Ex-Con Hired by D.C. as Violence Interrupter Arrested, Charged with Murder

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In a curious twist, a “reformed” criminal hired by the District of Columbia’s chief legal officer to help curb violence has been arrested and charged with murder. The case involves a taxpayer-funded public safety program known as Cure the Streets launched by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to reduce gun violence by treating it as a disease that can be interrupted and stopped from spreading. Cure the Streets typically hires men and women with criminal histories as violence interrupters because they know first-hand about the challenges that residents of crime-infested communities live with. Racine, who was reelected to a second term in 2018, says the transformed criminals hired by his program perform community-driven public safety work that can avoid using police.

Here is how they carry out the task, according to Racine’s office: By interrupting potentially violent conflicts because they have relationships and influence within targeted neighborhoods. Violence interrupters “engage with the community to learn about brewing conflicts and resolve them peaceably before they erupt in violence,” the program’s website states. Violence interrupters also identify and treat individuals at high risk for involvement with violence by meeting with them and implementing individualized risk reduction plans. “They also help connect participants with needed services, such as housing, counseling and employment assistance, and develop action plans for a positive future.” Finally, the D.C. Attorney General claims violence interrupters mobilize communities to change norms by engaging residents, local businesses, community leaders and faith leaders to work with high-risk individuals to reduce violence. “CTS works with these partners to organize forums and public events where residents can gather and interact safely without fear of conflict and violence,” the D.C. government website claims. It is not clear what impact Cure the Streets is having on violent crime in the District, but the Metropolitan Police Department reports that homicides are up 20% from last year.

The program operates in notoriously high-crime sections throughout D.C., which are broken down by wards. They include Eckington/Truxton and Trinidad in Ward 5, Marshall Heights/Benning Heights in Ward 7 and Bellevue, Washington Highlands, and Congress Heights in Ward 8. The Cure the Streets employee recently charged with murder was a supervisor who led a team of six violence interrupters and outreach workers. His name is Cotey Wynn, an ex-con with an extensive rap sheet who served a decade in prison before D.C.’s chief legal officer hired him. Wynn’s record includes felony murder, first degree murder, possession with intent to distribute crack cocaine, and distribution of a controlled substance, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. On December 4, the agency’s Capital Area Fugitive Task Force arrested the 39-year-old Wynn and charged him with second degree murder while armed. At the time of his arrest Wynn was under the supervision of the Pretrial Services Agency for the District of Columbia, a federal agency that believes preventative detention should only be a last resort for defendants, who should live in the least restrictive conditions while awaiting court.

Police say Wynn fatally shot a 53-year-old man named Eric Linnair Wright in 2017 near the Trinidad neighborhood in Northeast Washington. The violence interrupter was identified by multiple witnesses after viewing security camera footage from nearby homes, according to police. Authorities also tracked Wynn’s cell phone to the location of the crime. In a statement issued to local media, Racine’s spokesperson said this: “The Office of the Attorney General is aware of Mr. Wynn’s arrest for a homicide he is alleged to have committed in 2017, prior to his employment with Cure the Streets. This case will now proceed through our criminal justice system where Mr. Wynn is presumed innocent. We are confident that justice will be served once this process is complete. Our hearts go out to the family of Mr. Wright, the victim in this case, and to the affected members of the community. The important work of the Cure the Streets team will continue.”

It was not that long ago that the same office, charged with enforcing D.C. laws and protecting the interest of its citizens, bragged about what a great guy Wynn is. In a profile posted on the Attorney General’s website over the summer, Wynn was portrayed as somewhat of a saint. “When observing Cotey at work, you see a respected professional, a loving father, a devoted friend, and a pillar of the community,” according to the piece which includes a photo of the accused murderer delivering resources to D.C. residents during COIVD-19. The story also reveals that Wynn could not find a job after a decade in prison since “the damage to his reputation made it hard for him to find employment” so D.C. government hired him as a violence interrupter for Cure the Streets.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Has anyone seen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez?

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Last week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D. – N.Y.) doxed our address.

In response, the #VeritasArmy asked that we investigate AOC.

Little did people know that we have been investigating her for quite some time.

You can see what we uncovered so far here:

Hey AOC, where are you?

Clearly the residents in your alleged district haven’t seen you around.

Does that mean that AOC is being dishonest with her voters? Would it be the first time she’s done that?

There are plenty of questions to be answered. I’m sure there is also plenty to investigate when it comes to AOC.

Our investigation is still ongoing.

EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

President Trump Asks Sen. Ted Cruz To Argue Texas Election Fraud Lawsuit At Supreme Court

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Praying.

Trump asks Cruz to argue Texas case

By John Bowden, The Hill, December 9, 2020:

President Trump has asked Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) to present a case from his state’s attorney general seeking to invalidate the election results of several key battleground states before the Supreme Court should it decide to hear the suit, The New York Times reported Wednesday.

The lawsuit from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) seeks to void the vote certifications of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan, arguing that the results are “tainted” by new election processes in those states.

The court has not yet agreed to hear the case on its merits and on Tuesday rejected efforts by pro-Trump attorneys to overturn the results in Pennsylvania in a separate case.

White House officials did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill. The president has for weeks refused to concede his election loss to Joe Biden and has launched legal efforts in multiple states, with no success thus far, to overturn the president-elect’s victory in key battlegrounds.

Legal experts have largely panned the president’s efforts as unserious thus far and have spared no criticism for the latest effort by Trump’s allies in Texas.

“It looks like we have a new leader in the ‘craziest lawsuit filed to purportedly challenge the election’ category,” wrote Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, on Twitter.

News of the president’s request to Cruz comes shortly after he told his followers Wednesday in a tweet that he would be “intervening” in the Texas case while not specifying what that intervention would look like.

“We will be INTERVENING in the Texas (plus many other states) case. This is the big one. Our Country needs a victory!” the president tweeted.

RELATED TWEET:

https://twitter.com/EvanAKilgore/status/1336858321966542850

RELATED ARTICLES:

48 states and FCC File Antitrust Lawsuits To Break Up Facebook

20 STATES File Amicus Brief in Supreme Court In Support of Texas Election Fraud Case

Beijing Biden’s Son Hunter Under Investigation By The Feds For Chinese Money Laundering

Arkansas AG Rutledge to join Texas motion to Supreme Court on election balloting, results

Calif Democrat Rep. Swalwell Refuses To Explain Affair with Notorious Chinese Sex Spy

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Cruz Reintroduces Bill to Designate Muslim Brotherhood a Terrorist Group

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This would be transformative in ending the subversion and infiltration of Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

“Cruz reintroduces bill to label Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist group,” JNS, December 7, 2020:

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has reintroduced a bill that calls on the U.S. State Department to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.

His office announced on Dec. 2 that the senator is again pushing for the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act, which requires the State Department to report to Congress about whether the transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt meets the legal criteria for designation.

The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.).

“I am proud to reintroduce this bill and to advance America’s fight against radical Islamic terrorism,” said Cruz in a statement released by his office. “I commend the current administration’s work calling terrorism by its name and combating the spread of this potent threat, and I look forward to receiving the additional information this new bill requests from the Department of State.

“Many of our closest allies in the Arab world have long ago concluded that the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group that seeks to sow chaos across the Middle East, and I will continue working with my colleagues to take action against groups that finance terrorism.”

In the same statement, Inhofe said “since the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Brotherhood-affiliated groups have consistently preached and incited hatred against Christians, Jews and other Muslims while supporting designated radical terrorists.”…

RELATED ARTICLES:

Florida man converts to Islam, produces ISIS propaganda videos, says ‘I always strive to please Allah’

Iranian Dissidents: With a Trump Loss, ‘Now Our Hope Is Gone’

UK: Muslim used British company as cover to buy parts for flying bombs

Austria: ‘Mentally ill’ Muslim woman wearing hijab devastates memorial for the victims of jihad massacre

Have the Internet and online videos become a major challenge to Islam?

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Trump, the reluctant war president

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While the hawkish NeverTrump NeoCons bemoan the fact that President Trump has not only refused to start any new wars, he’s also been steadily bringing our overseas troops home, most Americans likely view this as a positive accomplishment, whether they admit it publicly or not.

But POTUS has perhaps been a trifle remiss regarding the war against America happening within our borders ever since he took office. Of course in this he’s not alone: Fox News and a great many Conservatives often made light of the Dems’ obvious anti-Trump ploys—especially the more ludicrous ones like the claim that he fed the fish wrong during his Presidential visit to Japan. The dishonest, partisan, “fake news” media have had a field day trying to turn the public against our President by nattering about his taxes, Trump University, Stormy Daniels, Putin, etc. ad nauseam—culminating in the 2-year Mueller witch-hunt and the Ukrainian phone call impeachment hoax. Between the hoaxes, nonstop Leftist propaganda and massive psy-ops, Americans must struggle to keep their grip on reality, and many have been unsuccessful in that endeavor—most notably your average Democrats.

From the start, Trump had very few allies even among his cabinet and top officials—some of whom were Obama holdovers— and he lost arguably the most important one in very short order: General Michael Flynn. In any case, POTUS needed a trustworthy, honest, justice-seeking and courageous Attorney General to go about the enormous task of draining the swamp and thereby protecting his America First agenda. Once his first choice, Rudy Giuliani, declined, he went with Jeff Sessions, who, sadly, proved to be useless. Perhaps Sessions believed he stood on principle when he recused himself, but even if so, he was tone deaf to the reality of Trump’s situation and failed to comprehend how badly POTUS needed an aggressive AG to have his back.

And now we know for sure what many of us suspected for some time: Bill Barr is also part of the Deep State. So if Trump has been playing 3-D chess, as many suggest, he’s been doing so without a bishop or a knight—making it all the more amazing he’s kept so many promises and has such a long and stellar list of accomplishments, including brokering historic new peace agreements in the Middle East. No wonder he’s recently received his third nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize!

Two Top Generals Weigh In

But now the game is urgent, the conflict escalating, and the enemy—firmly entrenched within the gates as well engaging from abroad—must be confronted. I believe that’s why two decorated generals—General Michael Flynn and retired General Thomas McInerney—are advising Trump to use his full presidential powers to initiate some form of martial law regarding the stolen election. We needn’t rehearse the myriad ways the Left cheated, but let’s look briefly at two of them: in the wee hours, in the swing states, there were inexplicable huge bumps for Biden. When you see them in a graph, they look like hockey sticks – a sure sign of in-your-face fraud. Does that ring a bell? Ah yes…Al Gore’s infamous hockey stick graph to prove catastrophic global warming—another hoax, long since debunked. But I digress.

We now also know that vote-flipping software—probably the Hammer/Scorecard system—was accessed in real-time by hostile foreign powers including Iran and China. I repeat: we’re at war! So let’s take a look at what each of these Generals proposes.

Lincoln vs. Trump: Secession vs. Coup d’état

General Flynn compares President Trump’s situation to that of Abraham Lincoln during the run-up to the Civil War, and during the course of it as well.

He lists extra-Constitutional actions Lincoln took, as follows:

  • Ordering “hundreds of Northern newspapers that spoke against him to be shut down and their owners and editors arrested.”
  • Ordering the arrest of an Ohio congressman “for the crime of speaking out against him.”
  • Signing an arrest warrant for the then-Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who ruled that Lincoln had illegally suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus.
  • Ordering the arrest of thousands of Maryland citizens “for the crime of ‘suspected Southern sympathies,”‘ some of whom were held in military prisons without trial for years.

Speaking of Lincoln, in his book The Real Lincoln, Thomas DiLorenzo makes a very compelling case that the South had the right to secede. Think about it—if they didn’t have that right, then neither did those pesky thirteen colonies that seceded from Great Britain! In both cases, the injured party was saddled with a growing economic burden, while being deprived of adequate representation. And while slavery, a moral dilemma from the start, became a pressing issue during the Civil War, the war was not fought over it, nor did the South secede over slavery. As the famous British novelist Charles Dickens remarked, the falling out between North and South was over “a fiscal quarrel.” That means a successful negotiation on tariffs, the primary issue that was strangling the South, could have prevented the war altogether. Alternatively, Lincoln and his party could have allowed the South to peacefully secede. This should be considered when we look at the draconian measures Lincoln took, and DiLorenzo doesn’t mince words in his critique of the revered President whom we’ve been told “saved the Union”.

Jefferson himself noted in the Declaration of Independence, “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” The Southerners chose to institute a new government to promote their safety and happiness. They did not plan an assault on Washington D.C., or a coup d’état to overthrow the United States government. They merely wanted to go their own way in peace. Had King George permitted the colonists to do just that, there would have been no need for the Revolutionary War. Similarly, had President Lincoln simply wished his Southern compatriots well, there would have been no Civil War.

And this is why I’ve come to believe Lincoln’s autocratic actions had little or no legitimate basis, whereas, conversely, President Trump has every reason, right and duty to use the full powers of his office, including martial law and military tribunals if necessary, to combat the potent and dangerous ongoing coup d’état /Color Revolution before it extinguishes our Republic completely. And once lost, forever lost.

General Flynn’s Strategy

General Flynn’s petition calls for martial law, which I believe may be necessary for a short period; it also seeks a new election. While patriots would love to see a real election with Trump’s Electoral College numbers upwards of 400, I question the wisdom of redoing the election. Why? First, because Trump already won! All we need to do is to discount all suspect ballots—which all happen to be Biden ballots—and apply the vote-flipping algorithm in the other direction; that is, we just crunch the numbers adding Trump’s stolen percentages back and subtracting Sleepy Joe’s faux, extra-weighted votes. Of course we wouldn’t get to see the full glory of Trump’s win, since there’s no way to add in all the hundreds of thousands of Trump ballots they tore up, but it would certainly put POTUS well over the 270 needed to win the election.

My second reason is this: What might the globalist, NWO elites and their pals the Democrats, be doing in the run-up to this new election that they’d be sure to lose? Twiddling their thumbs? Or creating a massive false flag attack to further cripple the country and throw this second election into chaos?

General McInerney’s Strategy

This is why I prefer General McInerney’s plan. Here are some quotes from the General, “He [Trump] has got to declare a national emergency …He should also use the Insurrection Act because we have an insurrection right now in this country when you look at Antifa and BLM, plus other groups. He must suspend habeas corpus as President Lincoln did in 1861 and Franklin Roosevelt did in 1942 when World War II started.” He goes on to say, “The Democratic perpetrators of this, plus the Russians, Chinese and Iran, have not disguised this cyber warfare on America… And yet we have judges…saying that’s not enough. And so that’s why it’s so important that this national emergency be declared and the president start arresting these people right away; this is a national emergency. I would declare martial law.”

Remember the FBI’s predawn SWAT team raids of Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – two patriots whose crime was essentially helping Trump? Well how about predawn SWAT team raids on the key players in this insurrection? That would likely include the CEOs of Big Tech, Big Media, and many big players, all the way up to Obama and Soros – not forgetting Hillary, Brennan, et al., or Norm Eisen, the brains behind the Ukraine phone call hoax, and the “Transition Integrity Project” that actually war-gamed a coup against Trump should he win the election! And let’s be clear: the election fiasco is not just about vote cheating—it’s a brazen attempt to overthrow America’s government. Don’t think for a moment that we could endure four years of Kamala—I mean Biden—OK, I mean Kamala, plus her new VP (Michelle?), and then make America great again. There would be no America left. In fact, we’d find ourselves in an impoverished country stripped of our sovereignty, a mere cog in the New World Order machine. There’s no turning back from a worldwide dystopia under One World Government. Reread Orwell’s 1984—just mentally change the date to 2024.

This is why Donald Trump must be our War President—he must take on the enemies arrayed against us, and We the Patriots must support him. What makes most sense to me, would be his immediately replacing William Barr with a formidable attorney general—Sidney Powerhouse Powell, anyone? – who’d move forward with arrests, and perhaps even call for military tribunals for those who’ve clearly committed treason. President Trump must honor his oath, as I wholeheartedly believe he will, and we must honor our pledge of allegiance to our flag and the Republic for which it stands.

If not now, when?

© Cherie Zaslawsky. All rights reserved.

The Stolen Election: Hiding Biden Laptop Scandal Reveals More Frightening Social Plan

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Watch Part One of “The Stolen Election: American Pravda”

Bill Whittle shows how Twitter and Facebook hiding the Hunter Biden laptop (and Joe Biden influence peddling) story, helped Biden beat President Trump in battleground states, and thus in the electoral college.

More disturbing than Silicon Valley Leftists protecting Joe Biden, Bill Whittle illustrates how Google (which owns YouTube, Waze, Nest and more), aims to create a world that lives by ‘Google values’ through a subtle, but ubiquitous, recording and steering of even our smallest decisions.

‘The Selfish Ledger’ it accumulates about your behaviors, attitudes, choices and travels — taken in the aggregate — helps the search giant determine what you see and what you never see, and it leads you inexorably to what they want you to see, to do, to be…and how they want you to vote.

NOTE: Firewall is a production of our Members who fund it, and run a conservative content hub right here. Join this rapidly growing band of liberty-loving patriots now: Become a Member, or make a one-time donation .

©All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Texas Attorney General Explains State’s Supreme Court Election Integrity Lawsuit

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The latest news is the lawsuit filed by the state of Texas against the states of Michigan, Wisconson, Georgia and Pennsylvania. What is unique about this lawsuit is that it pits a state against other states. Because of this the U.S. Supreme Court must take the case and has already put it on their docket.

This case is important because it can, if the the SCOTUS sides with Texas, nullify the 62 electoral college votes controlled by these four states.

Add to this the pending lawsuits in Nevada and Arizona, which controls a combined 17 electoral college votes (AZ -11, NV-6). Currently, according to EveryLegalVote.com President Trump has 232 vs. Biden’s 214 electoral college votes. If Trump wins both his lawsuits in Nevada and Arizona this would bring his total electoral college votes to 349. If Trump wins only Nevada he would have 236 electoral college votes vs. 225 for Biden. Trump wins. If Trump loses both in Nevada and Arizona then Biden wins the most electoral college votes. But neither has reached the magic number of 270. So what could happen then?

If the elections in Michigan, Wisconson, Georgia and Pennsylvania are found by the SCOTUS to be null and void then their 62 votes would not count and neither President Trump nor Biden can achieve the needed 270 electoral college votes then by the U.S. Constitution it falls on the shoulders of Congress.

If  the winner of the election would be determined by the U.S. House of Representatives because each state gets one vote and Republicans control more states than Democrats, therefore Trump wins.

WATCH: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton explains the lawsuit.

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘The Big One’: Trump Vows to Intervene in Texas Election Case

RELATED VIDEO: God Bless Texas – Charlie Kirk

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

TAKE ACTION: Credit Card Companies Must Stop Processing Payments for the Exploitative Pornography Industry

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This is it! Major progress in our war against Pornhub. A few days ago we reached out and let you know that Pornhub would be falling soon and it’s already happening—starting NOW!

As you are well aware, Pornhub profits off of the abuse of countless numbers of victims of child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, rape, and non-consensually produced pornography being uploaded to their website.

Just yesterday, following the groundbreaking piece in the New York Times, Pornhub announced updates to their policies in an attempt to appease critics and further delay justice and restitution for survivors (many of whom have spoken out and bravely shared their heartbreaking stories).

But it’s impossible for Pornhub to “clean up its act” because its business model—and the very content it profits from—is inherently abusive and exploitative.

The “changes” announced are merely a fraction of what needs to happen. Pornhub must not be let off the hook.

Pornhub must be shut down.

As a direct result of the work of international advocates, which has been boosted with the recent New York Times article, Mastercard and Visa have announced that they plan to investigate the atrocities hosted and facilitated by Pornhub in order to determine whether they will continue to work with the site. This is still an active fight and you can still encourage them to cut ties with the porn industry!

NOW IS THE TIME where we need you sending emails, sharing social media posts, and talking about this!

Join us in calling on credit cards companies to cease payment processing for Pornhub, and the porn industry at large! 

Contact their Executives directly with this easy-to-use action.

Email Credit Card Executives

If you haven’t already, please also contact your Members of Congress NOW! This will only take you one minute. It is so vital for Congress to hear about the issues directly from their constituents. Every email sent is a win!

Please join the National Center on Sexual Exploitation in urging Congress to:  

  1. Investigate Pornhub and #ShutItDown 
  2. Repeal CDA 230 Immunity for CSAM by passing the EARN IT Act (S. 3398 / H.R. 8454)

Email Congress

If you or someone you know has been exploited online via Pornhub, Twitter, Reddit or any other platform, please contact us. We may be able to help you seek legal action.

You are helping make great things happen, and this is just the beginning. Thank you for every action you take and every moment you spend in this fight with us!

Onward!

©National Center on Sexual Exploitation. All rights reserved.

ELECTION UPDATE: Chances of Biden winning PA, MI, GA, WI Independently after Trump ’s early lead is less than 1 in a quadrillion.

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The 2020 presidential election is the most bizarre in my lifetime. This kind of election destroys Americans trust in our system nation wide.

I have never seen:

  1. The media call an election before all votes are counted.
  2. The growing examples of not only voter fraud but growing proof of election fraud.
  3. The tech giants attempt to paint anyone who disagrees with them negatively or even censoring them.
  4. The lack of some GOP elected officials to get behind the movement to #CountEveryLegalVote.
  5. The odds that a weak candidate like Biden could win anything without help from organized election fraudsters.
  6. The lack of justice in state supreme courts to sworn testimony of voter/election fraud on a massive scale.

In a Business Insider article titled 83% of Republicans polled after the 2020 election said they didn’t believe Joe Biden won Sonam Sheth reported:

  • It’s been a month since major news organizations projected Joe Biden to win the 2020 election. But 83% of Republicans polled by Gallup in the days afterward indicated they didn’t believe the reports.
  • In the poll, taken from November 9 to 15, 99% of Democrats, 64% of independents, and 17% of Republicans characterized the news reports as “accurate.”
  • The vast majority of Republicans polled — 89% — said they didn’t believe the electoral process worked well, while 92% of Democrats said it did.
  • The 2020 election was unlike any other in US history, with an unprecedented surge in mail-in voting, a raging pandemic, and a huge spike in domestic misinformation.

Here’s one example of the odds of Biden’s win in swing states.

WATCH: Trump Team Begins a Forensic Exam in Michigan; Supreme Court Path Opens in PA | Facts Matter

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

Gallup Poll: Americans’ Mental Health Hits 20-Year Low Ahead of Renewed Lockdowns

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Any retrospective analysis of lockdown policies—the effectiveness which is seriously disputed—must be weighed against the loss of life and human suffering they caused.

In California and other parts of the country, Americans are headed back to lockdown or otherwise facing renewed restrictions on their day-to-day lives amid another spike of COVID-19. Yet a new Gallup poll shows these lockdowns come as people are already struggling with their mental health.

“Americans’ latest assessment of their mental health is worse than it has been at any point in the last two decades,” Gallup reports.

The new polling found that 34 percent of respondents said their mental health was “excellent,” which is 9 points down from 2019. Similarly, 85 percent of Americans had rated their mental health as “good or excellent” in 2019. Just 76 percent did this year. [VIEW CHART HERE]

This poll only further documents an ongoing trend.

As Jon Miltimore previously explained for FEE.org, the Centers for Disease Control found that 1 in 4 young Americans considered suicide this past summer amid life under lockdown and unprecedented levels of social isolation. In one anecdote that painfully demonstrates this broader trend, a California hospital doctor told local news in May that during lockdown he witnessed “a year’s worth of suicide attempts in the last four weeks.”

Much of the decline in mental health over the last 9 months can reasonably be attributed to pandemic lockdowns rather than COVID-19 itself.

Why? Well, consider that for the aforementioned suicidal young adults, the actual mortality risk of COVID-19 is close to zero. It’s the shuttering of their schools, closures of their offices, and isolation from family, friends, and community that has affected them so drastically.

And the negative health effects, both physical and mental, of social isolation are well-documented. Consider this report from the New York Times:

A wave of new research suggests social separation is bad for us. Individuals with less social connection have disrupted sleep patterns, altered immune systems, more inflammation and higher levels of stress hormones. One recent study found that isolation increases the risk of heart disease by 29 percent and stroke by 32 percent.

Another analysis that pooled data from 70 studies and 3.4 million people found that socially isolated individuals had a 30 percent higher risk of dying in the next seven years, and that this effect was largest in middle age.

Loneliness can accelerate cognitive decline in older adults, and isolated individuals are twice as likely to die prematurely as those with more robust social interactions. These effects start early: Socially isolated children have significantly poorer health 20 years later, even after controlling for other factors. All told, loneliness is as important a risk factor for early death as obesity and smoking.

It’s certainly true that we can’t solely attribute the burgeoning mental health crisis to the lockdowns. But there’s no denying the intuitive and demonstrable fact that confining people to their homes and stripping away their livelihoods has driven the spikes in suicide and depression.

How could it not?

Ample research shows how stripping people of their agency and leaving them feeling powerless contributes to mental health decline.

“Having a high sense of control is related to proactive behavior and positive psychological outcomes,” health researchers point out. “Control is linked to an ability to take preventative action and to feel healthy. An impairment of control is associated with depression, stress, and anxiety-related disorders.”

So, such drastic government lockdowns seizing control of the minutiae of American life were always going to have severe mental health consequences. Unintended consequences plague all top-down government efforts to control or manage society.

“Every human action has both intended and unintended consequences,” Antony Davies and James Harrigan explain for FEE. “Human beings react to every rule, regulation, and order governments impose, and their reactions result in outcomes that can be quite different than the outcomes lawmakers intended.”

Replacing individual decision-making of hundreds of millions’ of peoples’ everyday lives with centralized government mandates intended to slow the spread of COVID-19 inevitably causes enormous ripple effects. Our retrospective analysis of lockdown policies—the effectiveness which is seriously disputed—must be weighed against the loss of life and human suffering they caused in their own right.

COLUMN BY

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Opinion Editor at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

AOC’s $58 ‘Tax the Rich’ Sweatshirt Perfectly Demonstrates How Her Ideas Hurt the Poor

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It is unlikely that those paid to make AOC’s sweatshirt could afford to buy the end product —even if they’re earning what she calls a “living wage.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did what she does best this week and created another social media firestorm.

It all started when a Twitter account called Tax March, which apparently advocates for higher taxes, posted a link to the congresswoman’s online merchandise store and complimented a sweatshirt she sells.

The sweatshirt pictured is a plain, black, cotton item emblazoned with the words “tax the rich.”. But the style itself is not what made headlines, rather it was the price tag: a whopping $58.

The usual (and deserved) criticisms poured in quickly.

Never one to back down from a fight, the congresswoman responded to the criticism on her own Twitter account stating that the merchandise was “made in the US with dignified, union jobs paying living wages.”

She went on to say that “Republicans are freaking out because we don’t use slave-wage labor for merch that funds our grassroots organizing” and that people could obtain the sweatshirt for free if they chose to volunteer for her.

We’ll leave the fact that the congresswoman included the term “slave-wage labor” in a post that simultaneously called for others to work for her for free alone, as we have bigger fish to fry here. (But, come on.)

So to summarize, Ocasio-Cortez is selling sweatshirts that say “tax the rich” at a price most poor or working class people could not reasonably afford. She’s making money off of her merchandise that attacks the creation of wealth. And her excuse for all of this hypocrisy is that it costs more to buy from whole-sellers who pay a “living wage” and use American labor. There’s a lot to unpack here.

While Ocasio-Cortez clearly thinks her choice to employ operations that pay a “living wage” (presumably at least $15 an hour) is virtuous, it actually perfectly portrays how her economic ideas hurt people—especially the poor.

As the cost for labor increases, so do the prices of goods and services.

As much as Ocasio-Cortez likes to think she’s sticking it to the rich by buying from companies that pay their employees more than their fair market value, in reality she’s just passing those increased labor costs on to her supporters.

When companies are forced to pay too much for labor, either due to governmental rules or regulations, they merely bake those costs into the price of their product.

When that product is something as frivolous as a luxury sweatshirt peddling trite socialist slogans, we can laugh about it. But Ocasio-Cortez wants to use big government to force these costly business conditions on every industry—meaning the cost of essential goods like food, automobiles, and essential clothing items would all increase. That doesn’t uplift struggling people—it spells disaster for the poor.

Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk might counter that their mandates would increase peoples’ take-home pay, so they could afford higher prices and still obtain a higher quality of life. However, it’s also important to remember that when the price of goods and services increase, real wages fall.

Real income is not nominal wages, it is an individual’s actual purchasing power in the market. Even if someone is paid $15 an hour, they will likely see their purchasing power decrease as the price of goods and services increase as a result of companies having to pay workers too much. As one example, it is unlikely that those paid to make AOC’s sweatshirt could afford to buy the end product in this scenario—even if they’re earning what she calls a “living wage.” Ultimately, people care about what their paychecks can buy, not the number itself.

Furthermore, Ocasio-Cortez’s use of the term “Made in America” may have just been intended to troll Trump-supporting Republicans, but the congresswoman accidentally proved why free trade creates prosperity. When the US or any country tries to force domestic production of certain goods that can be made more efficiently in other countries, it results in inefficiency and higher prices.

That’s how you end up hawking a nearly $60 sweater when the same thing could be available for half or one-quarter of the price.

Personally, I like to buy from and support American companies when I can. But the reality is that our regulatory framework, cost of labor, and business taxes make many American-made products far more expensive. When I can afford to, I’m happy to buy local, but I’m beyond grateful I have the option to buy globalized products when it comes to high-end items like my iPhone, which would be quite expensive if it was a “Made in America” product.

If these kinds of products were only made in America, and if Ocasio-Cortez got her way and made it impossible to hire anyone for less than $15 an hour, no one but the very wealthy would be able to afford this technology.

If politicians want to elevate American companies and products, they should work to deregulate our economy, slash corporate taxes, and create an economy where businesses can create cost-effective products. Until that happens, we should all thank our lucky stars we have the ability to order cheaper products from other places.

And we shouldn’t devalue the work being done by others to produce these goods in other parts of the world. Nowadays, it’s become popular to virtue-signal against “sweatshops” in other countries. But as is so often the case with those more focused on virtue-signals than price-signals, these ideas would also hurt the poor. Developing countries need to be able to compete in a global marketplace. And while these jobs may not meet our standards in an industrialized country, they are a life raft to those struggling to obtain basic necessities in third-world countries.

Plain and simple, when put into practice, the policies that undergird Ocasio-Cortez’s worldview hurt people. In contrast, free markets (when allowed to operate organically) lead to an abundance of affordable products and all people having greater access to goods and services. And free trade is an essential component of free markets.

“It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy,” wrote Adam Smith. “What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.”

We can forgive everyday people for making the kinds of Econ 101 errors that plague this agenda. But as an educated congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has no excuse. We can laugh about her expensive sweaters, yet there’s nothing funny about the fact that the policies she pushes would make life less affordable for all Americans.

COLUMN BY

Hannah Cox

Hannah Cox is a libertarian-conservative writer, commentator, and activist. She’s a Newsmax Insider and a Contributor to The Washington Examiner.

RELATED ARTICLE: Gallup Poll: Americans’ Mental Health Hits 20-Year Low Ahead of Renewed Lockdowns

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Goldman Sachs Eyes Florida Exit as Financial Exodus from New York Continues

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In August, with his state looking at a $13 billion budget hole and residents fleeing in droves, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued a plea for New Yorkers to return to the Big Apple.

“They are in their Hamptons homes, or Hudson Valley or Connecticut,” Cuomo said at a press conference. “I talk to them literally every day. I say, ‘When are you coming back? I’ll buy you a drink. I’ll cook.”

Cuomo’s generous offer to buy cocktails and cook doesn’t appear to be solving New York’s economic woes.

On Sunday, news broke that the multinational financial services company Goldman Sachs, one of the largest companies in the US, is considering a plan to move its headquarters to the South.

“Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is weighing plans for a new Florida hub to house one of its key divisions, in another potential blow to New York’s stature as the de facto home of the U.S. financial industry,” Bloomberg reported. “Executives have been scouting office locations in South Florida, speaking with local officials and exploring tax advantages as they consider creating a base there for its asset management arm, according to people with knowledge of the matter.”

According to The Street, the Fort Lauderdale area and Palm Beach County are the most likely destinations, though Goldman is also considering Dallas as a possible alternative.

The news comes on the heels of several other investment firms—Elliott Management, Blackstone, and Citadel—that have boosted their presence in Florida. The Sunshine State is attracting companies because of its low costs, warm weather, and friendly tax climate. (Florida has no income tax).

Goldman’s announcement could not come at a worse time for New York City, which currently “has the most office space available since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack,” according to Bloomberg.

Goldman Sachs has an estimated market value of $71 billion and employs more than 38,000 people worldwide. So, its departure would further erode New York City’s standing as the financial capital of the world even as the state struggles with the broader challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic damage wrought by lockdowns.

Some may point to the coronavirus as the culprit for Goldman Sachs’s pending exodus. A November CNBC report showed that some 300,000 New Yorkers have bailed on the Big Apple since the lockdowns began, despite the largest decline in rental rates in almost a decade.

While it’s certainly true that New York City, which has had one of the strictest lockdowns in America, has seen some of its most attractive draws neutralized by COVID-19—its top notch dining, entertainment, fashion, and networking—a closer look shows the exodus predates the pandemic.

As Hannah Cox pointed out last month on FEE.org, about a million people said goodbye to New York City and the tri-state area over the last decade. Similarly, other financial companies, such as AllianceBernstein Holding LP fled New York long before lockdowns and social distancing arrived.

The reality is the coronavirus exacerbated New York’s economic plight, but it’s not the source of it. The city’s fundamental problem is an open hostility to markets and freedom.

From policies such as universal pre-K and mandated paid sick leave to the city’s $15 minimum wage, rent-controlled housing, and oppressive tax climate, New York’s political class has shown a disdain for capitalism, private property, and business concerns, and a troubling affinity for central planning.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Listen to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who told New York Magazine this in 2017.

“What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be.

I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too.

Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development….

Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That’s a world I’d love to see…”

Did you catch that? The mayor of the world’s financial capital believes the primary obstacle to prosperity is private property. He thinks city officials should get to determine where buildings go and “who gets to live in [them].”

As one observer noted at the time, de Blasio is not the first political leader to thirst for such power.

“Other leaders have had such power, in the Soviet Union and China and Venezuela, and those systems did not produce progress. Or even toilet paper,” David Boaz wryly observed in USA Today.

Unfortunately, neither Cuomo nor de Blasio seem aware of this history. Prior to and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the pair have embraced the heavy hand of big government instead of free markets. New York’s oppressive climate has yielded a batch of bad fruit—surging violence (shootings were up 112 percent in November), injustice, economic depression, joblessness, and general despair.

Considering the current troubling state of New York and de Blasio’s open hostility to private property, one has to wonder what any financial services company or investment bank is still doing business in the Big Apple.

Fortunately, the American system of federalism means neither individuals nor businesses have to put up with it. New Yorkers feeling trapped can easily move to South Carolina or Utah, where they can actually have a social life and make a living. And financial companies can hit the road for Fort Lauderdale, Nashville, Dallas, Las Vegas or wherever their fancy takes them.

Should individuals or companies feel guilty over leaving? Quite the contrary.

As legal scholar Ilya Somin observed, “voting with your feet” is one of the best ways to help a struggling community and historically has been a key tool for upward mobility in America.

“Those who have been fortunate enough to achieve a measure of success thanks to mobility should not feel guilty about it,” Somin wrote in the Washington Post. “We can help society best by being productive citizens and–where possible–working to ensure that the foot voting opportunities that benefited us become more available to others.”

As someone who has personally benefited from this mobility—I bounced around a lot in my 20s—I wholeheartedly endorse this message. It’s one of the underappreciated glories of the American system. But one need not have experienced the benefits of mobility to understand what Somin is getting at: individuals and companies alike should make sure their talents and resources are best utilized.

Sadly, New York increasingly is no longer that place, for many.

A departure from Goldman Sachs would signal that New York City’s days as the financial capital of the world are over.  In some ways, the only surprise is that it took so long.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

WATCH THIS MEGA MAGA VIDEO: ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’

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Thanks to Glynda for sharing this video posted by Mad__ American titled “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Never give up. Never surrender.

WATCH:

©Mad__ American. All rights reserved.

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VIDEO: The Night the Rights Went out in Georgia

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What Americans witnessed on November 3rd didn’t just happen. A lot of people don’t remember, but the seeds for this election mess were planted way back in 2018 when Democrats won the House. The coronavirus didn’t hurt, of course, but the cheat was on long before Joe Biden was nominated. Why does that matter? Because — the president’s attorneys warn — if Republicans don’t keep fighting, the damage to our democracy is here to stay.

Liberals are getting restless. The media is impatient. Even some Republicans, men and women who believe there was legitimate fraud, want the White House to throw in the towel and move on. Why don’t they? Because at the end of the day, this isn’t about the presidential election. It’s about the sanctity of American law. We aren’t just talking about Pennsylvania’s law or Georgia’s law — but the power of every state legislature to pass laws with the expectation that they will be upheld. Right now, elected leaders in state legislatures can’t even perform their most basic function without other state officials and courts overruling them. That’s not how democracy works. So when the Left tells everyone to “move on,” they aren’t pressuring us to give up on Donald Trump — but our entire constitutional system.

Americans have laws for a reason, and when they’re violated or ignored, it should concern everyone. Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell, who’s had her eyes on the Left for two years, knows the game plan. As far as she’s concerned, the 2020 election has been a coordinated sabotage since the earliest days of the new Congress. “Don’t forget,” she said on “Washington Watch,” “H.R. 1 — the first bill taken up by Nancy Pelosi when the Democrats won control of the House in 2018, was a massive election bill that would have provided for [this mail-in balloting] everywhere in the country.” Of course, as usual, the Democrats couldn’t accomplish any of their radical election plans democratically. So they started filing lawsuits to sue their way to an absentee system that would open up new avenues for manipulation. “Even in 2019,” Cleta points out, “they started [suing]… in Mississippi, Louisiana, cases in practically every state… [They] spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars (it might not surprise you to learn that George Soros funded it, [and] Marc Elias [of Russia-gate fame] managed it.”

The strategy was to get judges to “adopt laws — quote unquote — or orders that basically threw out the duly enacted laws of the state legislatures,” Cleta explained. Then the coronavirus hit, and it was the perfect storm for the Left’s stalking horse: rewriting election laws that would undermine the election safeguards and ballot integrity the states have in place. Even Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), Cleta said, when he was sued by Stacey Abrams (D) capitulated. “Instead of fighting them, saying, ‘I have no authority, and the judge has no authority to change the law — that’s the legislature’s responsibility,’ he ended up settling with them and entering a consent decree.” And you and I both know, she shook her head, “what happens to Republican officeholders when they decide that they like to be loved by the media and the Left. It’s not good for conservatives.” And, as we’ve seen, it’s not good for the process.

For the time being, there’s at least a very compelling case in Georgia. When it comes to fraud, people keep asking, “Where’s the evidence?” Well, as the Trump campaign said in its filing on Friday: here it is. Their court petition has more than 1,000 pages of sworn testimony and nearly 100 affidavits — signed under penalty of perjury. “There’s nothing in this lawsuit that is not backed up by either a sworn affidavit by an eyewitness as to a violation of a Georgia election code or a declaration by an expert who has analyzed the Georgia state election and voting records.” It would be difficult for Raffensperger to read the petition and not understand that there are tens of thousands of illegal votes — “more than enough [to make up the margin of victory] that should be thrown out,” Cleta argues.

“That’s what’s so remarkable here…” Cleta went on. “Several of these violations — just taken by themselves — would be three to four times the number required to invalidate the election. [It’s] all in there. So… I will guarantee that the secretary of state, the number one defendant, has not read the analysis of his own data.” But whatever anyone says, she argued, “this election was not valid. Those results are not valid. And the secretary of state has a lot to answer for in my opinion.”

Her concern, like a lot of voters, is that these issues need to be cleaned up before the Senate runoff elections. The courts and certain state officials helped the Left undermine election laws, and the legislature needs to assert itself to make sure that a) that doesn’t happen again, and b) that it doesn’t affect January 5th. When almost 40 percent of the country thinks November 3rd was a rigged election, the last thing Americans need is to have the Senate thrown into the same limbo.

FRC Action’s Faith Family Freedom Fund is hosting a special Georgia event with the hopes of making the runoff results as resounding a victory as possible. Join us at Truett McConnell University’s Benjamin F. Brady Basketball Arena on December 15th at 7:00 p.m. (doors open at 5:00 p.m.) for a Pray Vote Stand rally with invited and confirmed speakers like Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), Senator David Perdue (R-Ga.), Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), Governor Mike Huckabee, Ralph Reed, Todd Starnes, and more. To RSVP, visit the website.

Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC-Action column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

The U.S. Supreme Court DID NOT Reject Mike Kelly’s Voter Fraud Lawsuit Against Pennsylvania

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In these turbulent times there has been misreporting on important cases dealing with voter fraud. One of them is the case filed by Mike Kelly on behalf of the Pennsylvania GOP currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Washington Examiner incorrectly reported the following.

The truth is:

CLICK HERE TO READ SCOTUS TIMELINE OF MIKE KELLY’S THE LAWSUIT.

Additionally, the SCOTUS had agreed to hear the Texas lawsuit.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Supreme Court: Texas Sues 4 States Over Election; Forensic Exam of Arizona Machines | Facts Matter

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