‘The Church at Planned Parenthood is NOT a protest. It’s a worship service at the gates of Hell…’
lanned Parenthood / IMAGE: Vice News via YouTube
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Planned Parenthood on Tuesday sued a Christian church that meets outside a Spokane abortion facility for being too loud, but the police said worshippers have not violated any state or local laws, KREM reported. The Church at Planned Parenthood meets outside the Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho to serve as a “gathering of Christians for the worship of God and corporate prayer for repentance for this nation,” says its website.
The group also seeks “repentance for the apathetic church, and repentance for our blood guiltiness” in what it describes as an abortion Holocaust.
Planned Parenthood called the church’s presence a demonstration or a protest, but the church rejects this label.
“The Church at Planned Parenthood is NOT a protest,” according to the group’s website. “It’s a worship service at the gates of Hell.”
Officers with the Spokane Police Department attended the worship service this week.
“The noise before and during the event, which was monitored by decibel meters, did not reach a level that required enforcement action per ordinance,” said Brian Coddington, a spokesperson for the city of Spokane. “Additionally, officers did not receive noise complaints from anyone in the area.”
The Spokane City Council passed an ordinance to limit noise outside of hospitals, healthcare buildings and abortion facilities.
The ordinance gives Planned Parenthood the right to “seek appropriate remedies for violations without needing city involvement,” KREM reported. There is no explanation of what this might entail.
The church attracts hundreds of worshippers, including Washington state Rep. Matt Shea, a pro-life Republican.
Kim Clark, senior staff attorney for Legal Voice, said those seeking abortions have the right to do so without “unreasonable disruption or interference.”
She said the church’s worship services are racist, too.
“This is more vital than ever in a global health pandemic that is disproportionately harming people of color—people who already face substantial obstacles to accessing healthcare,” Clark said.
‘This lawsuit is part of a coordinated, politically motivated campaign against energy companies…’
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) If at first you don’t succeed, sue and sue again.
That seems to be the motto of “blue state” leaders looking to achieve Big Tobacco-like settlements against oil companies.
But Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is taking it up notch and suing Exxon Mobile, the American Petroleum Institute and Koch Industries at the same time.
Ellison announced the lawsuit on Thursday and alleges the politically convenient targets violated Minnesota’s Consumer Fraud Act by engaging in a 30-year “campaign of deception.”
For decades, the fossil-fuel industry knew their products were harming MN. They had duty to tell us. Instead, they led a campaign of #climatedeception that hurt our state & left us with massive costs. Today, I sued to hold them accountable for their fraud. https://t.co/2HSQ0744qn
— Attorney General Keith Ellison (@AGEllison) June 24, 2020
The timing of the suit coincides with another politically charged case.
Ellison is currently embroiled in the prosecution of four police officers involved in the death of George Floyd, a black man whose death sparked widespread riots and looting in Democratic-controlled cities.
However, his own values and past conduct are likely to come under scrutiny should he insist on leading the prosecution in the globally watched trial.
Ellison has been linked with the radical, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, as well as the actual terrorism-supporting nation of Iran. Some speculate that he may be more interested in a political outcome that foments greater chaos and division than promoting justice and racial healing.
His new climate lawsuit is the latest in a long line of failed civil-court cash-grabs. More than a dozen states and cities have already sued on similar grounds. None of them have been successful.
Most recently, New York’s attorney general sued Exxon for allegedly deceiving investors about the future costs of climate-change regulations. A state judge found the argument unpersuasive and cleared Exxon of “climate fraud” in December.
A pair of California-based climate change lawsuits appear to be the next salvo. After losing in federal court, the cities of Oakland and San Francisco are lining up the same cases for state court prosecutions.
The strategy doesn’t appear to have much of a downside. Taxpayer funds are spent attacking political targets, favorable media headlines ensue, and the chance of a friendly judge straying in favor of progressive attorneys general would open the door for giant settlements.
“This lawsuit is part of a coordinated, politically motivated campaign against energy companies,” said an Exxon spokesman responded to Ellison. “The claims are baseless and without merit. We look forward to defending the company in court.”
‘The verbal abuse, taunting and having to be escorted … for two straight days was more than we could watch…’
Black Lives Matters protesters obstruct traffic and harass customers in front of Omaha’s 11-Worth Cafe. / PHOTO: KMTV 3 News Now via YouTube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The mayor of Omaha, Nebraska is launching an investigation into the Black Lives Matter protests after protesters harassed a local restaurant, forcing it shut down.
The 11-Worth Cafe, described as a staple in Omaha, announced earlier this month that it would be shutting its doors due to the “numerous threats” it had received over a menu item that protesters deemed “racist.”
Owners of the restaurant had also been vocally critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, suggesting that law enforcement should take action against violent rioters.
Protesters reportedly pounded on the restaurant’s windows demanding that the menu item, which was named after Robert E. Lee, be taken off. They blocked traffic and extorted money—purportedly in the form of a donation—from the owners in exchange for ending the harassment, according to the Omaha World-Herald.
The owners agreed to pay the sum, which led some protesters, including a local city council candidate named David Mitchell, to demand even more money from the restaurant. Suddenly, the donation request went from $500 to $500,000, the owners explained.
“Our customers and staff are of the utmost importance to our family,” the restaurant said in a statement announcing its closure.
“The verbal abuse, taunting, and having to be escorted to and from their cars by police and security officers for their safety for two straight days was more than we could watch them endure.”
In response, Mayor Jean Stothert directed the Omaha Police Department to investigate potential criminal activity, including the extortion.
“We don’t want to let this one incident that was a few hours on a Saturday and Sunday to close a long-standing business that people enjoyed,” she said.
“The message I wanted to give to them—and I wanted them to hear it from me—is we don’t want them to go out of business. We don’t want them to close.”
‘If this stemmed from a complaint, I might have a different perspective…’
A view of the Lake Superior coastline in Duluth, Minn. / PHOTO: Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) Following the racial tensions that have ravaged Minnesota‘s Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, politically correct mob justice is now heading to the Gopher State’s picturesque north country.
But for now, at least, it seems common-sense has prevailed.
The Duluth City Council voted to table the mayor’s proposal to strike the word “chief” from the name of the city’s chief administrative officer, the Star Tribune reported.
Mayor Emily Larson asked the city council to consider changing the city’s ordinance due to concerns that the word offends Native Americans.
Larson said she offered the measure “so that we have more inclusive leadership and less language that is rooted in hurt and offensive, intentional marginalization.”
Council members said concerned citizens who live in Duluth or elsewhere sent them emails about the word’s Latin origin and historical use for corporate and military leaders.
“I feel like chief has been an honorable title for many, many years. And it does not even stem from the indigenous community,” council member Derek Medved said Monday.
Medved said that he calls himself the chief executive of a gas station and convenience store that he owns.
“If this stemmed from a complaint, I might have a different perspective,” he said.
If the mayor’s proposal had passed, Chief Administrative Officer Noah Schuchman’s title would have been changed to “city administrator.”
To change the position’s title, the city council would have had to vote unanimously in favor of amending the city’s charter.
Larson said she is considering an additional proposal to eliminate the word “chief” from the titles of Duluth’s heads of police and fire.
“Never will I ever vote for that,” Medved said. “In the next 3.5 years, it will never happen while I’m on the council.”
Council member Renee Van Nett, a Native-American woman, said she disagrees with the city council’s decision to table a vote on the amendment, MPR News reported.
“It doesn’t affect you all like it affects me,” she said to the other council members. “When someone calls me ‘chief,’—that is bad, you guys. And that happens,” she said.
‘The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions…’
IMAGE: Kenmore’s Progressive Canister Vacuum – Reset Button via YouTube
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Lost in the whirlwind of the Wuhan virus, violent race riots and desecrated historic monuments across Democrat-controlled cities was the call for a “Great Reset” of global capitalism at the World Economic Forum earlier this month.
“The world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions,” reads a statement from the World Economic Forum.
“Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,” it continued. “In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”
The trans-national organization is a globalist outfit consisting of powerful officials from governments, corporations, nonprofits, academia, labor unions and liberal activist groups. Its stated mission is to “shape global, regional and industry agendas.”
The forum’s “Great Reset” is based on its own prediction of a coming worldwide economic crisis. It can only be averted if influential elites take control of sovereign economies and forcefully institute new agendas ranging from climate change, to health care, to private-sector “engagement,” to solving vaguely defined “social ills and inequality.”
Al Gore, the former US vice president and wealthy climate alarmist, embraced the idea of “Great Reset” during a recent interview on NBC’s “Today” television show.
“We’ve got to fix a lot of these problems that have been allowed to fester for way too long,” said Gore, whose 2007 film An Inconvenient Truth—which predicted the complete melting of Arctic ice by 2014—won him both an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize.
“The climate crisis is an opportunity to create tens of millions of new jobs, clean up the air—and reduce the death rate from pandemics, by the way—because the air pollution from burning fossil fuels heightens the death rates from coronavirus,” he continued. “So, this is a time for a reset to fix a bunch of challenges, first among them the climate crisis.”
A virtual forum meeting announced the grand strategy on June 3. The meeting featured high-profile attendees, including Prince Charles of Great Britain; António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations; Ajay Banga, CEO of MasterCard; Bernard Looney, CEO of BP; and Gina Gopinath, the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
In a statement, IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva thanked “His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales” (Prince Charles) and WEF chairman Klaus Schwab for a joint meeting, from which she announced a “greener, smarter, fairer” IMF plan.
The plan involves a coordinated targeting of fossil-fuel industries, leveraging liberal control over the global “digital economy,” and redistribution of wealth from countries like the United States to whomever, however and whenever global elites decide.
“So, now is the moment to step up—and use all the strength we have—to turn the page,” Georgieva said. “In the case of the IMF we have a one trillion-dollar financial capacity and tremendous engagement on the policy side.”
Justin Haskins, director of the free-market-leaning Heartland Institute, is warning that the “Great Reset” amounts to a massive assault on individual liberty and the ability of everyday people to have a say in how they ruled.
In essence, the “Great Reset” is an anti-Democratic globalist agenda that purports to solve problems that world elites are self-selectively defining, he contends.
“Instead of traditional capitalism, the high-profile group said the world should adopt more socialistic policies, such as wealth taxes, additional regulations and massive Green New Deal-like government programs,” Haskins said in an editorial.
“Prince Charles was right: The present pandemic is a ‘golden opportunity’ for radical change,” he said. “And if Al Gore, Prince Charles and the rest of the World Economic Forum can convince enough people that attempting to stop climate change is also worth dramatically pushing humanity toward greater government control, then radical—and catastrophic—change is exactly what we’re going to get,” he said.
‘These investigations almost seem to be a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise…’
Officials conduct a flag-raising ceremony outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C. / IMAGE: New China TV via YouTube
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) Several months ago, Charles Lieber was arrested and indicted for allegedly spying for the Chinese government.
Lieber, 60, was a longtime Harvard professor and chair of the prestigious Harvard Chemistry and Biology Department.
Unbeknownst to the U.S. government, he was being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars from several Chinese state-backed entities while overseeing $15 million in research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.
He was also paid $50,000 per month by the Wuhan University of Technology in China and was under contract to recruit other American academics to work with the communist government.
Lieber failed to disclose his ties to China, as required by the Department of Defense, and then lied about them when confronted by federal authorities.
Two Chinese nationals were charged separately in the scheme. One fled to China and the other was arrested at Boston’s Logan International Airport attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research back to China.
This is not an isolated scenario.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, there are many cases of nefarious Chinese government-sponsored activities inside American universities—far more than what U.S. officials may realize.
Spying and research theft has been allowed to proliferate for years and only now—under President Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr—does the Department of Justice appear to be cracking down.
It’s an update to a report the nonprofit organization released last year that dealt with the spying activities of foreign students.
A spate of recent arrests and convictions of university professors, researchers and other academics has uncovered a massive national security issue that’s spider-webbed throughout top institutions in the higher education system, the group says.
The new report explains that progress against corrupt university employees has occurred because of a presidential proclamation authorizing criminal sanctions and the brazenness of the corrupt activities.
“These investigations almost seem to be a shooting-fish-in-a-barrel exercise,” said Dan Cadman, the report’s author.
“This is deeply disturbing because, when one contemplates it, it suggests the brazenness with which China has been picking U.S. pockets—for a very long time—and the casual indifference with which American researchers and academia have approached their often-secret research on behalf of our government,” he said.
The Chinese government calls its university espionage effort the “Thousand Talents” program.
It’s meant to give the appearance of a legitimate academic funding academic source, but according to the Justice Department and CIS the Thousand Talents program amounts to “a thinly veiled bribery scheme.”
Academics are lured into the program with the promise of generous funding, prestigious titles, laboratory access at Chinese universities, large salaries and fringe benefits—all in exchange for giving away secrets to agents of the Chinese government.
Not coincidentally, many of the compromised professors and academics are first conducting research on behalf of the U.S. government.
“Additional steps must be taken to safeguard America’s defense secrets and intellectual property through adoption of a systemic, interdisciplinary approach,” said Cadman.
He recommended an array of policy adjustments all based on expanding current authorities granted by Trump’s executive initiative.
The CIS report calls for DOJ coordination with the secretary of State and the secretary of Homeland Security to “de-naturalize” corrupt Chinese students, researchers and other spies who have taken advantage of U.S. immigration laws.
The report also calls for the expulsion of all foreign proxy spies, tightened control of universities and research facilities receiving U.S. funding, and oversight of key researchers’ foreign travel and attendance at conferences.
These precautions are already applied to government employees and contractors with access to sensitive government information, but academics have to-date been given a pass.
The Senate GOP unveiled its own police reform bill last week, but Democrats blocked it and instead plan to introduce their own bill, which includes extreme measures like ending qualified immunity for police officers, banning no-knock warrants and cutting funding for police departments that violate these new rules.
“Everything that we’re doing right now has been given strength because of your demands for justice,” he continued. “And I hope that the pressure stays. I hope in all 50 states, hundreds of thousands of Americans, we continue to pressure, because, as was said by a great abolitionist, there’s no struggle, there will be no progress.”
The quotation, attributed to Frederick Douglass, has been widely embraced by Marxist theoreticians in the intervening years since the 1865 abolition of U.S. slavery.
The theory of class struggle was embraced most prominently by Vladimir Lenin, who applied it as justification for the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution that violently overthrew Russia’s monarchy and paved the way for the USSR.
Nonetheless, Republicans will have no choice but to work with Democrats and endorse some of the more radical reforms if they hope to pass an actual bill, according to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
To make sure the GOP caves, Schumer encouraged protesters to “put pressure—moral pressure, political pressure, every kind of pressure” on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and other Republicans.
“That’s our hope, our prayer, and what we will work for,” Schumer said.
Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., however, rejected Democrats’ demands and said that he and the other Republicans who crafted the Senate GOP bill offered Schumer plenty of amendments while Schumer refused to negotiate.
Mainstream Democrats might be happy about the protests right now, said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., but they all “live in fear” of the far Left and what it represents—which is why so few Democrats are willing to work with Republicans.
“Every elected Democrat in office, and every Democrat running for office, lives in fear of the mob and the Squad,” Graham said Wednesday, referencing Rep. Alexandria Ocasio–Cortez, D-N.Y., and the other leftist House members. “The idea of working with Donald Trump to accomplish objectives to help America is a one-way ticket to political exile.”
‘This dramatic drop in revenue has made it impossible for our agency to operate at full capacity…’
USCIS / IMAGE: YouTube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is preparing to furlough 70% of its workforce due to coronavirus-related budget shortfalls and new immigration restrictions passed by the Trump administration.
USCIS is primarily funded by fees from new immigration and visas applications, and because the pandemic put a hold on all in-person immigration services, the number of immigrants applying for temporary or permanent residency has decreased dramatically, the agency explained.
As a result, about 13,400 of the agency’s 20,000 employees will be furloughed starting Aug. 3, unless Congress provides the agency with additional funding.
“This dramatic drop in revenue has made it impossible for our agency to operate at full capacity,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement, according to The Hill.
USCIS has asked Congress for $1.2 billion in emergency funding, and a USCIS official said the agency continues “to have productive conversations with Congress.”
Another factor in the USCIS’s lay-offs is the Trump administration’s recent immigration restrictions.
Last week, President Trump extended a ban on green cards issued outside the U.S. until the end of the year and added many temporary work visas to the freeze, which means that the USCIS’s job scope has been reduced significantly.
The Trump administration expects the new restrictions to free up more than 500,000 jobs for American workers, even though most of the restrictions are temporary.
The freezes on visas issued abroad are designed to take effect immediately. Other changes, including restrictions on work permits for asylum seekers, will go through a formal rule-making process that takes months.
Overall, the changes are an important win for American workers, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restrictions.
“Not all the items on our checklist of needed actions are included in today’s announcement, but the corporate lobbyists who were desperately fighting for exceptions to protect their clients’ access to cheap foreign labor have largely been rebuffed,” Krikorian said in a statement.
‘When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power…’
Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco / IMAGE: Émile Guérin via YouTube
(Michael Barnes, Liberty Headlines) A Virginia state judge has ruled that Twitter can continue to target conservatives without “Section 230” consequences, despite a recent executive order issued by President Donald Trump.
Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., sued Twitter in March for “shadow-banning” influential conservatives, or secretly hiding their posts, and for systematically censoring conservative viewpoints.
Nunes also alleged that the company selectively enforces its terms of service, and in doing so negligently allows for abusive behavior against conservatives to proliferate.
But Judge John Marshall disagreed—not about Twitter’s overt bias, but whether it can be punished under Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act.
The 1996 federal legislation regulates publishers for defamatory and illicit content. Marshall determined that Twitter and other social media companies are not liable for what other people post on their sites.
Nunes “seeks to have the court treat Twitter as the publisher or speaker of the content provided by others based on its allowing or not allowing certain content to be on its internet platform,” Marshall wrote. “The court refuses to do so.”
Trump issued his executive order in May—after Twitter began its policy of erroneously fact-checking his tweets—to reaffirm that the act granted protections to platforms that screened obscene or graphic content, but not to those engaged in political censorship or other forms of partisan editorializing.
“This practice is fundamentally un-American and anti-democratic,” said the order. “When large, powerful social media companies censor opinions with which they disagree, they exercise a dangerous power.”
Nunes’ lawyers argued that Twitter’s actions in favoring liberal and left-wing content over conservative content—and promoting tweets that both defamed Nunes and threatened violence against him—means that Section 230 protections should not apply.
He also sued three Twitter account-holders for defamation, including liberal-Republican strategist Liz Mair.
Mair published tweets that “implied that Nunes colluded with prostitutes and cocaine addicts, that Nunes does cocaine, and that Nunes was involved in a ‘Russian money laundering front,’” according to Nunes’ lawyers.
The court ruling does not mean the California congressman’s case has been dismissed, only that Twitter is no longer a defendant.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey previously testified before Congress that his social media company is a “digital public square” that values diversity, though he admitted to censoring speech.
Twitter released a statement following the Virginia court ruling saying, “Twitter enforces the Twitter Rules impartially for everyone who uses our service around the world, regardless of their background or political affiliation.”
Funding for defunct initiative came from 57 ‘partnerships’ with drug and health-insurance industries…
Joe Biden / IMAGE: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert via Youtube
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) A nonprofit established by presidential candidate Joe Biden has given millions of dollars to its top executives, but very little money toward actual cancer research, according to a report by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Biden Cancer Initiative, created by the Biden family after the former vice president’s son died of cancer, spent nearly two-thirds of its $4.8 million in funding on salaries and benefits for its executive members, according to the organization’s tax documents from 2017 and 2018.
At least $3 million went directly toward salaries, and $1.7 million was used for other initiatives, including benefits. Of that $1.7 million, $740,000 was spent on conventions, conferences and meetings.
Meanwhile, the Biden Cancer Initiative failed to cut a single grant check to an outside organization or research firm, the Free Beacon found, even though its founding purpose was to find a “cohesive, comprehensive, and timely approach to cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research, and care.”
The vast majority of the organization’s funding came from the 57 partnerships it had developed with businesses in the drug and health insurance industries. The top executive of the organization, Greg Simon, was paid more than $420,000 in 2018, according to the tax records.
Biden stepped away from the organization in 2019, and the organization as a whole suspended its activities when Biden began ramping up his presidential campaign last year.
“Today, we are suspending activities given our unique circumstances,” Simon said in a statement at the time.
‘We remain personally committed to the cause, but at this time will have to pause efforts,” he continued. “We thank the community for their incredible response to our mission to improve the cancer journey for patients and to improve outcomes for all patients for generations to come.”
These numbers will likely raise new questions about Biden’s financial dealings, and whether he allowed close connections to profit from his position. His son, Hunter, has been at the center of these questions ever since the Bidens’ business dealings in Ukraine came to light.
But as noted by investigative journalists like Profiles in Corruption author Peter Schweizer, Hunter’s dealings are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Biden family business of commoditizing power and influence.
Biden’s three siblings, as well as his daughter Ashley—and even the late Beau Biden—have all been implicated in scandals of varying degrees of severity in which they exploited their family connection to promote lucrative personal-enrichment schemes.
Many of the staffers involved in Biden’s nonprofits, likewise are alumni of his political operations who have gained patronage through their loyalty.
Simon, a top bundler and campaign adviser for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential bid, has resumed his fundraising role for the cash-strapped Biden campaign since stepping away from the cancer center.
Liberty Headlines’ Ben Sellers contributed to this report.
