AMERIKA

‘Expect war’: leaked chats reveal influence of rightwing media on militia group

Jason Wilson

THE GUARDIAN
Mon 28 October 2024

A man in Washington DC holds leaflets falsely claiming that Trump won the 2020 presidential election, in November 2020.Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

Leaked and public chats from Arizona-based “poll watching” activists aligned with a far-right militia group show how their election paranoia has been fueled by a steady drumbeat of conspiracy theories and disinformation from rightwing media outlets and influencers, including Elon Musk.

The materials come from two overlapping election-denial groups whose activists are mostly based in Arizona, one of seven key swing states that will decide the US election and possibly end up at the center of any disputed results in the post-election period.

Chat records from a public-facing channel for the America First Polling Project (AFPP) were made available to reporters by transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDOSecrets). The activist who leaked those materials to DDOSecrets provided the Guardian directly with an archive of the Arizona 2022 Mid-Term Election Watch (A22) chat channel.


Related: The far-right megadonor pouring over $10m into the US election to defeat ‘the woke regime’

The materials offer a window into the way in which the rightwing information environment – and the unverified, distorted or false information it proffers – erode faith in elections, and encourage those who would violently disrupt them.
From the media to far-right conspiracy

The materials underline previously reported links between poll watching groups and the American Patriots Three Percent (AP3) militia, such that the militia provided “paramilitary heft to ballot box monitoring operations”.

At least half a dozen pseudonymous activist accounts are present across all of the chats, and early posts in the AFPP chat show activists at “tailgate parties” that brought together election denial groups and militia members ahead of the 2022 midterms election.

They also show the broad cooperative effort among a range of election denial groups, whose activities were fueled by disinformation from high-profile conservative activists.

On 6 October 2022, in one of the first archived messages on the semi-private A22 chat, a user with the same name as the channel (Arizona 2022 Mid-Term Election Watch) announced to the group that they had “heard back from the cleanelectionsusa.org so I might try to coordinate between the two efforts”. They added: “In any case I will schedule a couple of zoom calls so we can connect.”

Two days later, the same account updated: “There are 13 drop box only locations in Maricopa county of which only 2 are 24 hour locations,” adding: “We will need help with getting these watched. I have also been able to connect with cleanelectionsusa and am coordinating with those folks.”

Clean Elections USA, founded by Oklahoman Melody Jennings, is one of a number of election denial groups that sprang up in the wake of the 2020 election, after Trump and his allies mounted a campaign to reverse that year’s election result on the basis of false claims that the vote was stolen.

During the 2022 election season, the organization was slapped with a restraining order over its ballot monitoring – some of it carried out by armed activists – that the federal Department of Justice described in its filing as “vigilante ballot security efforts” that may have violated the Voting Rights Act. That lawsuit was settled in 2023.

The organization’s website has shuttered; however, archived snapshots indicate that the organizers were motivated by discredited information from long-running election denial organization True the Vote and 2000 Mules, the title of a conspiracy-minded book and accompanying documentary by rightwing provocateur Dinesh D’Souza.

The book and film repeated True the Vote’s allegations that paid “mules” had carried illegal ballots to drop boxes in swing states in 2020. D’Souza’s publisher in June withdrew the book and film from distribution and apologized to a man whom D’Souza falsely accused of criminal election fraud.

The “mules” falsehoods were treated as baseline reality in the A22 chat. On 9 November, a user named “trooper” sought to account for Republicans’ unexpectedly poor showing with the claim “275k drop-off ballots – meaning the mules flooded the system on election day while the disaster distraction was in play”, adding that “they swarmed the election day drop boxes like fucking locusts”.

The pro-democracy Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University recently published research indicating elevated worries about harassment on the part of local officials, including election officials. BDI’s research backed up findings from the Brennan Center indicating that 70% of election officials said that threats had increased in 2024, and 38% had personally experienced threats, up from 30% last year.

Shannon Hiller, BDI’s executive director, said: “We continue to face elevated threats and risk to local officials across the board,” however in 2024, “there’s been a lot more preparation and there’s a clearer understanding about how to address those threats now.”

Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) said that talk of election fraud using drop boxes had returned in 2024. “I can’t think of an election-denying organization, whether it’s Mike Lindell, True the Vote, or more local outfits in various states that aren’t talking about patrolling drop boxes and watching voters while they’re voting”, she said.
From disinformation to violent threats

Beirich’s warnings are reflected in ongoing AFPP Telegram chats, where any prospect of a Harris victory is met with conspiracy theories, apocalyptic narratives, and sometimes threats.

The Guardian’s review of the materials found many instances in which disinformation or exaggerated claims in the media or from rightwing public figures led directly to violent rhetoric from members of the chat.

On 13 March, a user linked to a story in the Federalist which uncritically covered a claim by the Mississippi secretary of state, Michael Watson, that the Department of Justice was “using taxpayer dollars to have jails and the US Marshals Service encourage incarcerated felons and noncitizens to register to vote” on the basis of Biden’s March 2021 executive order aimed at expanding access to voting.

A user, “@Wilbo17AZ”, replied: “If we don’t fight this with our every waking breath, we are done. Expect war.”

On 24 June, a user posted an article from conspiracy-minded, Falun Gong-linked news website Epoch Times, which reported on the supreme court’s rejection of appeals from a Robert F Kennedy-founded anti-vaccine non-profit,

The court declined to hear the appeals over lower court’s determinations that the non-profit had no standing to sue the Food and Drug Administration over its emergency authorization of Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic.

In response, another user, “cybercav”, wrote: “I do not see any path forward for our Republic that doesn’t include ‘Purge and Eradicate’ being the general orders for both sides of the next civil war.”

In January, the @AFPP_US account posted a link to an opinion column on the Gateway Pundit by conspiracy theorist Wayne Allyn Root. Root characterized cross-border immigration as an invasion in the piece, and concluded by telling readers to “Pray to God. Pray for a miracle. Pray for the election in November of President Donald J Trump.”
Fueling paranoia

Over the summer, overseas events fueled the paranoia of chat members.

On 6 August the @AFPP_US account posted a link to Guardian reporting on anti-immigrant riots that took place in the UK over the summer.

The article described the riots as “far-right violence”; @AFPP_US captioned the link “‘Far Right’ = ‘Stop raping women and stabbing children’”.

The next day, the same account apparently attempted to link the riots to UK gun laws, which are more restrictive than the US.

The stimulus was a story on the riots by conspiracy broadcaster Owen Shroyer, an employee of Alex Jones who was sentenced to two months in prison for entering a restricted area at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.

@AFPP_US wrote: “UK is a failed state and possession of the Calaphite [sic]. The imperialists have become the Imperiled. This is what just a few generations of disarmament and pussification hath wrought.”

One major vector of bad information in the A22 chats is the Gateway Pundit, a pro-Maga website operated by Jim Hoft. That website has been a noted source of election disinformation for years. Earlier this month Hoft’s organization settled a defamation suit with two election workers that it had falsely accused of election fraud. Accountability non-profit Advance Democracy Inc reported in August that in the first nine months of 2024 Hoft had published at least 128 articles referencing election fraud and election workers.

Gateway Pundit articles were shared many times in the chat.

On 21 January, the @AFPP_US account shared a Gateway Pundit story by Hoft in which he claimed that liberal philanthropist and chair of the Open Society Foundation, Alexander Soros, had posted a coded message advocating the assassination of a re-elected President Trump.

The basis was that Soros’s post carried a picture of a bullet hole and a hand holding $47. But those pictures came from a story in the Atlantic, about falling crime rates, that Soros was linking to in the post.
‘Millions of illegals’

On at least one occasion, the Gateway Pundit was quoted in the group because it was amplifying the claims of another major source of disinformation for A22: Elon Musk.

The Gateway Pundit article posted to the chat in January was titled “JUST IN … Elon Musk Rips Mark Zuckerberg for Funding Illegal Voting Vans in 2020 Election”. It highlighted Musk’s false claim that Zuckerberg’s funding of county-level voting apparatuses in 2020 was illegal.

As elections approached, AFPP members added more of Musk’s pronouncements into the stew of disinformation on the site, with a particular emphasis on anti-immigrant material.

On 7 September, as rightwing actors stoked panic about Haitian immigrants, @AFPP_US posted a link to a Musk post quote-posting a video of Harris addressing the need to support Haitian migrants with the comment: “Vote for Kamala if you want this to happen to your neighborhood!”

On 29 September, the AFPP lead account linked to a Musk post that claimed “Millions of illegals being provided by the government with money for housing using your tax dollars is a major part of what’s driving up costs”.

On 1 October, the @AFPP_US account shared an X post in which Musk asserted that “if Trump is NOT elected, this will be the last election”, and wove that claim into a narrative resembling the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that “Democrats are expediting” the conversion of “illegals” to citizens in an attempt to make America a “one-party state”.

The Guardian reported in 2021 that a separate AP3 website leak, which exposed the paramilitary organization’s membership list, showed that at that time members included serving military and law enforcement officers.

In August, ProPublica reported on an earlier leak of AP3 materials from the same source, showing that AP3 had carried out vigilante operations on the Texas border, and had forged close ties with law enforcement officers around the country.

Beirich said that chatter monitored by the organization has obsessively focused on the narrative of illegal immigrants voting in a “rigged” election. “Non-citizens voting is the big fraud that they’re talking up,” she said.

Earlier this month, Wired reported that the current leak showed evidence of plans to carry out operations “coordinated with election denial groups as part of a plan to conduct paramilitary surveillance of ballot boxes during the midterm elections in 2022”.

 

US confirms release of American pastor David Lin from China prison

George Macauley | U. Toronto Faculty of Law, CA

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024 

The US State Department confirmed in a press conference on Monday that David Lin, an American pastor the US alleges was wrongfully detained since 2009, has been released. US State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller stated that Lin returned to the US for the first time in almost 20 years after he was released from prison in China.

Lin’s release comes after Jake Sullivan, the current US State representative, wrapped up a three-day trip to Beijing, China to meet with top Beijing officials. While Miller did not confirm if the release was a result of negotiations during the trip, he stated that the US Secretary raised David Lin’s case whenever he met with Chinese officials. Miller also said that the US State Department would “continue to push for the release of other Americans.”

Lin was originally arrested in 2009 after he attempted to create a Christian training center in Beijing, where he was then arrested and sentenced to life on the charge of “contract fraud”. According to rights organization Dui Hua Foundation, contract fraud charges are “frequently used against Church house leaders who raise funds to support their work”. The foundation previously wrote:

Dui Hua found that the 1997 revision to the criminal law placed “cult” trials into the purview of district courts, resulting in less transparency and attention [to] such cases. By 1999, trials of Article 300 cases—for those accused of organizing and using superstitious sects, secret societies [] and religious organizations to undermine the law—soared, largely due to the ban on Falun Gong.

Digital Apartheid in Gaza: Big Tech Must Reveal Their Roles in Tech Used in Human Rights Abuses

By Paige Collings, Sparky Abraham 

August 18, 2024

Source: EFF


Image via EFF



This is part two of an ongoing series. Part one on unjust content moderation is here.

Since the start of the Israeli military response to Hamas’ deadly October 7 attack, U.S.-based companies like Google and Amazon have been under pressure to reveal more about the services they provide and the nature of their relationships with the Israeli forces engaging in the military response.

We agree. Without greater transparency, the public cannot tell whether these companies are complying with human rights standards—both those set by the United Nations and those they have publicly set for themselves. We know that this conflict has resulted in alleged war crimes and has involved massive, ongoing surveillance of civilians and refugees living under what international law recognizes as an illegal occupation. That kind of surveillance requires significant technical support and it seems unlikely that it could occur without any ongoing involvement by the companies providing the platforms.

Google’s Human Rights statement claims that “In everything we do, including launching new products and expanding our operations around the globe, we are guided by internationally recognized human rights standards. We are committed to respecting the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its implementing treaties, as well as upholding the standards established in the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and in the Global Network Initiative Principles (GNI Principles). Google goes further in the case of AI technologies, promising not to design or deploy AI in technologies that are likely to facilitate injuries to people, gather or use information for surveillance or be used in violation of human rights, or even where the use is likely to cause overall harm.”

Amazon states that it is “Guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” and that their “approach on human rights is informed by international standards; we respect and support the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

It is time for Google and Amazon to tell the truth about use of their technologies in Gaza so that everyone can see whether their human rights commitments were real or simply empty promises.
Concerns about Google and Amazon Facilitating Human Rights Abuses

The Israeli government has long procured surveillance technologies from corporations based in the United States. Most recently, an investigation in August by +972 and Local Call revealed that the Israeli military has been storing intelligence information on Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) cloud after the scale of data collected through mass surveillance on Palestinians in Gaza was too large for military servers alone. The same article reported that the commander of Israel’s Center of Computing and Information Systems unit—responsible for providing data processing for the military—confirmed in an address to military and industry personnel that the Israeli army had been using cloud storage and AI services provided by civilian tech companies, with the logos of AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure appearing in the presentation.

This is not the first time Google and Amazon have been involved in providing civilian tech services to the Israeli military, nor is it the first time that questions have been raised about whether that technology is being used to facilitate human rights abuses. In 2021, Google and Amazon Web Services signed a $1.2 billion joint contract with the Israeli military called Project Nimbus to provide cloud services and machine learning tools located within Israel. In an official announcement for the partnership, the Israeli Finance Ministry said that the project sought to “provide the government, the defense establishment and others with an all-encompassing cloud solution.” Under the contract, Google and Amazon reportedly cannot prevent particular agencies of the Israeli government, including the military, from using its services.

Not much is known about the specifics of Nimbus. Google has publicly stated that the project is not aimed at military uses; the Israeli military publicly credits Nimbus with assisting the military in conducting the war. Reports note that the project involves Google establishing a secure instance of the Google Cloud in Israel. According to Google documents from 2022, Google’s Cloud services include object tracking, AI-enabled face recognition and detection, and automated image categorization. Google signed a new consulting deal with the Israeli Ministry of Defense based around the Nimbus platform in March 2024, so Google can’t claim it’s simply caught up in the changed circumstances since 2021.

Alongside Project Nimbus, an anonymous Israeli official reported that the Israeli military deploys face recognition dragnets across the Gaza Strip using two tools that have facial recognition/clustering capabilities: one from Corsight, which is a “facial intelligence company,” and the other built into the platform offered through Google Photos.
Clarity Needed

Based on the sketchy information available, there is clearly cause for concern and a need for the companies to clarify their roles.

For instance, Google Photos is a general-purpose service and some of the pieces of Project Nimbus are non-specific cloud computing platforms. EFF has long maintained that the misuse of general-purpose technologies alone should not be a basis for liability. But, as with Cisco’s development of a specific module of China’s Golden Shield aimed at identifying the Falun Gong (currently pending in litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit), companies should not intentionally provide specific services that facilitate human rights abuses. They must also not willfully blind themselves to how their technologies are being used.

In short, if their technologies are being used to facilitate human rights abuses, whether in Gaza or elsewhere, these tech companies need to publicly demonstrate how they are adhering to their own Human Rights and AI Principles, which are based in international standards.

We (and the whole world) are waiting, Google and Amazon.

Paige Collings is the Senior Speech and Privacy Activist at EFF. As a lawyer, digital policy activist and community organiser, she works to dismantle systems of oppression and advance collective liberation. Paige focuses on highlighting how state surveillance and corporate restrictions stifle marginalized communities and perpetuate historic injustices and harm. She has worked with activists across the globe to facilitate systemic change by speaking truth to power and creating spaces for alternative imaginations for justice for all. Paige is a board member of the European Digital Rights (EDRi) network. Paige holds a Master’s degree in Law, Master’s degree in Political Science, and a Bachelor’s degree in Politics and History.

 

Scandal at Trump-backer Epoch Times: Biden and U.S. Establishment Getting Desperate Over Election?

Digging up dirt using a money-laundering scandal makes perfect sense. Muzzling a pro-Trump media outlet is a bonus too.

by Finian Cunningham / June 19th, 2024

With the U.S. presidential election only four months away, the incumbent Joe Biden White House and the Democrat Party are getting desperate. They can’t seem to close the gap in poll numbers showing Republican rival Donald Trump having a strong chance of regaining the presidency.

Such is the political crisis in the United States from voter indifference to both candidates that anything could happen. With Trump threatening a “bloodbath” if he loses in November, the prospect of national chaos either way is looming.

An increasingly frail Biden is calling on Hollywood A-listers to boost his flagging campaign. A recent $30 million fundraiser by Tinseltown big names including Julia Roberts and George Clooney warned of the “scariest” outcome if Trump were returned to the White House.

What’s of concern to the political and media establishment – which largely votes Democrat – is that Trump’s popularity seems immune to damage from scandal and legal prosecutions for financial corruption. His fundraising is also set to grow more robustly after the Republican Congressional leaders put aside any misgivings to bless his campaign.

The high stakes may explain the “big news” crackdown on alleged corruption by the chief financial executive at the conservative news outlet, The Epoch Times.

Its Chief Financial Officer Weidong “Bill” Guan is in court this week facing federal charges for money laundering and bank fraud to the tune of $67 million. Guan denies the charges but if convicted he is facing a 20-30 year stretch in jail.

The Epoch Times is a major supporter of “The Donald”. The weekly newspaper is published in 35 countries and 22 languages. It was founded 25 years ago and is affiliated with the Falun Gong movement, a secretive quasi-Buddhist religion that claims to have millions of followers in the U.S. and worldwide. The spiritual leader is China-born multimillionaire Li Hongzhi who lives in exile. Falun Gong is banned in China by the Chinese government which accuses it of cult practices and extortion of followers.

Following the arrest of Bill Guan by U.S. authorities earlier this month, the Falun Gong leader wrote two articles for Epoch Times, denouncing shady practices and partisan politics. The newspaper has denied any wrongdoing and has suspended its chief financial officer pending the outcome of the fraud trial.

The New York-based Epoch Times has been a useful proxy for U.S. governments since its foundation in 2000 following the exile of Li Hongzhi from China to the United States where “he found his American Dream”, according to the Wall Street Journal. Apart from its zany content which borders on superstition and sensationalism, the upside for the U.S. establishment is the publication is vehemently hostile towards the People’s Republic of China in its editorial line. It reflects the “anti-communist” views of the Falun Gong leader and in that way can be seen as a useful propaganda tool for Washington to drum up “anti-China” sentiments.

However, during the last Trump administration, The Epoch Times adopted a stridently pro-Trump line. It ran stories popular among the MAGA movement such as the Covid-19 virus being a plot by the Chinese Communist Party to destroy the United States, as well as QAnon conspiracy claims about Satanic corruption among the U.S. establishment.

When Trump lost in 2020 to Biden, the paper promoted the false claims that the election was “stolen” by Democrat-orchestrated voter fraud. Many Republican voters still believe that their man was cheated out of a second consecutive term by the deep state.

Nailing its editorial colors to the Trump electoral mast was a profitable move for The Epoch Times. Under the stewardship of Bill Guan – a protégé of Falun Gong guru Li Hongzhi – the media group’s revenues skyrocketed from $4 million a year to over $120 million. The Department of Justice indictment alleges that Guan raked in the proceeds through fundraising online scams using cryptocurrency and personal identity theft.

The association of Trump’s campaign with an alleged massive fraud operation run by a media group that can be easily painted as a weird cultist whack job seems to be the latest effort by the Democrat-supporting political establishment to tip the scales in favor of Biden.

There has been widespread American corporate media coverage of the fraud scandal implicating The Epoch Times and its Falun Gong network. The Washington Post, New York Times, CNN, and CNBC, among others, have been having a field day on the subject.

It appears odd that the U.S. establishment, which has indulged the Falun Gong movement and its anti-China news outlet for so many years, should abruptly ramp up negative coverage.

But bear in mind that Biden’s campaign is in deep trouble. His administration’s embroilment in the Gaza genocide perpetrated by the Israeli regime has earned bitter recrimination from Democrat voters and students who would have normally voted for Biden.

Another worry for the Democrat Party is Biden’s increasingly obvious physical and mental frailty. Even pro-Democrat media are openly commenting on how Biden’s mental health is failing as he stumbles from one public gaff or misstep to another. There is a sense of dread that when Trump and Biden go head to head in a live TV debate later this month, the incumbent president will be made look decrepit and unfit for office.

The Democrat campaign is amplifying attention on Trump’s conviction for fraud over hush payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels and his other forthcoming court trial over abuse of classified documents. It’s also talking up Trump’s dodgy financial accounts and business dealings as a former real estate magnate.

The scandal at The Epoch Times and allegations of defrauding millions of Americans through money laundering comes at a time when the Biden campaign needs all the help it can get to pile the dirt on Trump.

A legal crackdown on the newspaper’s financial dealings seems long overdue. Banks and tax authorities were flagging suspicious accounts from at least 2021, according to reports. Former employers of The Epoch Times have also commented publicly on the surprising delay in investigating the media outlet and its fundraising operations.

It seems strange that federal indictments are being brought now with much-hyped media coverage if the case were assessed merely on legal concerns about finances.

If the intensity of politics is factored though and the U.S. establishment’s fears that Trump might just pull off a spectacular reelection – with all the chaos that such a return to the White House will elicit – then digging up dirt using a money-laundering scandal makes perfect sense. Muzzling a pro-Trump media outlet is a bonus too.

• First published in Strategic Culture FoundationFacebookTwitterReddit

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Finian Cunningham is a former editor and writer for major news media organizations. He has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages Read other articles by Finian.

Pro-Trump newspaper exec accused in $67M scheme indicted on money laundering charges: Feds

RIGHT WING GALUN FONG CULT OWNS 

EPOCH TIMES

Matthew Chapman
June 3, 2024 

A women hands out free copies of The Epoch Times, a right wing newspaper, as then-President Donald Trump's supporters protest against the 2020 election results during a "Stop the Steal" rally, on December 12, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images

The chief financial officer of an international newspaper known for pushing pro-Donald Trump conspiracy theories has been indicted on federal money laundering charges, according to federal prosecutors in New York City.

Weidong "Bill" Guan, top accountant for The Epoch Times, is accused of participating in an international scheme to conceal $67 million in "illegally obtained funds to bank accounts" in the name of the company — effectively accusing The Epoch Times itself of being a huge money-laundering operation.

"In furtherance of the money laundering conspiracy, GUAN managed, among other teams, the Media Company’s 'Make Money Online' team (the 'MMO Team'), which was located in a particular foreign office of the Media Company," reads a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office in New York's southern district.

"Under GUAN’s management, members of the MMO Team and others used cryptocurrency to knowingly purchase tens of millions of dollars in crime proceeds, including proceeds of fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits, that had been loaded onto tens of thousands of prepaid debit cards. The crime proceeds were generally purchased by the scheme participants, including members of the MMO Team and others working with them, using a particular cryptocurrency platform, at discounted rates of approximately 70 to 80 cents per dollar, and in exchange for cryptocurrency."

The Epoch Times has helped promote a number of far-right, pro-Trump conspiracy theories, including that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg "undermined" the 2020 presidential election,

It has ties to Falun Gong, a religious spiritual movement from China that came to view Trump as a messianic figure who would deliver them from the Chinese Communist Party on Judgement Day, Rachel Maddow has reported.

The paper has been so controversial that at one point, Canadian letter carriers were suspended over refusing to deliver sample issues of it on their routes.

A report last August indicated that Larry Elder, a right-wing talk radio host who ran an unsuccessful campaign for president, was drawing a seven-figure salary from the paper.

Update [7:20 p.m.] An Epoch Times spokesperson provided the following response to the Daily Beast:

“The Epoch Times has a guiding principle that elevates integrity in its dealings above everything else. The company intends to and will fully cooperate with any investigation dealing with the allegations against Mr. Guan. In the interim, although Mr. Guan is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the company has suspended him until this matter is resolved.”

THE RIGHT WINGS BIGGEST NEMISIS

GOP Lawmaker Introduces Bill to Abolish the Federal Reserve

AFTER THE UN

By Aaron Pan
May 19, 2024

The exterior of the Federal Reserve Board building in Washington on March 13, 2023. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has introduced legislation to end the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank responsible for managing the country’s financial and banking system.

The bill titled the “Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act” or “End the Fed” seeks to abolish the Federal Reserve System by dismantling its board of governors and the Federal Reserve banks. The legislation also aims to repeal the Federal Reserve Act, which created the Federal Reserve System in 1913.

In introducing the bill, Mr. Massie criticized the Fed’s monetary policies for record-high inflation.

“Americans are suffering under crippling inflation, and the Federal Reserve is to blame,” Mr. Massie said in a statement on May 16. “During COVID, the Federal Reserve created trillions of dollars out of thin air and loaned it to the Treasury Department to enable unprecedented deficit spending. By monetizing the debt, the Federal Reserve devalued the dollar and enabled free money policies that caused the high inflation we see today.”


The Federal Reserve System, also known as the Fed, was initially founded in 1913 in response to banking panics at the time. Over the following century, its powers have expanded to include regulating and overseeing banks and maintaining financial system stability. The Fed’s major function is implementing U.S. monetary policy. According to the Fed, its primary objectives include maximizing employment, stabilizing prices, and moderating long-term interest rates.

Mr. Massie also blamed the Fed for colluding with the executive and legislative branches, as well as Wall Street, for the financial problems Americans are now facing.

“Monetizing debt is a closely coordinated effort between the White House, Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, Congress, Big Banks, and Wall Street,” Mr. Massie said. “Through this process, retirees see their savings evaporate due to the actions of a central bank pursuing inflationary policies that benefit the wealthy and connected. If we really want to reduce inflation, the most effective policy is to end the Federal Reserve.”

If enacted, the bill will allow one year for the Fed to be shut down. In addition, the Federal Reserve Act will be repealed, and its assets and liabilities will be liquidated. The Director of the Office of Management and Budget will be responsible for the liquidation process.

The Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act was first introduced in 1999 by then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas). The legislation was reintroduced every single year until his retirement in 2013.


The legislation’s cosponsors include Reps. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), Matt Gaetz (R-FLa.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), and 15 others.

Besides the “End the Fed” Act, Mr. Massie, a Libertarian who favors limited government and lower taxes and opposes high government spending, has also introduced the Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2023 to require a full audit of the Federal Reserve.
The Fed Under Criticism

Since its creation, the Fed has faced increasing scrutiny and criticism over its controversial role in the U.S. economy.

The most notable critic of the Fed is late Nobel laureate and economist Milton Friedman, who on multiple occasions called for abolishing the Fed for its ineffective policies, saying “It’s done more harm than good.”

In one interview, Friedman said, “There is no institution in the U.S. that has such a high public standing and such a poor record of performance.”

Last year, E.J. Antoni and Peter St Onge, research fellows at The Heritage Foundation, published an article titled “Time To End the Fed and Its Mismanagement of Our Economy,” which lays out the argument for ending the Fed. According to the authors, “Every major economic downturn of the last 110 years bears the mark of the Federal Reserve. In fact, as long as the Fed has been around, it has swung the economy between inflation and recession. Yet Americans, surprisingly, have tolerated it.”

Argentine President Javier Milei, an economist, drew headlines last year with his promise during his presidential campaign to abolish the country’s central bank, calling it “the worst garbage that exists on this Earth” and “one of the greatest thieves in the history of mankind.”

“Central banks are divided in four categories,” he said during an interview with Bloomberg last year. “The bad ones, like the Federal Reserve; the very bad ones, like the ones in Latin America; the horribly bad ones; and the Central Bank of Argentina.”

Last year, Mohamed A. El-Erian, an economist and former CEO of investment management fund PIMCO, also criticized the Fed for its failures.

“The U.S. Federal Reserve’s growing list of policymaking, supervisory, and communications failures is becoming increasingly consequential not just for Americans but also for the rest of the world,” he wrote in an article for Project Syndicate. “The global economy’s single most important institution has lost its way.”

From The Epoch Times

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FALUN GONG 

 

‘Act on the lessons of COVID-19’, Guterres says on Epidemic Preparedness Day 

Sunday, 31 December 2023, 
Press Release: UN News

The world must prepare for the next pandemic and act on lessons learned from COVID-19, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message on Wednesday to mark the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected hundreds of millions of lives, caused millions of deaths and inflicted devastating impacts on humanity.

After three years of unprecedented global efforts, on 5 May the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, stressing however, that it does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat.

“Economic damage inflicted by the pandemic endures. Many healthcare systems are struggling. Millions of children are threatened by disease after missing out on routine childhood vaccinations,” said Mr. Guterres.

Lessons to learn

The UN chief noted that three years after the first COVID-19 vaccines were developed, billions of people remain unprotected - overwhelmingly in developing countries.

“When the next pandemic arrives, we must do better. But we’re not yet ready. We must prepare and act on the lessons of COVID-19,” he urged.

“We must renounce the moral and medical disaster of rich countries hoarding and controlling pandemic healthcare supplies, and ensure everyone has access to diagnostics, treatments and vaccines,” he stressed, adding that WHO’s authority and financing must also be strengthened.

Joint efforts

He said the way forward lies through global cooperation. The world must improve surveillance of viruses, strengthen health systems, and make the promise of Universal Health Coverage a reality.

The Secretary-General said these efforts are making progress. He recalled that the High-level meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, held in September, concluded with a robust political declaration which complements negotiations underway towards a pandemic accord.

This first-ever global agreement aims to enhance collaboration, cooperation, and equity in responding to pandemics of the future, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his end-of-year message published on Tuesday.

The pandemic accord will help to create a safer and healthier world with a universal system of response to disease eruptions, he added.

Mr. Guterres urged countries to build on this momentum by delivering a strong, comprehensive accord, focused on equity.

“Together, let’s act on the lessons of COVID-19, prepare, and build a fairer, healthier world for all,” he said.

© Scoop Media

Fact Check




'Flawed' Japanese study on Covid vaccine death misleads online

Tommy WANG,

  AFP Hong Kong 

Published on Saturday 30 December 2023 
Copyright © AFP 2017-2023. All rights reserved.

Health experts told AFP results from a study on the relationship between a Covid-19 vaccine and death were "negligible" and the research itself was flawed. However, social media posts misleadingly claimed the paper revealed that "70 percent of Covid-19 vaccine deaths in Japan occurred within ten days of receiving the Pfizer jab". In fact, worldwide vaccine monitoring data has shown no increased risk of death from the shots.

"Around 70 percent of people who died in Japan after receiving a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine lost their lives in the first 10 days following the jab, according to a recent study," reads a post written in simplified Chinese that was shared on X, formerly Twitter, on December 15, 2023.

"The peer-reviewed Japanese study, published in the Cureus journal on Dec. 7, looked at the association between Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination and deaths within 10 days of vaccination," the post continues.

"The risk period was defined as within 10 days of vaccination, with vaccination day being Day 1, and the control period defined as 11 to 180 days after vaccination."

The post includes a screenshot of a report by Epoch Health titled "70 Percent of Deaths from Pfizer Vaccine in Japan Reported Within 10 Days of Jab: Study".

The publication is the health section of The Epoch Times -- backed by the Falun Gong Chinese spiritual movement -- which has previously spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines.

Screenshot of the misleading post, taken on December 21, 2023

Conspiracy site Zerohedge and Natural News, a website that regularly publishes anti-vaccine articles, also shared similar claims. Both have been fact-checked by AFP for spreading misinformation, such as here, here and here.

The misleading claim also circulated in various languages including English, French, Spanish, Korean and Japanese.

However, the Japanese study being shared in the misleading posts is flawed, other researchers told AFP, and its impact is "negligible".

'Negligible' impact

The posts reference a paper published on Cureus.com on December 7, 2023, titled "Analysis of the Association Between BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination and Deaths Within 10 Days After Vaccination Using the Sex Ratio in Japan". It is labelled as peer-reviewed.

The study used data on deaths reported in a "risk period" of 10 days after vaccination with the shot produced by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

While it found reported deaths were concentrated during the risk period for both men and women, it concluded that the numbers were too small to contradict findings by another cohort study in Japan that found no significant increase in all-cause mortality owing to vaccination.

The social media posts misleadingly present the results of this study, said Takahiro Kinoshita, a physician-scientist and a member of Cov-Navi, a Japanese project aiming to provide accurate vaccine information which is now disbanded (archived links here and here).

Kinoshita explained that the number of deaths used in the study could not be taken as a comprehensive source due to Japan having a passive reporting system where clinicians are only required to report adverse events only when they suspected a link to vaccination.

"Clinicians are more likely to report sudden deaths occurring soon after vaccination – within 10 days," he told AFP on December 21, 2023. "Therefore, this study does not suggest that the occurrence of deaths after vaccination is higher in the early period compared to the later period."

He added that the journal was not considered a "highly impactful source" and that the impact of the analysis was "negligible".

'Flaws'

Several infectious diseases experts, who were not involved in the study, told AFP the Japanese paper was flawed.

For example, the study looked at all-cause deaths -- mortality due to any cause including "disease, complication, or hazardous exposure" -- and not vaccine associated deaths, said Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia (archived links here and here).

"Most of the deaths [in the study] were related to cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death and illness in the world and occurs at a higher rate in men than women, particularly under the age of 65," MacIntyre said on December 21, 2023.

MacIntyre also noted that people who were prioritised for vaccination against Covid-19 in early 2021 -- the study period -- were older or had multiple chronic conditions, putting them at higher risk of dying regardless of their vaccination status.

Chunhuei Chi, professor and director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University in the United States, told AFP that the study omits a critical figure -- the total number of people vaccinated with the Pfizer shot in Japan -- which makes the study easy to misrepresent (archived link).

"The author acknowledged several limitations, including not considering the effects of vaccination after 11 days, and sex bias in reporting deaths, that limited the strengths of the evidence and conclusion," Chi said on December 21, 2023.

William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in the United States, pointed out the study had a "major flaw" as it had no control group (archived link).

"A rigorous study would have compared the vaccinated population with a comparable unvaccinated population similar in age and sex distribution with a similar distribution of underlying chronic illnesses," Schaffner told AFP on the same day.

This methodological bias was typical of most studies claiming higher mortality after vaccines, said Siddharth Sridhar, clinical assistant professor at the department of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong (archived link).

"Better quality cohort studies invariably find no increase in all-cause mortality after vaccination," he said on December 22, 2023.

Both Kinoshita and MacIntyre pointed out that hundreds of studies across the world on vaccine safety found no increase in the risk of all-cause death.

The World Health Organisation states that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and estimates that in 2021 alone the jabs helped saved 14.4 million lives worldwide (archived link).

AFP has debunked hundreds of other false and misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines here.

Tommy WANG

Revolutionaries without borders: How exiled opposition brought change to their countries

Alexander Finiarel

20 November 2023

With only four months remaining until the presidential elections in Russia, in many other nations, this period would typically mark the peak of the political campaign. However, the relocation of Russian activists and journalists beyond the borders of their homeland, coupled with the definitive extinguishing of political life within the country, is once again sparking discussions about the opposition's capability to take action from abroad. The Insider has delved into global experiences and unearthed numerous examples from various regions worldwide, illustrating instances where opposition movements, operating from foreign soil, achieved remarkably impressive successes.

RU

CONTENT



Chile


Argentina


South Africa


Arab Spring


Anti-War Movements


What can opposition do in exile?


Avoiding Decline


At various points in the past, the Russian opposition found itself in exile, during which it harbored little conviction about playing a pivotal role in the revolution. In Switzerland, in January 1917, just a month before the decisive battles, Lenin articulated a somewhat skeptical perspective, stating, «We, the older generation, may not witness the conclusive battles of this impending revolution.» Meanwhile, his comrade Trotsky favored Vienna, where he spent his time at the Central café immersed in chess matches. There exists a historical anecdote involving Austrian politician Count Heinrich Clam-Martinic, who, when asked about the prospect of revolution in Russia, wittily responded, «Who will orchestrate this revolution? Perhaps Mr. Bronstein from the Central café?»

However surprising the events of 1917 might have been, it must be acknowledged that Russian revolutionaries in exile had not been idle. They published and disseminated propaganda, organized cells within the country, worked on programs, and when the opportune moment arrived, they were ready for it. Global experience shows that this is more of a rule than an exception: revolutions often occur in countries where censorship prohibits political activities, and leaders have to act from abroad.

Chile

Engaging in communication with supporters and conducting propaganda from abroad poses significant challenges, yet the opponents of Pinochet in Chile navigated this difficulty with notable effectiveness. The Solidarity Movement, dedicated to combating dictatorship, orchestrated a multi-year campaign that encompassed reaching out to Chileans through calls and letters from overseas. These efforts were aimed at enlightening them about the atrocities committed by the new regime. The junta members asserted that substantial sums, amounting to millions of dollars monthly, were allocated to the destruction of these letters. Moreover, they insisted that recipients promptly turn over such correspondence to the authorities.

In addition to dispatching letters and making calls, representatives of the Movement mobilized financial support for resistance efforts within the country and actively lobbied in the U.S. and other nations. In the United States, they found allies within the anti-war movement, dedicated to ending the Vietnam War, and the civil rights movement. Through the collaborative endeavors of the Chilean opposition, they successfully persuaded the U.S. to exert pressure on the Chilean government, urging a relaxation of censorship and repression leading up to the 1988 referendum on extending Pinochet's powers. The U.S. also earmarked funds to bolster the opposition within Chile, ensuring effective oversight of the voting process. Consequently, 56% of Chileans cast their votes against Pinochet's rule, marking the conclusion of the dictatorship.

Argentina

Juan Perón, the Argentine president ousted by the military in 1955, maintained communication with his supporters and union leaders, influencing the country's politics even though his party was banned, and he found himself in exile—first in Venezuela and later in Spain. In 1958, his supporters in the army attempted a coup but were exposed and executed.

Throughout his exile, Perón regularly advised his supporters on how to vote, significantly impacting election outcomes. When faced with the threat of a military uprising in 1973, the junta was forced to hold presidential elections. The candidate endorsed by Perón, Hector Jose Campora, won, but he resigned after a month, paving the way for new elections to allow Perón to be elected.

South Africa

The African National Congress (ANC), fighting against apartheid in South Africa, initially lost supporters after its ban and Nelson Mandela's arrest in the early 1960s. Initially operating from distant Tanzania and Zambia, by the mid-70s, as the Portuguese colonial empire collapsed and left-leaning governments took power in its former colonies Angola and Mozambique, they allowed the ANC to establish training bases closer to South Africa's borders. Additionally, the ANC could build schools, hospitals, farms, and factories on their territory, where exiles from South Africa worked.

This coincided with the intensification of apartheid within South Africa: the conflict between whites and non-whites escalated, prompting more of the latter to leave the country and join the ANC. From the 1970s, the ANC resumed terrorist activities in South Africa, and in response, South Africa conducted raids on ANC bases in Mozambique, causing the country to slide into chaos and increasing international isolation. Concurrently, the ANC continued its international public campaign, drawing attention to the apartheid system in South Africa and the imprisonment of its leader. Ultimately, this led to the fall of the apartheid regime and the ANC's ascension to power with Mandela at the helm.

Arab Spring

The Arab Spring refers to a series of uprisings that swept through much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. Diasporas played an active role in these uprisings. Firstly, they influenced public opinion in their host countries by publishing photos of protests and evidence of regime crimes, engaging with local authorities to garner support for the protesters. For instance, the Libyan British Business Council played a significant role in gaining recognition for the legitimacy of the Transitional National Council of Libya from Britain and other European countries. Secondly, they provided various forms of aid back home, from financial assistance to medicines and satellite phones. Some even returned to participate in the protests personally. Alongside their financial contributions, they brought knowledge acquired during their time in the West, which proved crucial during the post-revolutionary reconstruction. However, in the long run, the revolutions in Arab countries did not lead to significant successes in building democracy and the rule of law.

Anti-War Movements

The objective of political opposition in exile may not only be a change of power but also an end to war. Remembering this is particularly relevant in Russia, given the Bolsheviks' popularity due to their consistent and staunch anti-war stance during World War I. This position resonated widely in war-weary Russia, where the army was literally disintegrating on the front lines, helping the Bolsheviks seize control of the soldiers' and workers' soviets established after the February Revolution—a viable alternative power center compared to the waning popularity of the State Duma and the Provisional Government. However, the Russian example is not the only one. Consider the experience of American draft dodgers and Vietnam War deserters. More than a hundred thousand Americans left the country during that time, with many continuing to engage in anti-war activities in host countries. They published anti-war newspapers that later circulated in the U.S., including on military bases. In Paris, American deserters joined French anti-war groups and published the newspaper ACT. In Canada, American refugees formed the American Deserters Committee (ADC) with offices in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. It provided hostels for new arrivals and published the ADC Times newspaper. The participation of Vietnam War veterans in the movement against the «senseless» war legitimized it in the eyes of American patriots. The voices of soldiers and officers who fought for their country had a significant impact on changing public opinion and ultimately ending the war.

What can opposition do in exile?

When exile and the struggle against the regime drags on and on, the connection with the homeland gradually weakens, and those who have left integrate into new societies, losing interest in the struggle back home. One of the main challenges for opposition abroad becomes maintaining its activities and preserving oppositional organizations. One way for them to replenish and renew their ranks is through recruiting students from their home country abroad or the influx of new exiles. This was precisely how Ayatollah Khomeini, exiled from Iran in 1964, gained supporters. During his stay in Turkey, Iraq, and later in France, he managed to establish contacts with student organizations in Europe and the USA, as he continued his teaching activities. Not all students supported the idea of establishing an Islamic state in Iran, but they saw in Khomeini a leader in the struggle against the Shah, and thus, they helped him connect with Western press, NGOs, and governments, drawing attention to human rights violations by the regime. Returning students assisted in spreading Khomeini's ideas in Iran, contributing significantly to the victory of the Islamic revolution in 1979. Their subsequent disillusionment awaited them, but that's a completely different story.

The exiled opposition can provide material and legal support to its supporters abroad. For instance, the Tibetan government in exile issues passports («green books») to Tibetans residing outside China-controlled Tibet. These documents are partially recognized in India, where a significant portion (85 out of 128 thousand people) of the diaspora resides. These documents can serve as a basis for obtaining refugee status in some countries, such as Canada. In exchange for possessing this document, held by 90% of Tibetan diaspora members, the government collects an annual «voluntary tax.» Only holders of the «green book» can vote in elections held in Indian settlements where Tibetans live, receive benefits, and work in the Tibetan government in exile, located in the Indian town of Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Since the majority of Tibetan refugees, around a thousand people annually arriving from China to India, predominantly settle among their compatriots, their government can regularly conduct elections in such communities if their size exceeds 160 individuals. Officially, the Tibetan government in exile aims not for Tibet's independence (a desire of a significant part of the diaspora) but for preserving culture and religion. This objective is closely tied to India's requirements, which seeks to avoid conflict with China. Nonetheless, the Tibetan government supported partisans within Tibet for an extended period. Furthermore, it provides scholarships to Tibetans, manages its schools and hospitals in India, and engages in interactions with host countries.

The Belarusian diaspora also conducts active political activities abroad. The office of the elected president Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya assists Belarusians who found themselves in exile after the 2020 protests, providing humanitarian, psychological, and legal aid. Some of these efforts are directed towards activities in the West, ranging from political lobbying to organizing conferences and developing a strategy for Belarus's transition to democracy. However, it is inaccurate to say that the diaspora merely focuses on its own affairs. It leads the dissemination of samizdat in Belarus, organizes hacking attacks (Belarusian Cyber Partisans regularly conduct cyberattacks on and hacks government websites), and even participates in military operations. As part of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they join in the military operations of the Kalinowski Regiment, consisting of Belarusian volunteers who believe that defeating the Putin army is the first step to liberate Belarus.

Avoiding Decline

Certainly, not every instance of emigration proves successful. The Russian diaspora, departing the homeland following the ascent of the Bolsheviks to power, never witnessed the long-awaited liberation of the country. Russia is not unique in this regard; another compelling example is the Chinese democratic movement abroad, emerging in the 1980s as China commenced its global opening and dispatched students to foreign shores. This movement reached its zenith in the early 1990s, spurred by the suppression of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which prompted a wave of students and intellectuals to flee the country.

Initially, political emigrants successfully garnered sustained attention from the United Nations regarding human rights violations within their home country through public campaigns. This advocacy nudged the nation toward modest political adjustments in exchange for maintaining a favorable trade environment, a necessity for China at that time. However, with the rise of the Chinese economy, trading partners increasingly turned a blind eye to human rights abuses. Notably, even Taiwan, China's primary ideological adversary, ceased funding the Chinese opposition. The enthusiasm of new Chinese migrants for supporting overseas opposition also waned as many of them built careers closely tied to China.

The primary weakness of the Chinese overseas opposition lay in its fragmentation and heterogeneity, hindering effective coordination of its efforts. Coincidentally, Russian White emigrants faced similar challenges, dividing into republicans and monarchists, with the latter further split among supporters of two different branches of the Romanov dynasty. However, determining whether this division is the cause of weakness or if weakness and the absence of a shared mission lead to factionalization remains a nuanced question.

The contemporary Chinese opposition abroad is gradually regaining strength. On one hand, this is fueled by escalating tensions between China and the U.S. On the other hand, it is a result of cooperation with other Chinese opposition movements: Tibetans, Uighurs, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, as well as the banned religious movement Falun Gong. Since 2005, they have been holding an annual joint conference dedicated to China's policies and its relations with minorities and neighbors. Cooperation has enabled these groups to amplify each other's voices through joint protests and the sharing of resources and established connections.

Furthermore, the efforts of Chinese political emigrants over the past 30 years to build their own institutions are starting to bear fruit. They have established NGOs engaged in lobbying, organizations assisting persecuted Chinese immigrants in settling in new places, entities combating Chinese media propaganda, online educational platforms providing education in jurisprudence, human rights, international relations, fundraising, political science, and more. Additionally, there is the Institute for Democratic Transition in China, developing projects for democratic reforms in the country and ways to influence their implementation.

It's reasonable to recognize that, at present, these endeavors exert minimal influence on China. Nonetheless, the lessons from the Russian Revolution remind us not to lose hope prematurely; occasionally, it's merely a matter of being able to wait for the right moment.

How the conspiracy-fueled Epoch Times went mainstream and made millions

Story by Brandy Zadrozny •


In the runup to the 2020 election, a small news organization saw an opportunity.

The Epoch Times directed millions of dollars in advertising toward supporting President Donald Trump’s campaign and published dozens of articles parroting his lies about the election — resulting in huge growth to its audience and its coffers.

The strategy garnered criticism from fact-checking groups and got it banned from advertising on Facebook, but it ultimately paid off — putting the once-fringe newspaper on a path that perhaps only its leader, who claims to have supernatural powers, could have foreseen.

Today, The Epoch Times is one of the country’s most successful and influential conservative news organizations. It’s powered by Falun Gong, a religious group persecuted in China, which launched The Epoch Times as a free propaganda newsletter more than two decades ago to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.

Funded through aggressive online and real-world marketing campaigns and big-money conservative donors, The Epoch Times now boasts to be the country’s fourth-largest newspaper by subscriber count. (Unlike most major newspapers, The Epoch Times isn't audited by the two major independent collectors of circulation data.) The nonprofit has amassed a fortune, growing its revenue by a staggering 685% in two years, to $122 million in 2021, according to the group’s most recent tax records.

Its editorial vision — fueled by a right-wing slant and conspiracy theories — is on display in recent reports on how “Jan. 6 Capitol Hill Security Footage Challenges Key Narratives” and “Meteorologists, Scientists Explain Why There Is ‘No Climate Emergency.’” Its video series include a documentary-style film alleging widespread vaccine injury and death and an exposé of an alleged world government agenda to harm farmers, cull the population and force survivors to eat bugs.

What The Epoch Times lacks in standards, it makes up for in style and form, mirroring the aesthetics of journalism — a feature that’s attracted subscribers and big-name supporters.

Anti-vaccine activist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls The Epoch Times a daily read, among his most trusted news sources. “They have a real bias against China, but on other reporting, they’re very courageous and it’s real journalism,” Kennedy said in an interview with NBC News this summer.

In July, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., recited the history of The Epoch Times into the congressional record. “This is all about one word: freedom,” Norman said.

The Epoch Times has yet to throw its weight behind a candidate for 2024, but heading into the election cycle, it is moving into new and bigger office spaces and production studios in California, hiring mainstream news veterans who are not affiliated with Falun Gong, and revving up an ad-buying blitz.

“They achieved the goal,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based Republican strategist hired by The Epoch Times in 2018 to open doors to conservative politicians and players. Steinhauser said that a series of interviews and introductions with politicians and media figures at that year’s Conservative Political Action Conference offered access to a wider conservative audience. The Epoch Times was a “supporting sponsor” for this year’s conference.

“They take advantage of every opportunity,” Steinhauser, who is not currently working for The Epoch Times, continued. “They studied digital marketing. They learned how to work the system. And they did it. They're smarter than people give them credit for, and they’ve got the money to back it up.”

As a nonprofit, The Epoch Times is exempt from most federal taxes. Its mission, according to tax filings, is independent journalism, “outside of political interests and the pursuit of profit, for the public benefit and to be truly responsible to society.”

Neither the chairman nor the editor-in-chief of The Epoch Times returned multiple requests for comment. Representatives for The Epoch Times have previously defended it against critical reporting, labeling reports of the paper’s conservative mission, and its penchant for misinformation, “smears.”

Epoch Times representatives also deny an affiliation with Falun Gong, despite the two groups’ clear financial and organizational ties: The Epoch Times board members and most staff are Falun Gong practitioners. The nonprofits behind The Epoch Times and Friends of Falun Gong, the movement’s advocacy organization, share executives and provide grants and services to each other, according to tax filings. And the newspaper, along with a digital production company and the heavily advertised dance troupe Shen Yun, make up a nonprofit network that the leader of the religious movement calls “our media.”



Li Hongzhi poses during an interview (Henny Ray Abrams / AFP via Getty Images)© Henny Ray Abrams

In 2009, Li Hongzhi came to speak to his followers, volunteers who worked at The Epoch Times’ offices in Manhattan. Li’s instructions for the group were simple. They needed to reach people outside of the Falun Gong religious community. And they needed to make money. A lot of it.


“Ensure that the paper gains a foothold in ordinary society and turns profitable,” Li said.

Falun Gong — or Falun Dafa, as some followers call it — is a kind of personal development movement started by Li in China in 1992. It combines tenets of Buddhism and Taoism, and followers practice with meditation and flowing breath and movement exercises, and by studying Li’s teachings.

To his followers, Li is a God-like figure who can levitate, walk through walls and see into the future. His ultra-conservative and controversial teachings include a rejection of modern science, art and medicine, and a denunciation of homosexuality, feminism and general worldliness.

In 1999, after thousands of Li’s followers silently protested its repression in Beijing, China banned it altogether. Labeling it a cult, the Chinese government confiscated Falun Gong books, blocked websites, closed teaching centers and arrested practitioners. Human rights groups reported a brutal crackdown: Some adherents were sent to labor camps; others were tortured and killed.



IMage: Falun Gong followers meditate outside the Capitol in Washington in 1999. (Joyce Naltchayan / AFP via Getty Images file)© Joyce Naltchayan

International human rights organizations condemned China’s attempted eradication. In the U.S., where Li and some of his practitioners had fled, a new collection of followers organized a campaign to raise awareness and sympathy with parades, demonstrations and pamphlets that touted the benefits of Falun Gong and the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party.

The Epoch Times was born out of that leafleting campaign. Started in Georgia in 2000 by John Tang, a Falun Gong practitioner who remains its CEO, in essence it was a Chinese-language public relations newsletter. The group’s long-term goals were ambitious: to expose the Chinese Communist Party and to save the world in a supernatural war against communism.

Through the early aughts, The Epoch Times grew from an online effort to a weekly physical newspaper, with a home base in New York and a TV production company, New Tang Dynasty Television. It raised money from followers and was staffed by unpaid volunteers. It ran aggregated articles on international issues from Voice of America next to Thanksgiving Day explainers, dispatches from Falun Gong parades, and exposés on atrocities alleged to have been committed by the Chinese Communist Party.

By 2019, it had gone mostly digital and was spending millions of dollars on creating a network of Facebook pages and groups and running aggressive pro-Trump ad campaigns. The move toward explicit support of Republicans, despite Li’s teachings to stay away from U.S. politics, was foreshadowed by Li’s comments at a Falun Gong conference a year before.

Li said that Falun Gong’s media ought to put a “constructive” spin on the news, to advance the group’s aims. It wasn’t wrong, he said, to favorably cover a politician who shared Falun Gong’s conservative values and whose goals aligned with their own.

“If someone comes along now who can help to halt the downward spiral that the world is in, then he is truly someone extraordinary!” Li said. “He would in effect be helping us! Wouldn’t he be helping us to save people?”

The Epoch Times also employed a tactic more often associated with fake news content farms and scammers than news organizations, creating a network of inspiring and cute-content pages and fake accounts to inflate The Epoch Times' reach.

In 2019, following reporting by NBC News, Facebook found that The Epoch Times had “leveraged foreign actors posing as Americans to push political content” and banned it from future advertising, citing a violation of policies, including trying to circumvent review systems.

Undeterred, The Epoch Times pivoted to video, specifically YouTube, spending millions on internet-infamous ads featuring Roman Balmakov, a former Epoch Times delivery person who now hosts the online show Facts Matter. In the ads, Balmakov rails against the mainstream media, communism and the persecution of Trump.

The Epoch Times also revisited a tried-and-true strategy that the original anti-communism newspaper had been built on — free physical copies. Instead of boxes on street corners, this time The Epoch Times printed and distributed unsolicited special editions of the paper from California to the Carolinas to the U.K. In Philadelphia alone in 2020, the company mailed 280,000 free copies of its newspaper, “to increase subscription,” according to tax documents.

The aggressive online and real-life marketing campaigns paid off. The group reported $76 million in subscription revenue in 2021, compared to nearly $7 million in 2019. A former employee of a regional Epoch Times operation who asked not to be identified because he feared retribution said that in order to send the papers to the most likely customers, they bought lists of addresses from data brokers, specifically for conservatives aged 60 and over. And many of the new subscribers are seniors, according to an employee’s account shared at a Falun Gong conference.

But hundreds of online complaints suggest that not all of the new customers are satisfied.

“I’ve had the terrible misfortune of being subscribed to the Epoch Times without my consent,” one reads. Another says: “I want to stop receiving Epoch Times emails. That is all I want.”



Image: The Epoch Times newspaper (Elijah Nouvelage / Bloomberg via Getty Images file)© Elijah Nouvelage

As The Epoch Times’ marketing strategy shifted, so did the content — and by 2020, it became a megaphone for the U.S.’s most extreme right-wing stories.

There was plenty to write about: An election marred by disinformation, the bubbling culture wars and, most helpful for a media company missioned with ending the Chinese Communist Party, a pandemic originating from China provided endless opportunities for takes that aligned with hawkish conservatives and conspiracy theorists.

The Epoch Times was early to lay blame on China for Covid — labeling it the “CCP Virus” in its coverage. (The origin of the outbreak is unknown; the best evidence still points to natural transmission from an animal market.) China’s documented handling of the virus, including withholding information from researchers, a crackdown on whistleblowers and an authoritarian public health response, added credibility to The Epoch Times’ unproven claims.

“The dynamic for The Epoch Times changed in 2020, partly because of their criticism of China around Covid,” said A.J. Bauer, an assistant journalism professor at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media. “An entire new kind of ecosystem of Covid deniers and skeptics overlapped with right-wing media and were citing and drawing heavily upon The Epoch Times.”

The Epoch Times’ subscription page began hosting glowing testimonials from Steve Bannon, Glenn Beck and the far-right Arizona congressman Paul Gosar. The organization became a reliable source for misinformation around Covid, its treatments and the vaccines.

The Epoch Times was also an early and aggressive promoter of election misinformation, according to the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of researchers that documented misinformation and the 2020 vote. The group cited the news organization as a “repeat spreader” of false and misleading voter fraud stories as well as a major promoter of debunked conspiracy theories around Dominion voting machines and the “Stop the Steal” movement, aimed at overturning the election results. Months after the election, The Epoch Times refused to acknowledge the results.

With the new bedfellows came a new revenue stream. Though Falun Gong practitioners had been a reliable source of small donations in previous years, in 2020 the group started to receive gifts and grants from big money conservative donors.

While The Epoch Times is not required to list its donors, it reported $8.4 million in revenue from contributions and grants in 2020 and 2021. Tax documents from that period filed by scores of donors, accessed through ProPublica’s nonprofit explorer, show some of those funds came from conservative donors and foundations.

In 2021, The Epoch Times received $55,750 from the National Christian Charitable Foundation, which connects anonymous donors with Christian causes, and $31,000 from Donors Trust, a fund for conservative and libertarian donors. Smaller donations came from individuals — real estate agents, investors and surgeons among them — and small family foundations, most of which support right-wing causes, including evangelical Christian groups, anti-vaccine groups and far-right media organizations.

Most of the donors contacted by NBC News did not respond to interview requests; two declined.

The Epoch Times is pouring its revenue back into its own organization and others connected to the Falun Gong religious movement.

In the first half of this year, The Epoch Times spent 65% more on ads than in the first six months of 2022, with about half of its budget going to the X platform, formerly Twitter, according to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Other recent ad buys were made on the right-wing sites Drudge Report, Breitbart and Rumble.

The Epoch Times paid a company called Data Managing Corporation $2.7 million for advertising services in 2021, according to tax documents. The company’s listed address is a single-family home in New Jersey owned by a reporter for The Epoch Times, who did not return requests for comment.

In addition to running its business, The Epoch Times provided about $30 million in grants to its own affiliates and connected organizations in 2021, including $10.4 million to the dance troupe Shen Yun, and $8.3 million to New Tang Dynasty, which produces videos.

The three groups, united under the Falun Gong religious movement, made up a nearly quarter-billion dollar industry in 2021, according to tax documents. Li holds that the Falun Gong messages, shared in articles, videos and dance performances, will result in the salvation of humankind as the end of the world nears.


Roman Balmakov, a former Epoch Times delivery person, now hosts online shows and appears in internet-infamous ads for the paper.

 (The Epoch Times / via YouTube)© The Epoch Times

Despite its massive war chest, conservative partnerships and clear right-wing leanings, in many respects, The Epoch Times has never looked more like a legitimate news source.

Its glossy website and physical paper are emblazoned with its name in serif font, and wire service articles sit beside Epoch Times originals.

The hard news and political coverage is bylined by a mix of longtime Falun Gong followers with no discernible journalism training, early career reporters, some with experience at right-wing websites — and in the last year, a handful of more accomplished journalists, who come with resumés that span decades at mainstream publications.

Among them, Darlene McCormick Sanchez, a former journalist at the Waco Tribune-Herald and a Pulitzer finalist in the 1990s for her reporting on David Koresh. Sanchez now tackles the culture wars and LGBTQ topics at The Epoch Times; a recent report was headlined, “The Sinister Theory Behind the Q in LGBTQ.”

Beth Brelje, a former executive editor of a daily covering Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, now writes about state politics for The Epoch Times. Her recent stories include sympathetic profiles of anti-abortion activists federally charged with blocking access to abortion facilities and a ​​Hershey employee who refused to comply with the company’s vaccination requirement.

Janice Hisle, a former award-winning crime reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer, is covering Trump’s 2024 campaign. On Facebook, Hisle has been critical of the media and spread a conspiracy theory about Jan. 6, posting to a local radio station’s Facebook group, “FYI ANTIFA INSTIGATED VIOLENCE, not Trump supporters.”

The three journalists didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The news coverage is paired with Goopish articles like “Get Passionate About Passion Fruit” and “Pregnant Nurse With Terminal Cancer Refuses Chemo and Abortion, Lives on to Give Birth, Seeks Alternative Treatment,” written by international freelancers.

Its opinion section spans nearly the same length as news, and hosts right-wing points of view, from conservative authors, libertarian think tank fellows, political columnists and professional conspiracy theorists.

According to NewsGuard, a nonpartisan company that rates the credibility of news sites, both The Epoch Times news and opinion articles “frequently include distorted, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims.”

But that’s not how many readers see it. In 2020, AllSides, a media literacy company that rates the political biases of news organizations, revised its rating for The Epoch Times, marking it only “moderately conservative” after surveys reported people consistently considered it to be in the “center” of the political spectrum.

“The Epoch Times is a comment on how much credibility is put in things with the right look and feel. Things like naming, branding and headlines,” said Jay Rosen, associate professor of journalism at New York University. “The forms and formats of news are there. But the actual goods are not.”

Rosen called The Epoch Times a sign of the times — one in which the public sphere is fractured and conservative media is ready to offer alternate realities.

“More and more, especially for the right-wing populists around the world, people approach truth and reality from the demand side,” Rosen said. “When there is the demand for something to be true, these media properties go out and meet it.”

The demand is clear. In January, at the height of its traffic, the Epoch Digital Network, which includes The Epoch Times and its video sharing website, Youmaker, clocked a little under 10 million unique viewers, placing it 78th on Comscore’s ranking of news and information websites. Though its metrics fall far short of legacy media organizations, The Epoch Times generally outperformed its conservative peers, including Newsmax and The Daily Caller.

And the media organization is expanding. Late last year, The Epoch Times signed a lease for a new 26,680-square-foot office space in Irvine, California, and it is advertising jobs for experienced journalists to work remotely, offering salaries of $40,000 to $72,000 a year.

Internationally, the media outlet also continues to grow, hiring in Canada, Sweden, Norway and other European countries where it is cementing itself as a trusted source among the global far-right.

Job boards show positions for reporters, producers, television writers, event managers and more — reflecting an expanded offering beyond newspapers. Backpage ads in the physical copy of The Epoch Times enumerate the possibilities: internet shows, podcasts, weekly magazines and documentaries.

“In today’s world of misinformation and media bias, how much is accurate, unbiased news worth to you and your family?” ads ask.

“You can’t put a price on truth.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

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