Monday, January 31, 2022

Instagram ‘smash and grab’ impostors peddle fake psychic and tarot readings

Metaphysical practitioners are becoming increasingly frustrated with social media outlets as impersonators thrive off their accounts.

December 20, 2021

Fake accounts in the online tarot community are called out in posts by @ScammerAlertPage on Instagram. Screengrab

(RNS) — Mat Auryn had been hearing for months from clients who said they had responded to Instagram offers for psychic readings, paid for them and received nothing. Others said they were getting preemptory readings that made no sense.

At first the complaints came once every couple of months, then increased to weekly, and eventually to four to five times a month, Auryn told Religion News Service.

The biggest clue that his clients were being scammed, however, is that Auryn, an author, blogger and witch who lives in Northern California, does not offer psychic readings, much less on the internet.

He is one of a number of high-profile metaphysical practitioners who is becoming increasingly frustrated with social media outlets as impersonators thrive off their accounts.

Besides hurting his followers who look to his readings for introspection and solace, “it damages my reputation and my sales,” Auryn said.

Theresa Reed. Photo by Jessica Kaminski

Theresa Reed, best known online as The Tarot Lady, said that she discovers at least one new copycat account daily, predominantly on Instagram. Like Auryn, Reed doesn’t give readings online.

Scammers nonetheless typically clone her account by copying its content, her bio and photo and starting a new one, altering the account name slightly: @TheTarotLady instead of @The_TarotLady, for instance.

To accumulate followers, “the impersonators work with bot accounts,” Reed said. Then, they reach out to her own followers via messaging and offer a reading for cash. “The messages use lingo I would never use, like ‘Dear Beloved, I get energy from your picture …’ or ‘Thank you, love,’” she said.

The scammer typically deletes the account within a few days of receiving money. It is a “smash and grab” setup, said Reed.

Tarot readers, witches, mediums and psychics, including some who don’t offer services online, all told a similar story.

Auryn, who recently published a blog post to help clients spot “spiritual Impersonators,” said readers already have a “stigma of being frauds,” he said. “Things like this are so frustrating because they perpetuate this idea.”

Warranted or not, metaphysical services have long been connected to fraudulent activity, and many municipalities across the country still carry often antiquated legal codes on their books prohibiting fraudulent ‘fortune telling’ services outright, although they are often challenged under religious freedom laws.

A woman displays tarot cards. Photo by Petr Sidorov/Unsplash/Creative Commons

There are also reportedly online commerce sites that won’t do business with readers, whose work is classified as “high risk.”

“There have always been rogues in our industry, as with any industry,” said Reed. The social media scammers are just an online manifestation.

John Edward, a psychic medium and creator of the popular television show “Crossing Over,” has been plagued with online impersonators “for years,” he said. “We block all the time.”

To help cut down on scams, Edward took his accounts private.

“I had no choice,” he said. “If I can protect the energy of my clients then I will. Even if it’s at the deficit of an account growing.”

Other metaphysical practitioners have left social media platforms entirely. Paige Vanderbeck, host of the Fat Feminist Witch podcast, left a note on her Instagram page that reads “The Fat Feminist Witch Podcast is no longer on Instagram. Beware of Scammers.”

Many practitioners are trying to get their social media accounts “verified” — a designation that indicates that Instagram, Facebook or Twitter has identified the person behind the account to be who they say they are. The status, however, is not easily won.

Mat Auryn. Photo via Audible

“The requirements for verification on Instagram,” Auryn said, “are not realistic for many in our community,” since it requires a certain level of visibility in mainstream media, according to experts he’s talked to. Occult practitioners “are not going to get mainstream press like those within megachurches,” he said.

Neither Facebook nor Instagram responded to a request for comment.

Edward, who is verified, still struggles regularly with scammers, which suggests that the designation doesn’t necessarily curb scams.

Reed, though requesting multiple times to be verified by Instagram, has repeatedly appealed to Instagram to block impostors. Reporting through the app itself is the fastest route, she said, but only if the scammers haven’t blocked her before she can do it. In that case, she goes through the website, reporting copyright infringement for use of her photo.

“Sometimes (Instagram) removes the account,” she said. Sometimes it only removes her photo.

Her account was recently shut down during a livestream due to “suspicious activity,” she said, for filing “too many reports.”

The experience is similar on the other social media platforms.

Some practitioners have blocked entire regions after discovering scammers come from a particular part of the world, though this option is not available on all platforms.

Others are not waiting for Instagram.

Tarot reader Zai Nova was recently chosen by a group of 20 readers to create and run a collective Scammer Alert Page, an Instagram account warning people of fraudulent metaphysical accounts. “I started the Scammer Alert Page in an attempt to bring awareness to the scammers in the Tarot Community,” she said.

Fake accounts in the online tarot community are called out in a post by @scammeralertpage on Instagram. Screengrab

None of the practitioners have taken the problem off the internet and filed formal legal complaints. Healer Tess Whitehurst said she wouldn’t know where to begin, as most scammers are unidentifiable and are reportedly operating from outside the country.

As with so much of online culture, social media has proved to be a double-edged sword, expanding metaphysical practitioners’ reach while challenging the legitimacy of their craft.

“So many people have worked very hard to help clients and educate the public,” Reed said. “It feels like this is undoing everything we’ve worked for.”

Ahead of the Trend

The deadly dogmatism of Christian nationalism

Christian nationalism is the leading predictor that white Americans are more dogmatic.

People shelter in the House gallery as protesters try to break into the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

January 28, 2022

Samuel L. Perry

Shar

(RNS) — As the nation remembered the Capitol riots on Jan. 6 earlier this month, a deluge of articles highlighted the role of white Christian nationalism and its ongoing threat to democracy. This was absolutely necessary. Yet, white Christian nationalism has been tied to an even greater crisis over the past year, namely, the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread reluctance to get vaccinated.

Studies show that Americans who espouse Christian nationalist ideology are more likely to refuse vaccination, despite extensive evidence that the vaccines are safe and effective.

Why is Christian nationalism connected with both the Capitol riots and vaccine refusal?

One reason is that Christian nationalism is powerfully linked with white Americans affirming baseless conspiracies, including QAnon myths, antisemitic tropes, rampant voter fraud, Trump’s “Big Lie” and general vaccine misinformation. Another, no doubt, is that such Americans trust right-wing television, websites and radio for their news.

But there is something more fundamental going on — something that makes these Americans vulnerable to conspiracy theories and bad information. Multiple data points show such Americans have a greater tendency toward dogmatism — the tendency to insist one’s beliefs are true without regard for counter-evidence.

In a recent study, my co-authors and I tested how Americans who affirm Christian nationalist ideology scored on a quiz of scientific facts. Americans scoring higher on Christian nationalism didn’t score lower on science questions that asked about things like lasers, genes, molecules or viruses. But Christian nationalism was the strongest predictor that they would score lower on questions about religiously contested scientific facts such as the Big Bang or natural selection.

Christian nationalism, in other words, didn’t necessarily coincide with ignorance. Rather, it reflected a powerful dogmatism that rejected any facts that were inconsistent with cherished narratives.

In another co-authored study, we tested whether Christian nationalism predicted how Americans scored on a quiz about religion in American political history. Unsurprisingly, we found white Americans who scored higher on Christian nationalism criteria also held incorrect views about things like whether the Supreme Court actually banned people from praying in schools (no) or whether the First Amendment allows Congress to privilege Christianity (no).

But again, the scoring patterns were revealing. Not only were white Christian nationalists more likely to pick incorrect answers that stressed the supremacy and victimization of Christianity, they were also less likely to pick “don’t know” responses.

Not only were they wrong; they were confidently wrong — dogmatically wrong.

We observed this dogmatic tendency in a more direct way in a February 2021 survey in which psychologist Josh Grubbs and I asked Americans how much they agreed with six statements affirming that they could be wrong and would be willing to change their minds when confronted with new evidence.

I question my own opinions, positions, and viewpoints because they could be wrong.
I reconsider my opinions when presented with new evidence.
I recognize the value in opinions that are different from my own.
I accept that my beliefs and attitudes may be wrong.
In the face of conflicting evidence, I am open to changing my opinions.
I like finding out new information that differs from what I already think is true.

Americans who disagreed with these statements would be considered more dogmatic. We added up the questions to create a scale from 1 to 24, with higher scores indicating greater dogmatism.

Even after we account for political conservatism, religious commitment and other social characteristics, we find Christian nationalism is the leading predictor that white Americans are more dogmatic. That is to say, embracing the view that America has been and should always be distinctly “Christian” is the leading indicator that white Americans are unwilling to consider the possibility that they could be wrong, that they are unwilling to change their views even in the face of conflicting evidence (see Figure).

Courtesy graphic

Christian nationalism, then, correlates with dogmatism. But does one cause the other? And if so, which causes which?

Perhaps some of both. In fact, both nationalist feeling and dogmatic belief are likely influenced by a combination of personality and a cultural context that stresses holding onto certain beliefs “by faith” regardless of evidence. Our current levels of polarization are only worsening the problem. Both white Christian nationalism and the intense dogmatism that accompanies it are amplified by in-group and out-group dynamics.

White Christian nationalism ebbs and flows throughout American history as dominant majorities perceive threats to their cultural and political status. Experimental research affirms that white Christians who are exposed to messages about their impending minority status respond with greater Christian nationalism and xenophobia. And perceptions of past, present and future victimization already dominate white Christian nationalist narratives.

The same seems to be true of dogmatic commitment to misinformation. Committed partisans are guided by “motivated reasoning” to seek out and believe factually incorrect information about their political opponents, even when they are offered financial incentives for gathering correct information. The psychic rewards of tribal psychology and confirmation bias supersede financial gain.

This is obviously a tremendous challenge. But we are not powerless. All of us can take personal responsibility for toning down rhetoric, paying for responsible journalism, reposting only accurate information and reporting fake news.

But beyond this, several studies now confirm that deplatforming bad actors is actually effective. When politicians or provocateurs who repeatedly sow hatred and misinformation online are banned from mainstream social media platforms, their reach isn’t completely eliminated. But it is constrained.

A sizable minority of white Americans embrace the view that America has been and should always be for “Christians like us.” Even as their numbers diminish in the general population, bad actors are working to isolate and radicalize these Americans toward political goals. Along with striving to persuade our fellow citizens who are being manipulated, sidelining those bad actors wherever possible should be our top priority.

(Samuel L. Perry is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of two books on Christian nationalism, including the award-winning “Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States” (with Andrew L. Whitehead) and the forthcoming “The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to American Democracy,” with Philip Gorski. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of ARDA or Religion News Service.)

Ahead of the Trend is a collaborative effort between Religion News Service and the Association of Religion Data Archives made possible through the support of the John Templeton Foundation. See other Ahead of the Trend articles here.

How Thích Nhất Hạnh changed the world beyond Buddhism

The determination that fueled his peace efforts may not square with the soft-spoken teacher many knew.

Coffin of Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh is carried to the street during his funeral in Hue, Vietnam Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022. A funeral was held Saturday for Thich Nhat Hanh, a week after the renowned Zen master died at the age of 95 in Hue in central Vietnam. (AP Photo/Thanh Vo)

January 31, 2022

Vanessa Zuisei Goddard

(RNS) — A man once asked a Masai elder, “What makes a good morani?”— a good warrior.

The elder answered, “When the moment calls for fierceness, a good morani is very ferocious. And when the moment calls for kindness, a good morani is utterly tender.” But what makes a great warrior, the elder added, “is knowing which moment is which.”

The Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh, who passed away Jan. 21 at 95, may be the personification of this fierce and tender warrior. Over his long life he devoted himself to promoting peace, mindfulness and “Engaged Buddhism,” a term Nhất Hạnh coined to stress the importance of applying Buddhist principles of non-violence and compassion to social, political and environmental action.

The man whom students affectionately called Thay — teacher in Vietnamese — was a greatly beloved and accessible master whose popularity and influence in the Buddhist world is only rivaled by that of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. Millions of seekers who might not have otherwise engaged with Buddhism have come to his teachings to learn how to apply mindfulness to daily life. As a result, Nhất Hạnh is popularly known as “the father of mindfulness.”

Born in 1926 in central Vietnam, Nhất Hạnh, whose given name was Nguyen Xuan Bao, became a novice monk at the age of 16 and later studied science at Saigon University before becoming fully ordained at Tu Hieu Temple in 1949. When the war arrived in Vietnam a few years later, Nhất Hạnh became actively involved in its opposition. On a trip to North America, he met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and asked him to stop bombing Vietnam, later outlining a five-point peace proposal.

The quiet fierceness and determination that fueled his peace efforts in Vietnam and, later, his steadfastness in the face of the Communist government’s persecution of Buddhist sects, may not square with the soft-spoken teacher his followers know today, whose mindfulness practices seem to encapsulate the gentleness that characterized him.

But from the late 1960s, Nhất Hạnh organized to fight the worst effects of the war and the regime that came to power in its wake. He founded the School of Youth for Social Service, a grassroots relief agency of 10,000 volunteers that introduced schooling, health care and basic infrastructure to villages all over Vietnam. And he established the Order of Interbeing, an international community of laypeople and monastics dedicated, as their website says, “to the continuous practice of mindfulness, ethical behavior, and compassionate action in society.”

FILE – In this March 16, 2007 file photo, Vietnamese monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, center, arrives for a Great Chanting Ceremony at Vinh Nghiem Pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City, southern Vietnam. (AP Photo)

Banned from returning to Vietnam after an American and European teaching tour, Nhất Hạnh settled in France, where he eventually founded Plum Village, a Zen community that hosts over 200 monastics, as well as 8,000 visitors a year.

In addition, Nhất Hạnh also leaves behind nine monasteries and dozens of practice centers around the world, not to mention more than the 100 books he has written.

But his legacy cannot be quantified — or easily overstated. Insisting that for Buddhism to be relevant, it had to be engaged in tandem with the issues of its day, Nhất Hạnh met with fellow peace activists Thomas Merton and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. among others. Nhất Hạnh urged King to publicly oppose the Vietnam War — which King did for the first time in a famous speech given at Riverside Church in New York. King later nominated Nhất Hạnh for the Nobel Peace Prize, but the prize was withheld because King broke the rules by making his nomination public.

Nhất Hạnh’s influence extended far beyond his high-profile connections, however. It grew out of his deep embodiment of the peace he consistently taught, and anyone fortunate enough to be in the great teacher’s presence felt without a doubt the truth that governed his life: He lived exactly as he preached.

In a conversation with Oprah Winfrey, Nhất Hạnh said that when he was 7 years old, he saw a picture of a peaceful, smiling Buddha in a magazine. “I was impressed,” he said. “People around me were not like that, so I had the desire to be someone like him.” And for the next 88 years, that’s exactly who he was.

Nhất Hạnh taught us Westerners how to walk mindfully, simply for the sake of walking and without a goal in sight. He modeled eating with complete attention, seeing even a tiny raisin as “an ambassador of the cosmos.” He showed us it’s possible to dwell unhurried in each moment and to work with our impatience, our restlessness, our incessant dissatisfaction. He even taught us how to love.

The best thing we have to offer someone we love, Nhất Hạnh said, is our presence. His mantra, “Darling, I am here for you,” was meant to galvanize the quality of attention needed to show someone we care. It’s a deceptively simple teaching with the power to transform our relationships, if only we are courageous enough to take it up.

But if he was an unparalleled popularizer of mindfulness, Nhất Hạnh’s message challenges today’s trendy understanding of it as a technique to de-stress ourselves as we dash through our hectic lives. As Nhất Hạnh taught it, mindfulness is a means to put an end to our own and others’ suffering. It is integrally tied to compassion, to happiness and to peace.

“To be is to inter-be,” he said: We cannot help but affect one another with every one of our actions, every one of our words, and even every one of our thoughts. That’s why, more than any other teacher of his time, Nhất Hạnh understood that the only way to freedom is to live it with every step.

If the Buddha taught that liberation is possible, Nhất Hạnh, with his fierce tenderness and his unrelenting dedication to the practice of mindfulness, peace and compassion in every single moment, showed us how.

(Vanessa Zuisei Goddard is a writer, editor, and lay Zen teacher based in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. She is the author of “Still Running: The Art of Meditation in Motion.” The views expressed in this commentary do not reflect those of Religion News Service.)

Russian media tells Trump they're 'ready to elect him again' amid spat with Biden
Matthew Chapman
January 31, 2022

US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017 (AFP).

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that Russian state media is openly longing for another Donald Trump presidency — at exactly the same time that the former president is promoting pro-Russian talking points about the threats to Ukraine.

"Faced with growing U.S. resistance, Russia’s government-funded state TV has become more brazen than ever in its calls to get former President Donald Trump back in the White House," reported Julia Davis.

Specifically, Davis cited comments by Russian TV host Olga Skabeeva, who informed viewers that "Donald already declared that he will become the 47th president of America and will figure things out with Russia and Putin," and then boldly declared, "Donald, we're waiting for you and are ready to elect you again."

This comes as Trump claimed at his "Save America" rally in Conroe, Texas that President Joe Biden's support for Ukraine could cause World War III — a common scare tactic used by Russia against any effort to push back on their policy dating back to the Soviet era.

"Trump’s comments encouraging the abandonment of Ukraine were also praised and repeatedly broadcast on Russian state television," continued the report. "His lambasting of NATO appears to fill Kremlin propagandists with nostalgic memories of what might have been. 'Trump was ready to disband NATO,' Vladimir Soloviev, the host of state TV show The Evening with Vladimir Soloviev, declared this weekend. Covering Trump’s remarks at his recent Texas rally, state media outlet Vesti published a piece entitled 'Trump discussed his friendship with Putin and said that Biden ruined everything.' Kremlin-controlled talking heads seem to be signaling that Russia sees Trump’s potential return as a solution for all of its problems, to the detriment of NATO and the West."

According to former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, the Ukraine crisis is rapidly becoming a point of division in the GOP, between the old neoconservative guard who supports protecting U.S. interests at any military cost, and Trump loyalists who have adopted the president's fondness for the Russian regime.

You can read more here.

Palestinian youths clash with Israeli troops - in pictures (thenationalnews.com)

Opinion: Biden’s DOJ continues to defend bad cops and wrongful convictions

By Radley Balko

Columnist

During the George Floyd protests, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden forcefully condemned the violent eviction of protesters from D.C.'s Lafayette Square just before President Donald Trump’s photo op at St. John’s Church. Biden declared that the police had violated the First Amendment and decried the “violence that’s being done by the incumbent president to our democracy and to the pursuit of justice.” But last summer, Biden’s Justice Department successfully argued that Trump, former attorney general William P. Barr and the officers who cleared the park should be immune from civil liability.

That wasn’t an anomaly for Biden’s first year in office. Despite voicing support for criminal justice reform, his administration has argued that federal officers should receive near total immunity, even for egregious abuse. Why?

One explanation would be the traditions around the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), which represents the federal government before the Supreme Court. Though the OSG typically argues the position of the current administration, the OSG is expected to argue in favor of any federal law whose constitutionality is challenged in court, to side with police and prosecutors when they’ve been sued for misconduct and to retain a consistent position on cases as they move through the courts, even if a new administration with opposing views takes over in the meantime.

These customs might seem confusing — why should a new president uphold a predecessor’s policies they believe are unconstitutional? But it’s a widely held view in Washington, where the Office of the Solicitor General has a cherished nonpartisan reputation. After Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush, acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal reviewed the outgoing administration’s legal positions. “We decided we were not going to switch in a single one of them,” Katyal recently told NPR. “Not one.”

As a result, the Obama administration argued Bush administration positions on issues such as the unlawful detainments of terrorism suspects, whether police should be excused for entering the wrong home without a warrant, whether states were obligated to provide physical evidence for post-conviction DNA testing, absolute immunity for prosecutors (even those who manufacture evidence that causes a wrongful conviction), limitations on Miranda rights and a particularly odious civil forfeiture law in Illinois. But if Obama and his administration truly disagreed with the Bush administration’s position on a case, it meant they put custom and the reputation of the OSG’s office above, for example, the righting of wrongful convictions.

And in early 2011, the Obama administration did break with OSG custom — in a big and conspicuous way — when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced that the Justice Department would not defend (but also not oppose) the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court. By Obama’s second term, the OSG had reversed course from the George W. Bush administration in several cases.

If Obama put a crack in OSG norms, the Trump administration broke them wide open, effectively weaponizing the Justice Department and the solicitor general’s office to push Trump’s agenda through the court. I disagree with most of the Trump administration’s positions, and Trump’s use of the Justice Department to advance his personal interests was particularly dangerous. But when it comes to policy, it makes sense that the office that argues on behalf of the federal government would be in sync with the people who run the federal government.

So far, the Biden administration has contradicted the Trump administration on some positions, such as the use of public funds to pay tuition for private schools. But not when it comes to criminal justice issues. The administration argued to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, for example, despite previously issuing a moratorium on federal executions. And though Biden has denounced police brutality, so far, his administration has reliably defended federal law enforcement (as well as state and local officers who work on joint task forces).

Inaction can also be as important as action. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit recently ruled that there is no established First Amendment right to record the police, contradicting every other federal court in the country to rule on the matter. The man detained for recording police officers asked the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling. The Biden administration didn’t take a position, and the court declined to hear the case. (It’s at least possible, admittedly, that the OSG didn’t ask the court to review the case because it fears the current makeup of the court would produce the wrong outcome.)

The administration has also mostly sat out cases in which state prisoners have asked the federal courts to review their convictions for constitutional violations. The most recent example is Shinn v. Ramirez, which involves an Arizona death row prisoner who is likely innocent. That case, which was argued in the Supreme Court last month, particularly stands out because when restrictions on federal review of state convictions were passed in 1996, Biden vocally opposed them, explicitly citing the possibility of wrongful convictions.

At best, the Biden administration may have diverged from the Obama administration in that while Obama’s DOJ actively inserted itself into cases involving state police and prosecutors — in defense of the police and prosecutors — the Biden administration has intervened only to defend federal law enforcement (and the local cops who work with them).

Despite his vocal support for police reform and other criminal justice reforms over the past couple years, Biden has been a reliably law-and-order politician for nearly his entire time in public life. So it’s certainly possible that Biden’s OSG is reflecting his positions on these issues and not merely adhering to custom or tradition. It might also be that Biden’s administration just doesn’t prioritize these issues enough to breach decorum. Either way, the administration’s position seems to be to denounce the criminal justice system’s excesses while urging the courts to close their doors to its victims.

Opinion by Radley BalkoRadley Balko reports on criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties for The Washington Post. Previously, he was an investigative reporter for the Huffington Post and a writer and editor for Reason magazine. His most recent book is "The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South." Twitter

Fox News' Tomi Lahren told officers at a policing conference that prominent police killings could have been avoided if people 'would just comply'

Kelsey Vlamis

Thu, January 27, 2022,

Tomi Lahren was among several who spoke at a police training conference in Atlantic City in October.
Lahren described Black Lives Matter as "thugs, felons, and criminals" and as a "terrorist organization."
She went on to say police shootings could be avoided if people "would just comply with police."

Fox News personality Tomi Lahren told police officers that significant numbers of police brutality cases could have been avoided "if people would just comply with police, would follow orders, and not resist arrest."

The Washington Post reported that Lahren, a political commentator for the Fox Nation shows "Final Thoughts" and "No Interruption," made the comments in October at the Street Cop Training Conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

More than 1,000 police officers from departments across New Jersey and other states attended the conference, The Post reported. During her speech, Lahren described Black Lives Matter as "thugs, felons, and criminals" and a "terrorist organization."

"If I'm wrong, please point it out," Lahren said, according to a sound clip of her remarks shared by The Post. "But all these major headline incidents that we've had in this country involving law enforcement in the last, at least, five years could have all been prevented if people would just comply with police, would follow orders, and not resist arrest."

The audience can be heard applauding and cheering in the clip.

Her comments were consistent with previous statements she has made on her shows and social media.

The Post's investigation found Lahren's sentiments were typical of those made in commercial police training settings, even as calls for reform grow. The outlet spoke with 18 trainers and experts in addition to watching or attending conferences in New Jersey and Idaho, many of whom balked at police reform.

Several blamed the media for overplaying the public's desire for reform and dismissed reformers as a small cohort, The Post found. The outlet also said many portrayed violence as an inherent part of policing.

"The curriculum is that you are a good person and reveling in violence and being an expert in violence is not morally wrong," Michael Sierra-Arévalo, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Austin who attended the Street Cop Conference, told The Post. "In fact, it's your moral duty because you're a paladin. You are this kind of warrior."

Calls for police reform grew during the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

Congress engaged in bipartisan talks about a potential police reform bill last summer, but they fell apart without reaching a deal.

Sources told NBC News that President Joe Biden plans to sign executive orders on police reform as early as this month.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Monday, January 31, 2022

Metaphysical practitioners are becoming increasingly frustrated with social media outlets as impersonators thrive off their accounts.

The deadly dogmatism of Christian nationalism

Christian nationalism is the leading predictor that white Americans are more dogmatic.

The determination that fueled his peace efforts may not square with the soft-spoken teacher many knew.

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