A Terrorist Donated $3.3M to the BLM War Chest

Posted on July 9, 2020July 10, 2020 by Denise Simon

Her name is Susan Rosenberg and President Clinton commuted her prison sentence. Just as bad, Congressman, Jerry Nadler (D-NY) was a good friend of Rosenberg and worked diligently to get her released from prison. Rosenberg was part of the May 19th Communist Organization and proud of the bombings.

In the 1980s, a Far-Left, Female-Led Domestic Terrorism Group ... Smithsonian

M19CO), was a US-based revolutionary organization formed by members of the Weather Underground Organization. The group was originally known as the New York chapter of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee.

Rudy Giuliani and Andy McCarthy prosecuted her.

Now we need to continue to ask where is Obama’s old friend Bill Ayers. Why you ask?

Hold on tight, here we go.

Susan Rosenberg is a convicted domestic terrorist and radical left activist whose youth was spent protesting the Vietnam War and racism in America. A member of the Weather Underground and other radical organizations which used violence as a tool for political change, Rosenberg was sentenced to 58 years in federal prison after being arrested for possession of explosives and weapons during the planning of a number of bombing operations. [1] She was also a suspect in a 1981 armored car robbery which left one guard and two officers dead. She was released in 2001 when then-President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence. [2]

The commutation led to bipartisan criticism from Republican New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as well as police officials. [3] Rosenberg continued her radical activism through the publication of her 2011 book, An American Radical, and as the Vice-Chair of the fiscal sponsor group Thousand Currents. [4] [5] She also spent 12 years working for the left-of-center social activism group American Jewish World Service and co-founded the anti-prison group National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. [6]

From 2016 to 2020, Thousand Currents became one of America’s most influential racial and social change organizations because it is Black Lives Matter Global Network’s fiscal sponsor. [7] As the group’s fiscal sponsor, Thousand Currents handles Black Lives Matter’s administrative and back-end work so the racial group can focus on its activism, protests, and riots. [8] As of June 24, 2020, Thousand Currents had deleted from its website the Board of Directors information listing Rosenberg’s biography. [9]
Early Life

In an excerpt from her 2011 book, An American Radical, Rosenberg describes being raised by civil rights advocates. Her father ran a dental practice which focused on helping “Spanish Harlem” residents, and her mother helped struggling artists get on their feet. Both of her parents opposed America’s Cold War-era nuclear build-up, the Vietnam War, and racial inequality in the mid-20th century. [10]

As a child, Rosenberg participated in anti-war demonstrations in New York and, at 15 years old, went to Washington, D.C. with her school to oppose the Vietnam War. She describes seeing police strike and arrest protesters who “raised a North Vietnamese flag on the Justice Department building,” and release tear gas. After the protest, she joined her school’s anti-war group and helped organize activism against the war. [11] Rosenberg’s description of the protest does not include mention of the rioting and property damage caused by activists who put the flag on the Department of Justice roof. This damage was cited by Dr. Wayne Thompson in his 2000 book, To Hanoi and Back, which is included in a number of official federal agencies’ historical records. [12]

Rosenberg’s high school group was part of the national Students for a Democratic Society. The group splintered due to factional interests, and at least one faction’s leadership led to the creation of the terrorist group Weather Underground. [13]

After college, Rosenberg worked as an anti-drug counselor and continued to be involved in anti-war and anti-racism movements. [14]
Political Activism & Terrorism

Rosenberg joined the Weather Underground and other radical, radical left groups which used bombings and other terrorist attacks to protest the Vietnam War and police brutality against minorities. The Underground was founded to overthrow the U.S. government through violent means, though its attacks on police and military resulted in no known deaths. [15]

She also helped found the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, a radical group which looked to anti-slavery revolutionary John Brown for inspiration to oppose the Klu Klux Klan in the late 1970s and early 1980s. [16] [17] The Committee and Klu Klux Klan members took their conflicting activism to extreme levels, including violence against each other’s membership. [18] [19]

Rosenberg’s terrorism reached a peak when she and other radicals led the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO). The nation’s only female-led Communist terror group, it helped break a convicted cop killer out of prison in 1979 and organized a number of bombings around the country. The group also participated in a Rockland County, New York, armored car robbery which left a guard and two police officers dead. Rosenberg’s 1984 arrest was one of several arrests over a six-month period which led to the Organization’s collapse. [20]
Brink’s Robbery

On October 20, 1981, Rosenberg’s May 19th Communist Organization and members of the Black Liberation Army carried out a robbery attack against a Brink’s armored car in Nanuet, New York. [21] According to CIA documents, this criminal coalition, known as “The Family,” was organized by Mutulu Shakur, stepfather of the late hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. [22]

While Rosenberg maintained her innocence in the Brink’s robbery, a report by the New York State Criminal Justice Institute placed Rosenberg at the Mount Vernon safe-house that served as a staging location for the assault. [23] The $1.6 million stolen in the raid was intended to be used to fund the “New Afrika Movement.” [24]
Conviction and Parole Request

Rosenberg managed to evade arrest for three years following the Brink’s robbery. During this time, MC19CO orchestrated a series of bombings against federal government targets, including a blast detonated outside the Senate Chamber of the United States Capitol Building. [25]

Law enforcement caught up to her in November 1984 after she used stolen identification to rent a storage unit to stash away guns and bomb-making materials. The suspicious facility manager called police who noticed Rosenberg was wearing a disguise as she and an accomplice were unloading the supplies. They were both arrested and investigators found more than 700 pounds of explosives, along with multiple firearms and thousands of false ID cards.

Rosenberg was convicted on federal explosives and firearms charges and sentenced to 58 years in prison, the longest conviction for such charges in American history. [26] [27]

Future New York City mayor and President Donald Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, at the time a U.S. District Attorney, led Rosenberg’s prosecution. Though she was indicted for planning and driving in the Rockland County case, Giuliani declined to purse prosecution because of the long sentence Rosenberg received on the other charges. [28] [29] Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, who convinced a federal judge to oppose Rosenberg’s request for parole in 1999, wrote that Giuliani also didn’t want to put the public and robbery victims through a second trial. [30]

Rosenberg’s attorneys sought parole on the basis that Rosenberg had been a model prisoner and had rejected her previous terrorist activities and beliefs. [31] They also argued that her sentence was extreme compared to the charges upon which she was convicted, and that McCarthy’s use of the robbery to argue against parole was invalid because Giuliani had dismissed the charges. [32] McCarthy maintained that it was Rosenberg’s radical declarations during her trial and her regret that “she hadn’t had the courage to shoot it out with police” when she was arrested that led to the lengthy sentence. He also argued that the robbery rightly played a role in the parole rejection because “it has long been the law that sentencing courts and the Parole Commission may take into account any conduct, even if the defendant has been acquitted — which Rosenberg, of course, had not been.” [33]
Commutation

See also: “Other Controversies” section of the Bill Clinton profile.

After Rosenberg’s parole request was denied, President Bill Clinton commuted her sentence on his last day in office. She was one of 176 people protected by Clinton that day, including indicted fugitive March Rich and former Clinton Whitewater associate Susan McDougal. McDougal was convicted of bank fraud in the Clinton Whitewater scandal investigation. [34] Clinton also commuted the 40-year sentence of Rosenberg co-conspirator Linda Sue Evans. [35] Evans was imprisoned for 11 counts of false identification used to purchase firearms and for harboring a fugitive related to the armored car murders. [36] She was also convicted in 1990 for participating in a number of terrorist bombings, including at the U.S. Capitol Building. [37]

Rosenberg’s commutation brought bipartisan condemnation from Giuliani, Schumer, and at least two police officials. Officials cited by The New York Times at the time of the commutation included then-New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who had escorted Rosenberg to and from her trial, and Rockland County union police official David Trois. Trois said he believed Rosenberg participated in the armored car robbery, a claim she denied. [38] Kerik said the commutation “sickened” him. [39]

The New York Times published an editorial criticizing Clinton’s pardons on his last day in office, including the ones for Rosenberg and Evans. [40]

In an interview three days after her “executive clemency,” Rosenberg said in an interview with leftist political group Democracy Now that “the whole issue with my case was a question of due process…” She called Clinton’s action “an important statement…” Her attorney said that Rosenberg desired to go to trial over the armored car robbery to prove innocence, but Giuliani and his office declined to do so. “…[T]heir evidence was flimsy at best,” said the attorney. [41]

During a 2008 Democratic presidential primary debate, then-candidate Barack Obama criticized President Clinton’s decision to grant Rosenberg clemency. [42]
Commutation Actors

Rosenberg’s commutation included a number of key players, such as:

Jerrold Nadler

In 1993, at the request of her mother and rabbi, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D—NY) reached out to the Bureau of Prisons on Rosenberg’s behalf for permission to visit her dying father. [43] Nadler continued to advocate for Rosenberg leveraging his connections within the Clinton White House. [44]

Nadler also signed a letter in 2019 asking the New York State Board of Parole to release Judith Clark, another member of MC19CO convicted for her role as the getaway driver in the Brink’s robbery. [45]

In 2011, Nadler told the far-left anti-war publication TruthOut that he criticized “the head of the Bureau of Prisons,” who opposed letting Rosenberg visit her father for security reasons. According to Nadler, he was told that Rosenberg was “still in contact with some of her terrorist friends from the outside” and that the Bureau of Prisons was concerned that her armed entourage would be targeted by those associates. Nadler said his first response to the concern was, “So?” Later, he said he pressured the Bureau into keeping the visit secret and still provide armed security, as had been done when transferring Rosenberg to several prisons. [46]

Howard Gutman

Attorney Howard Gutman of the prestigious Williams & Connelly law firm represented Rosenberg in her efforts to gain executive clemency. The Williams & Connelly firm also led President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense. [47] Gutman, who later raised $500,000 for President Barack Obama’s White House campaign, became the United States Ambassador to Belgium in 2009. [48] [49]

60 Minutes Producers

Rosenberg was interviewed by “60 Minutes” in 2000, where she claimed to be “really afraid” of “the government” after the Brink’s robbery. While she maintained her innocence in that crime during the interview, she also portrayed herself as distrusting the government instead of engaging in terrorist bombings with M19C0. [50] While there is no direct causational relationship between the interview and the commutation, they took place within three months of each other. [51]
Post-Commutation

Left-of-center groups like the PEN American Center have praised Rosenberg for her HIV/Aids advocacy while in prison. [52]

Immediately following her release, Rosenberg became the Communications Director at the left-of-center American Jewish World Service organization, a position she held for nearly 12 years. [53] [54] AJWS is an advocacy, grant, and issue-oriented organization which promotes both human rights like freedom from sex slavery as well as left-of-center social change priorities like greater access to abortion and advocacy for transgenderism. [55]

Rosenberg co-founded the anti-prison group National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. [56] The organization advocates for fewer women and girls in prison and for a change in America’s prison system from punishment to criminal reform efforts. [57]

Rosenberg has taught as an adjunct professor at the City University of New York and Hunter College. [58] In 2004, she was offered a teaching position at Hamilton College that was pulled after protests by faculty and students. [59] Rosenberg has widely lectured on prominent college campuses about her prison experience and her political views. [60]
Thousand Currents

Formerly known as the International Development Exchange (IDEX), Thousand Currents is a left-of-center grantmaking organization. [61] As of June 16, 2020, Rosenberg sat on the Thousand Currents Board of Directors serving as Vice Chair. However, the organization subsequently deleted the Board of Directors information listing Rosenberg’s biography from its website. [62]

While still known as IDEX in 2016, Thousand Currents began a sponsorship of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. [63] In 2019, financial documents showed the group held over $3.3 million in assets earmarked for BLM. [64] As of June 24, 2020, access to financial information had been deleted from the organization’s website. [65] [66]

With assistance from Thousand Currents, the Black Lives Matter Global Foundation established a $12 million fund in the months following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. [67] Thousand Currents claims support for BLM’s mission “to eradicate White supremacy and build power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes through its educational and charitable activities.” [68]

Mook, Clinton’s Campaign Manager Hired Fusion GPS and Elias

Posted on July 9, 2020July 9, 2020 by Denise Simon

source

British judge orders Christopher Steele to pay damages to Russian bankers named in dossier

A court in the United Kingdom ordered British ex-spy Christopher Steele to pay thousands in damages to two Russian bankers named in the former MI6 agent’s dossier as having “illicit” financial ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Justice Warby of the Queen’s Bench Division of the British High Court of Justice presided over a weeklong March hearing in the defamation lawsuit brought by the owners of Russia’s Alfa Bank, Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan, against Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele’s private intelligence firm through which he conducted research in 2016 for Fusion GPS through the Perkins Coie law firm on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Steele made a series of allegations related to the Russians and their connection to Putin in “Memorandum 112” of his dossier which was used in the FBI’s Russia investigation, and Sir Mark David John Warby ruled Wednesday that one of the assertions, that former Alfa executive and current Russian government official Oleg Govorun was used by Aven and Fridman to deliver “large amounts of illicit cash” to Putin when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, was demonstrably false and worthy of fines of more than $22,000 that will be paid to Aven and Fridman.

“I have found that the ‘illicit cash’ allegation was inaccurate,” Justice Warby ruled, saying its disclosure to Fusion GPS and to government officials violated the U.K.’s Fourth Data Protection Principle, which states that personal data processed for law enforcement purposes must be accurate. “The personal data about the delivery of ‘illicit cash’ to Mr. Putin did amount to sensitive personal data about alleged criminality … My conclusion is that I should award each of the first and second claimants compensation in the sum of £18,000.”

The judge ruled that Steele’s claims about Govorun were demonstrably “untrue” because “there is documentary evidence that Mr. Putin ceased to be Deputy Mayor in June 1996, and that Mr. Govorun was first employed by Alfa Bank on 3 March 1997.” The judge said Steele “admitted in cross-examination that Govorun was not working for Alfa before 1997, and that his source had erred in that respect,” and yet “he refused to accept that this meant that Memorandum 112 was inaccurate.” The judge said Steele “cavilled” by “suggesting that it might be the case that Govorun was used to deliver illicit cash to Mr. Putin in the late 1990s, after his stint as Deputy Mayor.” The judge said: “There is no evidence to support that. Even if there were, the Memorandum would remain inaccurate and misleading.”

Justice Warby did rule, however, that Steele “took reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of propositions” in his dossier related to the allegations of “favours, foreign policy advice, recent direct meeting, and political bidding.”

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report shows Steele also pushed the now-debunked claim that Alfa Bank was a secret conduit between Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the Kremlin during an early October meeting with State Department figures Jonathan Winer and Kathleen Kavalec. Steele also told DOJ official Bruce Ohr in late September the Alfa Bank server was a link to the Trump campaign and that the Russia-American organization belonging to “Person 1” used the Alfa Bank server two weeks prior.

Horowitz criticized the Justice Department and the FBI in December for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s unverified dossier. Robert Mueller said his special counsel investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign” but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

The British judge reached other conclusions in his 57-page ruling.

“Mr. Steele’s evidence is that he now believes the Ultimate Client was the Democratic National Committee,” Justice Warby said. “[Steele’s lawyer] Mr. Millar submits that the Ultimate Client was the Clinton election campaign, ‘Hillary for America.’ This is in line with the FBI Note of 5 July 2016, which records Mr. Steele telling the FBI that Orbis had been instructed by Mr. Simpson of Fusion and ‘Democratic Party Associates’ but that ‘the ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign.’ The FBI Note also indicates that Mr. Steele had been told by that stage that Mrs. Clinton herself was aware of what Orbis had been commissioned to do.”

The judge added that Steele knew his dossier might be used to “challenge the eventual outcome of the Presidential Election.”

Steele testified in March that he met with Michael Sussman and Marc Elias, two top lawyers for the Perkins Coie law firm which represented the Clinton campaign and the DNC, in 2016.

He testified Sussman provided him with the claims about Alfa Bank’s purported ties to Putin during a late July meeting. These allegations made their way into a mid-September 2016 memo that became part of Steele’s dossier, although Steele repeatedly misspells “Alfa” as “Alpha.” Shortly after writing that memo, Steele met with Elias, who was the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign and personally hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016. Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson hired Steele in June 2016.

“I’m very clear that the first person that ever mentioned the Trump server issue, Alfa server issue, was Mr. Sussman,” Steele told Alfa Bank’s lawyers in March. Steele also said, “I was given the instruction sometime after that meeting by Mr. Simpson.”

Horowitz said the FBI dismissed the Alfa Bank Trump-Russia cyber collusion claims. Recently declassified footnotes also show the bureau was aware Steele’s source network might have been compromised by Russian disinformation.

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker testified in 2018 that Sussman, a former DOJ colleague of his, separately shared the Alfa Bank claims with him during a September 2016 meeting. And notes from Ohr’s December 2016 meeting with Simpson show Simpson said the New York Times was wrong to doubt the Alfa Bank server story.

Elias told House Intelligence Committee investigators that he was aware of Fusion GPS’s plans to have Steele brief reporters about his anti-Trump research in 2016. Elias said he was “aware that he talked to media outlets in that time period” and knew about the meetings before they happened.

Robby Mook, Clinton’s presidential campaign manager, said in 2017 he authorized Elias to hire an outside firm to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia. Mook said Elias was receiving information from Fusion GPS in 2016, and Elias periodically briefed the Clinton campaign.

The FBI told Steele in October 2016 it was looking into a variety of Trump associates, and Steele passed along at least some of this to Fusion GPS.

Perkins Coie was paid more than $12 million between 2016 and 2017 for representing Clinton and the DNC. According to Simpson, Fusion GPS was paid $50,000 per month from Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS paid Steele roughly $168,000. Full document of decision is found here.

Check the Corruption in the Paycheck Protection Program

Posted on July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 by Denise Simon

The federal government has not disclosed most of the forgivable coronavirus-stimulus loans issued to businesses under the $660 billion federal Paycheck Protection Program.

The Small Business Administration has publicly released lists of the forgivable loans under $150,000 issued in each state but it did not include the names of the recipients.

Loans under $150,000 make up the bulk of the loans issued. According to SBA data through June 30, 2020, loans under $50,000 represented 66.8% of all loans provided, $50,000 to $100,000 represented 13.8% and $100,000-$150,000 represented 6%.

The state-by-state lists the SBA released included only the names of the lenders, including banks and credit unions, that approved the loans as well as the estimated number of jobs the loan will help retain. To date, banks have earned billions in taxpayer-funded fees for issuing the loans as part of PPP, which was setup by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. The SBA hasn’t said whether individual bank branches directly received forgivable PPP loans.

As Just the News previously reported, the federal government isn’t going to conduct a review of most taxpayer-funded forgivable loans issued under the program.

Pennsylvania Treasury, Joe Torsella - State Treasurer source

According to the SBA, the loan is forgivable if “at least 60 percent” of it is used toward payroll. The rest can be used for qualified expenses such as rent and utilities. More here.

***

So…let’s take a look at some details of corruption shall we? Then measure your outrage…if you can. It may also be a good time to call your representative and ask them if they took any PPP money of any kind or ask them if they are outraged and what are they gonna do about it.

Movie star and Trump hater, Robert De Niro: He got $28 million.
A law firm founded by VP Joe Biden Monzack Mersky McLaughlin and Browder, of which Biden no longer has an interest but he maintained close ties. Monzack, who has donated thousands to Biden’s presidential campaign, attended a state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011. The law firm is also a registered agent for companies tied to Biden.
EDI Associates in San Rafael, California, has 52 employees and says it’s in the “full-service restaurant business,” government documents show. The company received between $350,000 and $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money. EDI is partially owned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
A progressive political consulting firm that receives large payments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) reelection campaign and activist Shaun King’s PAC raked in hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money meant to help small businesses.
New data show that between $350,000 and $1 million flowed from the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal program created to help small businesses cope with the economic downturn caused by coronavirus, to Middle Seat Consulting, a Washington, D.C.-based digital firm that provides services to far-left Democrats.
The campaign of Christine Eady Mann, a Democratic candidate for Congress running in Texas’s 31st district, received $28,600 in May from the PPP, a federal program designed to help small businesses. Mann’s campaign said it used the loan to offset “challenging” fundraising numbers. The campaign repaid the loan in full six weeks later.

There are many more but here is the kicker of it all perhaps….

NP: Entities led by high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, collaborators with state-owned enterprises, and Confucius Institute partners rank among the beneficiaries of the U.S. government’s coronavirus pandemic bailout.

These companies received up to $3.4 million from the U.S. federal government according to Treasury Department’s records released on Monday.

Beyond funding the opposition in the ongoing economic and information warfare between China and the U.S., Chinese companies often coerce American companies to comply with their censorship standards, routinely steal intellectual property, and spearhead massive outsourcing-fueled trade deficits at great cost to American jobs and workers.

Despite this, CCP-linked companies which benefited from the program meant to save American businesses and jobs hurt by the coronavirus include:

China United Transport, $350,000-$1,000,000

As a global transportation and logistics company, China United Transport’s brands itself as a lifeline for the global supply chain.

With weekly shipments to “Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tianjing, Dalian, Qingdao, and Ningbo,” the company works with several Chinese state-owned ocean and air carriers.

China United lists AirChina, a state-owned enterprise that has received awards from the CCP and boasts it “has always demonstrated its strong brand image as a government-controlled enterprise” in its company profile.

Another partner, COSCO Shipping Lines, features 11 out of its 13 board members listing CCP affiliations in their biographies.

The Chairman and Managing Director Yang Zhijian, for example, serves as the Deputy Secretary of the CCP’s Central Committee and Deputy Managing Director Qian Weizhong serves as Party Secretary.

The CCP also retains a majority stake in partners China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline.

China Manufacturers Alliance, $350,000-$1,000,000

China Manufacturers Alliance is a facilitator of U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing, defining its mission as “uniting major tire manufacturers in China under a unique and powerful cooperative alliance.”

Beyond serving as a boon for the Chinese economy, its parent company is Shanghai Huayi Group. The group is headed by CCP members including its president Lili Gu and Technology Director Dengxi Wu.

Boardmember Liu Genyuan has also advised the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, a predatory investment scheme whereby China funnels extensive amounts of money to developing countries who often default on the loans they are provided.

This allows the CCP to seize control of critical infrastructure and facilitate the regime’s quest to end the world’s reliance on the West by bringing countries into their technological and financial orbit.

China Luxury Advisors, $150,000-$350,000

China Luxury Advisors, which strives to “engage the global Chinese consumer,” boasts on its homepage that it’s a Tencent International Premium Agency Partner and Official Alibaba Partner.

Tencent has been identified by the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.”

It also provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the CCP’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian model,” the report added. And CCP collaboration is not far-fetched: its CEO is also known to have direct links to the CCP, currently serving as a Congressional Deputy and Standing Committee member and assisting the CCP with “law enforcement and security issues” and collaborating on “patriotic” video games.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is a member of the CCP who insisted at a Wall Street Journal event to “be in love with them,” referencing the CCP. Forbes reported the “Chinese Government Has A Huge “Stake” In Alibaba” in 2015 and The New York Times unearthed the company’s “deep political connections of the investment firms, Boyu Capital, Citic Capital Holdings and CDB Capital, the China Development Bank’s private investment arm” in 2014.

The Times also noted Alibaba’s “senior executive ranks included sons or grandsons of the most powerful members of the ruling Communist Party.”

China Luxury Advisors also “works closely with WeChat to register and manage official accounts, develop mini-programs, create content, and place advertising across Tencent’s platforms.” WeChat is a Tencent-owned messaging app with a track record of banning or censoring users who share content counter to the state’s narratives and users are often subject to CCP surveillance and data breaches.

China Institute, $150,000-$350,000

China Institute has a nearly 100-year history of working alongside the CCP. Notable events it touts on its timeline include:

China Institute is instrumental in the Chinese Government’s decision to provide additional funds to Chinese students through its Committee on Wartime Planning for Chinese Students in the United States.

The New York-based advocacy group also hosts a Confucius Institute in partnership with East China Normal University (ECNU), a state-funded University which advertises its adherence to CCP “education and other related policies” in its teachings.

The partnership has allowed Confucius Institutes to metastasize into nine K-12 schools despite being controversial operations replete with “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions, and conflicted loyalties,” propaganda, and intellectual property theft, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).’

The Confucius Institute’s Beijing Headquarters, colloquially known as “Hanban,” pushes teachers to use “teaching resources” penned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

Chinatex, $150,000-$350,000

Chinatex is a global cotton trading enterprise focusing on apparel. The company’s introduction page boasts of its state-owned status and subservience to the CCP’S five-year plans:

In July 2016, Chinatex was integrated into Cofco Group as its wholly-owned subsidiary subject to approval by the State Council. According to its 13th Five-Year Plan, Chinatex is now adhering to the overall guiding principle of “professional management and industrialization development”, shouldering the important historical missions of “serving as the major force in maintaining the safety of the national cotton industry, a leader in cotton market regulation, and a practitioner of green, environmentally friendly factories”, vigorously enhancing its vitality, influence and control in the industry, and striving to become a world-class cotton merchant.

The Beijing-based manufacturer is responsible for siphoning American manufacturing and textile jobs.

GateChina, $150,000-$350,000

GateChina’s flagship website is WenxueCity, a Chinese-language news aggregator intended for expatriates. The outlet routinely links to content from CCP run and funded media outlets such as China Network Television.

The news of the loans going to CCP-linked companies is sure to raise eyebrows, especially given the Trump administration’s recent focus on China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the crackdown in Hong Kong.

A few more items are here like:

In Los Angeles, luxury residential brokerage the Agency received a $2 to 5 million PPP loan to retain 104 employees, according to the SBA data. Stimulus recipients in L.A. also included a number of Chinese developers, like Greenland Group, which received two $1 to $2 million loans to retain a total of 339 employees; and Shenzhen New World Group, which received two $2 to $5 million loans for a total of 533 employees. Shenzhen New World has been implicated as a major player in a bribery scheme surrounding recently-arrested City Councilmember Jose Huizar.

While U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies are not barred from receiving PPP assistance, lack of guidance in the early days of the program had led to significant confusion among potential borrowers.

Last month, an L.A. marketing agency that had received a PPP loan sued its Canadian landlord Onni Group, alleging the foreign company was seeking “back-door” access to the program by demanding the funds be used to pay rent. Check out more here.

25 Cities to go on Strike for BLM

Posted on July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 by Denise Simon

NEW YORK (AP) — A national coalition of labor unions, along with racial and social justice organizations, will stage a mass walkout from work this month, as part of an ongoing reckoning on systemic racism and police brutality in the U.S.

Dubbed the “Strike for Black Lives,” tens of thousands of fast food, ride-share, nursing home and airport workers in more than 25 cities are expected to walk off the job July 20 for about eight minutes — the amount of time prosecutors say a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on the neck of George Floyd in May — in remembrance of Black men and women who died recently at the hands of police.

The national strike will also include a handful of worker-led marches through participating cities, organizers said Wednesday.

According to details shared exclusively with The Associated Press, organizers are demanding sweeping action by corporations and government to confront systemic racism in an economy that chokes off economic mobility and career opportunities for many Black and Hispanic workers, who make up a disproportionate number of those earning less than a living wage. They also stress the need for guaranteed sick pay, affordable health care coverage and better safety measures for low-wage workers who never had the option of working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have to link these fights in a new and deeper way than ever before,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents over 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.

“Our members have been on a journey … to understanding why we cannot win economic justice without racial justice. This strike for Black lives is a way to take our members’ understanding about that into the streets,” Henry told the AP.

Among the strikers’ specific demands are that corporations and government declare unequivocally that “Black lives matter.” Elected officials at every level must use executive and legislative power to pass laws that guarantee people of all races can thrive, according to a list of demands. Employers must also raise wages and allow workers to unionize to negotiate better health care, sick leave and child care support.

The service workers union has partnered with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the American Federation of Teachers, United Farm Workers and the Fight for $15 and a Union, which was launched in 2012 by American fast food workers to push for a higher minimum wage.

Social and racial justice groups taking part include March On, the Center for Popular Democracy, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of over 150 organizations that make up the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a strike organizer with the Movement for Black Lives, said corporate giants that have come out in support of the BLM movement amid nationwide protests over police brutality have also profited from racial injustice and inequity.

“They claim to support Black lives, but their business model functions by exploiting Black labor — passing off pennies as ‘living wages’ and pretending to be shocked when COVID-19 sickens those Black people who make up their essential workers,” said Henderson, co-executive director of Tennessee-based Highlander Research and Education Center.

Labor Supports BLM, Calls on Police Unions for ...

“Corporate power is a threat to racial justice, and the only way to usher in a new economy is by tackling those forces that aren’t fully committed to dismantling racism,” she said in a statement

Trece Andrews, a Black nursing home worker for a Ciena Healthcare-managed retirement home in the Detroit area, said she feels dejected after years of being passed over for promotions. The 49-year-old believes racial discrimination plays a part in her career stagnation.

“I’ve got 20 years in the game and I’m only at $15.81 (per hour),” she said in a phone interview.

As the single mother of a 13-year-old daughter and caregiver to her father, a cancer survivor, Andrews said inadequate personal protective gear makes her afraid of bringing the coronavirus home from her job.

“We’ve got the coronavirus going on, plus we’ve got this thing with racism going on,” Andrews said. “They’re tied together, like some type of segregation, like we didn’t have our ancestors and Martin Luther King fighting against these types of things. It’s still alive out here, and it’s time for somebody to be held accountable. It’s time to take action.”

The strike continues a decades-old labor rights movement tradition. Most notably, organizers have drawn inspiration from the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike over low wages, benefits disparity between Black and white employees, and inhumane working conditions that contributed to the deaths of two Black workers in 1968. At the end of that two-month strike, some 1,300 mostly Black sanitation workers bargained collectively for better wages.

“Strike for Black Lives” organizers say they want to disrupt a multi-generational cycle of poverty perpetuated by anti-union and other policies that make it difficult to bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.

Systemic poverty affects 140 million people in the U.S, with 62 million people working for less than a living wage, according to the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, a strike partnering organization. An estimated 54% of Black workers and 63% of Hispanic workers fall into that category, compared to 37% of white workers and 40% of Asian American workers, the group said.

“The reason why, on July 20th, you’re going to see strikes and protests and the walk-offs and socially distanced sit-ins and voter registration outreach is because thousands and thousands of poor, low-wage workers of every race, creed and color understand that racial, economic, health care, immigration, climate and other justice fights are all connected,” the Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said in a telephone interview.

“If in fact we are going to take on police violence that kills, then certainly we have to take on economic violence that also kills,” he said.

Organizers said some striking workers will do more than walk off the job on July 20. In Missouri, participants will rally at a McDonald’s in Ferguson, a key landmark in the protest movement sparked by the death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager who was killed by police in 2014. The strikers will then march to a memorial site located on the spot where Brown was shot and killed.

In Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed on May 25, nursing home workers will participate in a caravan that will include a stop at the airport. They’ll be joined by wheelchair attendants and cabin cleaners demanding a $15-per-hour minimum wage, organizers said.

Angely Rodriguez Lambert, a 26-year-old McDonald’s worker in Oakland, California, and leader in the Fight for $15 and a Union, said she and several co-workers tested positive for COVID-19 after employees weren’t initially provided proper protective equipment. As an immigrant from Honduras, Lambert said she also understands the Black community’s urgent fight against police brutality.

“Our message is that we’re all human and we should be treated like humans — we’re demanding justice for Black and Latino lives,” she told the AP.

“We’re taking action because words are no longer bringing the results that we need,” she said. “Now is the moment to see changes.”

Monuments are Silent Teachers

Posted on July 8, 2020July 8, 2020 by Denise Simon

The Left shames everyone by stating they ‘celebrate’ the monuments of those that supported slavery and committed treason. Then the only faction that gets to vote for removal are the misguided politicians, Black Lives Matter and ANTIFA. No one else is allowed to be part of the discussion. So, President Trump announced a solution in an Executive Order that few even know about or that the media even bothered to read much less report.

National Park Service | U.S. Department of the Interior

No nation has a perfect history and yet who was assigned then and now to pass judgment on the good and evil of history? There should be no judgement, there should only be lessons.

Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) gets it right.

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You have a chance for some real input on this debate thanks to President Trump.

Executive Order on Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Purpose. America owes its present greatness to its past sacrifices. Because the past is always at risk of being forgotten, monuments will always be needed to honor those who came before. Since the time of our founding, Americans have raised monuments to our greatest citizens. In 1784, the legislature of Virginia commissioned the earliest statue of George Washington, a “monument of affection and gratitude” to a man who “unit[ed] to the endowment[s] of the Hero the virtues of the Patriot” and gave to the world “an Immortal Example of true Glory.” I Res. H. Del. (June 24, 1784). In our public parks and plazas, we have erected statues of great Americans who, through acts of wisdom and daring, built and preserved for us a republic of ordered liberty.

These statues are silent teachers in solid form of stone and metal. They preserve the memory of our American story and stir in us a spirit of responsibility for the chapters yet unwritten. These works of art call forth gratitude for the accomplishments and sacrifices of our exceptional fellow citizens who, despite their flaws, placed their virtues, their talents, and their lives in the service of our Nation. These monuments express our noblest ideals: respect for our ancestors, love of freedom, and striving for a more perfect union. They are works of beauty, created as enduring tributes. In preserving them, we show reverence for our past, we dignify our present, and we inspire those who are to come. To build a monument is to ratify our shared national project.

To destroy a monument is to desecrate our common inheritance. In recent weeks, in the midst of protests across America, many monuments have been vandalized or destroyed. Some local governments have responded by taking their monuments down. Among others, monuments to Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Francis Scott Key, Ulysses S. Grant, leaders of the abolitionist movement, the first all-volunteer African-American regiment of the Union Army in the Civil War, and American soldiers killed in the First and Second World Wars have been vandalized, destroyed, or removed.

These statues are not ours alone, to be discarded at the whim of those inflamed by fashionable political passions; they belong to generations that have come before us and to generations yet unborn. My Administration will not abide an assault on our collective national memory. In the face of such acts of destruction, it is our responsibility as Americans to stand strong against this violence, and to peacefully transmit our great national story to future generations through newly commissioned monuments to American heroes.

Sec. 2. Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes. (a) There is hereby established the Interagency Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes (Task Force). The Task Force shall be chaired by the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary), and shall include the following additional members:

(i) the Administrator of General Services (Administrator);

(ii) the Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA);

(iii) the Chairperson of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH);

(iv) the Chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP); and

(v) any officers or employees of any executive department or agency (agency) designated by the President or the Secretary.

(b) The Department of the Interior shall provide funding and administrative support as may be necessary for the performance and functions of the Task Force. The Secretary shall designate an official of the Department of the Interior to serve as the Executive Director of the Task Force, responsible for coordinating its day-to-day activities.

(c) The Chairpersons of the NEA and NEH and the Chairman of the ACHP shall establish cross-department initiatives within the NEA, NEH, and ACHP, respectively, to advance the purposes of the Task Force and this order and to coordinate relevant agency operations with the Task Force.

Sec. 3. National Garden of American Heroes. (a) It shall be the policy of the United States to establish a statuary park named the National Garden of American Heroes (National Garden).

(b) Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Task Force shall submit a report to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy that proposes options for the creation of the National Garden, including potential locations for the site. In identifying options, the Task Force shall:

(i) strive to open the National Garden expeditiously;

(ii) evaluate the feasibility of creating the National Garden through a variety of potential avenues, including existing agency authorities and appropriations; and

(iii) consider the availability of authority to encourage and accept the donation or loan of statues by States, localities, civic organizations, businesses, religious organizations, and individuals, for display at the National Garden.

(c) In addition to the requirements of subsection 3(b) of this order, the proposed options for the National Garden should adhere to the criteria described in subsections (c)(i) through (c)(vi) of this section.

(i) The National Garden should be composed of statues, including statues of John Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Daniel Boone, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Clay, Davy Crockett, Frederick Douglass, Amelia Earhart, Benjamin Franklin, Billy Graham, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Douglas MacArthur, Dolley Madison, James Madison, Christa McAuliffe, Audie Murphy, George S. Patton, Jr., Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, Betsy Ross, Antonin Scalia, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington, and Orville and Wilbur Wright.

(ii) The National Garden should be opened for public access prior to the 250th anniversary of the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.

(iii) Statues should depict historically significant Americans, as that term is defined in section 7 of this order, who have contributed positively to America throughout our history. Examples include: the Founding Fathers, those who fought for the abolition of slavery or participated in the underground railroad, heroes of the United States Armed Forces, recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor or Presidential Medal of Freedom, scientists and inventors, entrepreneurs, civil rights leaders, missionaries and religious leaders, pioneers and explorers, police officers and firefighters killed or injured in the line of duty, labor leaders, advocates for the poor and disadvantaged, opponents of national socialism or international socialism, former Presidents of the United States and other elected officials, judges and justices, astronauts, authors, intellectuals, artists, and teachers. None will have lived perfect lives, but all will be worth honoring, remembering, and studying.

(iv) All statues in the National Garden should be lifelike or realistic representations of the persons they depict, not abstract or modernist representations.

(v) The National Garden should be located on a site of natural beauty that enables visitors to enjoy nature, walk among the statues, and be inspired to learn about great figures of America’s history. The site should be proximate to at least one major population center, and the site should not cause significant disruption to the local community.

(vi) As part of its civic education mission, the National Garden should also separately maintain a collection of statues for temporary display at appropriate sites around the United States that are accessible to the general public.

Sec. 4. Commissioning of New Statues and Works of Art. (a) The Task Force shall examine the appropriations authority of the agencies represented on it in light of the purpose and policy of this order. Based on its examination of relevant authorities, the Task Force shall make recommendations for the use of these agencies’ appropriations.

(b) To the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law and the other provisions of this order, Task Force agencies that are authorized to provide for the commissioning of statues or monuments shall, in expending funds, give priority to projects involving the commissioning of publicly accessible statues of persons meeting the criteria described in section 3(b)(iii) of this order, with particular preference for statues of the Founding Fathers, former Presidents of the United States, leading abolitionists, and individuals involved in the discovery of America.

(c) To the extent appropriate and consistent with applicable law, these agencies shall prioritize projects that will result in the installation of a statue as described in subsection (b) of this section in a community where a statue depicting a historically significant American was removed or destroyed in conjunction with the events described in section 1 of this order.

(d) After consulting with the Task Force, the Administrator of General Services shall promptly revise and thereafter operate the General Service Administration’s (GSA’s) Art in Architecture (AIA) Policies and Procedures, GSA Acquisition Letter V-10-01, and Part 102-77 of title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, to prioritize the commission of works of art that portray historically significant Americans or events of American historical significance or illustrate the ideals upon which our Nation was founded. Priority should be given to public-facing monuments to former Presidents of the United States and to individuals and events relating to the discovery of America, the founding of the United States, and the abolition of slavery. Such works of art should be designed to be appreciated by the general public and by those who use and interact with Federal buildings. Priority should be given to this policy above other policies contained in part 102-77 of title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, and revisions made pursuant to this subsection shall be made to supersede any regulatory provisions of AIA that may conflict with or otherwise impede advancing the purposes of this subsection.

(e) When a statue or work of art commissioned pursuant to this section is meant to depict a historically significant American, the statue or work of art shall be a lifelike or realistic representation of that person, not an abstract or modernist representation.

Sec. 5. Educational Programming. The Chairperson of the NEH shall prioritize the allocation of funding to programs and projects that educate Americans about the founding documents and founding ideals of the United States, as appropriate and to the extent consistent with applicable law, including section 956 of title 20, United States Code. The founding documents include the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. The founding ideals include equality under the law, respect for inalienable individual rights, and representative self-government. Within 90 days of the conclusion of each Fiscal Year from 2021 through 2026, the Chairperson shall submit a report to the President through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy that identifies funding allocated to programs and projects pursuant to this section.

Sec. 6. Protection of National Garden and Statues Commissioned Pursuant to this Order. The Attorney General shall apply section 3 of Executive Order 13933 of June 26, 2020 (Protecting American Monuments, Memorials, and Statues and Combating Recent Criminal Violence), with respect to violations of Federal law regarding the National Garden and all statues commissioned pursuant to this order.

Sec. 7. Definition. The term “historically significant American” means an individual who was, or became, an American citizen and was a public figure who made substantive contributions to America’s public life or otherwise had a substantive effect on America’s history. The phrase also includes public figures such as Christopher Columbus, Junipero Serra, and the Marquis de La Fayette, who lived prior to or during the American Revolution and were not American citizens, but who made substantive historical contributions to the discovery, development, or independence of the future United States.

Sec. 8. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
July 3, 2020.