South Park tore into NBA superstar LeBron James just days after the Los Angeles Lakers player criticized Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s as “uniformed” for his seven-word tweet showing support for the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
The satire-heavy episode titled “Let Them Eat Goo” sees Cartman have a heart attack after he learns that the “sloppy Joe Day” lunch meal at South Park Elementary is actually fish. Turns out, “the girls” wanted “healthier options and food for those who don’t eat red meat.”
“Their protesting [of red meat] is ruining my lunch. Yes, we do have freedom of speech, but at times there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you are not thinking about others and only thinking about yourself,” a wheelchair-bound Cartman says, echoing LeBron James’ China comments word for word. “They’re trying to change peoples’ lunch. They don’t realize it harms people financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually.”
The climate change and plant-based food phenomenon bashing episode skewers Burger King’s vegan “Impossible Burger.”
Since making his comments, LeBron James has been slammed by pundits on the right and on the left. The NBA champion endorsed Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, has slammed President Donald Trump as a “bum” and the president’s supporters as “uneducated” but dodged direct questions on Tuesday about the human rights atrocities perpetuated by the Chinese government — James insisted that basketball player are “not politicians.”
Last week, the long-running Comedy Central show saw lead character Randy Marsh say “fuck the Chinese government” after the communist country banned South Park and scrubbed the show from its internet.
On Monday night NBA superstar Lebron James spoke out in defense of the Chinese Communists. The NBA star trashed Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey for tweeting his support for Hong Kong freedom protesters.
And then Lebron lectured reporters on the perils of free speech.
This is the same guy who posted this quote earlier.
-Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere- Our Lives Begin To End The Day We Become Silent About Things That Matter- #ThankYouMLK50
Socialists are fond of saying that socialism has never failed because it has never been tried. But in truth, socialism has failed in every country in which it has been tried, from the Soviet Union beginning a century ago to three modern countries that tried but ultimately rejected socialism—Israel, India, and the United Kingdom.
While there were major
political differences between the totalitarian rule of the Soviets and the
democratic politics of Israel, India, and the U.K., all three of the latter countries
adhered to socialist principles, nationalizing their major industries and
placing economic decision-making in the hands of the government.
The Soviet failure has
been well documented by historians. In 1985, General Secretary Mikhail
Gorbachev took command of a bankrupt disintegrating empire. After 70 years of
Marxism, Soviet farms were unable to feed the people, factories failed to meet
their quotas, people lined up for blocks in Moscow and other cities to buy
bread and other necessities, and a war in Afghanistan dragged on with no end in
sight of the body bags of young Soviet soldiers.
The economies of the Communist nations behind the Iron Curtain were similarly enfeebled because they functioned in large measure as colonies of the Soviet Union.
With no incentives to compete or modernize, the industrial sector of Eastern and Central Europe became a monument to bureaucratic inefficiency and waste, a “museum of the early industrial age.” As The New York Times pointed out at the time, Singapore, an Asian city-state of only 2 million people, exported 20% more machinery to the West in 1987 than all of Eastern Europe.
And yet, socialism still beguiled leading intellectuals and politicians of the West. They could not resist its siren song, of a world without strife because it was a world without private property. They were convinced that a bureaucracy could make more-informed decisions about the welfare of a people than the people themselves could. They believed, with John Maynard Keynes, that “the state is wise and the market is stupid.”
Israel, India, and the United Kingdom all adopted socialism as an economic model following World War II. The preamble to India’s constitution, for example, begins, “We, the People of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Socialist Secular Democratic Republic … ” The original settlers of Israel were East European Jews of the left who sought and built a socialist society. As soon as the guns of World War II fell silent, Britain’s Labour Party nationalized every major industry and acceded to every socialist demand of the unions.
At first, socialism seemed to work in these vastly dissimilar countries. For the first two decades of its existence, Israel’s economy grew at an annual rate of more than 10%, leading many to term Israel an “economic miracle.” The average gross domestic product growth rate of India from its founding in 1947 into the 1970s was 3.5%, placing India among the more prosperous developing nations. GDP growth in Great Britain averaged 3% from 1950 to 1965, along with a 40% rise in average real wages, enabling Britain to become one of the world’s more affluent countries.
But the government planners were unable to keep pace with increasing population and overseas competition. After decades of ever-declining economic growth and ever-rising unemployment, all three countries abandoned socialism and turned toward capitalism and the free market.
The resulting prosperity in Israel, India, and the U.K. vindicated free-marketers who had predicted that socialism would inevitably fail to deliver the goods. As British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher observed, “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
1. Israel
Israel is unique, the only nation where socialism was successful—for a while. The original settlers, according to Israeli professor Avi Kay, “sought to create an economy in which market forces were controlled for the benefit of the whole society.”
Driven by a desire to leave behind their history as victims of penury and prejudice, they sought an egalitarian, labor-oriented socialist society. The initial, homogeneous population of less than 1 million drew up centralized plans to convert the desert into green pastures and build efficient state-run companies.
Most early settlers, American Enterprise Institute scholar Joseph Light pointed out, worked either on collective farms called kibbutzim or in state-guaranteed jobs.
The kibbutzim were small farming communities in which people did chores in exchange for food and money to live on and pay their bills. There was no private property, people ate in common, and children under 18 lived together and not with their parents. Any money earned on the outside was given to the kibbutz.
A key player in the socialization of Israel was the Histadrut, the General Federation of Labor, subscribers to the socialist dogma that capital exploits labor and that the only way to prevent such “robbery” is to grant control of the means of production to the state.
As it proceeded to unionize almost all workers, the Histadrut gained control of nearly every economic and social sector, including the kibbutzim, housing, transportation, banks, social welfare, health care, and education. The federation’s political instrument was the Labor party, which effectively ruled Israel from the founding of Israel in 1948 until 1973 and the Yom Kippur War. In the early years, few asked whether any limits should be placed on the role of government.
Then-future Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman urged Israeli policymakers to “set your people free” and liberalize the economy and embrace the free market. Pictured: Friedman in 1986. (Photo: George Rose/Getty Images)
Israel’s economic performance seemed to confirm Keynes’ judgment. Real GDP growth from 1955 to 1975 was an astounding 12.6%, putting Israel among the fastest-growing economies in the world, with one of the lowest income differentials. However, this rapid growth was accompanied by rising levels of private consumption and, over time, increasing income inequality.
There was an increasing demand for economic reform to free the economy from the government’s centralized decision-making. In 1961, supporters of economic liberalization formed the Liberal party — the first political movement committed to a market economy.
The Israeli “economic miracle” evaporated in 1965 when the country suffered its first major recession. Economic growth halted and unemployment rose threefold from 1965 to 1967. Before the government could attempt corrective action, the Six-Day War erupted, altering Israel’s economic and political map.
Paradoxically, the war brought short-lived prosperity to Israel, owing to increased military spending and a major influx of workers from new territories. But government-led economic growth was accompanied by accelerating inflation, reaching an annual rate of 17% from 1971 to 1973.
For the first time, there was a public debate between supporters of free-enterprise economics and supporters of traditional socialist arrangements. Leading the way for the free market was the future Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, who urged Israeli policymakers to “set your people free” and liberalize the economy.
The 1973 war and its economic impacts reinforced the feelings of many Israelis that the Labor party’s socialist model could not handle the country’s growing economic challenges. The 1977 elections resulted in the victory of the Likud party, with its staunch pro-free-market philosophy. The Likud took as one of its coalition partners the Liberal party.
Because socialism’s roots in Israel were so deep, real reform proceeded slowly. Friedman was asked to draw up a program that would move Israel from socialism toward a free-market economy. His major reforms included fewer government programs and reduced government spending; less government intervention in fiscal, trade, and labor policies; income tax cuts; and privatization. A great debate ensued between government officials seeking reform and special interests that preferred the status quo.
Meanwhile, the government kept borrowing and spending and driving up inflation, which averaged 77% for 1978-79 and reached a peak of 450% in 1984–85. The government’s share of the economy grew to 76%, while fiscal deficits and national debt skyrocketed. The government printed money through loans from the Bank of Israel, which contributed to the inflation by churning out money.
Finally, in January 1983, the bubble burst, and thousands of private citizens and businesses as well as government-run enterprises faced bankruptcy. Israel was close to collapse.
At this critical moment, a sympathetic U.S. president, Ronald Reagan, and his secretary of state, George Shultz, came to the rescue. They offered a grant of $1.5 billion if the Israeli government agreed to abandon its socialist rulebook and adopt some form of U.S.-style capitalism, using American-trained professionals.
The Histadrut strongly resisted, unwilling to give up their decades-old power and to concede that socialism was responsible for Israel’s economic troubles. However, the people had had enough of soaring inflation and nonexistent growth and rejected the Histadrut’s policy of resistance. Still, the Israeli government hesitated, unwilling to spend political capital on economic reform.
An exasperated Shultz informed Israel that if it did not begin freeing up the economy, the U.S. would freeze “all monetary transfers” to the country. The threat worked. The Israeli government officially adopted most of the free-market “recommendations.”
The impact of a basic shift in Israeli economic policy was immediate and pervasive. Within a year, inflation tumbled from 450% to just 20%, a budget deficit of 15% of GDP shrank to zero, the Histadrut’s economic and business empire disappeared along with its political domination, and the Israeli economy was opened to imports.
Of particular importance was the Israeli high-tech revolution, which led to a 600% increase in investment in Israel, transforming the country into a major player in the high-tech world.
There were troubling side effects such as social gaps, poverty, and concerns about social justice, but the socialist rhetoric and ideology, according to Glenn Frankel, The Washington Post’s correspondent in Israel, “has been permanently retired.”
The socialist Labor party endorsed privatization and the divestment of many publicly held companies that had become corrupted by featherbedding, rigid work rules, phony bookkeeping, favoritism, and incompetent managers.
After modest expansion in the 1990s, Israel’s economic growth topped the charts in the developing world in the 2000s, propelled by low inflation and a reduction in the size of government. Unemployment was still too high and taxes took up 40% of GDP, much of it caused by the need for a large military.
However, political parties are agreed that there is no turning back to the economic policies of the early years—the debate is about the rate of further market reform. “The world’s most successful experiment in socialism,” Light wrote, “appears to have resolutely embraced capitalism.”
2. India
Acceptance of socialism was strong in India long before independence, spurred by widespread resentment against British colonialism and the land-owning princely class (the zamindars) and by the efforts of the Communist Party of India, established in 1921.
Jawaharlal Nehru adopted socialism as the ruling ideology when he became India’s first prime minister after independence in 1947.
For nearly 30 years, the
Indian government adhered to a socialist line, restricting imports, prohibiting
foreign direct investment, protecting small companies from competition from
large corporations, and maintaining price controls on a wide variety of
industries including steel, cement, fertilizers, petroleum, and
pharmaceuticals. Any producer who exceeded their licensed capacity faced
possible imprisonment.
As the Indian economist Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar wrote, “India was perhaps the only country in the world where improving productivity … was a crime.” It was a strict application of the socialist principle that the market cannot be trusted to produce good economic or social outcomes. Economic inequality was regulated through taxes—the top personal income tax rate hit a stifling 97.75%.
Jawaharlal Nehru adopted socialism as the ruling ideology when he became India’s first prime minister after independence in 1947. Pictured: Nehru with Mahatma Gandhi in 1946. (Photo: Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
Some 14 public banks were nationalized in 1969; six more banks were taken over by the government in 1980. Driven by the principle of “self-reliance,” almost anything that could be produced domestically could not be imported regardless of the cost. It was the “zenith” of Indian socialism, which still failed to satisfy the basic needs of an ever-expanding population. In 1977-78, more than half of India was living below the poverty line.
At the same time, notes Indian-American economist Arvind Panagariya, a series of external shocks shook the country, including a war with Pakistan in 1965, which came on the heels of a war with China in 1962; another war with Pakistan in 1971; consecutive droughts in 1971-72 and 1972-73, and the oil price crisis of October 1973, which contributed to a 40% deterioration in India’s foreign trade.
Economic performance from 1965 to 1981 was worse than than at any other time of the post-independence period. As in Israel, economic reform became an imperative. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had pushed her policy agenda as far to the left as possible.
In 1980, the Congress party won a two-thirds majority in the Parliament, and Gandhi adopted, at last, a more pragmatic, non-ideological course. But as with everything else in India, economic reform proceeded slowly.
An industrial-policy statement continued the piecemeal retreat from socialism that had begun in 1975, allowing companies to expand their capacity, encouraging investment in a wide variety of industries, and introducing private-sector participation in telecommunications.
Further liberalization received a major boost under Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded his mother in 1984 following her assassination. As a result, GDP growth reached an encouraging 5.5%.
Economics continued to trump ideology under Rajiv Gandhi, who was free of the socialist baggage carried by an earlier generation. His successor, P. V. Narasimha Rao, put an end to licensing except in selected sectors and opened the door to much wider foreign investment. Finance minister Manmohan Singh cut the tariff rates from an astronomical 355% to 65%.
According to Arvind Panagariya, “the government had introduced enough liberalizing measures to set the economy on the course to sustaining approximately 6 percent growth on a long-term basis.” In fact, India’s GDP growth reached a peak of over 9% in 2005-08, followed by a dip to just under 7% in 2017-18.
A major development of the economic reforms was the remarkable expansion of India’s middle class. The Economist estimates there are 78 million Indians in the middle-middle and upper-middle-class category.
By including the lower-middle class, Indian economists Krishnan and Hatekar figure that India’s new middle class grew from 304.2 million in 2004-05 to an amazing 606.3 million in 2011-12, almost one-half of the entire Indian population. The daily income of the three middle classes are lower middle, $2-$4; middle middle, $4-$6; upper middle, $6-$10.
While this is extremely low by U.S. standards, a dollar goes a long way in India, where the annual per capita income is approximately $6,500. If only half of the lower-middle class makes the transition to upper-class or middle income, that would mean an Indian middle class of about 350 million Indians—a mid-point between The Economist and Krishnan and Hatekar estimates.
Such an enormous middle class confirms the judgment of The Heritage Foundation, in its Index of Economic Freedom, that India is developing into an “open-market economy.”
In 2017, India overtook Germany to become the fourth-largest auto market in the world, and it is expected to displace Japan in 2020. That same year, India overtook the U.S. in smartphone sales to become the second-largest smartphone market in the world.
Usually described as an agricultural country, India is today 31% urbanized. With an annual GDP of $8.7 trillion, India ranks fifth in the world, behind the United States, China, Japan, and Great Britain. Never before in recorded history, Indian economist Gurcharan Das has noted, have so many people risen so quickly.
All this has been accomplished because the political leaders of India sought and adopted a better economic system—free enterprise—after some four decades of fitful progress and unequal prosperity under socialism.
3. United Kingdom
Widely described as “the sick man of Europe” after three decades of socialism, the United Kingdom underwent an economic revolution in the 1970s and 1980s because of one remarkable person—Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Some skeptics doubted that she could pull it off—the U.K. was then a mere shadow of its once prosperous free-market self.
The government owned the largest manufacturing firms in such industries as autos and steel. The top individual tax rates were 83% on “earned income” and a crushing 98% on income from capital. Much of the housing was government-owned.
For decades, the U.K. had grown more slowly than economies on the continent. Great Britain was no longer “great” and seemed headed for the economic dust bin.
National Union of Railwaymen officials on picket duty outside Paddington Station, London, during the rail drivers strike on Oct. 2, 1979. (Photo: Mike Lawn/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
The major hindrance to economic reform was the powerful trade unions, which since 1913 had been allowed to spend union funds on political objectives, such as controlling the Labour Party. Unions inhibited productivity and discouraged investment.
From 1950 to 1975, the U.K.’s investment and productivity record was the worst of any major industrial country. Trade union demands increased the size of the public sector and public expenditures to 59% of GDP. Wage and benefits demands by organized labor led to continual strikes that paralyzed transportation and production.
In 1978, Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan decided that, rather than hold an election, he would “soldier on” to the following spring. It was a fatal mistake. His government encountered the legendary “winter of discontent” in the first months of 1979. Public-sector workers went on strike for weeks. Mountains of uncollected rubbish piled high in cities. Bodies remained unburied and rats ran in the streets.
Newly elected Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the United Kingdom’s first female PM, took on what she considered her main opponent—the unions.
Flying pickets, the ground troops of industrial conflict who would travel to support workers on strike at another site, were banned and could no longer blockade factories or ports. Strike ballots were made compulsory. The closed shop, which forced workers to join a union to get a job, was outlawed. Union membership plummeted from a peak of 12 million in the late 1970s to half that by the late 1980s.
“It’s now or never for [our] economic policies,” Thatcher declared, “let’s stick to our guns.”
The top rate of personal income tax was cut in half, to 45%, and exchange controls were abolished.
Privatization was a core Thatcher reform. Not only was it fundamental to the improvement of the economy, it was “one of the central means of reversing the corrosive and corrupting effects of socialism,” she wrote in her memoirs.
Through privatization that leads to the widest possible ownership by members of the public, “the state’s power is reduced and the power of the people enhanced.” Privatization “is at the center of any programme of reclaiming territory for freedom.”
She was as good as her word, selling off government-owned airlines, airports, utilities, and phone, steel, and oil companies.
In the 1980s, Britain’s economy grew faster than that of any other European economy except Spain. U.K. business investment grew faster than in any other country except Japan. Productivity grew faster than in any other industrial economy.
Some 3.3 million new jobs were created between March 1983 and March 1990. Inflation fell from a high of 27% in 1975 to 2.5% in 1986. From 1981 to 1989, under a Conservative government, real GDP growth averaged 3.2%.
By the time Thatcher left government, the state-owned sector of industry had been reduced by some 60%. As she recounted in her memoirs, about 1 in 4 Britons owned shares in the market. Over 600,000 jobs had passed from the public to the private sector. The U.K. had “set a worldwide trend in privatization in countries as different as Czechoslovakia and New Zealand.”
Turning decisively away from Keynesian management, the once sick man of Europe now bloomed with robust economic health. No succeeding British government, Labour or Conservative, has tried to renationalize what Margaret Thatcher denationalized.
The Lesson of China
How then to explain the impressive economic success of a fourth major economy, China, with annual GDP growth of 8 to 10% from the 1980s almost to the present?
From 1949 to 1976, under Mao Zedong, China was an economic basket case, owing to Mao’s personal mismanagement of the economy. In his avid pursuit of Soviet-style socialism, Mao brought about the Great Leap Forward of 1958-60, which resulted in the deaths of at least 30 million and perhaps as many as 50 million Chinese, and the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, in which an additional 3 million to 5 million died. Mao left China backward and deeply divided.
Mao’s successor, Deng
Xiaoping, turned China in a different direction, seeking to create a mixed
economy in which capitalism and socialism would coexist with the Communist
Party monitoring and constantly adjusting the proper mix. For the past four
decades, China has been the economic marvel of the world for the following
reasons:
It began its economic ascent almost from ground zero because of Mao’s ideological stubbornness. It has engaged in the calculated theft of intellectual property, especially from the U.S., for decades. It has taken full advantage of globalism and its membership in the World Trade Organization, while ignoring the prescribed rules against such practices as intellectual property theft. It has used tariffs and other protectionist measures to gain trade advantages with the U.S. and other competitors.
It created a middle class
of some 300 million people, who enjoy a decent living and at the same time
constitute a sizable domestic market for goods and services. It continues to
use the forced labor of the laogai to make cheap consumer goods that are sold
in Walmart and other Western stores. It allows an enormous black market to
exist because Party members profit from its sales.
It permits foreign investors to buy into Chinese companies, but the government—i.e., the Communist Party—always retains a majority interest. It operates an estimated 150,000 state-owned enterprises that guarantee jobs for tens of millions of Chinese. It depends on the energy and experience of the most entrepreneurial people in the world, second only to Americans.
A poster is displayed in late 1966 in Beijing’s street featuring how to deal with so-called “enemy of the people” during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Since the May 1966 launch of the Cultural Revolution at Beijing University, the Red Guards were instrumental in Mao’s recapture of power after the failure of the Great Leap Forward. The movement was directed against “party leaders in authority taking the capitalist road.” The Red Guards went on rampage in Chinese towns, terrorizing people, particularly older ones. (Photo: Jean Vincent/AFP/Getty Images)
In short, the People’s Republic of China was an economic failure for its first three decades under Mao and Soviet socialism. It began its climb to become the second-largest economy in the world when it abandoned socialism in the late 70s and initiated its experiment, which so far has been successful, in capitalism with Chinese characteristics.
There are clear signs that such success is no longer automatic. China is experiencing a slowing economy, is ruled by a dictatorial but divided Communist Party clinging to power, faces widespread public demands for the guarantee of fundamental human rights, and suffers from a seriously degraded environment.
History suggests that these problems can best be solved by a democratic government ruled by the people, not a one-party authoritarian state that resorts to violence in a crisis, as Beijing did at Tiananmen Square and is doing in Hong Kong.
Socialism’s Fatal Conceit
As we have seen from our examination of Israel, India, and the United Kingdom, the economic system that works best for the greatest number is not socialism with its central controls, utopian promises, and OPM (other people’s money), but the free-market system with its emphasis on competition and entrepreneurship. All three countries tried socialism for decades, and all three finally rejected it for the simplest of reasons—it doesn’t work.
Socialism is guilty of a
fatal conceit: It believes its system can make better decisions for the people
than they can for themselves. It is the end product of a 19th-century prophet whose
prophecies (such as the inevitable disappearance of the middle class) have been
proven wrong time and again.
According to the World Bank, more than 1 billion people have lifted themselves out of poverty in the past 25 years, “one of the greatest human achievements of our time.” Of those billion, approximately 731 million are Chinese, and 168 million Indians.
The main driver of this uplift from poverty has been the globalization of the international trading system. China owes most of its success to the trade freedom offered by the U.S. and the rest of the world.
The latest edition of Index of Economic Freedom from The Heritage Foundation confirms the global trend toward economic freedom: Economies rated “free” or “mostly free” enjoy incomes that are more than five times higher than the incomes of “repressed economies” such as those of North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba.
Israel’s socialist miracle turned out to be a mirage, India discarded socialist ideology and chose a more market-oriented path, and the United Kingdom set an example for the rest of the world with its emphasis on privatization and deregulation.
Whether we are talking about the actions of an agricultural country of 1.3 billion, or the nation that sparked the industrial revolution, or a small Middle Eastern country populated by some of the smartest people in the world, capitalism tops socialism every time.
This week on “Problematic Women,” we discuss parents in the U.K. who sued a hospital for “wrongful birth” because their son was born with Down syndrome. They claim, had they known, they would have had an abortion instead.
We discuss how prevalent aborting children diagnosed with Down syndrome is, both in Europe and the United States, and the importance of fighting for the dignity of all lives.
We also break down:
—Netflix released a miniseries titled “Unbelievable.” Based on real events, it tells the story of a woman who was raped, but those around her weren’t sure about her story. We discuss the lessons learned from the show and different ways to think about the #MeToo movement.
—Victoria’s Secret is featuring both a size 14 model and a transgender model in its recent “Love Yourself” campaign.
—Our Problematic Woman of the week is Daily Signal reporter Rachel del Guidice. We talk to her about a recent interview she did (“The True Effects of Watching Porn”) and the responses she’s received from friends and listeners.
President Trump is castigated for calling out “fake news” as “the enemy of the people.” Yet he is correct, and journalists reinforce Trump’s view on an increasingly frequent basis.
For the Washington Post, “Democracy dies in darkness” yet for the American people, their faith and trust in media is dying, not in darkness, but in the light of day, right before our eyes.
I had the recent opportunity to watch filmmaker Joel Gilbert’s latest film, The Trayvon Hoax. Joel demonstrated a long-lost art, investigative journalism, and he did it in a fun and entertaining manner. Unlike cable news gabbers who get their talking points from echo chamber left-wing distributions networks like the former JournoList, Joel examined phone records, photos, and yearbooks. He knocked on doors and actually talked to people.
Once upon a time this would be called gumshoe journalism, walking around, investigating, putting in actual effort. Modern journalists only use their thumbs, checking Twitter and reporting tweets as verified news.
Gilbert’s film, aside from debunking the Trayvon Martin hoax, demonstrated how journalism should be done, in contrast to the shoddy reporting that now passes for journalism. This hoax was relatively small in scale, including creating a false witness to testify against George Zimmerman, but the implications of this hoax were huge and continue to this day, long after the 2012 shooting.
The Trayvon hoax spawned racial strife on a scale not seen in decades. From “hands up don’t shoot,” to the Ferguson effect of police backing away from traditional policing activities, to the detriment of poor and minority neighborhoods. We were treated to Freddie Gray, Jussie Smollett, and kneeling professional athletes. Political careers were born after the Trayvon hoax including attorney Benjamin Crump and the almost-governor of Florida, Andrew Gillum, just as the Tawana Brawley hoax thrust Al Sharpton onto the national stage several decades ago.
Big media played its part in the Trayvon hoax as in NBC doctoring George Zimmerman’s 911 call to make Zimmerman appear a racist, providing a racial angle for his self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin. CNN referred to Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” to keep the race angle front and center. Did they ever refer to Barack Obama as “half black” given the white skin color of his mother?
Are these hoaxes accidental or deliberate? Is this sloppy reporting or an attempt to shape a narrative rather than simply report the news? I’ll report, you decide, as Fox News now says.
A few days ago, “ABC World News Tonight” aired video described as a Turkish attack in Syria. ABC News Anchor Tom Llamas said on air,
This video, right here, appearing to show Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town.
The Kurds, who fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS, now horrific reports of atrocities committed by Turkish-backed fighters on those very allies.
This is more of the “Orange Man Bad” filter through which virtually every news report is presented. The incompetent president is creating chaos in the Middle East by removing a handful of troops from Syria. ABC was mum when, “President Obama ignored general’s pleas to keep American military forces in Iraq.”
That last bit is hypocrisy, not a hoax, holding Democrats and Republicans to far different standards. Instead the hoax is that the video was not of the Turkish military, as reported by ABC, but instead a, “military gun shoot” at a Kentucky gun range. Doubling down, “ABC foreign correspondent Ian Pannell repeats Llamas’ claim of the footage’s authenticity.”
This isn’t a simple mistake. The video was from a 2017 YouTube posting called, “Knob Creek machine gun shoot 2016.” This was deliberate, a hoax, an attempt to further a particular narrative. Once caught, ABC will “regret the error,” yet in reality their only regret is getting caught.
There are other hoaxes which perpetuate social or economic justice causes. The Book of Matt debunked numerous falsehoods surrounding the murder of Matthew Sheppard. Honest climate scientists are calling out the hoax of catastrophic man-made global warning with research articles like this one, “No experimental evidence for the significant anthropogenic climate change.” The climate hoax is costing taxpayers untold billions in useless climate initiatives and legislation. And journalists happily play along, perpetuating the hoaxes.
Obama and his minions blamed the Benghazi embassy attack was blamed on a YouTube video and the media played along with the hoax like useful idiots. Trump’s 2016 election victory over “the smartest woman in the world” was blamed on Russian interference and collusion. This story was promoted by the media and their Democratic Party comrades endlessly for two years until Robert Mueller’s investigation reluctantly debunked what the hoaxers had been telling us daily.
Now it’s on to Ukraine, with the media creating an elaborate ruse with the help of reps Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and Nancy Pelosi. They report Trump said things to the Ukrainian president that are contradicted by the transcript of the call and the statements of the two participants on the call. But it’s the narrative and the hoax, not the truth that matters.
Speaker Pelosi just announced no vote to authorize a Trump impeachment inquiry but the hoax will continue. Rep. Schiff’s Intelligence Committee can conveniently hold hearings behind closed doors, under the guise of “secret intelligence hearings,” exclude Republicans from the process, leak selective and misleading bits to the media, then sit back as the media perpetuates the hoax that the president is about to be impeached, that once again, “The walls are closing in on Trump” as they have been since he took the oath of office three years ago.
A few honest journalists boldly go where CNN and the New York Times are uninterested or afraid to go. It’s left to these few brave journalists — Joel Gilbert, Sara Carter, John Solomon, Brian Cates, to name a few – to do the heavy lifting of actual investigative reporting, as Joel Gilbert did in debunking the hoax of Barack Obama’s life story through his film, Dreams from my Real Father.
Instead, journalism has been replaced by fiction writing, so-called reporters parroting partisan talking points, deliberately doctoring audio and video, ignoring inconvenient facts and contradictions, all to push a political narrative. It is, to borrow a line from FBI hoaxer James Comey, their “higher calling” to thwart the will of the people in favor of their preferences as to who leads our country.
Just like Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy, modern journalism is dead. They just don’t know it yet.
Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a Denver based physician, freelance writer and occasional radio talk show host whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and QuodVerum.
President Trump is castigated for calling out “fake news” as “the enemy of the people.” Yet he is correct, and journalists reinforce Trump’s view on an increasingly frequent basis.
For the Washington Post, “Democracy dies in darkness” yet for the American people, their faith and trust in media is dying, not in darkness, but in the light of day, right before our eyes.
I had the recent opportunity to watch filmmaker Joel Gilbert’s latest film, The Trayvon Hoax. Joel demonstrated a long-lost art, investigative journalism, and he did it in a fun and entertaining manner. Unlike cable news gabbers who get their talking points from echo chamber left-wing distributions networks like the former JournoList, Joel examined phone records, photos, and yearbooks. He knocked on doors and actually talked to people.
Once upon a time this would be called gumshoe journalism, walking around, investigating, putting in actual effort. Modern journalists only use their thumbs, checking Twitter and reporting tweets as verified news.
Gilbert’s film, aside from debunking the Trayvon Martin hoax, demonstrated how journalism should be done, in contrast to the shoddy reporting that now passes for journalism. This hoax was relatively small in scale, including creating a false witness to testify against George Zimmerman, but the implications of this hoax were huge and continue to this day, long after the 2012 shooting.
The Trayvon hoax spawned racial strife on a scale not seen in decades. From “hands up don’t shoot,” to the Ferguson effect of police backing away from traditional policing activities, to the detriment of poor and minority neighborhoods. We were treated to Freddie Gray, Jussie Smollett, and kneeling professional athletes. Political careers were born after the Trayvon hoax including attorney Benjamin Crump and the almost-governor of Florida, Andrew Gillum, just as the Tawana Brawley hoax thrust Al Sharpton onto the national stage several decades ago.
Big media played its part in the Trayvon hoax as in NBC doctoring George Zimmerman’s 911 call to make Zimmerman appear a racist, providing a racial angle for his self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin. CNN referred to Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” to keep the race angle front and center. Did they ever refer to Barack Obama as “half black” given the white skin color of his mother?
Are these hoaxes accidental or deliberate? Is this sloppy reporting or an attempt to shape a narrative rather than simply report the news? I’ll report, you decide, as Fox News now says.
A few days ago, “ABC World News Tonight” aired video described as a Turkish attack in Syria. ABC News Anchor Tom Llamas said on air,
This video, right here, appearing to show Turkey’s military bombing Kurd civilians in a Syrian border town.
The Kurds, who fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS, now horrific reports of atrocities committed by Turkish-backed fighters on those very allies.
This is more of the “Orange Man Bad” filter through which virtually every news report is presented. The incompetent president is creating chaos in the Middle East by removing a handful of troops from Syria. ABC was mum when, “President Obama ignored general’s pleas to keep American military forces in Iraq.”
That last bit is hypocrisy, not a hoax, holding Democrats and Republicans to far different standards. Instead the hoax is that the video was not of the Turkish military, as reported by ABC, but instead a, “military gun shoot” at a Kentucky gun range. Doubling down, “ABC foreign correspondent Ian Pannell repeats Llamas’ claim of the footage’s authenticity.”
This isn’t a simple mistake. The video was from a 2017 YouTube posting called, “Knob Creek machine gun shoot 2016.” This was deliberate, a hoax, an attempt to further a particular narrative. Once caught, ABC will “regret the error,” yet in reality their only regret is getting caught.
There are other hoaxes which perpetuate social or economic justice causes. The Book of Matt debunked numerous falsehoods surrounding the murder of Matthew Sheppard. Honest climate scientists are calling out the hoax of catastrophic man-made global warning with research articles like this one, “No experimental evidence for the significant anthropogenic climate change.” The climate hoax is costing taxpayers untold billions in useless climate initiatives and legislation. And journalists happily play along, perpetuating the hoaxes.
Obama and his minions blamed the Benghazi embassy attack was blamed on a YouTube video and the media played along with the hoax like useful idiots. Trump’s 2016 election victory over “the smartest woman in the world” was blamed on Russian interference and collusion. This story was promoted by the media and their Democratic Party comrades endlessly for two years until Robert Mueller’s investigation reluctantly debunked what the hoaxers had been telling us daily.
Now it’s on to Ukraine, with the media creating an elaborate ruse with the help of reps Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and Nancy Pelosi. They report Trump said things to the Ukrainian president that are contradicted by the transcript of the call and the statements of the two participants on the call. But it’s the narrative and the hoax, not the truth that matters.
Speaker Pelosi just announced no vote to authorize a Trump impeachment inquiry but the hoax will continue. Rep. Schiff’s Intelligence Committee can conveniently hold hearings behind closed doors, under the guise of “secret intelligence hearings,” exclude Republicans from the process, leak selective and misleading bits to the media, then sit back as the media perpetuates the hoax that the president is about to be impeached, that once again, “The walls are closing in on Trump” as they have been since he took the oath of office three years ago.
A few honest journalists boldly go where CNN and the New York Times are uninterested or afraid to go. It’s left to these few brave journalists — Joel Gilbert, Sara Carter, John Solomon, Brian Cates, to name a few – to do the heavy lifting of actual investigative reporting, as Joel Gilbert did in debunking the hoax of Barack Obama’s life story through his film, Dreams from my Real Father.
Instead, journalism has been replaced by fiction writing, so-called reporters parroting partisan talking points, deliberately doctoring audio and video, ignoring inconvenient facts and contradictions, all to push a political narrative. It is, to borrow a line from FBI hoaxer James Comey, their “higher calling” to thwart the will of the people in favor of their preferences as to who leads our country.
Just like Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy, modern journalism is dead. They just don’t know it yet.
Brian C Joondeph, MD, is a Denver based physician, freelance writer and occasional radio talk show host whose pieces have appeared in American Thinker, Daily Caller, and other publications. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and QuodVerum.
Time and again in every election we see politicians promise everything, and once elected deliver very little or nothing. Beth Van Duyne is a welcome exception and her past record clearly proves it. A person of impeccable integrity, Beth has always remained loyal to the values and wishes of her constituents and has not compromised them on the altar of political expediency so widely practiced by self-promoting politicians. A devoted mother beaming with energy and the talent to get things done, Beth is indeed the kind of person the US Congress desperately needs.
Under Beth’s leadership as a Mayor of Irving, TX, the city became one of the best and safest towns in the great state of Texas. Beth Van Duyne’s achievements attracted the attention of President Trump’s administration and accepted to serve, this time, at the national level in the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office in Fort Worth.
Myor Beth Van Duyne
City of Irving Islamic Tribunal
Van Duyne’s reputation soared outside her city since February 2015, when she became aware that some Muslims intended to create a Sharia court in Irving, TX. To follow with her oath of office, she wanted to make sure if in fact, these stories were accurate.
Van Duyne went directly to the source, the Islamictribunal.org website. What she noticed was shocking. The imams at the website referred to themselves as “attorneys” and “judges” even though none of them were lawyers or practice law in the State of Texas. She noted a phone number for legal services. There was also a disclaimer at the bottom that read:
“Don’t send us any confidential material, before an attorney client relationship has been established.”
They were even charging for their services. They listed divorce cases, product liability, business, and real estate litigations as their legal specialties. Mayor Van Duyne wanted to know why anyone would subject themselves to Sharia law in the United States while everyone is protected under the U.S. Constitution! And she repeatedly noted, her biggest concern was for women were treated differently than men under Sharia law, put at a great disadvantage, and denied basic rights we are all guaranteed.
Despite a great deal of pushback and non-stop attacks from the leftist media in Texas, Beth Van Duyne, a woman of great courage managed to push the envelope off the table on Sharia’s implementation in her own U.S. city: Irving, Texas. The Mayor wasn’t aware of the extent of Sharia practiced by the Islamic Tribunal. So, she asked lawmakers at the Texas Homeland Security Forum to investigate the legality of this group in North Texas.
In a direct and powerful response, she refuted that it was authorized or approved by her office. The Islamic Tribunal was the first of its kind in the nation. Its members had begun deciding “non-criminal” cases, even though none of the tribunal members was an attorney. On her Facebook page, the mayor wrote:
“Sharia Law Court was NOT approved or enacted by the City of Irving. Recently, there have been rumors suggesting that the City of Irving has somehow condoned, approved or enacted the implementation of a Sharia Law Court in our City. Let me be clear, neither the City of Irving, our elected officials or city staff have anything to do with the decision of the mosque that has been identified as starting a Sharia Court.”
In the hope that this issue would be put to rest, the Irving City Council, headed by Mayor Van Duyne, supported a bill in Texas Legislature, HB 562, to reaffirm people would be protected from the use of foreign laws. If passed, it prohibits Texas judges or justices the use of any foreign law in any cases where there was a possibility that a person could lose his or her Constitutional rights.
Being fully prepared for the backlash from the left-wing media, the resolution was crafted without using the words, “Sharia law,” “Sharia,” “Muslim,” “Islamic,” or “religion.” It simply stated the obvious, that the United States has at the tip of its legal pyramid the Constitution, and under it a substantial body of federal, state, local laws, ordinances, resolutions, and huge volumes of case law that together have served us well since the ratification of the Constitution. “This bill does not mention, at all, Muslim, sharia law, Islam, even religion,” said Van Duyne. “It specifically talks about foreign laws not taking precedence over U.S. laws and those in the State of Texas.”
When the City of Irving came out with this resolution, they invited Muslim imams to come and support it. “When we had met them in private, we asked the members of the mosque if they would support our American laws and if they would support and follow our Texas State Statutes, and they told me in that private meeting, yes, they would,” stated Mayor Van Duyne. The Mayor sent them the Bill, but not only did she not hear back from them, but when she did, a protest group went into the town hall to protest and object to it.
Muslim groups did their level best to have the resolution fail. Fortunately, the Mayor held a hair’s-breath margin when the resolution passed by a five to four vote majority.
The Texas Senate passed a bill that year, forbidding the implementation of any foreign laws, which would adversely affect any person’s Constitutional rights. Senator Donna Campbell said that her bill doesn’t mention Sharia law at all, only guarantees that no law from “foreign courts” would be used to override American law in settling civil matters according to TheNewAmerican.com. Unfortunately, the Bill failed to pass in the House.
On that day, Mayor Beth Van Duyne stood tall and strong to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States for you, me and all Americans.
Tarrant County, the State of Texas and the US Congress desperately need Beth Van Duyne, an effective leader who fights for American values.
Time and again in every election we see politicians promise everything, and once elected deliver very little or nothing. Beth Van Duyne is a welcome exception and her past record clearly proves it. A person of impeccable integrity, Beth has always remained loyal to the values and wishes of her constituents and has not compromised them on the altar of political expediency so widely practiced by self-promoting politicians. A devoted mother beaming with energy and the talent to get things done, Beth is indeed the kind of person the US Congress desperately needs.
Under Beth’s leadership as a Mayor of Irving, TX, the city became one of the best and safest towns in the great state of Texas. Beth Van Duyne’s achievements attracted the attention of President Trump’s administration and accepted to serve, this time, at the national level in the Department of Housing and Urban Development Office in Fort Worth.
Myor Beth Van Duyne
City of Irving Islamic Tribunal
Van Duyne’s reputation soared outside her city since February 2015, when she became aware that some Muslims intended to create a Sharia court in Irving, TX. To follow with her oath of office, she wanted to make sure if in fact, these stories were accurate.
Van Duyne went directly to the source, the Islamictribunal.org website. What she noticed was shocking. The imams at the website referred to themselves as “attorneys” and “judges” even though none of them were lawyers or practice law in the State of Texas. She noted a phone number for legal services. There was also a disclaimer at the bottom that read:
“Don’t send us any confidential material, before an attorney client relationship has been established.”
They were even charging for their services. They listed divorce cases, product liability, business, and real estate litigations as their legal specialties. Mayor Van Duyne wanted to know why anyone would subject themselves to Sharia law in the United States while everyone is protected under the U.S. Constitution! And she repeatedly noted, her biggest concern was for women were treated differently than men under Sharia law, put at a great disadvantage, and denied basic rights we are all guaranteed.
Despite a great deal of pushback and non-stop attacks from the leftist media in Texas, Beth Van Duyne, a woman of great courage managed to push the envelope off the table on Sharia’s implementation in her own U.S. city: Irving, Texas. The Mayor wasn’t aware of the extent of Sharia practiced by the Islamic Tribunal. So, she asked lawmakers at the Texas Homeland Security Forum to investigate the legality of this group in North Texas.
In a direct and powerful response, she refuted that it was authorized or approved by her office. The Islamic Tribunal was the first of its kind in the nation. Its members had begun deciding “non-criminal” cases, even though none of the tribunal members was an attorney. On her Facebook page, the mayor wrote:
“Sharia Law Court was NOT approved or enacted by the City of Irving. Recently, there have been rumors suggesting that the City of Irving has somehow condoned, approved or enacted the implementation of a Sharia Law Court in our City. Let me be clear, neither the City of Irving, our elected officials or city staff have anything to do with the decision of the mosque that has been identified as starting a Sharia Court.”
In the hope that this issue would be put to rest, the Irving City Council, headed by Mayor Van Duyne, supported a bill in Texas Legislature, HB 562, to reaffirm people would be protected from the use of foreign laws. If passed, it prohibits Texas judges or justices the use of any foreign law in any cases where there was a possibility that a person could lose his or her Constitutional rights.
Being fully prepared for the backlash from the left-wing media, the resolution was crafted without using the words, “Sharia law,” “Sharia,” “Muslim,” “Islamic,” or “religion.” It simply stated the obvious, that the United States has at the tip of its legal pyramid the Constitution, and under it a substantial body of federal, state, local laws, ordinances, resolutions, and huge volumes of case law that together have served us well since the ratification of the Constitution. “This bill does not mention, at all, Muslim, sharia law, Islam, even religion,” said Van Duyne. “It specifically talks about foreign laws not taking precedence over U.S. laws and those in the State of Texas.”
When the City of Irving came out with this resolution, they invited Muslim imams to come and support it. “When we had met them in private, we asked the members of the mosque if they would support our American laws and if they would support and follow our Texas State Statutes, and they told me in that private meeting, yes, they would,” stated Mayor Van Duyne. The Mayor sent them the Bill, but not only did she not hear back from them, but when she did, a protest group went into the town hall to protest and object to it.
Muslim groups did their level best to have the resolution fail. Fortunately, the Mayor held a hair’s-breath margin when the resolution passed by a five to four vote majority.
The Texas Senate passed a bill that year, forbidding the implementation of any foreign laws, which would adversely affect any person’s Constitutional rights. Senator Donna Campbell said that her bill doesn’t mention Sharia law at all, only guarantees that no law from “foreign courts” would be used to override American law in settling civil matters according to TheNewAmerican.com. Unfortunately, the Bill failed to pass in the House.
On that day, Mayor Beth Van Duyne stood tall and strong to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States for you, me and all Americans.
Tarrant County, the State of Texas and the US Congress desperately need Beth Van Duyne, an effective leader who fights for American values.
Wednesday on the radio, LevinTV host Mark Levin commented on Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s “staged” walkout of a meeting with President Trump.
“I’ve had several discussions with the president over the course of a few years, and he’s a kibitzer, and he jokes and he needles, and as I wasn’t there, but Kevin McCarthy and a number of Republicans were there, and they say it was Schumer and Pelosi, particularly Pelosi, who was rude to the president,” Levin said.
He added that Schumer and Pelosi are each a “serial pathological liar.”
“So even some of the Democrats stayed behind. And yet Pelosi and Schumer walked out. That’s how I know it’s staged — or all the Democrats would have walked out. But the media love it.”
Twitter recently stated that it will restrict how users can engage with tweets from world leaders, including President Donald Trump, if the company decides their tweets break the site’s rules. Other users will not be able to reply, like, or retweet Trump and other world leader’s tweets restricted in this way. The company will algorithmically bury the tweet, making them harder to find.
TechCrunch reports that Twitter has stated recently that it will restrict how users can interact with tweets from world leaders who break the site’s rules. The site will not allow users to like, reply, share, or retweet any offending tweets from world leaders but will allow them to “quote-tweet” in order to express their opinion about the tweet.
Twitter stated that this decision was made in an effort to help users stay informed about current events while balancing the need to enforce rules on the website. The company stated in a blog post:
Twitter generally removes Tweets that violate our rules. However, we recognize that sometimes it may be in the public interest to allow people to view Tweets that would otherwise be taken down. We consider content to be in the public interest if it directly contributes to understanding or discussion of a matter of public concern.
At present, we limit exceptions to one critical type of public-interest content—Tweets from elected and government officials—given the significant public interest in knowing and being able to discuss their actions and statements.
As a result, in rare instances, we may choose to leave up a Tweet from an elected or government official that would otherwise be taken down. Instead we will place it behind a notice providing context about the rule violation that allows people to click through to see the Tweet. Placing a Tweet behind this notice also limits the ability to engage with the Tweet through likes, Retweets, or sharing on Twitter, and makes sure the Tweet isn’t algorithmically recommended by Twitter. These actions are meant to limit the Tweet’s reach while maintaining the public’s ability to view and discuss it. Learn more about this notice and other enforcement actions.
The company summarized its decision in a tweet which can be seen below:
We haven’t used this notice yet, but when we do, you will not be able to like, reply, share, or Retweet the Tweet in question. You will still be able to express your opinion with Retweet with Comment.
The company added in a tweet: “Our goal is to enforce our rules judiciously and impartially. In doing so, we aim to provide direct insight into our enforcement decision-making, to serve public conversation, and protect the public’s right to hear from their leaders and to hold them to account.”
Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) has called on Twitter to ban President Trump over his tweets regarding the so-called Ukraine “whistleblower” and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).
Senator Kamala Harris has written to Twitter CEO @jack calling on him to suspend President Trump’s Twitter account pic.twitter.com/vOEIua2rQh
As has Avengers director Joss Whedon who stated in a tweet: “Can I just add to this crucial thread that in the interests of national security he should be immediately banned from Twitter?”
Twitter has previously refused to ban the president stating that doing so would not silence him but would instead hamper discussion around his words and actions:
There’s been a lot of discussion about political figures and world leaders on Twitter, and we want to share our stance.
Twitter is here to serve and help advance the global, public conversation. Elected world leaders play a critical role in that conversation because of their outsized impact on our society.
Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate. It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.
We review Tweets by leaders within the political context that defines them, and enforce our rules accordingly. No one person’s account drives Twitter’s growth, or influences these decisions. We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind.
We are working to make Twitter the best place to see and freely discuss everything that matters. We believe that’s the best way to help our society make progress.
Breitbart News will continue to follow Twitter’s actions against President Donald Trump and other conservatives in advance of the 2020 election.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolanor email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia announced charges against the operator of the world’s “largest child sexual exploitation market” and hundreds of others in the U.S. and abroad. South Korean officials seized the dark web server which contained about eight terabytes of child porn content.
“Children around the world are safer because of the actions taken by U.S. and foreign law enforcement to prosecute this case and recover funds for victims,” U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jessie K. Liu said in a written statement. “We will continue to pursue such criminals on and off the darknet in the United States and abroad, to ensure they receive the punishment their terrible crimes deserve.”
In March, South Korean officials seized the server which housed the Welcome to Video website. They also arrested Jong Woo Son, 23, a South Korean national who allegedly operated the website. Following the arrest and seizure, officials carried out an investigation that led to Wednesday’s announcement of a nine-count indictment against Jong and 337 other site users.
Investigators traced Bitcoin transactions and server logs to track down users from Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington State, and Washington, D.C. They also found users of the child porn service in the United Kingdom, South Korea, Germany, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the Czech Republic, Canada, Ireland, Spain, Brazil, and Australia
“Darknet sites that profit from the sexual exploitation of children are among the most vile and reprehensible forms of criminal behavior,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “This Administration will not allow child predators to use lawless online spaces as a shield. Today’s takedown demonstrates that the Department of Justice remains firmly committed to working closely with our partners in South Korea and around the world to rescue child victims and bring to justice the perpetrators of these abhorrent crimes.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) analyzed the images and videos stored on the server and found more than 250,000 unique videos. The organization reported that 45 percent of the video images were new to investigators and had never been documented before. The site boasted in its DearkNet marketing more than 1,000,000 downloads of its child porn content. Investigators believe the website had the capacity to handle more than one million users.
Officials list the following suspected/charged users of the Welcome to Video website:
Charles Wunderlich, 34, of Hot Springs, California, was charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
Brian James LaPrath, 34, of San Diego, California, was arrested in the District of Columbia, for international money laundering; and was sentenced to serve 18 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release;
Ernest Wagner, 70, of Federal Way, Washington, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
Vincent Galarzo, 28, of Glendale, New York, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
Michael Ezeagbor, 22, of Pflugerville, Texas, was arrested and charged in the District of Columbia with conspiracy to distribute child pornography;
Nicholas Stengel, 45, of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to receipt of child pornography and money laundering and was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release;
Eryk Mark Chamberlin, 25, of Worcester, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and is pending sentencing;
Jairo Flores, 30, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts to receipt and possession of child pornography and was sentenced to serve five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release;
Billy Penaloza, 29, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts to possession and receipt of child pornography. His sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 22, 2019;
Michael Armstrong, 35, of Randolph, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts, to receipt and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to serve five years in prison followed by five years of supervised release. Restitution will be determined at a future date;
Al Ramadhanu Soedomo, 28, of Lynn, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced in the District of Massachusetts (Boston), to serve 12 months and one day followed by five years of supervised release;
Phillip Sungmin Hong, 24, of Sharon, Massachusetts, pleaded guilty in the District of Massachusetts (Boston), to receipt and possession of child pornography and is pending sentencing;
Eliseo Arteaga Jr., 28, of Mesquite, Texas, pleaded guilty in the Northern District of Texas to possession of prepubescent child pornography. He is pending sentencing;
Richard Nikolai Gratkowski, 40, of San Antonio, Texas, a former HSI special agent, was arrested in the Western District of Texas. Gratkowski pleaded guilty to the indictment charging one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of access with intent to view child pornography. Gratkowski was sentenced to serve 70 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $35,000 in restitution to seven victims and a $10,000 assessment;
Paul Casey Whipple, 35, of Hondo, Texas, a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, was arrested in the Western District of Texas, on charges of sexual exploitation of children/minors, production, distribution, and possession of child pornography. Whipple remains in custody awaiting trial in San Antonio;
Michael Lawson, 36, of Midland, Georgia, was arrested in the Middle District of Georgia on charges of attempted sexual exploitation of children and possession of child pornography. He was sentenced to serve 121 months in prison followed by 10 years of supervised release following his plea to a superseding information charging him with one count of receipt of child pornography;
Kevin Christopher Eagan, 39, of Brookhaven, Georgia, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in the Northern District of Georgia;
Casey Santioius Head, 37, of Griffin, Georgia, was indicted in the Northern District of Georgia for distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography;
Andrew C. Chu, 28, of Garwood, New Jersey, was arrested and charged with receipt of child pornography. Those charges remain pending;
Nader Hamdi Ahmed, 29 of Jersey City, New Jersey, was arrested in the District of New Jersey, for sexual exploitation or other abuse of children. Ahmed pleaded guilty to an information charging him with one count of distribution of child pornography. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 1, 2019;
Jeffrey Lee Harris, 32, of Pickens, South Carolina, pleaded guilty in the District of South Carolina for producing, distributing, and possessing child pornography;
Laine Ormand Clark Jr., 27, of Conway, South Carolina, was arrested and charged in U.S. District Court in South Carolina Division for sexual possession of child pornography;
Jack R. Dove III, 37, of Lakeland, Florida, was arrested in the District of Florida for knowingly receiving and possessing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct;
Michael Matthew White, 39, of Miami Beach, Florida, was arrested in the Southern District of Florida for coercion and enticement;
Nikolas Bennion Bradshaw, 24, of Bountiful, Utah, was arrested in the State of Utah, and charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, and was sentenced to time served with 91 days in jail followed by probation;
Michael Don Gibbs, 37, of Holladay, Utah, was charged in the District of Utah with receipt of child pornography and possession of child pornography;
Ammar Atef H. Alahdali, 22, of Arlington, Virginia, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Virginia to receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to serve five years in prison and ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution;
Mark Lindsay Rohrer, 38, of West Hartford, Connecticut, pleaded guilty in the District of Connecticut to receipt of child pornography and was sentenced to serve 60 months in prison followed by five years of supervised release;
Eugene Edward Jung, 47, of San Francisco, California, was indicted in the Northern District of California on possession of child pornography and receipt of child pornography;
James Daosaeng, 25, of Springdale, Arkansas, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and was sentenced in the Western District of Arkansas (Fayetteville) to serve 97 months in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release;
Alex Daniel Paxton, 30, of Columbus, Ohio, was arrested and indicted in Franklin County Ohio Court of Common Pleas for pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor;
Don Edward Pannell, 32, of Harvey, Louisiana, pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of Louisiana for receipt of child pornography. He is pending sentencing;
Ryan Thomas Carver, 29, of Huntsville, Alabama, was arrested and charged under Alabama State Law. He was charged federally in the Northern District of Alabama with possession of child pornography. His case is pending in Huntsville, Alabama;
Andrew Buckley, 28, of the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty to 10 offences in the UK of possession and distribution of indecent images of children, possession of extreme and prohibited images and possession of a class A drug. He was sentenced to serve 40 months in prison for the distribution of indecent images and possession of class A drugs. Buckley is also subject to an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order;
Kyle Fox, 26, of the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty to 22 counts including rape, sexual assault, and sharing indecent images, and was sentenced to serve 22 years in prison; and
Mohammed Almaker, 26, of Fort Collins, Colorado, was arrested in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), charged with KSA Law involving the endangerment of children. He is awaiting judicial proceedings in furtherance of criminal charges.
The investigation also led to the rescue of 23 minors who were victims of the website’s abusive video content. Two of the users of the website reportedly committed suicide after police executed search warrants.
Among those charged in the indictment were a former Homeland Security Investigations special agent and a U.S. Border Patrol agent, officials reported.
“The international investigations were led by the IRS-CI, HSI, and the NCA,” officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote. “The Korean National Police of the Republic of Korea, the National Crime Agency of the United Kingdom and the German Federal Criminal Police (the Bundeskriminalamt), provided assistance and coordinated with their parallel investigations. The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs of the Criminal Division provided significant assistance.”
“Children are our most vulnerable population, and crimes such as these are unthinkable,” HSI Acting Executive Associate Director Alysa Erichs said in the statement. “Sadly, advances in technology have enabled child predators to hide behind the dark web and cryptocurrency to further their criminal activity. However, today’s indictment sends a strong message to criminals that no matter how sophisticated the technology or how widespread the network, child exploitation will not be tolerated in the United States. Our entire justice system will stop at nothing to prevent these heinous crimes, safeguard our children, and bring justice to all.”
University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) student and Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter treasurer Michael Hanach told Breitbart News that a man approached him while he was promoting his group’s upcoming event on campus, stole TPUSA signage, and punched them into a nearby trash can. Hanach spoke to SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily host Alex Marlow about the incident — which was caught on video — in a Wednesday interview for the show’s weekly TPUSA campus report.
“[The man] came over and smashed our boards, and walked over to the trash can, felt the need to stuff them into the trash can, and told us to ‘stop spreading hate’ on our campus, which I don’t understand, because the boards he smashed were pro-liberty and pro-Second Amendment,” said Hanach on Wednesday.
“It just shows that people on the left aren’t really willing to talk to us, they’d rather just destroy our property instead,” continued Hanach, adding that the incident had occurred just one day before the UNLV TPUSA group was set to host political commentator Tomi Lahren — which may have motivated the vandal’s anger.
Listen below:
“I found that, especially on my campus, people don’t want to have debates, like those people that came and protested us before the event started, they left five minutes after we confronted them. They don’t want to have these talks, they don’t want to have these debates, they just want to shut us down — even if it means labeling moderate conservatives as hateful and racist people.”
The incident was also caught on video and posted to Facebook by TPUSA’s UNLV group.
Watch below:
“Are you proud of yourself? That’s not your property,” one female TPUSA group member can be heard asking in the video, moments before the man can begins punching the TPUSA signs into the trash can.
“You’re spreading hate,” the man responds, before walking away.
Hanach said that there was no reaction from the school with regards to the vandalism and intimidation his group was subjected to on campus, but that the conservative students did call campus police, who quickly arrived at the scene of the incident, but ultimately “couldn’t find the guy who was responsible.”
“I grew up in a conservative household, and not only that, looking at the insanity on the left — [it’s] driven me away from the left,” said Hanach, who added that this is his first semester being involved with TPUSA, and that the propaganda being promoted by leftists on campus will not deter him from staying involved with the conservative student organization.
“It’s a shame that people try to paint a negative light on us based on lies and propaganda,” he added, “I’m definitely going to stick with Turning Point throughout the rest of my college career, and I’m definitely going to support them going forward, because I know what they’re like — they’re all very good people.”
“I’m proud to do what I do, I’m proud to be a part of what I’m a part of, and I wouldn’t change anything about it.”
