64.9 F
Chicago
Friday, August 21, 2026
type here...
Home Blog Page 212

‘Full Force Of The Law’: British PM Threatens Belfast Anti-Immigration Rioters While Lowe Says ‘Millions Must Go’

survivalnomics
-
0
‘Full Force Of The Law’: British PM Threatens Belfast Anti-Immigration Rioters While Lowe Says ‘Millions Must Go’

Via Remix News,

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has threatened Belfast’s nighttime rioters with the “full force of the law” after they conducted arson attacks on cars and homes on Tuesday night after a brutal video went viral featuring a Sudanese man trying to behead a disabled Scottish victim.

“The scenes in Belfast last night were shocking and completely unacceptable. There is no justification for the violence and disorder that we saw threatening our communities, nor for those who encouraged it, online or elsewhere. It is clear that people were targeted last night because of their background and I will not tolerate it. Those responsible will feel the full force of the law,” wrote Starmer on X.

On the other end of the spectrum, Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe says “millions must go” in response to the attack on disabled 44-year-old Scottish victim Stephen Ogilvie.

Lowe went even further, stating that “civil servants, judges, and politicians” must be “held to account for what has been done to this country.”

“If they have knowingly placed unvetted dangerous third world savages in our communities, near our children, then a Restore Britain Government will aim to prosecute them. If that includes Reform’s Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, then so be it. When they held the power – they welcomed that Sudanese monster into our country and handed him a visa. An attempted beheading followed their decision,” he continued.

Starmer’s Labour Party has accused tech billionaire Elon Musk of fueling the nighttime riots in Belfast. Protests turned violent on Tuesday evening after a shocking video showed a Sudanese man violently attacking Ogilvie with a knife before he was saved by locals who beat the perpetrator.

Yesterday evening, dozens of masked men gathered in residential areas and set fire to several houses, a shop, and numerous vehicles.

Labour Party leader Anna Turley partly blamed Musk and his news platform X for the riots after Musk shared several posts on Tuesday that had called for protests. Turley told Times Radio: “I think we need to acknowledge and see that social media plays a role in this. And I think there are actors with evil intentions who are often sitting many, many kilometers away.”

The knife attack follows a range of other heinous attacks and high-profile incidents involving foreign nationals in Great Britain. Numerous people shared calls for demonstrations, which were also picked up and further disseminated by Elon Musk.

While rallies in London, for example, were peaceful, groups of masked rioters gathered in Belfast before sunset and began setting fire to cars and buses. In the later hours, they directed their anger at houses where migrants also lived. A Middle Eastern supermarket was also set on fire.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/12/2026 – 02:00

Why China’s Population Decline Is Irreversible

survivalnomics
-
0
Why China’s Population Decline Is Irreversible

Authored by Antonio Graceffo via The Epoch Times,

China’s demographic collapse is so advanced that even an immediate return to replacement-level fertility cannot prevent a massive population decline because there are simply too few women of childbearing age.

The ageing crisis facing China is well documented and widely reported. The crisis stems from a combination of longer life expectancies and a reduction in births below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. The result is a smaller workforce, a smaller pool of taxpayers, a smaller group of consumers driving the economy, and a growing population of retirees who need financial and medical support.

China’s ageing crisis, however, is so acute that this framing misses a crucial structural issue.

Currently, the pool of women capable of bearing children is so depleted that even an overnight return to replacement-level fertility cannot prevent substantial population decline.

China has approximately 190 million women of childbearing age. Even if the fertility rate immediately rose to 2.1, the population would still decline by more than 40 percent by the end of the century. The demographic pyramid has already determined the outcome. The trajectory is irreversible.

China’s population has contracted for four consecutive years. According to the National Bureau of Statistics’ 2025 Statistical Communiqué, the total population stood at 1.40489 billion at the end of 2025, a net decrease of 3.39 million people. Births numbered 7.92 million against 11.31 million deaths, yielding a natural growth rate of negative 2.41 per thousand, the steepest annual loss on record outside of the 1959–61 famine caused by Mao’s misguided policies.

The 2024 uptick, driven by the auspicious Year of the Dragon, proved to be an outlier. Births fell 17 percent in 2025, reaching the lowest level since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949.

Rhodium Group’s April 2026 analysis projects that even if births remain at 2025 levels for the next decade, the annual population decline will widen to 7.6 million by 2035, implying a cumulative loss of nearly 60 million people between 2026 and 2035, roughly equivalent to the population of France.

By mid-century, RAND projects that China could lose 250 million people from its current population of 1.4 billion. The United Nations’ longer-range estimate puts China’s population as low as 663 million by 2100 if current trends persist.

The crude birth rate of 5.63 per thousand in 2025, confirmed by the National Bureau of Statistics, was the lowest since 1949. China’s total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen to approximately 1.0, less than half the replacement level of 2.1, placing it among what demographers classify as “lowest-low” fertility societies, alongside South Korea and Singapore.

The one-child policy, which began in 1980, prevented hundreds of millions of births, reducing the average number of children per family from six to fewer than two. As the CCP became aware of the looming demographic collapse, the policy was relaxed to allow two children in 2016 and then expanded to three children in 2021.

However, the shift to a two-child policy resulted in only a brief uptick in births, while the expansion to three children had almost no meaningful impact.

The cohorts now entering peak childbearing age are the children of the one-child generation, already a reduced cohort, and are now themselves having fewer children than their parents did. Each generation compounds the deficit of the last.

In major cities, the situation is worse still. Beijing’s population aged 20 to 29 fell from 4.6 million in 2015 to 2.5 million in 2024, a drop of more than 2.1 million, while residents aged 60 and above rose by more than 1.7 million during the same period. Shanghai recorded approximately 107,000 births against 164,000 deaths in 2025, a natural decrease of 57,000, offset only by net in-migration of more than 100,000. Rhodium Group notes that China’s most-developed coastal provinces are growing solely through internal migration, not reproduction.

The number of women of childbearing age has been further reduced by sex-selective births. China’s sex ratio stands at 1.04 males per female overall, with the imbalance more pronounced in younger cohorts. The population of women in their twenties fell by 35 million between 2010 and 2021. Those women were never born. They cannot be incentivized, legislated, or subsidized into existence.

On current decline projections, China’s elderly population aged 65 and over stands at 211 million, while the 50 to 64 age cohorts add another 325 million. Those cohorts will die before a new generation reaches maturity. United Nations projections estimate that China’s population will fall from 1.4 billion to 633 million by 2100 under current trajectories, the largest absolute population loss of any nation over that period. Even an immediate return to replacement-level fertility would not reverse the trend.

With only 190 million women of childbearing age, there are simply not enough potential mothers to offset the mortality burden of the older generations. The 40 percent decline estimate is conservative relative to the UN baseline because it assumes fertility immediately and permanently returns to 2.1, a scenario no demographer currently projects.

The CCP is not unaware of the crisis. Xi Jinping has publicly called for a new culture of marriage and childbearing. The government has extended maternity leave, offered cash bonuses for newborns, and eliminated tax incentives on contraceptives. None of these measures have worked. In fact, they have all been tried before and failed. South Korea, facing a similar ageing crisis, spent roughly $280 billion on pro-natalist programs over two decades, more per capita than any country in history, and still watched its fertility rate fall from 1.08 in 2006 to 0.68 by 2024.

Money and incentives cannot manufacture women who were never born. The demographic collapse is now mathematically guaranteed. The CCP may have finally defeated China.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 23:25

Black Activism In America Has Become Cultural Poison

survivalnomics
-
0
Black Activism In America Has Become Cultural Poison

Much like the feminist movement (or any leftist movement), black rights activism in America has mutated from its original form into something bizarre and monstrous.  Civil rights conflicts tend to be born from legitimate grievances if a society’s intention is to create general “equality” under the law.  But this is only the surface view, the lipstick, the young and naive version of what these movements are all about.

They appeal to the western sense of honor, reason and fairness. However, there is such a thing as suicidal empathy.  The western world has become so infatuated with the idea of total equality that many people are willing to overlook the undeniable and sometimes dangerous differences between ethnic groups and their subcultures. 

Lacking the ability to discern and yes, discriminate to a logical degree, is not something the west can afford to do.  What happens when civil rights become a license for cultural elimination?  White people, a minority in decline with 11% of the global population, have to stop exercising empathy and start exercising caution. 

The Karmelo Anthony case is just one of many examples of expansive minority violence against white Americans being justified in the name of civil rights.  To be sure, there are many black conservatives out there who do not agree and they are being targeted by left-wing activists for speaking out.  But sadly, a vast majority of blacks in the US are captured by the far-left plantation. 

They don’t want to leave, because woke ideology tells them they are perpetual victims.  And in the mind of perpetual victims everything is permissible.  All behavior is justified, including murder and the destruction of the host civilization.  Even Austin Metcalf’s family, the true victims in this situation, are not safe.

The interesting thing about the political left and minority movements in general is that they reveal their hand every time they suffer a loss, as much as when they celebrate a win.  These are frothing and rabidly emotional groups and they cannot control themselves in the slightest.  With the sentencing of Karmelo Anthony for the murder of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf, the “champions” of civil rights are out in force threatening mob violence, attacks on innocent white bystanders and they are calling for more murders.

In other words, they want revenge for Karmelo Anthony being rightfully punished.  They believe they are above punishment.  They believe they are beyond the law.  They think they should be allowed to do whatever they want to white people because they see themselves as victims of white society.  This kind of mentality only ever leads to one thing: Tragedy. 

Walking away is exactly what Karmelo Anthony should have done.  It’s what any sane person with half a brain would do.  But, in a weak ghetto culture where pride is inflated and misplaced, if someone “disrespects” you, it’s the same as if they tried to kill you.  Therefore, killing them is not only reasonable, it’s applauded by your peers. 

Reverse the skin colors of the people involved in this scenario and see if people like this woman make the same argument.  If it was Austin Metcalf that stabbed Karmelo Anthony over a shove, they would be calling for Metcalf’s head.  They would be calling Metcalf a coward and a psychopath.  If Metcalf was exonerated for murder by the court system, there would be riots in the streets.   

There is no reasoning with such people, because they don’t want justice, they want power. 

Punishment for crime, for black activists, is an act of war.  And once again they claim to be the victims, the defenders, the righteous rebellion.  And so, there’s nothing to be done.  The violence will simply continue – A new “fiery but mostly peaceful” summer is on the horizon.  And, the only thing that will stop it is an immovable mountain of consequences. 

When the reaction from civilized society against black activists is swift and merciless, this is when their culture of chaos will end. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 23:00

US Investigating Iran War Critic Trita Parsi, Co-Founder Of Non-Interventionist Think Tank

survivalnomics
-
0
US Investigating Iran War Critic Trita Parsi, Co-Founder Of Non-Interventionist Think Tank

Via Middle East Eye

The Trump administration has launched an investigation into prominent Iran war critic Trita Parsi, according to a report in the Free Press.

According to US officials and documents reviewed by the pro-Trump outlet, officials are looking into the possibility of deporting Parsi, who holds both Iranian and Swedish citizenship.

via the Quincy Institute

Parsi, who is co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and co-founded the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), has been a vocal opponent of the ongoing US attacks on Iran.

A Trump official told the Free Press that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been “very clear” in his intentions to tackle “people who support adversaries of ours and whose work furthers their agenda and undermines our security.

“Anyone who seeks to undermine the US, we’re taking a hard look at,” the official said.

Since the beginning of the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, the Trump administration has increasingly targeted figures of Iranian descent in the US.

In April, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Sarina were detained and had their residency permits rescinded after they were – incorrectly – identified as relatives of former Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani by far-right influencer Laura Loomer.

Despite denying their links to Soleimani, the pair remain in custody in Texas.

The US also detained and revoked the green cards of relatives of former Iranian minister Masoumeh Ebtekar in April.

Parsi is a critic of the Islamic Republic whose family fled to Sweden to escape persecution in Iran. He has faced attacks from Iranian monarchists and pro-Trump figures over his opposition to the conflict.

He has also been highly critical of US backing for what many call Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its attacks on Lebanon.

Speaking to Middle East Eye in May, Parsi warned that the US’s ability to secure a deal with Iran would ultimately come down to its ability to restrain Israeli attacks in the region.

“If Trump either cannot or will not do so, then the value of any agreement with Washington comes sharply into question,” he said.

“A ceasefire that leaves Israel free to reignite hostilities at will – while the United States remains unable to prevent itself from being dragged back into conflict – offers little assurance of stability. Under such circumstances, the utility of a deal with Washington diminishes dramatically.”

MEE contacted the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security for comment, but had received no response from either at time of publication.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 22:35

JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms

survivalnomics
-
0
JPM Call With Axon Reveals Race To Fortify U.S. Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drone Swarms

Axon Enterprise is moving beyond its legacy police body-camera and TASER products and rapidly expanding into drones, robotics, and counter-drone systems, positioning itself as a top supplier in the public safety sector, according to JPMorgan analysts.

In a note on Wednesday, JPM analysts led by Joseph Cardoso said recent FAA rule changes regarding beyond-visual-line-of-sight drone operations have removed a key barrier to scaling drones for first-responder programs, while expanding demand for counter-drone threat technology across law enforcement, critical infrastructure, and large public venues.

Cardoso and his team hosted Axon’s Jeff Kunins, Chief Product Officer and Chief Technology Officer, on a call earlier this week and focused on the evolving U.S. drone market, industry trends, and Axon’s positioning:

1. Regulation finally catches up, driving inflection point for DFR and CUAS. The past year represents an inflection for drone-as-first-responder (DFR) and counter-drone (C-UAS), anchored by regulatory changes, including: 1) FAA/TSA rule changes in Aug-25 related to Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), which removed the requirement for human observers, a prerequisite that had been a barrier to scaling, since prior rules mandated a oneto-one human observer per drone, undermining the core value proposition of faster and cheaper response times relative to human responders; and 2) the Safer Skies Act, passed in Dec-25, extending drone mitigation authority to select state & local agencies, an important milestone with standalone detection only functional in nuanced situations. While still early, changes have been characterized as seminal rather than incremental, reflecting regulation catching up to the technology, with the SFPD, for example, already conducting DFR missions in dense urban corridors and overall deployments expanding rapidly

2. Counter-drone mitigation boasts an expansive toolkit, albeit with no “winner” to date. The mitigation technology landscape was characterized as a land rush, with heavy investment underway and no settled winners to date. For example, a wide range of tools is available in the market today, including RF jamming, cyber takeover, directed energy lasers, interceptor drones, and kinetics (both destructive and non-destructive), none of which have demonstrated a high success rate across both mitigation effectiveness and cost, particularly against the backdrop of what can be safely deployed in crowded civilian environments. As a result, the market is expected to undergo a rapid iterate-and-fail evolution over an extended period, making it a critical decision for companies to determine where to focus.

3. Highlights tale of two stacks with integrated DFR and open counterdrone. Relative to DFR, the importance of a vertically integrated stack was emphasized, particularly given the need for the operating experience to be tightly coupled with the drone itself, which drove Axon’s decision to closely align and partner with Skydio. By contrast, counter-drone will likely remain an open ecosystem for some time, given the unknowns around which cocktail of sensors and effectors will deliver the best results related to producing superior detection and mitigation outcomes from any arbitrary hardware mix.

4. Made in America expected to be a durable tailwind. The durability of American-made policy tailwinds was underscored, as Axon highlighted: 1) companies like Skydio have surpassed Asia-based alternatives on price-performance and product-market fit for law enforcement use cases; and 2) restrictions on foreign drone and camera suppliers due to data-security concerns, have broad bipartisan support

5. Beyond blue lights, drone opportunity expected to be sizeable across enterprise use cases. The enterprise opportunity for drones was characterized as large, immediate, and growing fast off a small base. Use cases highlighted include perimeter security for data centers, logistics networks, and corporate campuses, as well as operational applications such as automated indoor inventory checks, with Axon noting hourly drone patrols at its HQ and inventory checks at its warehouses. On the counter-drone side, demand is already concrete in corrections (contraband drops) and increasing for critical infrastructure, with recent Middle East drone attacks on data centers cited as a motivator for U.S. operators to seek prophylactic capabilities. Importantly, security adoption is expected to come first, followed by operational use cases that broaden the TAM over time.

6. Axon is participating across multiple drone opportunity fronts. Axon is participating across three areas related to drones: 1) outdoor DFR, with Skydio integrated into Fusus real-time crime center (RTCC), Axon Evidence, and the rest of the portfolio, such as body cameras (request button) and 911 solutions; 2) indoor tactical drones for SWAT-type use cases; and 3) counter-drone via Dedrone, which combines first-party hardware (RF sensors, RF mitigation) and software with third-party hardware (additional sensors and effectors), an area where Axon noted its leadership across state & local as well as FedCiv markets, including deployment in every NFL stadium.

Recall that we have been tracking Axon’s drone deals with Ukrainian companies and observing how the company is positioning itself as a key importer of battlefield-tested drone and counter-drone technology.

In late January, we noted that the global data center buildout, power grid modernization wave, and broader AI infrastructure boom were missing a critical layer of low-altitude air defense against small drones. One month later, multiple data centers in the Gulf region were hit by Iranian one-way attack drones, underscoring how quickly that threat moved from scenario to reality (read here).

Our view is that the U.S. has major air-defense gaps across data centers, power assets, logistics hubs, and other critical infrastructure. Those vulnerabilities could be exploited by bad actors, creating massive demand for counter-UAS systems to fill gaps in air defense.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 22:10

Florida Supreme Court Allows New GOP Congressional Map To Remain In Place

survivalnomics
-
0
Florida Supreme Court Allows New GOP Congressional Map To Remain In Place

Via American Greatness,

The Florida Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to block a new congressional map approved by Republican lawmakers earlier this year.

The map allows the districts to remain in place as the state prepares for upcoming elections.

The decision marks a victory for Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican leaders who advanced the mid-decade redistricting effort following a US Supreme Court ruling involving Louisiana’s congressional map.

DeSantis signed the revised map into law in May after the nation’s highest court ruled that Louisiana’s congressional plan, which included an additional majority-Black district, violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The new Florida map could strengthen Republicans’ position in the state’s congressional delegation.

Republicans currently hold a 20-8 advantage in Florida’s US House seats, and the revised districts could potentially expand that margin to as much as 24-4.

The legal challenge was brought by several Democratic groups that sued the state shortly after the map was enacted.

A Florida judge previously rejected efforts to stop the map from taking effect.

On Wednesday, the Florida Supreme Court upheld that decision in a 6-1 ruling, according to The Hill, refusing a request for a temporary injunction against the new districts.

The ruling means the map will remain in place while other legal challenges continue.

Opponents of the map wanted the court to require Florida election officials to continue using the congressional districts from the previous election cycle during the state’s August primaries.

The court  declined that request.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 21:45

Fed Up With Food Delivery App Fees & Tips? Barclays Has Terrific News

survivalnomics
-
0
Fed Up With Food Delivery App Fees & Tips? Barclays Has Terrific News

Whether consumers are ordering from Uber Eats or DoorDash, delivery costs before tips now average roughly $8 to $10 per order. Add in the tip, and the basic meal for one at Chipotle, such as a burrito bowl, moves into unaffordable territory for many working-class folks. The result is that food delivery, once pitched as a mass-market convenience, is increasingly looking like a discretionary luxury.

Barclays internet equity analyst Ross Sandler penned a note on Wednesday titled “Autonomous Food Delivery Likely Hits Critical Mass By 2030,” covering how automation in last-mile delivery could push delivery costs down to as little as $1 per order.

“The promise of autonomous food delivery is still a few years out, but showing very positive signals in markets that have been quick to embrace it. AVs should reduce the cost of delivery for both marketplaces (currently $8-$10 per order) and for consumers (tipping, $5 per order) down to as low as $1 per order,” Sandler wrote in the note.

He continued, “As witnessed already in select APAC geos with low delivery costs, when this kind of improvement happens to the cost curve, consumer adoption should go through the roof. China’s online food delivery penetration is 40% of orders in tier one cities, well ahead of the US, with cost being the biggest delta.

“UBER and DASH have a number of strategies in place in both SDR (sidewalk delivery robotics) and drones, but claim that these efforts are not likely to hit a material percentage of orders until 2030 and beyond.”

The analyst sees “sidewalk delivery robots as the nearer-term opportunity. Current costs are around $5 to $7 per drop, but could fall toward $1 over time as utilization improves. Drones offer faster delivery and a larger “wow” factor, but regulatory hurdles, battery limitations and airspace approvals make the path more complicated.”

Automated last-mile food delivery will certaintly improve the economics, and the added benefit is no tip.

Once delivery costs plummet, likely by the end of the decade, improved affordability should drive more people to order restaurant meals at home.

All of this is welcome news from Sandler’s team at Barclays, but delivery costs are unlikely to decline meaningfully until automation is added to the last-mile process. Even then, the path to $1 delivery fees with no tip won’t be frictionless. Local politicians and regulators could slow the adoption of automation with policies because voters will revolt over job displacement. Still, the benefit is obvious: cheaper delivery and no tip required, something almost everyone can agree on.

Guy breaks down how ridiculous food delivery app fees have gotten… 

Kevin O’Leary says Gen Z is financially cooked… 

Professional subscribers can read more about automation and AI at our new Marketdesk.ai portal. 

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 21:20

Middle Schoolers’ Reading & Math Scores Remain Below Pre-Pandemic Levels, US Results Show

survivalnomics
-
0
Middle Schoolers’ Reading & Math Scores Remain Below Pre-Pandemic Levels, US Results Show

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times,

Although math and reading scores for 9-year-old students across the country have improved slightly over the past three years, their 13-year-old peers have seen no gains in the same subject areas, according to U.S. Department of Education data released on June 10.

Still, scores for both age groups remain below the levels before the COVID-19 pandemic in both subject areas.

That’s according to the latest release of the Nation’s Report Card, which provides new data for the two age groups dating back at least three years.

For the 9-year-olds, average scores last year were 4 points higher in both reading (218 out of 500) and math (238 out of 500) than those in 2022.

For the 13-year-olds, average reading scores have remained at 256 since 2023, while math scores decreased by 1 point from 2023 to 270 last year.

The data, summarized by the federal agency’s National Assessment of Educational Progress office, are based on standardized assessment scores across all states for both public and private school students.

For the latest report, the office examined scores of more than 7,000 9-year-olds and more than 8,000 13-year-olds across more than 400 schools.

Stagnant or declining scores on the Nation’s Report Card across all grade levels in recent years have been a topic of debate among federal leaders. President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon advocate eliminating the Department of Education, promoting universal school choice, and incentivizing states and local school districts to make improvements based on local priorities for public education. They’ve enjoyed support from Republican members of Congress.

Democrats have called for preserving the federal agency and providing more state and federal funding for public schools. During committee hearings in the past year, members also opposed private school voucher initiatives and criticized charter schools for taking funding away from public schools based on the per-pupil aid formulas.

The Department of Education has not yet released comments on the latest report.

The latest Nation’s Report Card data coincide with a new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality, a nonprofit organization made up of industry experts who review the effectiveness of teacher training programs. Its latest research indicates that about half of the nation’s colleges and universities with education programs of study aren’t providing effective reading instruction based on the most recent proven bodies of research.

Reading outcomes, the report said, won’t improve without better teacher preparation.

Child literacy advocates and leaders in both K–12 and higher education across the nation urge policymakers and university administrators to consider the council’s recommendations to reverse this negative trend.

“When a new teacher walks into a classroom without a solid grounding in the science of reading, we’ve already put that teacher—and every child in front of them—at a disadvantage,” Anne Wicks, a program director at the George W. Bush Institute policy center, said in a statement.

“This is fixable, and it’s time to act.”

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 20:55

“It Was Like Two Bucks”: Homeless Residents Say They Were Paid To Vote In Los Angeles Mayoral Race

survivalnomics
-
0
“It Was Like Two Bucks”: Homeless Residents Say They Were Paid To Vote In Los Angeles Mayoral Race

Shocking videos posted on social media show multiple homeless Skid Row residents claiming they accepted cash payments ranging from $2 to $5 in exchange for voting for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and city councilwoman Nithya Raman in last week’s mayoral election.

Spencer Pratt was eliminated from the mayoral race on Monday, after Raman secured the number two spot in what many believe was a mathematically improbable surge in votes from post-Election Day mail-in ballots.

Skid Row is home to almost 4,000 people and has the highest concentration of homelessness in Los Angeles County. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

A man who identified himself as Kevin Shepherd says he cast a mail-in ballot for Bass after being offered $2 and negotiating the payment up to $4. He says he completed the ballot and deposited it into a ballot box. When asked whether payments extended to Raman as well, Shepherd confirmed they did. He also told investigators that outreach workers showed up in the area “three to five times a week” in the weeks leading up to the election, with multiple organizations cycling through.

Rene Johnson, 39, told a similar story. She says she received $5 after being directed to vote for Bass and describes groups regularly moving through Skid Row asking residents to sign paperwork.

“But, you know, at the time, I didn’t know that that was going on,” Johnson said. “I was just trying to make five bucks, you know? But I didn’t do the fraud.” Asked directly whether she believed the arrangement amounted to fraud, Johnson did not hesitate. She called it “fraudulent behavior” and said she believed people were being taken advantage of.

A third, unidentified woman who says she lives on the street described a recurring pattern of politically motivated visits. “It was like two bucks,” she said of her payment, adding that “yeah, they come out here all the time.” A fourth resident, Mark Sanchez, says canvassers paid him on multiple occasions to sign materials tied to local officeholders. “To sign a petition for the mayor or different things in office, and they paid me $4 or $5 in different accounts,” Sanchez said. “It happened more than four or five times.”

The content creator who filmed the videos says a friend who works nearby tipped him off after witnessing political volunteers operating in the area during the run-up to Election Day. He spent roughly two hours talking to residents. “Everybody said it was normal,” he said, describing what he heard on the street about the paid ballot activities.

Don Garza, a disabled military veteran who has lived on Skid Row since 1999, offers perhaps the sharpest indictment of what has allegedly gone on there. He says voter registration drives run by nonprofit organizations have been a fixture of life in the area for years. “We are tired of it. We don’t want people coming in and deciding elections and taking advantage of us,” Garza said. “Every one of them thinks they have claim to our voice. They think they speak for us.”

The California Post previously reported that thousands of homeless voters were registered at Los Angeles shelters despite many not actually residing at those facilities. A Venice shelter with 185 registered Raman voters received $600,000 in taxpayer money with ties to Raman’s office. The pattern suggests something more systematic than a few isolated transactions.

Ballot harvesting, which involves collecting completed mail ballots and delivering them on voters’ behalf, remains legal in California, but the Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has published a how-to guide that illustrates how close that line can be pushed.

The California Post could not independently verify the residents’ accounts on camera. However, it is hard to dismiss the consistency of the testimony across multiple unconnected individuals.

However, paying people to vote is clearly illegal. California Elections Code Section 18521 prohibits any person from receiving money, gifts, loans, or other consideration in exchange for voting or refraining from voting for any particular candidate. Section 18522 makes the flip side equally illegal, barring anyone from offering or providing such inducements. Violations carry criminal penalties.

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli says his office will investigate the concerns the Post has uncovered and will “follow the evidence” to determine whether the law was broken.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 20:30

Trump Nominates US Attorney Jay Clayton As Director Of National Intelligence

survivalnomics
-
0
Trump Nominates US Attorney Jay Clayton As Director Of National Intelligence

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he is nominating Jay Clayton, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, to be his director of national intelligence.

The move comes weeks after former intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard said she is stepping down from the role.

Trump, in announcing the decision on Truth Social, wrote that “few people anywhere” in the legal community have as much respect as Clayton, the former head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whom the president also described as “highly respected.”

“I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible,” he wrote in the post.

Last month, Gabbard announced she was stepping down as the head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) because her husband was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.

Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte was named by Trump to serve as acting director in a move that drew pushback from Democratic and some Republican lawmakers.

Pulte will serve as the acting U.S. intelligence chief and would take over from Gabbard later in June, Trump said on Tuesday.

Last week, the president told the Wall Street Journal that he would encourage Pulte to downsize parts of the intelligence office, which oversees 18 federal agencies and units.

“I’d like to see it smaller. I think there are a lot of people in there that shouldn’t be there,” Trump said on June 5, adding that Pulte has broader latitude to make significant changes due to his being the acting head of the ODNI.

“You’re less shackled,” he said. “It sort of gives you more power, you know, for a somewhat limited period of time.”

Going further, Trump suggested that the ODNI could even be “terminated” in its entirety, noting that a similar downsizing process was undertaken at the Department of Education.

“We’ve made the Department of Education much smaller, and likewise, this should be much smaller,” he added.

Trump praised Pulte as a “very smart guy” while speaking to reporters last week and added that he “may find out some things about the rigged elections.”

The decision to name Pulte as acting director, however, prompted Democratic opposition to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in a vote earlier this week.

“Just voted NO again on a clean FISA reauthorization. We shouldn’t allow the government to conduct warrantless surveillance of Americans—especially with Bill Pulte in charge,” Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) wrote in a post on X as the House failed to extend the provision.

Some Republican senators, meanwhile, indicated they would not have voted to appoint Pulte if Trump nominated him.

“The Senate doesn’t have any role to play in terms of confirming acting officials, but I see no evidence of any qualifications for that job,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) told The Hill about Pulte.

Clayton had served as head of the SEC from May 2017 until December 2020.  He also served as the head of the prominent law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, one of the largest in the world.

Tyler Durden
Thu, 06/11/2026 – 18:25

1...211212213...4,371Page 212 of 4,371

About Us

Popular Category

Editor Picks