Tag Archive for: Amy Klobuchar

RFK Jr. Wants Fluoride Out Of Water — And It’s Not Nearly As Crazy As His Detractors Claim

The day before the election, Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar joined countless other liberals in mocking Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the latter’s suggestion that America reduce its high levels of fluoride.

“I was a little shocked that one of their closing arguments for Donald Trump was take the fluoride out of water,” Klobuchar told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Nov. 4. “I guess they’re ending with more cavities.”

Skepticism of fluoridated water had been lumped in by the liberal establishment with a host of other heterodox views, often dubbed “conspiracy theories,” held by Kennedy and his allies.

Kennedy has harshly criticized fluoride, calling it a neurotoxin and an industrial byproduct. He’s claimed the mineral can cause arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.

He has pledged that the Trump White House will recommend to communities that they remove it from their drinking supplies immediately after Trump takes office. Trump appeared to co-sign the proposal, saying it “sounds alright to me.”

CNN’s Abby Phillip invited Harvard-trained epidemiologist Dr. Syra Madad onto her show the same day to deride Kennedy’s fluoride criticisms: “I do think there are some rocks to be thrown, frankly, at RFK Jr.”

Madad called Kennedy “dangerous” and said his views on fluoride were “against science.”

“It is safe. It’s not toxic,” Madad told the panel.

“When you look at adding in additional amounts of fluoride, even then, the studies have not proven any significant health adverse effects,” she continued.

But numerous other health officials and toxicologists believe Madad is wrong.

“I think that there is sufficient data now, largely from the epidemiological literature in multiple populations, done by different investigators, that early life exposure to fluoride is associated with an increased risk of IQ loss,” Dr. Linda Birnbaum, a board-certified toxicologist and former director of the National Toxicology Program (NTP), told the Daily Caller.

Birnbaum headed the NTP, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), from 2009 to 2019. She is now an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Public Health, in addition to still contributing research to HHS.

During her tenure, the NTP conducted a systematic review of the published scientific literature on the association between fluoride exposure and neurodevelopment. It found that exposure to higher levels of fluoride — levels it categorized as 1.5 milligrams per liter of water or higher — are associated with lower IQ in children.

The National Toxicology Program (NTP) has declared, “… the data support a consistent inverse association between fluoride exposure and children’s IQ.”

In the meta-analysis by NTP, 52 of 55 studies revealed a decrease in children’s IQ with an increase in fluoride. Internal…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 7, 2024

The review said there was insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion about the effects of exposure at 0.7 milligrams per liter, which is the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) current recommended level for U.S. community water supplies.

However, Dr. Birnbaum told the Caller, the NTP is running a comprehensive meta-analysis of the data that will likely show the linked drop in IQ rate is occurring at rates well below the 1.5 milligrams per liter number.

In fact, while Dr. Birnbaum maintained she hasn’t yet seen the newest version of the meta-analysis, older versions she did see show “that it’s quite clear that there may be really no safe level of fluoride just like there’s no safe level for lead,” she said.

Nearly all of the studies the NTP reviewed concluded the mineral was neurotoxic, Stuart Cooper, executive director of the Fluoride Action Network, told the Daily Caller.

The 1.5 number, which the NTP concluded with “moderate confidence” leads to lowered IQ in children, is in line with the World Health Organization, whose current guidelines suggest maintaining levels below that concentration will prevent dental fluorosis, a yellowing or visible calcification of the teeth caused by excessive fluoride exposure.

Cooper argued that the NTP’s report was partially political.

“If you were actually doing a real systematic dose response analysis of a Health Hazard Assessment, do you think you would just magically land on 1.5, which happens to be the World Health Organization’s number?” he asked. “It would be like point 82763, you know, I mean, it wouldn’t be 1.0, what happened? [The report] just coincided miraculously with the World Health Organization? That’s where politics was kind of embedded into this document.”

Cooper, who has spent over 14 years ringing alarm bells about fluoride, says his organization has repeatedly requested supporting studies from the CDC and the American Dental Association (ADA) that prove fluoride is safe but “after 80 years they had nothing.”

“They couldn’t confirm. They have no studies showing that low levels is safe for the developing brain. So here they are exposing 200 million Americans, 2 million pregnant women, 300,000 exclusively bottle-fed infants right at this very second to fluoridation in the drinking water. We have 64 studies showing that that’s harmful, that poses an extreme risk. They have zero studies confirming safety. And yet they want you to ask me what more evidence do I need to find.”

The CDC lauds fluoride as a landmark innovation in preventing tooth decay and caries, otherwise known as cavities. The agency calls community water fluoridation one of the “top ten public health achievements of the twentieth century.”

Thanks to water fluoridation in the U.S., the CDC claims “dental caries declined precipitously during the second half of the 20th century.”

But that precipitous drop has occurred in both fluoridated countries and non-fluoridated alike. Countries with no community water fluoridation like Iceland, Italy and Japan, have all seen even steeper drops in cavities, according to data from the WHO.

“Although the prevalence of caries varies between countries, levels everywhere have fallen greatly in the past three decades, and national rates of caries are now universally low. This trend has occurred regardless of the concentration of fluoride in water or the use of fluoridated salt, and it probably reflects use of fluoridated toothpastes and other factors, including perhaps aspects of nutrition,” KK Cheng, a professor of public health and the Director of the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Applied Health Research, wrote in the British Medical Journal.

WHO data shows decay rates have dropped at the same rate in non-fluoridated countries: https://t.co/Tg8pLmkoR0 pic.twitter.com/jjFr8yxC2w

— Fluoride Action Network (@FluorideAction) March 18, 2016

Some western communities did remove fluoride from their water and actually saw their cavity rates decrease. Buffalo, New York, a city which removed fluoride in 2012, saw their rates of cavities for people between the ages of 12-65 drop, according to data from the National Institutes of Health.

Nine years after removing the mineral from their water supply, however, Buffalo began fluoridating again in September after families sued the city in a class action lawsuit, alleging their children had to receive more dental care as a result of the fluoride halt.

Despite the many studies and experts expressing concern over the mineral, CNN and Dr. Madad continued to push both its safety and efficacy in reducing cavities.

“Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral, it’s not a man-made mineral,” Madad told CNN.

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral. It is an ionized form of the element fluorine. Yet Kennedy Jr. called it “industrial waste” in a Nov. 2 tweet.

On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S​. water systems to remove fluoride from public water. Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease. President…

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) November 2, 2024

Fluoride does occur in nature, and in fact many of the studies evaluated in the NTP report were from international communities in China and India who do not fluoridate their public water supply, but simply have high natural levels of the mineral in their groundwater.

But the specific type of fluoride that’s added to American public water supplies is often a chemical byproduct from the fertilizer industry, Cooper explained.

Phosphate fertilizer giants, like The Mosaic Company, produce the precursor to fluoride as a byproduct of their fertilizer production process and then sell it off to dental supply companies and municipalities for their water supply, Cooper told the Caller.

Cooper says the byproduct is known within the industry as “scrubber liquor,” because it’s literally scrubbed from the side of smokestacks.

The chemical companies make a nice profit from this side business, Cooper told the Caller, however he added that if it were banned in public water supplies, it likely wouldn’t hurt their bottom line.

“It wouldn’t be a big deal for them if it went away economically, because they could just replace it with other markets, including in Africa and China, where they’re seeing an increase in fluoride toothpaste. They actually still use the same product, but it’s refined to pharmaceutical grade,” Cooper said.

While many public health agencies still sing the praises of fluoride’s anti-cavity benefits, some dentists say it’s not as effective in treating cavities as the CDC and others profess.

Dr. Staci Whitman, a Portland-based dentist, said she used to be militantly pro-fluoride until she started looking into it.

“I never questioned what my professors in dental school told me. I never questioned the data that was presented to me. I absolutely thought anyone that spoke out against it was lulu tin foil hat brigade, just a total kook,” she told the Caller.

Staci actively participated in pro-fluoride campaigns, handing out pamphlets detailing the benefits of the mineral and attending lectures and debates on the topic. It was at one of these debates where Dr. Whitman had an epiphany.

“I realized that these people representing antifluoride, if you will, they were very articulate, very professional, had a ton of science and data that I had never seen, never had even heard, never even knew there was potentially an issue with water fluoridation. It wasn’t even on my radar.”

Then, Dr. Whitman began to read. “I don’t know if I can support this anymore,” she realized. “And that was when I thought water fluoridation maybe worked, and now we know it really doesn’t. We know that fluoridated countries have the same decay rate as non-fluoridated countries.”

The vast majority of European countries do not fluoridate their water.

“Most of those countries have banned the practice because they view it as a medical experiment. It’s the only chemical we add to the water supply that’s not intended to treat the water. It’s intended to treat the consumer,” Cooper said.

Florida once again leading the way w/wise public health recs from @FLSurgeonGen

Almost all of Europe (gray👇) decided decades ago against fluoridating water; benefits unclear w/access to topical fluoride

2024 Cochrane review agrees

W/unclear benefits, why take risks of harms? https://t.co/cGDL9FZaSY pic.twitter.com/vCfSTsK9RN

— Tracy Høeg, MD, PhD (@TracyBethHoeg) November 23, 2024

Dr. Whitman said she went along with fluoridation because everybody else did.

“I literally was just making it up. I was just seeing what my professor said, which I would say, ‘Oh, look at you. No cavities. You must have grown up in a fluoridated community.’ I was just saying it because everyone else did. It was observational. That’s not science.”

Dr. Whitman pointed to the latest findings on community water fluoridation from the Cochrane Report, a systematic review of research in health care and health policy which she calls “the gold standard.”

Cochrane reviewed 21 studies of community water fluoridation and found the practice “may slightly increase the number of children who have no tooth decay in either their baby teeth or permanent teeth.”

However, “these results also included the possibility of little or no difference in tooth decay,” the report added.

Cavities are the largest chronic disease globally, affecting both fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities alike, Dr. Whitman explained. Fluoride, she told the Caller, is not the problem. Rather, it’s the food we eat.

“No one gets cavities because of lack of fluoride,” she said.

“Ancestrally, we didn’t have fluoride in our lives. Look at the skulls from 10 or 12,000 years ago. The teeth are pristine. So what changed it was our diet. It was an agricultural revolution and the industrialized revolution we started adding sugar and flour into everything. So fluoride is just a cop out for our issue with our food system and big food and the big sugar industry.”

Dr. Whitman explained she’s not necessarily anti-topical fluoride, and pointed to the widespread availability of fluoridated toothpaste as further evidence for the unnecessary nature of water fluoridation. But she also recommended hydroxyapatite, a calcium and phosphorus based teeth cleaner that is used in Italy, Japan and other western European countries, as a fluoride alternative.

Our teeth, Dr. Whitman explained, are comprised of hydroxyapatite, not fluoride. The use of the alternative can prevent the development of dental fluorosis, which affects 40 percent of teenagers in America today, according to the CDC.

It can also prevent the much more serious skeletal fluorosis, which can severely distort a person’s bones. While communities across the United States add fluoride to their water supplies, governments in India and China and other communities with high natural levels of fluoride have spent millions of dollars on research and removal efforts, Cooper told the Caller.

“The government and many nonprofits have been working for decades to solve that problem. It’s just, it’s just really difficult, and it’s difficult to filter out, and that’s why we get to this point here in the United States where … we voluntarily add it, we self-inflict this harm,” he said.

Both Cooper and Dr. Whitman pointed to the embedded nature of the mineral in standard dental practices as a barrier to change the public perception on its potential harms.

“I don’t think there’s a nefarious action. I think most dentists just don’t know the issue very well,” Cooper said. “When I talk to them at city halls and I talk to them at legislative hearings, the average dentist has been working with topical fluoride their whole life in their dental office. They learned one day in dental school, they heard about the benefits of water fluoridation as settled science, and they believe it, and they care about children.”

Still, he said, the American Dental Association, who publicly endorse water fluoridation, are too deep in defending the practice to change course.

“At this point, it’s a lie that’s too big to fail,” he said. “If they now admit that they were not only wrong, but that many millions of children were harmed by this, there would be a grand loss of trust in the American Dental Association. And unfortunately along the way, as the dental lobby is really wealthy and powerful, they co-opted government in support of this.”

Both experts argued the burden of proof should be on the pro-fluoride side, especially considering the high stakes surrounding neurodevelopment.

“I am trained as a dentist to fix teeth, but I can’t fix a brain,” Dr. Staci said. “We only have one shot at developing a child’s brain.”

Cooper concurred.

“The cavity can easily be filled, but damage to the brain is permanent and has lifelong consequences. There are no second chances with brain development, and we have a large volume of government-funded research that now shows that fluoride at the levels experienced in Florida communities is neurotoxic. That’s the scientific consensus. There is no contradictory science. And we have government-funded research showing that for decades, and they knew it, we have been overexposing infants to water fluoridation,” he concluded.

The American Dental Association, in fact, receives millions of dollars from corporations that produce fluoride products, an ADA memo requested by Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley in 2010 revealed.

“These dental product companies were giving different grants … but they were also giving millions of dollars to pay for the ADA’s endorsement of their products,” Cooper said. “You see that ADA seal of approval? Well, the one rule the ADA has to get that seal of approval is your product must contain fluoride. So even if you make a really great Xylitol toothpaste, they’re not going to put their stamp of approval unless you also add fluoride.”

Cooper lauded the Trump administration and Kennedy Jr. for taking action and drawing publicity to the issue.

“What the Trump administration is doing, what RFK is doing is on water fluoridation, is common sense that elected officials ought to be doing at every level,” he said.

Now, some public health officials are following Trump and Kennedy’s lead.

Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s Surgeon General, officially recommended against community water fluoridation last month, citing “the neuropsychiatric risk associated with fluoride exposure.”

His recommendation follows a landmark September decision from United States District Judge Edward Chen in Northern California forcing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to more strictly regulate the levels of fluoride in water under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

“The scientific literature in the record provides a high level of certainty that a hazard is present; fluoride is associated with reduced IQ,” Chen, an Obama appointee, wrote in his decision.

Still, some communities, like Buffalo, New York, are doubling down. Nine years after removing the mineral from their water supply, Buffalo began fluoridating again in September.

Others still express doubt that the studies showing high levels of fluoride linked to neurotoxicity are in any way relevant to the levels at which American water is fluoridated.

“Fluoride can certainly be toxic,” Dr. Ryan Marino, a board-certified toxicologist and professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, told the Caller.

“Acute fluoride toxicity is one of the worst poisonings I can think of. However, the levels of fluoride used for dental health benefits in American drinking water are significantly below the levels that could even start to cause harmful effects and toxicity, and the levels we use have never been shown to cause harmful effects or toxicity,” Dr. Marino concluded.

But given the recent California ruling and Kennedy Jr.’s anti-fluoride campaign, Cooper is hopeful the tide is turning.

“There’s decades of science that we’ve been doing our best to get out there, but it’s been stifled by mainstream media and the ADA,” Cooper said. “Finally, now they can’t keep the lid on it anymore, and it’s just like they don’t know what to do. They’re in a panic.”

The Daily Caller contacted the CDC, the ADA, the NTP, HHS and Dr. Syra Madad for comment but did not hear back by publication.

AUTHOR

Robert McGreevy

Reporter.

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

EXCLUSIVE: Chinese Intel-Linked ‘Service Centers’ In U.S. Cities Used Cultural Events To Push Communist Party Propaganda

Overseas “service centers” set up in seven U.S. cities by a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intelligence arm have hosted cultural events featuring pro-CCP propaganda and performers tied to China’s government and military, according to Chinese government records and state-run media reports reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) runs “Overseas Chinese Service Center” (OCSC) branches that operate out of U.S.-based nonprofits in seven U.S. cities, a recent DCNF investigation found. OCSCs were ostensibly set up to assist with official government duties, like reviewing passport applications, but they also host cultural events that often feature pro-CCP songs and performers tied to China’s military and propaganda departments, according to Chinese government records and state-run media reports.

Members of the U.S. Congress have attended these propaganda-filled cultural events, according to Chinese state-media reports and photos.

“These activities offer a perfect platform for the CCP to invite elected officials, whom they can then influence into endorsing the CCP’s narrative, and, in turn, influence broad masses of people,” Scott McGregor, a former Canadian military intelligence officer, told the DCNF.

The DCNF previously identified OCSC branches operating in San Francisco, California; St. Paul, Minnesota; St. Louis, Missouri; Omaha, Nebraska; Charlotte, North Carolina; Houston, Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah. The DCNF also reported that, during a 2018 trip to China, OCSC representatives met with officials from the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), which is China’s national police authority.

Republican Senators have asked the FBI and Justice Department to investigate the OCSCs. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey recently opened an investigation into the St. Louis OCSC, which he called a “possible CCP outpost.”

‘China Is Back’ 

Between 2014 and 2017, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office established 60 OCSCs around the world, including seven branches in U.S. cities, the DCNF previously reported.

The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office was under control of the CCP’s State Council until 2018 when it became part of UFWD, according to Chinese government documents and reports from China experts. The U.S.-China Economic Security and Review Commission, a federal entity, characterizes the UFWD as the CCP organ “responsible for coordinating [foreign and domestic] influence operations” as well as a “Chinese intelligence service.”

“United Front work is Beijing’s effort to enlist the Chinese diaspora and sympathetic residents of other countries to create sympathy for, and support of, the CCP’s goals,” Dr. June Tuefel Dreyer, former commissioner of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, told the DCNF.

OCSC branches perform a variety of duties in support of China’s foreign ministry, ranging from processing Chinese passport and travel permit applications to so-called “consular protection” activities, the DCNF previously reported. However, OCSCs also regularly host Chinese cultural events, many of which have featured pro-CCP propaganda, according to a DCNF review of dozens of events.

OCSC-hosted cultural events — which include Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival and other Chinese national celebrations — often present traditional Chinese music and dance alongside pro-CCP propaganda songs.

For instance, the Salt Lake City OCSC held a 2022 Mid-Autumn Festival livestream event featuring lion dancers and traditional instrumental songs, according to its website. Performers at the event also sang and danced to “My People, My Country,” one of 100 songs selected by the CCP Propaganda Department to commemorate communist China’s 70th anniversary, according to the state-run People’s Daily.

In a 2020 speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping called the song part of a “surging current that sings an ode to New China and inspires us to work harder in the new era, filling us with boundless energy.”

In 2018, the Salt Lake City OCSC hosted a Lunar New Year event that included ethnic dance routines, martial artists and performers singing patriotic tunes, like “Love My China,” which was also on the Propaganda Department’s list.

The OCSC in St. Paul, Minnesota helped organize a 2019 event celebrating the founding of communist China and the establishing of U.S.-China diplomatic relations, according to a report from the nonprofit Alliance of Minnesota Chinese Organizations (AMCO). The All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese is also listed as a co-organizer for the event. The All-China Federation is part of the CCP’s united front, according to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

In addition to performances featuring acrobats and traditional Chinese instruments, a performer at the St. Paul event also sang “Ode To The Motherland,” another CCP Propaganda Department-approved song, according to People’s Daily. The state-run China News Service has called the song communist China’s second national anthem.

The song’s author boasted to Chinese state-controlled media that his lyrics depict “the power of justice, a blood vow to resist the shame of national subjugation roared in the middle of battle.”

Although they did not appear to attend the event, AMCO reports that Minnesota Democratic politicians Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Rep. Dean Phillips and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey all wrote letters praising the celebration.

Klobuchar, Phillips and Frey did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Service centers have also hosted events that included performances from art troupes affiliated with Chinese government propaganda departments, according to multiple Chinese state-run media reports.

In 2018, the Omaha OCSC sponsored a Lunar New Year celebration that featured Chinese opera performers from the state-owned Jiangsu Provincial Theatrical Troupe, according to Qiaowang, which is the news and propaganda arm of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office.

The Jiangsu theatrical troupe operates under the direction of the Jiangsu Propaganda Department, according to Chinese government documents.

The St. Paul OCSC and the Chongqing Propaganda Department have co-sponsored multiple events at the Mall of America in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, including events in 2019 and 2022, according to AMCO and Sohu.com. The 2022 event featured a performance from a dragon dance troupe managed by the Chongqing Propaganda Department, according to Sohu.com.

These performances came after the CCP Propaganda Department minister from Chongqing traveled to Minnesota in 2018 to sign a “mutual cooperation” agreement with the Mall of America and the St. Paul OCSC, according to the nonprofit AMCO. The details of the agreement are unknown.

In 2019, a vice president for Triple Five Group, which owns and operates the Mall of America, wrote a letter — which was posted on AMCO’s website — thanking the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office, the head of the Chinese consulate in Chicago and several Chinese provincial government entities for their “firm support” of the mall’s Chinese New Year performances that year.

Neither the Mall of America nor the Triple Five Group responded to multiple requests for comment.

A Chinese Military Saxophonist Jams Out To U.S. Pop Songs

OCSC branches have also co-hosted performances with a related Overseas Chinese Affairs Office program called the Star Art Troupe.

Launched in 2014, the Star Art Troupe theatrical program is the “cultural flagship” of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and aims to “meet the cultural needs of overseas Chinese” while providing a “window for foreigners to understand China,” according to the office’s website.

Chinese government and state-run media reports detail how, between 2014 and 2017, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office established seven Star Art Troupes in BostonChicagoHoustonNew York CitySan FranciscoSeattle and St. Paul.

U.S. OCSC have co-hosted events with Star Art Troupes, according to multiple Chinese state-run media reports. Some of these events featured performers from the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Academy of Art. The PLA is the Chinese military.

In October 2019, for instance, St. Paul’s OCSC and the local Star Art Troupe co-hosted an event commemorating the founding of communist China, according to AMCO. The event included a singer and musician from the PLA’s Academy of Art, according to Sohu.com.

Similarly, Houston’s Star Art Troupe also included a dancer who attended the PLA’s Academy of Art, according to the Oriental Arts Education Center (OAEC), though it’s unclear if the dancer remains at the center. OAEC, which hosts the art troupe, has co-hosted events Houston’s Chinese Civic Center, which houses the Houston OCSC.

In September 2015, Houston’s Chinese Civic Center sold tickets for a public event in Stafford, Texas, celebrating communist China’s founding that was co-hosted by Houston’s Star Art Troupe, according to the local Chinese Student Association. During the event, the lead saxophonist for the PLA’s Central Military Band played the pop hit “My Heart Will Go On,” the association reported.

That same month, the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office invited the head of Houston’s Star Art Troupe to come to China to attend a military parade at Tiananmen Square commemorating the defeat of Imperial Japan, according to OAEC.

While in Beijing, the head of Houston’s Star Art Troupe met with the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office’s chief propagandist to discuss “how the modern mission of overseas cultural disseminators is to use cultural confidence to demonstrate Chinese people’s profound heritage and love of peace in order to defend the peaceful image of China,” according to OAEC.

OAEC did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

“Americans should be very wary of cultural events hosted by organizations affiliated with the UFWD — and especially the MPS — because they are used to covertly hide the CCP’s true intent,” Ina Mitchell, Canadian investigative reporter and co-author of “The Mosaic Effect,” told the DCNF.

The DCNF reached out to all seven nonprofits housing OCSCs by email and phone. Only two of the nonprofits responded.

The Nebraska Chinese Association, which houses the Omaha OCSC, claimed its cultural events “strive to cultivate understandings between Chinese and American culture” and denied any relationship with the Chinese government.

A man who identified himself as a “founding member” of the Charlotte “Chinese service center” told the DCNF by phone that his organization was “not related to any government agency.” He directed the DCNF to review the group’s website.

‘Feel Good Sentiments’

Several members of Congress have attended OCSC-sponsored cultural events, according to multiple Chinese state-run media reports.

In January 2023, St. Paul’s OCSC co-hosted another Lunar New Year event at the Mall of America. During the event, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith delivered a speech praising her state for welcoming immigrants, the CCP-controlled Qiaowang and CBS News reported.

Smith’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Sen. Klobuchar also gave a video speech thanking an OCSC representative for promoting “the cultural heritage of Chinese Americans,” according to AMCO’s YouTube channel.

Performers at the January 2023 event sang the CCP Propaganda Department-approved song “Why Are The Flowers So Red?” The song’s lyrics celebrate “the heroic frontier guards in Northwest China’s Xinjiang,” according to the PLA’s English website.

The song’s lyrics include the line: “Why are the flowers so red? They’re watered with the blood of youth.”

Rep. Phillips has also attended St. Paul OCSC co-sponsored by the Chongqing Propaganda Department, according to multiple reports.

In September 2022, Phillips attended the St. Paul OCSC’s Mid-Autumn Festival event at the Mall of America, according to iChongqing, a Chinese state-run media outlet. During the event, Phillips, the head of China’s Chicago consulate and St. Paul OCSC members painted eyes on a large dragon puppet, which was then used in a performance by a dragon dance troupe managed by the Chongqing Propaganda Department, photos from a state-run media outlet show.

“Cultural events create feel good sentiments — ‘how could a civilization that produced such fantastic dance, musical performances, acrobats, cuisine possibly have militant intentions?’” Dr. Dreyer told the DCNF.

Nebraska Republican Rep. Don Bacon has also attended events hosted by the Omaha OCSC, including a 2018 Lunar New Year event that featured the state-controlled Jiangsu Provincial Theatrical Troupe, according to Qiaowang.

Bacon’s spokesperson told the DCNF that individuals from the Nebraska Chinese Association “cherish their Chinese heritage” and “have a deep disdain for the Communist government and have expressed love and patriotism for the United States.” Bacon’s spokesperson added that local law enforcement had never “highlighted any concerns to us in the past” about the organization.

However, after the DCNF reported on the Omaha OCSC’s connection to the CCP’s United Front, Bacon said he contacted the FBI about the service center.

“Allegations that the Chinese Communist Government is operating an illegal organization to monitor and intimidate Chinese students and visitors in Omaha are obviously very alarming and we want answers from the FBI,” Bacon said.

In 2022, the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center warned that CCP influence operations in the U.S. have now placed state and local officials “on the “front lines of national security.” While these operations may vary in their execution, ultimately, they all aim to coopt American lawmakers as Beijing’s proxies, whether wittingly or unwittingly, DNI cautioned.

“These associations have been bridges that Americans naively saw as just cultural and mutually beneficial,” Steve Yates, former deputy national security adviser to former vice president Dick Cheney, told the DCNF. “The CCP has always used every organization as a vehicle to monitor, and, in many cases, control their ethnic affiliates and through them the influencers in the communities in which their ethnic compatriots reside.”

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Investigative reporter.

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


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120 Members of Congress Send Letters of Support to Hamas-Linked Group

My latest in PJ Media:

You’d think that a group with multiple ties to the jihad terror group Hamas would be shunned by elected American representatives, and even more by law enforcement officials, except insofar as it was under investigation. You’d think wrong. The Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday that despite the “more than 120 members of Congress privately issued letters of support to a controversial Islamic-American advocacy group known for its involvement in one of America’s most prominent terrorism financing cases.” And on Friday, the Daily Wire added that “in October, the Trump administration handed out $100,000 of taxpayer dollars to the terror-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).”

You’d almost think that CAIR was a patriotic organization fighting against jihad terror. But of course virtually all members of Congress and federal bureaucrats in DHS wouldn’t be caught dead having anything to do with such a group. CAIR, on the other hand, “touted its support among congressional leaders during its 2019 gala conference in November in Washington, D.C.,” where the headliners included the notable flag-wavers Linda Sarsour and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Its agenda included “well over 100 letters from Democratic and Republican members of Congress, all of whom expressed their support for the controversial organization. Democrats issued the majority of the letters, with only two coming from Republican members of Congress.”

Those sending their good wishes to this sinister and unsavory organization included three presidential hopefuls, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Cherokee Nation) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Flying Binders), as well as Tom Steyer (D-Rich Guy with No Chance), along with stalwart Democratic pillars including Adam Schiff (D-Impeachment Railroad) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Hizballah).

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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