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FreedomWorks, critical to building the Tea Party movement of 2011, which became nationally known for fighting ObamaCare, announced it was closing today. Its 12-member board of directors voted unanimously to close the 20-year-old conservative organization.
Politico’s Luke Mullins ran an ‘exclusive’ piece setting a warped narrative about what caused the FreedomWorks implosion: divisions between MAGA vs. the GOP. Here’s the key takeaway:
FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president Adam Brandon, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump.
Other outlets like the Hill, FoxNews, Washington Post, have simply lazily repeated the same Politico framing. Multiple insiders say, however, the Politico piece is all wrong.
Former Grassroots Director Merissa Hamilton tells the Gateway Pundit, “The Politico story is simply not true. The collapse of FreedomWorks wasn’t a rift between MAGA and non-MAGA; it was colossal bad management by CEO Adam Brandon who created a toxic internal culture and who doesn’t understand voters or donors.”
Politico tried to blame ‘right-wing nutjobs’ for promoting so-called ‘conspiracy theories’ about well-documented evidence of systemic election fraud as driving the organization into the ground. Politico also tried to frame the story as part of Trump’s policy failures, related to massive increases in the national debt.
Here’s what Politico said in their article to that effect:
Increasingly, however, those positions clashed with a Trump-aligned membership who called for tariffs on imported goods and a wall to keep immigrants out but were willing, in Brandon’s view, to remain silent as Trump’s administration added $8 trillion to the national debt.
The Politico piece is just anti-Trump fake news spin, according to multiple insiders, driven to protect the reputation of the outgoing CEO. FreedomWorks’ CEO Adam Brandon tried last September to refashion the organization as progressive on climate change and promoting abortion. This was six months after firing most of the MAGA-aligned lower-level staff in a purge.
The Gateway Pundit spoke with multiple insiders, some on and some off the record. One former Senior Executive at FreedomWorks who was willing to talk anonymously because it was breaking a Non-Disclosure Agreement but felt compelled to tell activists and donors their side of the story.
“This was an organizational suicide. Big donors and an Anti-Trump board made this all happen on purpose.”
“Adam Brandon and his allies willfully orchestrated the means to end this organization. Adam had his priorities the entire time on starting another organization to succeed FreedomWorks, spent money on frivolous things, alienated donors, took money from the wrong donors, and alienated our grassroots networks,” the source said. “Adam’s been fleecing FreedomWorks from 2022 to present to build a parallel organization.”
FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon, according to multiple sources, was engaged in significant financial mismanagement of the libertarian organization. Several insist $300,000 was spent acquiring one donor phone list that only had 1,200 names. This is one example, they say, in a string of horrible financial moves that a former Executive said felt ‘orchestrated to bring down the organization.’
The Senior Executive said, “I watched him take $250,000 from a donor, philanthropist Frayda Levin, to do anti-Trump grassroots work to MAGA people in Florida. It was all about money and power to Adam. Adam took the money and wanted to hurt Trump using a differently-branded organization to protect the FreedomWorks brand. It was the height of unethical behavior, deceiving both donors and activists. It left me very jaded. I realized that conservative movement leaders often hate actual conservative voters.” Contacted to confirm this detail, Levin said she did not recall this donation but that it may be accurate.
The Senior Executive said further, “The prostitution for big donors at FreedomWorks and in many conservative groups, regardless of what they believe, was just staggering. It’s just disgusting. It’s all about whoring yourself out for the money. It doesn’t matter what the small donors say, they just cater to big donors who are obsessed with Nikki Haley.”
The Senior Executive continued, “Adam Brandon brought in Margaret Iuculano as the Chief Development Officer, or CDO, who served as the head of fundraising. She had no fundraising experience and was completely unqualified. She was a ReMax real estate agent in Florida prior to running an 8-figure fundraising operation. The consulting agency that brought her in was given a quid-pro-quo $10k a month ‘consulting’ contract after she was hired, to perform a ‘cross-department audit’ that was reportedly used to justify the Trump firings.”
“She bragged to me that the consultants agreed with her on everything. She told me with a smile that ‘everything I wanted to be wrong, they also thought was wrong.’ She knew nothing about fundraising, and her performance matched her experience.”
Hamilton echoes that sense of Brandon’s financial failure: “Adam Brandon laid off the grassroots staffers with actual field experience, fired his VP, didn’t fundraise for the organization’s key FreedomTeams program until potentially after the founders of the program were removed. It was organizational suicide.”
Said Hamilton, “This is all a product of an epic failure of leadership by Adam Brandon.”
The tension in management was between Adam Brandon, whom some describe as a ‘grifter,’ and the Executive Vice President Noah Wall, who was seen by staff as more aligned with Trump voters. Wall was purged in March 2023, along with 40% of the entire staff, focused on the ones who were more Trump-friendly, without any severance. Some of these were later re-hired because, again, according to insiders, the organization could not function without its internal Trump-aligned workers.
The Senior Executive said, “I was in a meeting where an outside auditor realized our accounting department, at Adam’s direction, had been entering donations in twice causing a major problem. It ended up being a 6-figure mistake, and I noticed that Adam and Margaret were very defensive. Just from how they were acting about the problem, I knew something dodgy was going on. The demise of FreedomWorks was planned from the beginning: they wanted to dismantle the place and then get out.”
Brandon was planning to set up his own spin-off group, tentatively named “The Center for Independence” that would use a combination of A.I. and ChatGPT to communicate more effectively to African-American voters about libertarian principles in battleground states. Brandon allegedly told staffers on repeated occasions that he had planned to dissolve the organization in order to move its assets to his new group. Donor Levin confirmed that Brandon had planned this organization.
“Call me old school, but A.I. is never gonna replace basic grassroots, and that’s what Adam Brandon never understood,” Hamilton told the Gateway Pundit. “Brandon was also on the verge of leaving the organization in early 2023 to run his new project, with a search underway for his replacement shortly before they laid off staff. Brandon stayed, but a little over a year later the decision to shutter the organization came through as a result of a unanimous board decision.”
The FreedomWorks board was composed of: Adam Brandon, Joan Carter, Paul Beckner, Carl Knudsen, Peter Copses, Stephen Modzelewski, Richard Stephenson, Frank Tsamoutales, Betsy Albaugh, Robert Lansing, Marilyn Hayden, and Ted Abram.
The former FreedomWorks senior executive said, “There were board members who not only hated Trump, but hated conservatives in general. It all reminded me of the ‘long march through the institutions’ and I realized I was watching everything lurch to the left, the same way the Koch network and Americans for Prosperity has done.”
“Many of these organizations talk a good game about conservative principles, but behind closed doors, it’s not what they believe.”
Philanthropist Frayda Levin had similar thoughts on the collapse of FreedomWorks, Levin mentioned that CEO Brandon was in the process of changing the organization’s mission and that its new outlook was “incoherent.” Levin did not recall the $250,000 Florida donation but noted that she stopped donating along with several other donors two years ago and has mentally moved on. “I deleted all their emails. Adam was trying to get independents elected, it didn’t make any sense,” Levin told the Gateway Pundit.
Levin continued, “It’s certainly difficult to manage the pro and anti-Trump factions of the political right, but there are many other problems with grassroots activism, chronic problems that FreedomWorks was running into,” Levin said. “Activism has become my computer is talking to your computer, and legislators and powerful people see it for what it is. A large part of the problem is that government has gotten so large, there are so many issues to fight about, that it’s very difficult to maintain a grassroots network. Americans for Prosperity, where I was the Chair, doesn’t have a grassroots network to speak of anymore. I wish I had the answer, I don’t.”
FreedomWorks was an organizational component of center-right grassroots activism, educating thousands each year in the principles of libertarian philosophy and practical recommendations on how to act on those principles.
The organization’s remaining 25 employees are being laid off. Hamilton says they might not be properly compensated, even though many would likely be under Non-Disclosure Agreements and unable to publicly voice their grievances. Hamilton claims this was a deliberate decision not to pay employees reimbursements or other owed compensation. “I’m still owed thousands of dollars, and I know many others who are as well, including a great activist from Michigan who was never paid thousands owed from mileage reimbursements over a year ago. The grassroots workers got stiffed, and where did all the money go?” said Hamilton.
“The definition of grifting is taking money for a program you aren’t really running. And Adam Brandon definitely raised funds and did not spend them on FreedomTeams, the grassroots division of FreedomWorks. He kept the name, but they kept stringing along donors even after they perverted the program to something they knew was never going to work. It turned into a controlled opposition operation, completely abandoning the mission of making freedom work,” said Hamilton.
“The real tragedy in all of this is that populism needs libertarian ideas, Trump and Trumpism would only be strengthened by a principled freedom ideology, and now there’s one less group serving that critical need. Liberty and Populism can, and must, coexist.”
Adam Brandon, Margaret Luculano, and Noah Wall were asked for comment and did not respond.
The post Libertarian FreedomWorks Group Closing, Leader, Politico Blame Trump, but Insiders say Donors Orchestrated Org Suicide appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Shotspotter is a service sold to police departments nationwide to listen in and hear gunshots, and alert police nearly immediately to one in a city. The service involves placing microphones around a city in secret locations. The company claims that the microphones only listen for gunshots and do not passively listen to voices and conversations in the same way that phones and other digital devices now regularly do.
Left-wing media in Minneapolis is now saying that the program of covert city microphones is racist because a law intern at the University of Minnesota’s Legal Clinic, Alexander Lindenfelser, says blacks are three times more likely to live in an area covered by Shotspotter. Minneapolis has used the software for 20 years, spending $2.2 million on it since 2007. One hundred forty cities nationwide use Shotspotter. Minneapolis has 425,000 people, of whom 60% are white and 18% are black.
Minneapolis has some of the highest crime in the country, and just today, members of several gangs were indicted on violent felonies including trafficking in fentanyl and possession of machine guns. Crime is so high in Minneapolis that last month the police chief announced the police were likely to stop investigating property crimes altogether.
Major cities have suffered an ongoing rise in violent crime, facilitated, some say, by far-left policy demands related to so-called ‘criminal justice reform’ that gave light sentences to criminal defendants, provided low or no bonds to defendants causing them to fail to appear for court, and pushed early release from prison sentences and parole policies that kept criminals out of prison. In 2020, Hennepin County prosecutors, which includes Minneapolis, announced they would stop asking for bail, ensuring criminal defendants would be much less likely to show up to court dates, for many crimes.
The media was empowered to amplify this left-wing policy to eliminate Shotspotter after its author, intern Lindenfelser submitted the draft of his law review article to the City of Minneapolis for a “Racial Impact Equity Analysis” last month.
The legal test for whether a government program is racially impermissible is whether it has a ‘disproportionate impact’ upon a specific racial group. This legal theory derives from a 1971 Supreme Court case, Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which said that even if a policy was racially neutral in its drafting and creation if it led to results that were racially unequal, then it was a violation of the law.
The company installing Shotspotter puts 20 to 25 microphones per square mile in the cities where it is installed, in secret locations. Leaked data suggests many of the locations are elementary schools, billboards, hospitals, public housing complexes. The company uses AI algorithms to assist in the analysis of what is and is not a gunshot.
Critics of Shotspotter have also noted that it’s a major step in advancing the surveillance state, giving the government the authority to passively listen to even public conversations and process those statements for its own uses and purposes. The company claims it does not listen to conversations, only capturing gunshots, even though its recordings of conversations have been used by police to solve murders. Other critics complain about the system’s accuracy rate, though the company and some research suggest it has a general 98% accuracy rate.
The far-left American Civil Liberties Union sees no problem with Shotspotter’s wholesale violation of privacy, but says that the system is racist because it disproportionately affects blacks.
In most jurisdictions, the discharge of a firearm within city limits is a crime by itself. A gunshot is typically 140-190 decibels.
The parent company of ShotSpotter is “SoundThinking” out of California with $96 million in annual revenues. The President of the company is Ralph Clark.
In a statement to the Gateway Pundit, a SoundThinking spokesperson said: “SoundThinking’s mission is to enable efficient, effective, and equitable public safety outcomes. Regarding coverage areas, race and/or demographics are never considered when deploying ShotSpotter’s system. ShotSpotter deployments are based on objective historical crime data, with some influence from elected officials who want to protect their communities. All residents who live in communities experiencing persistent gunfire deserve a rapid police response, which gunshot detection enables regardless of race or geographic location. Black and brown children and young men are disproportionately affected by gun violence, and their communities deeply suffer from the physical and mental impacts of gunfire. They deserve a safe, equitable, and fast response in their communities.”
Calls and emails to the Minneapolis City Council and Minneapolis Police Department also went unanswered.
From Law Enforcement Today:
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – Minneapolis, which was ground zero in the nonsense that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020, responded to that by remarkably attempting to dismantle its police department.
Because nothing answers a spike in crime like taking away those sworn to enforce the law. The latest insanity to come to one-half of the Twin Cities is the possible elimination of ShotSpotter technology in the city. You can certainly guess why.
ShotSpotter is a technology deployed in numerous cities across the country. According to the company, 80% of gunfire incidents are never reported to police. ShotSpotter is an automated acoustic gunshot detection system that immediately notifies law enforcement upon activation and can direct resources to the location of the gunshots.
The system is installed around a city and uses microphones, a machine-learning algorithm, and human evaluators to detect gunshots. Once it is activated, it triangulates the sounds’ locations and alerts law enforcement officials to the activation’s whereabouts.
The city’s contract with ShotSpotter expired in March, and now come in the city is claiming the technology is “ineffective” and “promotes discriminatory policing” against minorities in the city. Proponents of the system, including law enforcement officials, say the technology helps officers more accurately determine the location of gunshots and get to the scene faster. However, none of that matters to activists, who are more concerned with virtue signaling than the safety of its residents.
The post Minneapolis’ Public Microphones for Police to Detect Gunshots Criticized as Racist appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
As the world reels from the years of Biden’s ineptitude and incompetence in handling world events, having inflamed the Russia-Ukraine war, mishandled various other crises causing untold death and devastation in contrast to President Trump’s years of global peace from 2017-2021, critics point out that Biden’s administration has turned a completely blind eye to the ongoing genocide of Christians in Nigeria where a reported 100,000 have been brutally murdered.
Nigeria: Several Christians were recently killed when Fulani Islamists attacked them in Bokkos, Plateau State. Here, the bodies of Celina Daniel (37), who was pregnant, and her 5-year-old daughter Juana are loaded for burial. Their loved ones grieve. They need help and prayers. pic.twitter.com/rVqgMbBs40
— Christian Emergency Alliance (@ChristianEmerg1) April 20, 2024
Muslims hacked at least 8,000 Nigerian Christians to death last year. Reports say the past year have been one of the deadliest in recent years. Christians represent 46% of Nigeria’s population. According to the Christian Post, Nigeria is the deadliest place in the world to follow Christ.
Last month, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, along with Senators Braun (R-IN) and Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to the Biden State Department demanding an explanation for their inaction on this humanitarian crisis, noting that the State Department could better use available diplomatic tools to fight the ongoing genocide.
Said Senator Hawley: “You must not stand idly by while Nigerian Christians continue to be murdered for their faith. We urge you to immediately use the tools at your disposal and re-designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern. We will continue to conduct oversight and hold the Biden Administration accountable until you fulfill your obligation under the law.”
In February, left-wing leaders and the European Union attempted to shift blame for the Christian persecutions from Muslims to ‘climate change’ as having caused ‘tensions.’
The killings over the past year are part of a long-standing war against Christians, dating back to 2009 when Boko Haram started its murderous campaign in Africa’s most populous nation.
Map of Jihadist Massacres in Nigeria(2009 – 2020)
Their main target…Christians pic.twitter.com/Ze1o2JmV3u
— 𝑽 𝒊 𝒔 𝒊 𝒐 𝒏
A Catholic non-profit, International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has complained that the media silence on this ongoing atrocity has made it a ‘silent genocide against Christians.’
The conflict has been going on for years, the UN condemned the situation last year. Other nonprofits have claimed this persecution against Christians and other minority groups has been going on for decades.
Former Congressman Steve Stockman (R-TX), who was considered for an Ambassadorship in the Trump Administration and spent years on the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House, said this to the Gateway Pundit about the layered dimensions of the crisis in Nigeria and the left-wing response to bizarrely blame it all on global warming:
“One reason for this genocide is that the radical Muslims hate and want to rid Nigeria of Christians, as shown in the 299 murdered over Christmas 2023 in Plateau State. A second reason is that the corruption seeps into the highest ranks of generals, etc., who steal and don’t defend the Christians. A third reason seems to be that different parts of Nigeria, such as Plateau State, are rich in minerals and the Fulani Muslim militants want to take these resources for themselves. Yet the U.S. government and the U.N. excuse a lot of these murders and land grabbing, saying it’s all from ‘climate change.'”
The conflict, experts say, worsened after Muslim leaders took over Nigeria.
Democrat consultants to Barack Obama have been heavily involved in Nigerian elections. Obama consultant David Axlerod helped Muslim Muhammadu Buhari defeat then-President and Christian Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. President Jonathan was advised in that election by a different Democrat consultant, Joe Trippi.
Goodluck had won the Presidency in 2011 against Buhari by a margin of 59% to 32%. In 2015, Goodluck lost the rematch to Buhari by a vote of 45%-54%. Later studies indicated irregularities in the election where votes in regions supporting Goodluck may have been suppressed by being invalidated at a higher than normal rate.
Last year the UK Guardian claimed that international spies and agents with connections to the State Department and Cambridge Analytica had interfered in the 2015 Nigerian Presidential election, but on behalf of the Christian President Goodluck Jonathan.
Reports also claim that tens of thousands of homes, 18,500+ Christian places of worship, 1000 religious shrines and 2,500 Christian education centers have been destroyed. Over 59,000 square kilometers of land that belonged to native Christians and non-Muslims were taken over and their inhabitants expelled.
Nigeria has 218.5 million inhabitants, the African country is located on the Gulf of Guinea.
Some on Twitter have attempted to politicize the Nigerian Christian genocide by subtly contrasting it with the suffering of Palestinian civilians as part of current Israeli operations against Hamas in the wake of the October 7th terrorism. Israel suffered 1,200 casualties from Hamas on October 7th, and an estimated 34,000 Palestinians have died since Israel responded with military operations against Hamas. One commenter demanded to know why conservative commentator Candace Owens has not said more about the Nigerian genocide, and others used it to shame Christian pastors who speak out for Palestinians while remaining silent on the suffering in Nigeria.
Former Congressman Stockman said, “This genocide was funded with State Department dollars that went into the 2015 election, because Obama’s deep state didn’t want a Christian leader of a major African nation. Obama’s legacy after meddling in Nigerian elections is a mountain of dead black Christians.”
Messages left with the Embassy of Nigeria in Washington, DC went unanswered.
The post Critics Slam Biden Silence Over Christian Genocide in Nigeria, Estimated 100,000+ Dead Since ’09 appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Part of the $9 billion in relief being sent to the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, claims a former Congressman who sat for years on the Foreign Affairs committee, is secret funding for massive Palestinian resettlement in America and Canada.
Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) noted online that the billions being sent to Gaza are suspicious in that the funds seem disconnected from the reality of a true humanitarian mission. The funds are legally worded in such a way as to give Biden and his team the ability to do whatever they want with the money.
I’m pouring through the pages of the three supplemental funding bills. Don’t buy what they are selling. Came across this on page 11:
‘‘International Disaster Assistance’’, $5,655,000,000, to remain available until expended, to address humanitarian needs, and
‘‘Migration and… pic.twitter.com/lhkoXVuZWp— Rep. Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) April 18, 2024
The passage of this $95 billion funding bill was very controversial due to Republican Speaker Mike Johnson using Democrats in order to fund a spending bill to fund Democrat Biden’s priorities.
The proposed pier is allegedly just for ‘humanitarian relief.’ Mainstream news outlets claim that the only controversy about the pier is how Israel might interfere with the access point. The U.S. military is constructing the pier, and were briefly under mortar fire today though there were no casualties and no damage to the construction.
One expert in the Middle East is sounding concern and alarm about how the pier might be used, however.
Cong. Steve Stockman was in Congress for two non-consecutive terms, his first as part of the Republican Revolution of 1994, where he served from 1995-1997, and again as part of the Tea Party wave, elected in 2012 and serving from 2013-2015. Stockman served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and had extensive knowledge of international affairs and the Middle East.
Stockman was harassed by the deep state for trying to impeach the IRS’ Lois Lerner and Democrat President Obama, and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and later had his sentence mercifully commuted by President Trump around Christmas Day 2020. The DOJ deep state also tried to prosecute Stockman because he was being considered in 2017 for an Ambassadorship to the United Arab Emirates.
Stockman says that, from his contacts and also understanding how the left in power works, what’s being planned is a massive resettlement of Palestinians to the West.
“The $9 billion in relief aid wasn’t meant to actually help the Palestinians who need it,” Stockman said. “They structured it as ‘humanitarian aid’ because legally, that definition is so broad that they can repurpose the aid however they want. It’s a classic Congressional con game with this funding. It’s part of the billions and trillions spent every year by the deep state to accomplish its goals, and most of it is right out in the open.”
“They are going to use this money to resettle Palestinians in America, using this pier, the same way the militant left used Muslim refugees from Syria to colonize Europe.”
Stockman blames the quiet and covert alleged influence of former President Barack Obama.
“Obama and his team, who are the real power behind the throne with senile Biden, want to bring two million hate-filled anti-Americans here to help them win elections and help divide and destroy our native population. Their goal is to destroy you, your family, and your neighborhood,” said Stockman. “They brought millions into Europe in the same way: the left sparks a war, the left refuses to fight the war, and then they use the refugees created by their actions to restructure societies they hate. They’re bringing those Palestinians to America, just the same way they keep open borders to accomplish the same purpose.”
Federal government sources also relate that the Biden DOJ has approved nearly all of the refugee claims with nearly zero scrutiny.
Some have also pointed to claims in the past that humanitarian and food aid sent to Gaza in the past was substantially misappropriated and turned into profitable ‘reselling’ opportunities.
World Food Programme humanitarian aid SOLD to Palestinians on the streets of Gaza- despite the boxes being labelled ‘Not for Sale.’ pic.twitter.com/47kzPXqrlP
— Shunya (@Shunyaa00) April 12, 2024
Stockman continued, “Most don’t know that up in Canada, Trudeau opened the door to unlimited Gaza terrorist visas while he is slow-walking getting our allies out of the Taliban’s Afghanistan. This has nothing to do with charity or humanitarianism, they want to take in Palestinians and they don’t want to help traditional U.S. allies. The history of Democrat-led foreign policy over the last generation is one of extreme cynicism and partisanship.”
Former Cong. Stockman offered one powerful example of such cynicism, “I was on a CoDel in 2014, which is short for Congressional Delegation, to Nigeria. While there, an intelligence officer came up to me and asked to speak privately. He let me know that Obama’s White House knew exactly where the Muslim Boko Haram were keeping the kidnapped Christian girls. The military was ready to go in and rescue them, and were urgently and repeatedly asking for authorization to do so. But the White House and the John Kerry State Department didn’t want to give a perceived ‘win’ to then-President Goodluck Jonathan, because he was ‘homophobic’ in their eyes. So they let those girls suffer, get raped, and die to prevent a strong black political leader who didn’t agree with their globalist gay agenda from getting a win. That’s the deep state up close: they are busy reshaping the world with American tax dollars to ensure a hard-left Communist future, globally. Now, Nigeria’s the number one spot where Christians are being murdered across the world, that’s the outcome Obama wanted.”
The post Former Foreign Affairs Congressman Claims: Gaza Pier will be used to Export Palestinians to US & Canada appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Tech giant Google has ended the employment of over 50 employees who were protesting the company’s cloud-services contract with the nation of Israel with sit-ins and other disruptive tactics. Thirty were fired last week, and at least 20 more were fired yesterday.
https://twitter.com/KreatelyMedia/status/1780865714263629965
The protesters had previously been arrested while protesting on Google’s worksites, including inside the CEO’s office.
Jane Chung, a spokesperson for the activist group No Tech for Apartheid, said Google was quashing dissent. No Tech for Apartheid claims some of those fired were mere bystanders during last Tuesday’s protests at Google offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, and not actively involved in the workplace activism.
Protesters were criticizing the use of Google’s technology in the Gaza conflict, where the Israeli government invaded the Gaza strip in response to the October 7th terror attacks by Hamas upon Israeli citizens that took 1,200 lives. Hamas claims 34,000 Palestinian lives have been lost so far in the military response by Israel to the attacks.
The proposed $1.2 billion project between Google and Israel is known as “Project Nimbus.” Project Nimbus’ operational details are not disclosed, but it is speculated that Google’s AI tools could give Israeli military capabilities such as: facial detection, automated image categorization, object tracking, and sentiment analysis. Google employees have been organizing “sit-ins” at company locations in New York and Sunnyvale in California. The protests have been organized by a group called “No Tech For Apartheid” which has been active on the issue since 2021.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Google is “not a place for politics” which stands in stark contrast to Google’s strong hard-left stance over the last 24 years.
The decision by Google’s Pichai is causing debates on the role of politics in the workplace and also the degree to which private companies are supporting government operations that some might deem morally wrong.
Google’s former motto was “don’t be evil” which the company deleted in 2018.
Google’s hard-left political stance has been militantly enforced with overt censorship despite its public statements to the contrary.
Google has deplatformed a variety of political activists on the right, including violating its own terms of service to simply ‘unperson’ individuals whom they deemed unworthy of their services. Google has politicized its Google Ads program, demonetizing services they dislike.
In 2018, Google threatened the center-right online magazine “The Federalist” with demonetization, based on the comments of its readers, causing the Federalist to simply end their comment boards. Google banned the publication ZeroHedge in 2018 from using its ad services.
Google has previously banned the Gateway Pundit from using Google Ad services.
Political censorship on Google-owned YouTube is so notorious that there are many layers to a subculture of different ways content and political thought are controlled by the company that was once committed to objectivity and open political debate. Activists and organizations complain about ‘shadow banning’ ‘demonetization’, and ‘content strikes’ as part of the company’s extensive internal infrastructure and bureaucracy for controlling political thoughts and expressions.
Google’s YouTube has even banned entire styles of acoustic music that it finds ideologically problematic.
Google has also denied services to entire industries it disfavors. As part of a hard-left push to eliminate the bail industry, Google simply stopped providing any services to bail agents in May 2018.
The company has also been notorious for not only denying services to what it perceives as the political right, but also in overtly taking one political side over another in ongoing political contests. In 2014, Google banned advertisements from Pregnancy Resource Centers, pro-life organizations that provide largely free services to expectant mothers because it called them ‘deceptive’ while also accepting donations from pro-abortion organizations.
The post Google Fires 50 Pro-Palestinian Employees Protesting Company Contract with Israel, CEO says company is “No Place for Politics” appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
The Biden administration announced two major wins for the far-left environmentalists last Friday: it will block new oil and gas leasing on 13 million acres in Alaska’s federal petroleum reserve to protect local wildlife caribou and polar bears, and it will stop development on an access road for mining companies that was previously approved by the Trump administration.
Biden announced the government is blocking the development of the “Ambler Road,” a 211-mile access road that would have given mining companies the ability to access leased land for mineral development.
The far-left environmentalist group the Sierra Club called the decision a “major victory.”
This Biden decision bans oil and gas drilling in nearly half of the Alaska petroleum reserve. The reserve is 23 million acres of public land for a national emergency oil supply originally intended for the US Navy, created in the early 1920s.
Even though pump prices have remained high for most Americans, and the high prices affect the working poor the most, Biden has been regularly canceling and terminating energy development leases, as he did several times in 2023.
Alaska’s entire Congressional delegation criticized the decisions last week.
“Closing off NPR-A is a huge step back for Alaska, failing to strike a balance between the need for gap oil and natural gas and legitimate environmental concerns, and steamrolling the voices of many Alaska Natives in the decision-making process,” Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, said in a joint statement issued by the three-member delegation. “The Ambler Road decision is premature, as real conversations among stakeholders in the region are ongoing. Alaska has a wealth of natural resources that can be responsibly developed to help boost domestic manufacturing and innovation — in the end, it should be up to Alaskans to decide what they want developed in their regions.”
This comes on the heels of the news that U.S. crude oil prices have risen 15% year to date due to stronger demand, tighter supplies due to OPEC+ production cuts, and mounting political risks in the Mideast and Eastern Europe.
The size of the land Biden blocked from development, 13 million acres, or 20,000 square miles, is a little smaller than the footprint of West Virginia.
The primary energy development in the area is the ConocoPhillips-owned Willow project. ConocoPhillips’ two largest stakeholders are the Vanguard Group and the controversial BlackRock investment group, who each own about 9% of the firm. The ConocoPhillips project is scheduled to open in 2029, it will now not have any competitors.
According to ConocoPhillips, the Willow project will create $8-17 billion more in federal tax revenues, thousands of jobs, and produce 600 million barrels of oil over the project’s lifetime. The price of a barrel of oil is roughly $87, so the total value of the project would be $52.2 billion.
John Podesta, senior adviser to the president for international climate policy, said the pair of decisions would conserve Alaska lands for generations.
“The Biden-Harris administration has now protected more than 41 million acres of lands and waters across the country, leaving a huge mark on the history of American conservation,” Podesta said in a statement.
Elsewhere, Biden’s administration promised the public that they would take all steps necessary to keep gas prices low.
Alaska Natives criticize the drilling ban in the Western Arctic as it impacts a significant portion of the NPR-A land. Nearly all Alaskan citizens typically receive an annual check for their share of state dividends from energy proceeds, a program known as the “Permanent Fund Dividend.” Last year the checks were for $1,312.
The decision aims to protect animal species from so-called “global warming” affecting the Arctic. Elites are obsessed with ‘saving’ the Arctic, even though their predictions about ice melt, extinction, rising sea levels, never come true.
To control prices during the outset of the Russia-Ukraine war, Biden sold half of America’s ‘Strategic Petroleum Reserve’ and has struggled to refill it due to rising gas prices.
The post Biden Blocks New Alaska Oil and Gas Leases to Save Polar Bears, Caribou, Blocks Key Mining Road appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Several days of protests, assaults on Jewish students, and chaos at Columbia University in New York City have now spread to other American college campuses. Columbia has since suspended two Palestinian groups, and a local rabbi has encouraged Jewish students to flee the campus.
Now, roughly 45 pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested for ‘trespassing’ at Yale University, according to the New Haven Police Department. All were being released on mere promises to appear in court later, meaning they were released with zero bond to ensure they will reappear in court.
This comes in the wake of 108 pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University arrested for setting up a ‘tent city’ on the campus last week. Dozens arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Yale and New York University as student protests concerning Israel’s Gaza war continue.
Trespassing is indeed a crime, as is assault and disorderly conduct. And although hate speech is not in itself a crime, it’s a clear violation of a university’s code of conduct. Why is this so hard for our “elite” college administrators? @Columbia https://t.co/vkWPj6HLR5
— Dave Aronberg (@aronberg) April 22, 2024
A wide range of groups appear to be behind the campus protests and encampments.
The protests are focused on the disparity of the evolving conflict in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. The October 7th terror attacks by Hamas on Israel and Israeli citizens killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis. Israel’s military response, invading the Gaza Strip to hunt down Hamas, has displaced millions and, according to Hamas, widely known for their lies and brutality, claims 34,000 lives have been lost so far.
Protests have spread nationwide to the following campuses, where some are taking the form of ‘tent city’ encampment protests:
New anti-Israel tent city takes over Columbia University lawn days after NYPD raid as activists vow to stay ‘forever.’ pic.twitter.com/jvVhJjhEKv
— New York Post (@nypost) April 22, 2024
CBS News claims that the spreading protests have left the nation’s colleges “on edge.”
The Anti-Defamation League has denounced the protests and protesters as supporting terror against Israel and violence on college campuses.
The University of Southern California took the unusual step of canceling a planned commencement speech by its 2024 valedictorian last week. Which has, yesterday, led to protests.
Earlier this month, a leaked call from the Anti-Defamation League indicated that the organized response of pro-Jewish and pro-Israeli groups in America will be to encourage the federal government to increase social media and official censorship to contain the spread of these ideas.
The post Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Israel, Protests Spread to Yale, UMichigan, NYU and Across America appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott says too much money goes to white-run arts groups, so instead he is giving $3.6 million in city-directed funds to blacks-only arts groups.
Mayor Scott announced last week that “white-ran” businesses were for too long getting public dollars so he is going to divert COVID funds to non-white businesses.
"For too long, public dollars have simply just gone to the big names and the big players in town," Mayor Scott said. "And dare I say, I know my staff is going to hate this, the big names and big players in town that just happen to be White-ran organizations in Baltimore."
Not only is the Baltimore mayor clearly giving away funds in an illegal way, discriminating against all other races in how he gives out taxpayer money, but he's also wrong about there being white-run arts museums in his own city, including for art museums he sits on the board for.
Scott is awarding the "Diversity in Arts" grants funded by federal COVID-19 relief dollars. Capital grant recipients include the The National Great Blacks In Wax Museum and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.
The National Great Blacks Wax Museum has a wide array of statues from all stages of black history, and is receiving $250,000 in taxpayer funds. It received $2 million in federal funds last year. It reports having 150,000 annual visitors.
The Lewis museum claims to have over 10,000 items in its collection. It reported 15,000 general admission visitors in its 2023 annual report.
The art museums that did not receive the Mayor's funding, include the three most prominent museums in the Charm City such as the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum and the American Visionaries Art Museum.
But none of those three appear to be hostile to black art, black leadership, or are especially white-run, in contrast to the Mayor's statements.
The Baltimore Museum of Art's Director is Asma Naeem, who is Pakistani as noted in the press release announcing her appointment.
The Mayor's comments about Baltimore's art museums being white-run as it relates to the Walters Art Museum are even more out-of-touch with reality though. Oddly, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott sits as a trustee on the Walters Art Museum's leadership board. As well, the Chair of the Board is Guy Flynn, is black.
The third traditional Baltimore art museum, the American Visionary Art Museum was, until very recently, similarly led by a black woman, Jenenne Whitfield. Whitfield was the director of the museum from March 2022 through September 21, 2023, because of unstated creative differences with the organization's board of directors. The museum's co-founder Rebecca Alban Hoffberger is currently serving as an interim until they can find a permanent replacement.
So the motivation as stated by the Mayor to fund all-black art outlets at the expense of the more traditional art museums in Baltimore because they were all white-run, appears to be wholly false.
Mayor Scott is in a tough Democrat primary, for a primary election being held on May 14th. There are four leading challengers for the nomination, and while Scott is the favorite there are strong contenders.
Whomever prevails faces a tough budget because of the prior spending priorities, such as spending millions of dollars on art projects. Because of increased education payments, the City's Comptroller Bill Henry says that the 2025 Fiscal Year budget may prove impossible to draft, pass, and reconcile.
"We're now paying almost twice what we were paying several years ago in terms of local contribution to the school system, which is good for the schools. And it's not like the kids don't need the additional resources. It's just that that puts an incredible challenge on local government to continue to provide all of the other services that people expect from city government," Henry said.
Baltimore is the largest city in Maryland, with an estimated 575,000 citizens. The city's annual budget is $3.47 billion. The racial demographics of the city are roughly 62% black, and 32% white.
The post Baltimore Mayor Announces Millions in Black-Only Arts Funding, includes Black Leaders Wax Museum, Comptroller says City is Broke appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Yesterday evening, at a Memphis, Tennessee ‘block party’, two were killed and at least 14 injured in a shooting spree at what some are calling a ‘420 celebration’ involving weed.
More than 300 shots were fired, causing participants to flee.
JUST IN: Memphis police in Tennessee are responding to a mass shooting reported in Orange Mound at a “block party.”
According to the Memphis Police Department who spoke with ABC24, at least two people are dead and others were rushed to the hospital.
“Two people were pronounced… pic.twitter.com/wh6vw0jCsy
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 21, 2024
The shooting happened in Memphis at the corner of Carnes Avenue and Grand Street, which is right next to Orange Mound Park in central Memphis.
Some participants were reportedly openly carrying rifles and weapons.
Online, some have already claimed that the media will not report on this incident because many of the rally participants appear to be African Americans. The political left typically complains about the way language is used related to racial crime stories, and the political right sometimes complains about how the mainstream media suppresses the race of criminal defendants or in the presentation of crime statistics to hide the frequency of offenses by specific racial groups.
The motive of the shooters is not known at this time, and the Memphis Police report that they are still investigating the crimes involved.
Memphis Mayor Paul Young, who was elected in the past year, is faced with a city of 621,000 and one of the highest crime rates in the country.
The prior Mayor blamed the District Attorney and court system for its weak-on-crime policies, releasing violent criminals from prison, and low bond policies, as causing the rise in Memphis’ crime problems.
Then-Mayor Strickland said in 2023:
“…ask the District Attorney’s and the judges and the judicial commissioners and the people who run our state prisons. Why are they letting these people out so quickly? That’s the problem. You oughta talk to the court system, what are they doing about crime?” Strickland said. “I’ll tell you what they’re doing, they’re letting criminals out on the street violent criminals back out on the street, low bonds.”
Memphis had its highest crime rate in history in 2023. With 2022 data, Memphis had the highest violent crime rate in the country, which included 397 murders.
Memphis radically changed its bail system in August 2022. The changes included revising the way in which bail was set by a judge. Bail is the insurance provided by a defendant to show up for future court dates. Without a financial penalty, many choose to simply ignore court subpoenas. The normal ‘failure to appear’ rate for criminal defendants in normal courts is around three percent. In areas that have enacted left-wing bail reform, the ‘failure to appear’ usually hovers around 50 percent. The American Civil Liberties Union “ACLU”, which was originally founded to help Communists resist the World War 1 draft, praised the Memphis bail reform decision.
Many in New York State are convinced that left-wing ‘bail reform’ there caused violent crime to skyrocket throughout the state, especially in the major cities.
Crime has substantially increased throughout America since the disputed 2020 election. Conservatives typically blame “soft on crime” policies such as releasing violent criminals from prison, low/no bond arrangements where criminals aren’t motivated to even show up to court once released from jail, among other policies. Liberals have typically blamed poverty as the cause of crime, either because a defendant needs money or because they haven’t been able to get an education to become too educated to commit crime.
And of course the political left will also use word play and statistics abuse in order to gaslight America that violent crime is going down, such as when National Public Radio said as much earlier this year, “In cities big and small, from both coasts, violence has dropped.”
The post Two Dead, 14 Wounded, shot at Memphis “Block Party”, part of America’s Lawless Leftist Cities appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Protests at Columbia University in New York City got heated Thursday night as protesters demanded charges be dropped against pro-Palestinian activists who were shutting down the college’s buildings to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. The protesters were upset that the police arrested those making a ‘tent city’ inside the college’s buildings and on campus grounds. 108 were arrested after three days of protests. The protesters wanted those arrested released without charges.
https://twitter.com/tparon/status/1780998734584652258
One Columbia Professor denounced the police.
These protests were spearheaded by a far-left alt-left group called Within Our Lifetime-United for Palestine (WOL). One of those arrested was Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Communist daughter Isra Hirsi, who attends college at Barnard College, also in NYC. Hirsi was suspended by Barnard College yesterday.
https://twitter.com/WOLPalestine/status/1781150169699922201
The protests come in the wake of the Hamas organization’s terrorist attack on Israelis last October 7th, when a reported 1,200 Israeli citizens and soldiers were killed. The escalating violence in response, where Israel invaded the Gaza Strip and pushed out 2 million Palestinians, causing an estimated 50,000 casualties, has caused worldwide condemnation and nearly brought the world into conflict when Iran launched 200 militarized drones at Israel last week.
“We don’t want no Zionists here.”
Protest video sent to me by a Columbia student: pic.twitter.com/ysBQtRabKP
— Kassy Akiva (@KassyDillon) April 19, 2024
Protests at the nation’s college campuses have largely been reported as siding with the Palestinians. A leaked call from inside the powerful Jewish group the Anti-Defamation League said that the nation’s Jewish leaders were aware of the political problem of Palestinian influence on college students, and were working with the government to increase censorship, including on social media, to combat the rise in what they described as anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist views.
One pro-Palestinian protester said, “We’re going to turn this city upside down until we’re f****** heard whether you like it or not. I don’t give a f***.”
Arab-Israeli reporter Yoseph Haddad was assaulted at the protest, he was escorted away from the scene by police. Protesters were demanding that Haddad be arrested, chanting, “Arrest that Zionist piece of s***”
Hi @Reuters,
I am not a pro-Palestinian protestor
I am an Israeli Arab who is surrounded by policemen to protect me after I was attacked at a demonstration by terror supporters, I am on the way to file a complaint about the attack…
And one more thing you forgot to mention -… pic.twitter.com/xIEwXVJwCU— יוסף חדאד – Yoseph Haddad (@YosephHaddad) April 19, 2024
Witnesses say his assailant was this man, pictured below. As Haddad was escorted away, the protester was observed making additional threats to Haddad.
Arab Israeli activist @yosephhaddad assaulted at Hamas supporting illegal protest at Columbia University. The attacker, Essa Ejelat, is still at large pic.twitter.com/c1X6BGUG5c
— Adam Milstein (@AdamMilstein) April 19, 2024
CBS News New York Reporter Jessica Moore, pictured below, was repeatedly called a “Zionist c***” by the protesters, causing her to get unnerved.
Journalist Andy Ngo, who has been the nation’s premier documenter of the alt-left and Antifa-adjacent groups, tweeted about Columbia:
https://twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1781346147501514990
Most legal charges against far-left political protesters are dropped by police and friendly prosecutors nationwide, in violation of the Constitutional requirement of equal treatment under law. The Manhattan District Attorney is far-left zealot Alvin Bragg. Bragg’s campaigns have been significantly funded by far-left donors like George Soros. It remains to be seen if these protesters who were arrested will be processed through the criminal justice system now largely in control of sympathetic left-wing ideologues.
Columbia University is the alma mater for left-wing icons like Barack Hussein Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and also Communist spies like Victor Perlo and Harry Dexter White.
The post Chaos at Columbia: Anti-Zionist NYC College Protest Gets Physical Last Night, “Arrest that Zionist piece of s***” (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Today, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and other Republicans in the U.S. Senate berated Dept. of Homeland Security’s impeached and disgraced Director Alejandro Mayorkas, where the DHS Director was forced to admit that the illegal immigrant alleged murderer of Georgia’s Laken Riley was previously in custody and was released early because of a government program to deal with ‘urgent humanitarian situations.’
LAX GOVERNMENT ENFORCEMENT OF IMMIGRATION LAWS UNDER BIDEN PUT DANGEROUS ILLEGALS OUT ON THE STREETS, ONE OF WHOM IS ACCUSED OF KILLING LAKEN RILEY
If DHS Director Alejandro Mayorkas had not abused the legal authority from this program, releasing illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes, Cong. Marjorie Taylor Greene said “Laken Riley would likely still be alive today.”
Sen. Hawley exploded at Mayorkas yesterday at a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) asked Mayorkas, “how could you sleep at night?” knowing that his actions likely led to the death of 22 year old Riley.
Two months ago, on February 22nd, 22 year old Laken Riley, who was a nursing student at Augusta University in Georgia was jogging at nearby University of Georgia when she was abducted. Her body was found nearby in the Oconee Forest Park, her death was a result of blunt force trauma.
Illegal Immigrant José Antonio Ibarra, age 26, from Venezuela, has been arrested and charged with felony murder, false imprisonment, and kidnapping. There is currently no date set for trial.
Riley’s father asked the Georgia legislature to declare an ‘invasion’ by illegal immigrants. America’s President later spent time grieving with the Riley family.
In March the U.S. House passed the ‘Laken Riley Act’ to require federal immigration enforcement to arrest and detain illegal aliens until they are removed from the country.
Biden has tried to avoid the death of Laken Riley, along with avoiding the deaths of thousands of Americans who died at the hands of illegal immigrants every year. Biden was sorry though, sorry that he accidentally called Jose Ibarra an “illegal” to the mainstream news reporters. Biden also confused her name with that of a USC football coach.
Secretary Mayorkas was impeached by the Republican-controlled House on April 16th. The Democrat-controlled Senate summarily dismissed the House’s articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas. This is in contrast to the obviously-fake impeachments against then-President Donald Trump, where a Republican-controlled Senate held a trial on the House’s impeachment charges twice, even though the charges were clearly unhinged and irrational lies against Donald Trump.
The post Sen. Hawley Forces DHS’ Mayorkas to Admit Laken Riley’s Killer was Lawlessly Released by Govt. appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
A story originally appearing in the Associated Press (“AP”) complaining about the lack of felon voting rights in Mississippi is being amplified by a variety of other news outlets.
The story is the product of a left-wing desire to normalize the effort to give voting rights to convicted felons.
The reasoning is simple: felons vote for Democrats, according to a study from the left-wing Brennan Center for Justice at NYU law. The findings were that 70% registered as Democrats and 24% registered as Republicans. Other studies show somewhere between a 20-40% preference for Democrats by those with a prior felony conviction.
The story quotes Kenneth Almons who served 23 years in state prison for armed robbery. It mentions that armed robbery is one of Almons’ felonies, it does not list out what his other charges putting him behind bars were.
The story does mention that Mississippi only restricts voting rights for people convicted of a certain list of 22 different felonies. It doesn’t list out what those other felonies are, but here’s the list from the Attorney General’s website.
Felons lose their obligation to serve on jury duty when called in every state except Maine. Felons lose their gun rights under federal law in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), federal firearms rights are lost upon conviction of a “crime punishable by a imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.”
CNN in 2020 estimated that 5 million people with felony convictions are not currently voting.
The wide variety of far-left groups advocating for the restoration of voting rights don’t seem as concerned with the restoration of jury duty obligations, even though juries are chronically undermanned nationwide, nor the restoration of firearm ownership rights.
Here are the far-left groups involved in this advocacy:
The Associated Press does not identify a single opponent of the bill, and does not focus on any possible negatives to the proposed legislation. In fact, the news piece quotes a far-left group, the Brennan Center.
Previously, the AP editorialized and said that the restoration of felon voting rights was ‘bipartisan’ and offered a ‘rare’ chance for change. The improper advocacy by the news outlet is matched by the unbalanced coverage within the story, where only one side of the argument and debate is being presented. The obvious partisan implications of the bill are also ignored, to the benefit of the party that would want to hide its electoral agenda and strategy.
This kind of advocacy within the news, along with the corruption of the mainstream media that presents far-left policy agenda items as ‘bipartisan’ efforts, is part of a 50-plus year center-right criticism of systemic bias in the media that promotes mindless conformity to left-wing ideology.
A simple search of Google reveals the headline of the article is repeated exactly the same in 40 different news outlets. It’s a close version of this formulation:
headline: Mississippi legislators won’t smooth the path this year to restore voting rights after some felonies
These outlets are simply repeating the wire service copy, copying-and-pasting the headline and the text of the story as given to them.
The reporter at the Associated Press who wrote the original story was Emily Wagster Pettus. In her article, Pettus writes from an entirely left-wing sympathetic point of view. Her article toes a hard-left political line. Pettus claims in her article, citing to the attorneys in the case from left-wing groups, that blacks are more likely to commit felonies, especially the felonies listed above, than other races.
She refers to the prohibition on felon voting as coming from a “Jim Crow era” of the state’s history. Reporter Pettus makes an argument for guilt-by-timeline and guilt-by-association as the laws in question were passed at the wrong time and in the wrong place to be considered valid.
This despite the fact that many other states, including many other southern states, allow for felon voting rights restoration. Not to mention that many other states with similar rules, Iowa, Connecticut, Wyoming, Arizona, never had ‘Jim Crow’ laws nor were they in the Confederacy.
The beginning of Pettus’ original story reads as follows:
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Kenneth Almons says he began a 23-year sentence in a Mississippi prison just two weeks after graduating from high school, and one of his felony convictions — for armed robbery — stripped away voting rights that he still has not regained decades later.
Now 51, Almons told lawmakers Wednesday that he has worked hard and remained law-abiding since his release, and he wants to be able to vote.
“It would mean I am no longer considered a nobody,” Almons said. “Because when you don’t have a voice, you’re nobody.”
Mississippi is among the 26 states that remove voting rights from people for criminal convictions, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Mississippi’s original list of disenfranchising crimes springs from the Jim Crow era, and attorneys who have sued to challenge the list say authors of the state constitution removed voting rights for crimes they thought Black people were more likely to commit.
The restoration of felon voting rights, letting the votes of rapists to cancel out their victims, and for murderers to double-outvote their victims, has opponents that the Associated Press could find if they had tried.
The post Media, Leftists, Infuriated that Mississippi won’t let Felons Vote appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Vaunce News 