martial Simon, whom authorities said was homeless, in the slaying of Michelle Alyssa Go.
Simon is being held in a hospital prison ward and is scheduled to return to court on Tuesday, online jail and court records show.
The facts that have emerged demonstrate that Black Lives Matter is largely a creation of the corporate media and the Democratic Party, not a genuine expression of insurgent popular opposition to the pervasive brutality and social inequality of American society. The revelations illustrate the venal and privileged social layers whose interests are expressed by the elevation of race, rather than class, as the essential dividing line in society.
Black Lives Matter purchases $6 million property with donation money
Allegations of financial mismanagement among supposed leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM)—as well as questions surrounding the true character of the organization—continue to unfold following a recent New York Magazine report revealing the group purchased a $6 million luxury home in southern California with money that had been donated to the BLMGNF (Black Lives Matter Global Network Fund, the official title of the only actual national organization).
Patrisse Cullors speaking in Tottenham, north London as part of the Ferguson Solidarity Tour, January 2015.
According to the report, BLMGNF bought the 6,500 square-foot property, complete with seven bedrooms and bathrooms, a sound stage and music studio, a pool, and parking for almost 20 cars, in October 2020, to serve as a “safehouse” and headquarters for BLM leadership to create social media content. Last June, three BLM leaders—Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah—recorded a video outside the property while marking the first anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.
The report has further fueled questions about BLM’s finances barely a year after it released the first look into its finances. The foundation said it collected over $90 million in 2020 alone and committed $21.7 million in funding to various BLM chapters and grassroots organizations. With its operating budget set at $8.4 million, more than $60 million was unaccounted for.
BLM released an official statement defending the purchase of the mansion while simultaneously performing damage control, promising to “provide clarity” and to increase “transparency and accountability.”
“Despite past efforts, BLMGNF recognizes that there is more work to do to increase transparency and ensure transitions in leadership are clear,” said a tweet from the official BLM account. “We are redoubling our efforts to provide clarity about BLMGNF’s work. In the coming weeks, we will unveil new initiatives to increase transparency and accountability, and to continue reshaping what radical philanthropy looks like for Black people.”
BLM sought to justify the purchase of the California mansion, which they call the “Creator House,” by arguing that it was made to encourage “Black creativity” which is “necessary and vital to Black survival.”
“That’s why Creator’s House was purchased—to provide a space for Black folks to share their gifts with the world and hone their craft as they see fit, under the conditions that work best for them and outside systems of oppression in creative industries.”
Patrisse Cullors, co-founder and former executive director of BLMGNF, and Melina Abdullah, co-director of BLM Grassroots, spoke to reporters Monday in a closed roundtable discussion, according to NBC News, where the pair dismissed recent allegations as media attacks and “misinformation.” Cullors and Abdullah claimed that the purchase of the multimillion dollar property was out of concern for the leaders’ safety.
“Almost immediately upon closing, the attacks on me, and BLM, which also means Melina and others, escalated,” Cullors said. She also claimed that she stayed at the home for four nights while the FBI investigated a death threat against her. “So we did use the campus as a haven, as a safe place. That derailed an announcement strategy. Conditions changed, and that’s it.”
Chelsea Fuller, who moderated the discussion, said BLM’s current leadership declined to be part of the discussion and a spokesperson for the organization said that “the Foundation intends to do its own media in the near future.” Cullors officially stepped down as executive director a year ago and it is currently unclear who is in control of the organization and its tens of millions of dollars in donations.
The cash for the purchase came from $66.5 million that had just come in to BLMGNF from donor contributions. Pascall then quickly resold to a Delaware-based LLC, a maneuver that concealed the actual final owner of the property, who remains unidentified.
Last week’s revelations are just the most recent in a long line of allegations that expose the fraudulent nature of BLMGNF. Rather than being a genuine hub of expression for the mass opposition to police brutality, the group speaks for privileged sections of the middle class seeking to cash in on the promotion of racial politics to advance their own positions within the state and corporate America.
The Democratic Party and corporate media have incessantly promoted illusions in racial identity politics as part of an effort to promote racial divisions and obscure common class interests of all workers, including in the fight against police violence.
After the eruption of mass multi-racial protests against police violence triggered by George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, the Democratic Party and its pseudo-left allies worked to redirect popular opposition to police violence into racialist identity politics while promoting illusions that the police can be reformed.
In an article covering the numerous financial scandals of Black Lives Matter, the World Socialist Web Site explained the true character of the organization:
The facts that have emerged demonstrate that Black Lives Matter is largely a creation of the corporate media and the Democratic Party, not a genuine expression of insurgent popular opposition to the pervasive brutality and social inequality of American society. The revelations illustrate the venal and privileged social layers whose interests are expressed by the elevation of race, rather than class, as the essential dividing line in society.
The deadly force police regularly employ against the population is an inevitable result of a society riven with inequality and social contradictions. The victims of the police are of every race, ethnicity and gender—predominantly poor and working class. The fight against police brutality and racism can be won only through the abolition of the capitalist system and the struggle for socialism.
A BLACK MAN IS 15xs TO 30xs TIMES MORE LIKELY TO PERPETRATE VIOLENCE!
The Marxist millionaire cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement broke down on Friday when discussing tax forms her organization is required to disclose about its finances.
"It is such a trip now to hear the term ‘990,'" Patrisse Cullors said at a speaking engagement in Washington state, referring to the IRS form that discloses charities' finances. "I'm, like, ugh. It's, like, triggering." Cullors, who purchased millions of dollars' worth in real estate from her perch as BLM's executive director, also said that she "did not know what 990s were" until recently and felt "deeply unsafe" having to fill one out for the nonprofit.
The event was first reported by the Washington Examiner‘s Andrew Kerr, who in January also reported how BLM has no apparent leader after Cullors's resignation in May 2021 and how the group still won't say who is responsible for overseeing $60 million in funds.
Black Lives Matter raised more than $90 million in 2020. Its finances, including Cullors's purchase of four homes for $3.2 million in the same year, became public following its 990 disclosures in 2021. Cullors stepped down from her position as executive director shortly afterward.
Black Lives Matter has also faced criticism for its exorbitant spending, including its purchase of a $6 million mansion in Los Angeles.
"This is being literally weaponized against us, against the people we work with," Cullors said on Friday of the disclosures.
A Black Lives Matter charitable organization is in hot water following reports that it used donor funds to secretlypurchase a $6 million mansion in Los Angeles. The group has claimed the massive house, known as "Campus," is "part of the cultural arm of the [organization]—potentially as an ‘influencer house,' where abolition+ based content is produced by artists & creatives." Meanwhile, local activist groups have complained that the charity, the BLM Global Network Foundation, has ignored their pleas for support. Others have accused the group of exploiting racially charged tragedies to raise money.
The Washington Free Beacon has reviewed photographs and realtor descriptions of the luxurious property in the posh Studio City neighborhood. Here are 10 of the most decadent details of the Black Lives Matter mansion that will make you want to quit your job and start making dope-ass TikToks about white fragility and defunding the police.
1) Lots of parking!
Can fit up to 24 Ferraris.
2) Lots of security! (In case they succeed in abolishing the police)
Walls work. So do pointy spears and home security systems.
3) Lots of history!
Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe were among the Hollywood celebs who stayed as guests at the luxurious estate, built in 1936.
4) This grand piano!
5) This amazing swing set with twirly tube slide!
6) All this closet space! (And butler's pantry!)
7) This epic content cave! (An influencer's dream!)
8) This automatic paper towel dispenser! (Fancy!)
9) All these fireplaces! (For incinerating problematic financial statements)
And heat lamps for the frigid Los Angeles winters. One of the fireplaces was imported all the way from Italy, while another features a "handmade arto cement tile hearth." Nice!
10) This adorable indoctrination desk! (Awww!)
Bonus: This American flag!
(Note: The photo was taken prior to BLM purchase.)
Tony Dungy, the first black coach ever to win a Super Bowl, might have escaped notice this week had he merely supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s “Responsible Fatherhood Initiative.” His real sin was to explain why.
Dungy, a Christian father or eleven, recounted a conversation he had years back with the Rev. Abe Brown about Brown’s prison ministry. At Brown’s request, Dungy accompanied him to prison. Expecting to find hardened criminals, Dungy found instead “19- and 20- and 21-year-old kids who looked like my boys.” When Dungy asked what accounted for the young men’s incarceration, Brown told him, “It’s not socioeconomic. It’s not racial. It’s not education. It’s none of that. Ninety-five percent of these boys did not grow up with their dad.”
Said Dungy, “That hit me.” Predictably, Dungy’s truth-telling stirred the woke beehive. “Dungy standing there cackling,” tweeted former ESPN commentator Keith Olbermann, “a fascist political prop.”
“Fathers are extremely important, but yeah,” tweeted Jemele Hill, also formerly with ESPN, “that ain’t how this works. If a father is in the home and can’t find a job, then what?”
Deadspin, which comically positions itself as “sports news without fear, favor, or compromise,” headlined its article on the DeSantis initiative, “Tony Dungy is constantly used as a prop by bigots.” Reporter Carron Phillips could find little to fault in the initiative itself but took offense that Dungy would appear with DeSantis who, in his unbiased opinion, had made Florida “arguably the worst state in the nation.”
Undaunted, Dungy fired back exactly as warranted. “2 days ago I spoke on behalf of a Florida bill that supports dads & families and it offended some people,” tweeted Dungy. “14 yrs ago Pres Obama said the same things almost verbatim. I’m assuming people were outraged at him too.” Added Dungy defiantly, “I am serving the Lord so I’ll keep supporting dads and families.”
In the tweet, Dungy quoted Obama’s comments from 2008, underlining the words that confirmed the Rev. Brown’s thesis. “We know the statistics,” said Obama, “that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
There is much more to this story. Ideally, someone else of authority in the black community will tell it. In fact, Obama made this speech on Father’s Day 2008, while veering toward the Christian center after Hillary had dropped out of the presidential race. The setting was the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. “Here at Apostolic,” said Obama, after quoting from the Sermon on the Mount, “you are blessed to worship in a house that has been founded on the rock of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.”
“Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important,” Obama continued. “And we are called to recognize and honor how critical every father is to that foundation.” Obama spoke here from the heart. More than any previous presidential memoir, his recent memoir, A Promised Land, is a tribute to the joys and responsibilities of fatherhood. Would that all children in America could grow up with the love and support Malia and Sasha have enjoyed. Far too many have not. Obama knew this.
“But if we are honest with ourselves,” Obama continued, “we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing—missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.” Obama proceeded to explain the consequences of fatherlessness in words that could have come from Tony Dungy.
“You and I know how true this is in the African-American community,” said Obama. “We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled—doubled—since we were children. We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.”
Here, Obama correctly identified family breakdown—not racism, not police brutality, not even the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow—as the reason America’s inner cities have become the most dangerous and dysfunctional in the developed world. This breakdown, he strongly implied, was a byproduct of the modern welfare state. Just as pointedly, Obama acknowledged that the problem was getting worse, exponentially worse.
This was a message the progressive left was no more eager to hear then than now. Chicago’s most prominent baby daddy, Jesse Jackson, let Obama know how unwelcome was his truth-telling. Three weeks after Father’s Day, Jackson was “overheard” talking to another black guest on a hot mic at the Fox News studio. The cynic suspects that Jackson wanted his message to be heard, and he knew that at Fox would someone think to leak it. If so, he got his way.
Said Jackson, “See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based—I wanna cut his nuts out.” Here Jackson made a sharp slicing motion with his hands and continued, “Barack—he’s talking down to black people—telling n*****s how to behave.” (Jackson, I should clarify, did not speak in asterisks.) Jackson later apologized but without even feigning sincerity. Obama seems to have gotten the message. From that day forward, Jackson’s weary, self-destructive wokism carried the day as it had since he assumed leadership of the flailing civil rights movement forty years prior. Obama never spoke meaningfully about fatherhood again.
He had plenty of opportunities. In 2012, Obama might have recounted how paternal abandonment had turned Trayvon Martin from a promising student into a drugged and angry street fighter. Instead, Obama identified his fate with Trayvon’s. George Zimmerman’s rightful acquittal in Trayvon’s death led directly to the formation of Black Lives Matter.
A year after the trial, Obama identified with Ferguson’s deeply troubled Michael Brown, a wayward young man whose home life made even Trayvon’s seem structured. The result of the BLM-inspired riots that followed Brown’s death was what criminologists call the “Ferguson Effect”: the police withdraw, the gangs fill the void, and black people die in the streets. Thousands of them.
This is what Obama wrought. Dungy peeled back the first layer of the onion. Someone needs to keep peeling.
To learn more about Jack Cashill’s most recent book, Barack Obama’s Promised Land: Deplorables Need Not Apply, please see www.cashill.com.
Yes, the Media Bury the Race of Murderers—If They’re Not White
Free Beacon analysis shows how homicide coverage downplays the race of minority offenders
Brooklyn shooting suspect Frank James / Getty ImagesCharles Fain Lehman • April 14, 2022 5:00 am
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Frank James, the man arrested for Tuesday's New York City subway shooting, is a black nationalist and outspoken racist who railed against whites, Jews, and Hispanics. A careful reader of the New York Times could be forgiven for overlooking that. In a nearly 2,000-word article on the attack, James's race is not mentioned. The same is true for the coverage offered up by Reuters; the Washington Postonly mentioned James's race in relation to his condemnation of training programs for "low-income Black youths."
Media critics on the right say that the conspicuous omission of James's race from these news reports illustrates a trend among prestige papers, which deemphasize or omit the race of non-white criminals while playing up the race of white offenders. But is it a real pattern?
Yes. A Washington Free Beacon review of hundreds of articles published by major papers over a span of two years finds that papers downplay the race of non-white offenders, mentioning their race much later in articles than they do for white offenders. These papers are also three to four times more likely to mention an offender's race at all if he is white, a disparity that grew in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020 and the protests that followed.
The Free Beacon collected data on nearly 1,100 articles about homicides from six major papers, all written between 2019 and 2021. Those papers included the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, San Francisco Chronicle, and Minneapolis's Star-Tribune—representatives of each paper did not return requests for comment for this article. For each article, we collected the offender's and victim's name and race, and noted where in the article the offender's race was mentioned, if at all.
The data suggest an alarming editorial trend in which major papers routinely omit information from news reports, presenting readers with a skewed picture of who does and doesn't commit crime. These editorial choices are part and parcel with the "racial reckoning" that swept newsrooms in the wake of Floyd's murder, which saw journalists dramatically overhauling crime coverage to emphasize the view that the criminal justice system is racist at the root—perhaps at the expense of honesty about individual offenders' crimes.
The chart above indicates that papers are far quicker to mention the race of white murderers than black. (Those two races account for 92 percent of mentions in the data, so others are not shown.) Half of articles about a white offender mention his race within the first 15 percent of the article. In articles about black offenders, by contrast, mentions come overwhelmingly toward the end of the piece. Half of the articles that mention a black offender's race do not do so until at least 60 percent of the way through, and more than 20 percent save it until the last fifth of the article.
Of course, journalists choose not only where in a piece to mention an offender's race, but also whether to mention it at all, and omissions can skew a reader's perspective.
To measure these choices, we identified the race of the offender in roughly 900 stories where his name, but not his race, was mentioned, first by looking at the race of people with the same name in Census data, and then hand-confirming race based on mug shots or other images published in local news stories.
Doing so permits an estimate of how often journalists highlight an offender's race—or don't. Again, the skew is startling: White offenders' race was mentioned in roughly 1 out of every 4 articles, compared with 1 in 17 articles about a black offender and 1 in 33 articles about a Hispanic offender.
This effect is driven in part by a handful of major news stories involving white perpetrators, though the attention paid to these stories is also an editorial choice. But even after omitting reports about white offenders Kyle Rittenhouse, Derek Chauvin, and the killers of Ahmaud Arbery, the race of white offenders is mentioned in 16 percent of cases, two to three times the rate at which the race of black offenders is mentioned. (Middle Eastern offenders were labeled as Asian in this analysis, but labeling them as white results in only a small change to the race mention rate.)
This disparity widened following George Floyd's murder. Before May of 2020, papers were roughly twice as likely to mention the race of a white (13 percent of stories) versus a black perpetrator (7 percent). After May of 2020, the numbers were 28 percent and 4 percent, a ratio of seven to one. Even omitting the above-mentioned stories, papers still mentioned race in 23 percent of stories about white killers post-Floyd, a six-to-one ratio.
It could be that there were more stories in which a white offender's race was relevant after Floyd's death than before. But it is also easy to see how the increased attention to white murderers represents a change in what reporters and editors thought it was, and was not, important for their readers to hear about, particularly after they publicly committed to revamping their crime reporting following Floyd's death.
Newspapers across the country—including the Inquirer—stopped publishing mugshot galleries in part because, two Florida newspapers wrote, they "may have reinforced negative stereotypes." Others committed to overhauling their language, substituting phrases like "formerly incarcerated person" for "felon" to respond to what the Poynter Institute described as an "inextricabl[e]" link between reporting on crime and "race and racism." And the Associated Press amended its style guide to discourage the use of the word "riot," which allegedly has racist connotations.
At the same time, major newsrooms have prioritized "racial justice" coverage, part of a push for what the journalist-cum-activist Wesley Lowery called "moral clarity" over "objectivity": writing news reports that take the sides on contested issues with the goal of advancing a political objective.
Such "moral clarity" may mean downplaying black crime and emphasizing white crime. In the case of offenders like James, it means leaving readers in the dark about an important element of the story—journalistic malfeasance that is, of course, in service of the greater good.
Charles Fain Lehman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.
A few years ago, a friend from Brazil visited Los Angeles and was appalled with what he saw. He called it a third world country, a rather amazing comment since my friend lives in Sao Paulo. He said that LA is not what he remembered 25 years ago. It was sad, or so he said.
Well, California is in decline no matter how wonderful the climate is. Just ask the people who live there like Joel Kotkin:
Despite the state’s myriad advantages, research shows it plagued by economic immobility and inequality, crushing housing and energy costs, and a failing education system.
Worse than just a case of progressive policies creating regressive outcomes, it appears California is descending into something resembling modern-day feudalism, with the poor and weak trapped by policies subsidized by taxes paid by the rich and powerful.
California may conjure images of Rodeo Drive and Malibu mansions in the public imagination, but today the state suffers the highest cost-adjusted poverty rate in the U.S.
The poor and near-poor constitute over one third -- well over 10 million -- of the state’s residents according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
Los Angeles, by far the state’s largest metropolitan area, and once a magnet for middle class aspirations, has one of the highest poverty rates among major U.S. cities.
A United Way of California analysis shows that over 30 percent of residents lack sufficient income to cover basic living costs even after accounting for public-assistance programs; this includes half of Latino and 40 percent of black residents.
Some two-thirds of noncitizen Latinos live at or below the poverty line.
How does such a failed state survive? Well, the rich live in well-protected gated communities and attend a climate change seminar often to feel relevant. The poor, and whatever is left of the middle class, have to survive the crime, high cost of living and a collapse of law and order.
Normally, such a political class would be thrown out of office by angry voters. Incredibly, the Democrats have achieved the winning formula: they win elections while refusing to take care of their constituents. I don't know how they do it but they do it.
So don't expect anyone to record a tune about California dreaming.
PS: Click for my videos and podcasts at Canto Talk.
Frank R. James, the 62-year-old person of interest in the Brooklyn Subway mass shooting on Tuesday, had a history of incendiary social media posts. He used them to rant about coming race wars, gun violence, homeless people, and how outreach workers are “homosexual predators.”
On Tuesday morning, 10 people were shot in a Brooklyn subway station while another 13 were injured. Sunday night, just days before the Brooklyn attack, the primary person of interest Frank R. James ranted in a YouTube video about how the war in Ukraine could bring about a race war to exterminate black people.
Warning: Extreme language follows…
“They’re white, you’re not. They’re doing that to each other? What do they think they’re going to do to you?” he said. “It’s just a matter of time before these white motherfuckers say, ‘Hey listen, enough is enough, these n*****s gotta go.’ What’re you going to do? You gonna fight. And guess what? You gonna die.”
A person is aided outside a subway car in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. A gunman filled a rush-hour subway train with smoke and shot multiple people, leaving wounded commuters bleeding on a Brooklyn platform as others ran screaming, authorities said. (Will B Wylde via AP)
In another video posted on April 11, James ranted about how he “wanted to kill people.”
“I’ve been through a lot of shit, where I can say I wanted to kill people,” he said. “I wanted to watch them die right in front of my fucking face immediately. But I thought about the fact, ‘Hey, I don’t want to go to no fucking prison. Fuck that! I’m not going to no fucking prison. I’m just not.”
In another video posted on March 27, James ranted against homeless people in New York City’s subway system and criticized Mayor Eric Adams.
“Eric Adams, Eric Adams, what the fuck, what are you doing, brother? What’s happening with this homeless situation? I got on the E train, every fucking car … every car I went to was loaded with homeless people,” he said.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the department did not consider James’ comments as threats against Adams.
New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell speaks at a news briefing on April 12, 2022 in New York City. A gunman in a gas mask and construction vest set off a smoke grenade and opened fire on a subway today at the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Authorities named 62-year-old Philadelphia man Frank R. James as a person of interest. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
“We’re not calling them threats. He made some concerning posts, or someone made some concerning posts,” she said. “They were general topics of concern. Complaints about homelessness, complaints about New York.”
Another video from February 20 featured James talking about dealing with mental health outreach workers through the 1970s and 1990s, referring to them as “homosexual predators.”
“So as you listen to the mayor talking about how they want to bring in health workers, they want to help the homeless … there’s no help. It’s going to fail! Because all these motherfuckers are predators. They’re homosexual predators trying to turn everybody out,” he said.
His Facebook page listed under the name Frank Whitaker featured a variety of incendiary posts and links, including a video in which he discussed how to make a bomb. He also lamented about the newly minted Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson marrying a white man.
Five people have been shot and injured in the New York City subway system Tuesday morning just prior to 8:30 AM, according to emerging reports.
UPDATE 2: The Associated Press reports at least 10 people were shot and “29 in all were treated at hospitals for gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation and other conditions.” Police also reportedly “found a rental truck possibly connected to the violence.”
UPDATE: CNN reports FDNY spokesperson Amanda Farinacci indicates “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured following a shooting at a Brooklyn subway this morning,”
The New York Postreports police think the attacker set off a “smoke grenade” before discharging the weapon.
The Post notes “at least five people were shot in the third car of the train and others were injured by smoke inhalation. A pregnant woman was among those hospitalized.”
Original story continues below:
NBC New York identifies the location of the incident as the Brooklyn subway station and notes that “several law enforcement sources said the shooter may have thrown a device before opening fire.”
The New York Timesreports while investigators are unsure if explosives were detonated during the attack they have ascertained since “that no active explosive devices had been found at the scene.”
Police and emergency responders gather at the site of a reported shooting of multiple people outside of the 36 St subway station on April 12, 2022 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty)
Members of the New York Police Department and emergency personel crowd the streets near the scene (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
NBC New York observes that “several undetonated devices were also found at the location.”
Police are searching for the attacker, who is described as being “5 feet 5 inches tall and 180 pounds…[and] wearing a gas mask and an orange construction vest.”
Police and emergency responders gather at the site of a reported shooting of multiple people outside of the 36 St subway station on April 12, 2022 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty)
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange
NYPD Releases Photo of Frank James, ‘Person of Interest’ in Subway Shooting
The NYPD released a photo of Frank James hours after the NYC subway attack, referring to James as a “person of interest.”
Breitbart News reported that Tuesday’s subway attack occurred just before 8:30 a.m. Initial reports said that five people were shot and numerous others injured but CNN later quoted New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spokesperson Amanda Farinacci indicating, “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured following a shooting at a Brooklyn subway.”
With a manhunt for the shooting suspect underway, New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell described the suspect in Tuesday’s New York City subway attack as a black male, approximately 5′ 5″ tall, “with a heavy build,” and wearing a green “construction-type vest with a hooded sweatshirt.”
BronxNews12 reported, “Frank James as a person of interest in the shooting.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange
New York City Manhunt: Police Describe Subway Suspect as Black Male in ‘Construction-Type Vest’
New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell described the suspect in Tuesday’s New York City subway attack as a black male, approximately 5′ 5″ tall, “with a heavy build,” and wearing a green “construction-type vest with a hooded sweatshirt.”
Breitbart News reported that the attack occurred just before 8:30 a.m. Initial reports said that five people were shot and numerous others injured.
As time passed, CNN noted New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spokesperson Amanda Farinacci indicated, “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured following a shooting at a Brooklyn subway.”
ABC News reports that the suspect allegedly used “a .380 handgun” to carry out the attack.
Commissioner Sewell said the shooter “donned what appeared to be a gas mask. He then took a canister out of his bag and opened it.” She indicated the subway train then filled with smoke and he opened fire.
A manhunt for the suspect is underway. The suspect is described as dangerous, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is urging New Yorker to be vigilant and use caution.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange
Democrat New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin Resigns After Arrest on Bribery Conspiracy Indictment
Democrat New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin resigned from office hours after his arrest on Tuesday on a federal bribery conspiracy indictment, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced.
Hochul, who selected Benjamin to serve as her Lt. Gov. less than a year ago, said:
I have accepted Brian Benjamin’s resignation effective immediately. While the legal process plays out, it is clear to both of us that he cannot continue to serve as Lieutenant Governor. New Yorkers deserve absolute confidence in their government, and I will continue working every day to deliver for them.
Benjamin’s resignation came hours after he surrendered to federal authorities and was arrested and charged with one count of federal bribery, one count of wire fraud, one county of conspiracy to commit those crimes, and two counts of falsifying records.
Benjamin was accused of participating in a scheme to obtain campaign contributions from a real estate developer in exchange for Benjamin’s agreement to use his influence as a state senator to get a $50,000 grant of state funds for a nonprofit organization the developer controlled.
[…]
The indictment said Benjamin and others acting at his direction or on his behalf also engaged in a series of lies and deceptions to cover up the scheme.
They falsified campaign donor forms, misled municipal regulators and provided false information in vetting forms Benjamin submitted while he was being considered to be appointed as lieutenant governor, the indictment said.
United States Attorney Damian Williams called Benjamin’s actions “a quid pro quo.”
“This is a simple story of corruption. Taxpayer money for campaign contributions. A quid quo pro. This for that. That’s bribery, plain and simple,” Williams said during a press conference shortly before Benjamin’s resignation.
Williams also said Benjamin “abused his power” in a written statement.
“As alleged, Brian Benjamin used his power as a New York state senator to secure a state-funded grant in exchange for contributions to his own political campaigns,” Williams said. “By doing so, Benjamin abused his power and effectively used state funds to support his political campaigns.”
Hochul, who became New York’s governor after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, is running for a full term as governor this year with Benjamin as her running mate.
Although Benjamin resigned, his name will likely still appear on the Democrat primary ballot this June. “Because Mr. Benjamin was designated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, his name could only be removed at this point if he were to move out of the state, die or seek another office,” the New York Timesreported.
How Spotify Is Pushing To Abolish Police and Prisons
Spotify's Abolition X podcast pushes far-left policies, labels America 'white supremacist' state
Black Lives Matter riots in Atlanta in July 2020 / Getty ImagesCollin Anderson • April 11, 2022 5:00 am
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A Spotify original podcast featuring Black Lives Matter cofounder and "trained Marxist" Patrisse Cullors calls for abolishing police and prisons, labels America a "white supremacist" state, and contends that the severely mentally ill are actually "shamans" and "spiritual guides."
Spotify launchedAbolition X, which "focuses on alternatives to police, jails, and punishment," in February. And while the podcast is chock-full of anti-police and anti-prison rhetoric, it "isn't just about getting rid of police and prisons," Spotify said in a press release. Indeed, hosts Vic Mensa, Indigo Mateo, and Richie Reseda—and their guests—often wade into other topics.
One episode, for example, says gender is merely "an expression." "Gender is, like, swag, you know?" says Reseda, a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to two armed robberies in 2011. "For real, gender is literally a way of expressing one's self. Like, that's really all it is." Another episode on mental health featuring Cullors encourages listeners to microdose mushrooms, calls former president Ronald Reagan "Satan," and even labels bipolar and schizophrenic people as "shamans" whom we "throw … away" because "they don't serve capitalism."
"I'm also a firm believer, especially with people who have severe mental illness, that many of those folks are, like, shamans, and are spiritual guides," Cullors says. "And in this context of capitalism we throw them away. We don't know what to do with them—they don't serve capitalism."
Spotify's release of Abolition X came as the company navigated public scrutiny surrounding its exclusive deal to host The Joe Rogan Experience. After Rogan posted an episode featuring virologist Robert Malone that questioned Democratic policies on COVID-19, musicians asked Spotify to remove their music from the platform, prompting the company to delete thousands of podcast episodes for spreading virus "misinformation."
When it comes to Abolition X, however, Spotify seems to have no problem endorsing far-left policies that are extremely unpopular with both the American people as a whole and black Americans specifically. Just 28 percent of black Americans support the movement to defund police, a 2021 USA Today poll found. Three out of four Americans, meanwhile, say the movement to defund police "is a reason that violent crime is increasing in the United States."
Spotify's Abolition X isn't just out of touch with the American public—the policies it promotes could lead to disastrous consequences. According to a 2021 Manhattan Institute report, liberal "crime reduction" programs in Chicago did little to reduce gun and gang homicides. In Pittsburgh, violence actually went up after a similar program was introduced. High police presences in neighborhoods, on the other hand, are proven to reduce crime.
Spotify did not return a request for comment.
Conversations on gender and mental health aside, Abolition X‘s bread and butter consists of discussions centered on dismantling America's police and prisons. In Cullors's Feb. 15 episode, the hosts open the show by explicitly calling to "replace police and prisons" with "mental health care." Reseda later argues that "people who break the law" do not have a "moral problem" that requires criminal justice. Instead, the host says, people commit crimes solely due to "a health problem they're having" that requires treatment. Mensa goes on to contend that those mental health issues exist as a byproduct of America's status as an "uber-capitalist, white supremacist, violent-ass state."
Cullors's musings on the podcast include similar denunciations of capitalism. At one point, the BLM cofounder argues that in a "capitalist world," the "self doesn't exist for black women," because they "are at service to everybody." Less than a year before she joined the podcast, Cullors purchased four high-end U.S. homes for $3.2 million. Mere weeks after the episode's release, meanwhile, New York magazine revealed that, under Cullors's leadership, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation purchased a $6 million Southern California mansion in cash using funds donated to the group. Cullors later resigned from her role as executive director of the foundation in order to focus on a multiyear television deal with Warner Bros.
Watson Video: The Brooklyn Subway Attack
The suspect is a black supremacist. THAT'S awkward.
Video commentator Paul Joseph Watson is back exploring the media discomfort over the inconvenient fact that the suspect in the recent NYC subway shooting is a -- wait for it -- black supremacist.
More than a dozen Los Angeles gangs are targeting some of the city's wealthiest residents in a new and aggressive manner, sending out crews in multiple cars to find, follow and rob people driving high-end vehicles or wearing expensive jewelry, according to police.
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LAPD: Gangs have sent out crews to follow and rob L.A.'s mega-rich
In many cases, they're making off with designer handbags, diamond-studded watches and other items worth tens of thousands of dollars — if not more — and then peddling them to black-market buyers who are willing to turn a blind eye to the underlying violence, police said.
In some cases, suspects have been arrested but then released from custody, according to police, only to commit additional robberies.
Those are among the conclusions of a Los Angeles Police Department task force convened at the end of last year to identify the cause of a sudden surge in "follow home," or "follow off," robberies, so called because victims are robbed soon after leaving luxury boutiques and hotels, ritzy restaurants, trendy nightclubs and other locations where the gangs are scouting for targets.
According to Capt. Jonathan Tippet, who spearheads the task force, police have identified at least 17 gangs, most based out of South L.A. and operating independently, that are involved. There were 165 such robberies in 2021 and 56 so far this year, he said, including several over the weekend.
The area with the most robberies during that time was the LAPD's Hollywood Division, with 50, followed by 46 in the Wilshire Division and 40 in the Central Division, which includes downtown. The Pacific Division had 17, West L.A. 15, North Hollywood 14 and Topanga 11.
Tippet did not say how many robberies police attributed to which gangs, but said individuals allegedly affiliated with both the Bloods and Crips have been identified among the culprits. Suspects who police have identified have pleaded not guilty, and their cases are pending. The task force is still working to build cases against other suspects.
Through surveillance video and other evidence, police have identified crews rolling three to five cars deep in some of the attacks, Tippet said, with gang members jumping out and blindsiding victims.
"There's no chance or opportunity for these victims even to comply. They're just running up to people and attacking them, whether that's putting a gun in their face or punching them and beating on them," Tippet said. "Pistol whipping them as well."
In some cases, police determined that gang members inside high-end venues served as "spotters" for those outside, Tippet said, alerting them when wealthy targets were heading out.
Shots have been fired in 23 cases, and two victims have been killed, said Tippet, who also heads the LAPD's Robbery-Homicide Division, which investigates high-profile crimes.
"In my 34 years on the job, I've never seen anything like this," he said.
The trend, in a city known for opulence as well as extreme poverty, comes at a time when crime overall is under a microscope — with homicides, shootings and armed robberies all at elevated levels since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and candidates in the city's ongoing mayoral race denouncing those increases as they vie for voters and wealthy donors.
That intense focus has also caused some consternation among activists and criminal justice reform advocates, who worry that wealthy residents with political clout and politicians eager to please them will use the trend — based in part on fraught and sometimes false police assessments of gang involvement — to claw back past policing reforms.
One prominent activist, Hamid Khan, on Tuesday accused the LAPD of "week after week of sensationalism" about crime in the city, suggesting police were blowing crime trends out of proportion to maintain their grip on the city's budget.
"LAPD has to constantly legitimize itself, constantly has to make itself useful to the community, by raising this specter of people running wild," Khan said.
Police said their intent is simply to draw attention to — and halt — a serious and potentially deadly surge in armed robberies.
Still, much of the increasing violence has affected not the wealthy, but the city's more vulnerable populations, such as people who are homeless or live in poor communities, and receives little notice.
The follow-off robberies first started gaining attention toward the end of last year, when the number of incidents spiked dramatically and celebrities started to fall victim — including actor and former BET host Terrence Jenkins and "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" star Dorit Kemsley.
In a four-week period from September to October, there were 45 follow-off robberies. In November, there were another 39, Tippet said.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore announced the formation of the task force that month. Tippet briefed the civilian Police Commission on the task force's work since then on Tuesday.
He said the task force has made 24 robbery arrests involving 47 robberies, as well as 16 gun arrests and six attempted murder arrests. It also has arrested four people for murder in the two homicides it has investigated, he said.
Along the way, the task force has served 278 search warrants, Tippet said, nearly 200 of which were to search digital media or other technology, 35 for homes and 20 for vehicles.
In an interview with The Times, Tippet said the task force's efforts have made a substantial difference, driving down the number of incidents to just 10 in March.
However, robberies have ticked back up again in recent weeks, and the trend is still a major concern, he said, in part because those same suspects keep getting released from jail and reoffending while awaiting trial.
"I am absolutely frustrated," he said.
Similar frustration was shared last week by Moore, when he took the unusual step of briefing the Police Commission on the alleged actions of one such suspect: 18-year-old Matthew Adams.
Adams, according to Moore, was involved in eight separate follow-off robberies over a sixth-month period starting last fall, including one in which two UCLA students were robbed of two watches worth nearly $145,000 after leaving a club, a second in which two foreign tourists were robbed of watches worth $73,000, and a third in which $51,000 in property was stolen.
During the course of the eight robberies, which occurred between September and February, Adams was arrested three times. The first time was on Jan. 9, when Moore said Adams was found in a car that had been used in one of the robberies and where a gun was also found. Online court records show no charges were ever filed against Adams in that case, suggesting prosecutors were unconvinced they could win a conviction.
Adams was arrested again on Jan. 27 and a third time on Feb. 21, and in both cases charged with illegal gun possession. Court records show he was ordered released each time without having to pay bail. The reason was a pandemic-related rule, aimed at reducing the jail population, that requires L.A. County defendants to be released without posting bail for certain offenses.
Adams, who could not be reached for comment, has since been arrested a fourth time on charges related to seven robberies, to which he has pleaded not guilty. The public defender's office, which represented him during his arraignment, declined to comment on the case. He remains in custody, according to court records.
Moore said Adams' earlier and repeated releases from custody endangered public safety, and that people who are repeatedly arrested for gun crimes should not be let out before trial. He also suggested that prosecutors played a part by not seeking certain charging enhancements to those brought against Adams that might have kept him in jail.
Moore said he was "disappointed" that "the full weight of our existing laws" was not brought down on Adams — not only to hold him accountable, but to provide a disincentive for other would-be robbers who might think such crimes are going unpunished in L.A.
When asked about Moore's claims, a spokesman for L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón's office said Adams was not legally eligible for gun enhancements on the two possession charges.
Gascón's office did file gun enhancements in the latest case against Adams, the spokesman said.
In a separate case, a man named Cheyenne Hale, 25, was arrested this month on suspicion of participating in the armed robbery of a man in downtown L.A. in October in which two watches estimated to be worth about $600,000 were stolen.
Police said they recovered a loaded gun from Hale during his arrest and that detectives in Tippet's unit later found seven additional handguns, $21,000 in cash and "a large quantity of drugs" including cocaine and methamphetamine when they served a search warrant at Hale's home.
Nonetheless, Hale — who could not be reached for comment — has since been released from custody, according to court records.
Following Moore's presentation last week, Police Commission President William Briggs said that the pretrial release of individuals allegedly involved in violent robberies at gunpoint represented a failure of the criminal justice system.
"This revolving-door criminal justice system that we have right now clearly is not working and is endangering the citizens of Los Angeles and is creating a public safety crisis," Briggs said. "We need to find a solution."
After Tippet's presentation Tuesday, which included videos from two recent robberies, Briggs said the footage showed an "outrageous display of arrogance on the part of these criminals, to think they can just run amok in our city and terrorize our citizens."
Other commissioners have seemed wary of focusing too heavily on the trend, or too intensely on Adams or any other individual defendant, particularly before they'd had their day in court.
Commissioner Dale Bonner last week said discussions about individual "career criminals" have been misused by politicians to stoke fear in the community and advance questionable criminal justice initiatives in the past, and that the current discussion should not fail to recognize that.
Tippet said his task force would continue investigating such crimes, and that he hopes that its work will encourage those engaged in such robberies to stop doing what they're doing.
He also said that people who are buying the watches, handbags and other goods being stolen during such robberies should also stop what they're doing — because the task force is coming after them as well as part of multiple open investigations.
"They are participating" in the crime, too, Tippet said.
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