Bulgaria announced on Thursday that it is opening an investigation into a Sofia-based company reportedly linked to the sale of thousands of pagers that were packed with explosives by Israeli intelligence agents and blown up across Lebanon on Tuesday.
Preliminary reports name Norta Global Ltd to the sale of pagers to Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah, with Hungarian-based shell company BAC Consulting acting as an “intermediary.”
“BAC Consulting Kft was involved in the transaction as a simple intermediary. So much so that the company itself did not actually carry out any activities, it does not have an office, it is only reported to a home provider,” Hungarian news agency Telexreported on Wednesday.
Owned by Norwegian citizen Rinson Jose, Norta Global was founded in April 2022 and is located at a residential address in the Bulgarian capital. Like its Hungarian counterpart, Norta Global is registered with a “headquarters service provider,” which hosts 196 other companies.
Bulgarian state security agency, DANS, announced on Thursday that it is working with the interior ministry to probe the role of an unnamed company registered in Bulgaria in the terror attacks that rocked Lebanon this week.
Furthermore, Bulgaria’s state security agency said it “did not detect any shipments” of the pagers on Bulgarian territory.
According to intelligence officials who spoke with the New York Times (NYT), the attacks that left dozens killed and thousands injured in Lebanon were the result of a “complex and long in the making” Israeli operation.
BAC Consulting reportedly served as a front to manufacture thousands of pagers on behalf of Taiwanese company Gold Apollo that were acquired by Lebanon’s Hezbollah earlier this year.
“BAC did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN,” three intelligence officers who spoke with the NYT are quoted as saying.
Exploding pagers could now be anywhere… and beyond Lebanon.
“At least two other shell companies were created to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers,” the report states.
Saudi Crown Prince Says No Israel Normalization Without Palestinian Statehood
Current events in Gaza and Lebanon, including the Tuesday and Wednesday pager attacks which have sown widespread chaos and death in Beirut, have caused Saudi Arabia to get more vocal in rejecting normalization with Israel.
The US has for several years been pushing hard for it behind the scenes, calling it “the deal of the century” connected with the Abraham Accords, but Riyadh is fast backing off reports of progress. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) made clear in a Wednesday speech that there will be no official relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
“The Kingdom will not cease its diligent efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he told the country’s Shura Council in Riyadh during an annual address.
“We confirm that Saudi Arabia will not establish diplomatic relations with Israel until that goal is achieved,” he emphasized. He added that Israeli “crimes” in violation of international laws makes this impossible at the moment.
“The Palestinian cause is a top priority for Saudi Arabia, and we reiterate the kingdom’s rejection and strong condemnation of the crimes committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people, in disregard of international and humanitarian law in a new and bitter chapter of suffering,” he added.
“We extend our thanks to the countries that recognised the Palestinian state in embodiment of international legitimacy, and we urge the rest of the countries to take similar steps,” he said further.
Normalization seemed on the cusp last year, but the Oct.7 Hamas terror attacks disrupted it, and some pundits at the time even said the Palestinian side was intentionally trying to blow up any efforts at Arab-Israeli normalization broadly. Palestinians fear that their cause will be forgotten if the Abraham Accords take wide effect in the region.
Throughout Israel’s military operations in Gaza, the Saudis have warned that normalization could be permanently off unless Israeli forces withdraw from the Stip. Back in May, for example, the kingdom warned that an operation in Rafah “would be a big mistake and would push normalization between the two parties away.”
The IDF of course went forward with a major Rafah operation and across the southern part of the Strip anyway. After that, Riyadh has made clear it is no longer pursuing diplomatic relations with Israel.
And so dies another Middle East dream of the Biden administration.
In televised speech, Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says the kingdom won’t establish diplomatic relations with Israel without the establishment of a Palestinian state. #SaudiArabia#OOTTpic.twitter.com/Js9NouMLXC
The Saudi royal family has always been more open to ties with Israel than the populace and clerics. It is especially the Wahhabi clerical establishment which frequently issued fiery condemnations of the Jewish state.
MbS has always had to keep this in mind, given persistent fears there could be unrest or an uprising among the ultra-conservative imams and broader population.
An FBI informant who shared his home with two of the 9/11 hijackers has been accused in civil court of being “co-opted” by Saudi Arabian intelligence to help carry out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
That informant, Dr. Abdussattar Shaikh, was presented in the 9/11 Commission Report as “an apparently law-abiding citizen with friendly, long-standing contacts among local police and FBI personnel.” Shaikh was recruited as an informant in 1994, according to his handler.
But according to plaintiffs suing Saudi Arabia for its role in 9/11, at some point Dr. Shaikh was “hired” by Saudi intelligence agent and Omar al-Bayoumi to house the two hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar.
“It was a plan that had been carefully and meticulously developed by Bayoumi in conjunction with other Saudi officials,” a plaintiffs’ lawyer argued at a July 31 court hearing, according to the Florida Bulldog.
“Dr. Abdussattar Shaikh, the FBI informant who shared his home with Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, had in fact been “co-opted” by a Saudi intelligence asset.”https://t.co/tyakThqWIF
The Saudi government denied that al-Bayoumi hired Dr. Shaikh, reportedly arguing in a court filing that “there is no evidence he had anything to do with [the hijackers] moving into Shaikh’s house.”
Dr. Shaikh’s FBI handlers have also defended the man. His handling agent, Steven Butler, told the 9/11 Commission that Shaikh was “duped” by the hijackers, while former San Diego FBI chief William Gore recently told the Florida Bulldog that Shaikh was “one of the finest guys I ever met.”
Dr. Shaikh, for his part, was reportedly “too old and ill” to be formally interviewed for the long-running civil litigation. A New York federal judge is expected to rule soon on whether the lawsuit against Saudi Arabia will be allowed to continue.
The allegations against Dr. Shaikh follow several other revelations that have come out in recent months, implicating Saudi Arabia in 9/11.
Those revelations included a long-suppressed video showing al-Bayoumi “casing” Capitol Hill in June 1999—months before al-Qaeda made the decision to include Washington DC in its terrorist plot. Numerous investigators believe the Capitol building was the target of Flight 93, which instead crashed in Pennsylvania.
More recently, last month it was revealed that sketches plotting the 9/11 attack belonged to al-Bayoumi.
Pretty interesting development in the long-running 9/11 civil litigation. It was revealed earlier this month that attack plans pictured on the left belong to the man on the right–a Saudi agent and alleged CIA asset pic.twitter.com/wNTvS0GTpB
Families of 9/11 victims argued in a 71-page brief filed on May 7 that al-Bayoumi operated under the directions of the Saudi Kingdom. Along with “casing” the Capitol, he served as the handler for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.
Additionally, new evidence in recent years has suggested that not only was al-Bayoumi a Saudi agent; he was also an asset of the CIA. That information has been coming from the proceedings against 9/11 defendants at Guantanamo Bay.
According to Office of Military Commissions investigator Don Canestraro, at least two FBI agents told him that the CIA had attempted to recruit two of the hijackers as informants. The CIA was directing its recruiting efforts through al-Bayoumi, according to Canestraro.
Canestraro has also implicated Dr. Shaikh of having received money from the Saudis while working as an FBI informant.
Undercover Serial Predator: CIA Officer Drugged & Molested Dozens Of Women While Stationed Abroad
A career CIA officer was sentenced to 30 year in federal prison on Wednesday for drugging,raping and sexually assaulting over two dozen women across multiple countries while doing official work for the agency. The CIA veteran, identified as Brian Jeffrey Raymond, had actually documented his own crimes in photographs and video. The FBI is in possession of some 500 images showing him molesting his nude, unconscious victims.
The 48-year old’s crimes often took place in government-leased apartments abroad, presumably while he was ‘under cover’ or on assignment in a covert capacity. The assaults go back to 2006 and there are victims across Latin America – including Peru and Mexico – and other countries.
Prosecutors described a 14-year rampage: “The defendant’s goal was simple: to sexually and physically assault women when they were at their most vulnerable and to create a lasting collection of photographs and videos memorializing his abhorrent deeds,” they wrote. The case specified that the attacks took place at his “government-leased housing.”
His crimes began to be uncovered following a May 2020 incident in Mexico City during which time he was attached to the US Embassy there. A woman was heard screaming for help from the balcony of his residence, after which federal agents upon further investigation searched his electronic devices and found hundreds of images of women being abused.
He would meet women on dating apps, lure them to his apartment on dates, and then spike their food or drinks to make them unconscious. The AP describes, ironically enough, the following of the case as it finished up in federal court this week:
…an emotional hearing in which victims described being deceived by a man who appeared kind, educated and part of an agency“that is supposed to protect the world from evil.”
It appears he often specifically used his position with the government to gain the trust of his victims (either as a CIA agent or US ‘diplomat’ with the embassy). NPR writes:
Court filings reviewed by NPR said they found 487 videos and images of unconscious women in “various states of undress” on multiple devices belonging to Raymond, as well as searches for terms including “passed out,” “ambien,” “ambien and alcohol and pass out,” “Zolpidem and pharmacies” and “deep sleep” between 2010 and 2011.
The FBI said almost all of the women involved “experienced memory loss during their time with Raymond and had no knowledge of the photographs, videos or any physical contact.”
“For 14 years, Raymond exploited his trusted position as a U.S. government representativeto lure women into his confidence,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg.
Once they were unconscious, he spent hours posing their naked bodies before photographing and assaulting them. He opened their eyelids at times and stuck his fingers in their mouths.
One by one, about a dozen of Raymond’s victims who were identified only by numbers in court recounted how the longtime spy upended their lives. Some said they only learned what happened after the FBI showed them the photos of being assaulted while unconscious.
A US government employee pleaded guilty last week to drugging & sexually abusing multiple women.
Over a 14yr period, he drugged, sexually assaulted, & recorded/photographed 28 women in multiple countries.
“My body looks like a corpse on his bed,” one victim described of the photos to the court. “Now I have these nightmares of seeing myself dead.” US Senior Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said while imposing the 30-year prison sentence, based on a plea deal: “It’s safe to say he’s a sexual predator.”
Clearly his position in the CIA enabled this serial predator to keep assaulting women in secret over such a long span of so many years. This comes as the CIA deals with additional pending investigations related to sexual assault and misconduct allegations. How many more serial predators are out there, using their ‘cover’ and security clearance to harm and abuse women?
The FBI released a new batch of records on the white nationalist group Patriot Front on Tuesday, revealing that its members have been talking to the feds.
The 112 pages of FBI records are almost entirely redacted, but the reason for some of the redactions is noteworthy: The FBI cited section B7(d) of the Freedom of Information Act, which is an exemption designed to protect the identities of confidential sources—or, in other words, FBI informants.
Headline USA found at least three records citing B7(d) while skimming through the records.
One of the few unredacted records in the new batch also shows that a Patriot Front member agreed to a voluntary interview with FBI agents.
The FBI released another batch of Patriot Front records today. Interesting thing is they’re littered with B7(d) FOIA redactions — which are used to protect … informants!
Also, a member agreed to a voluntary interview w/ agents. Don’t those boys know not to talk to the feds? pic.twitter.com/e18BtUoUDD
According to that record, the Patriot Front member told agents that Patriot Front was a group that peacefully demonstrated, encouraged its members to get off drugs, and promoted physical activity. However, several portions of the interview are redacted, including the member’s information about his social media activity. The redactions cited in this portion of the FBI file were those designed to protect privacy.
Tuesday’s FBI document dump is the latest evidence of federal infiltration in the Patriot Front. It follows a New Yorker article from last month, which revealed that the group may have provided information to the FBI about a left-wing Antifa member who infiltrated and doxxed its members.
“The exposed Patriot Front members were furious at Vincent [after he doxed the group]. To strike back, they appear to have enlisted an unlikely ally: the F.B.I.,” the New Yorker reported.
Another batch of records released in July showed that the group was infiltrated by at least one undercover informant.
“On February 11, 2019, FBI Charlotte received Confidential Human Source (CHS) reporting from [REDACTED] Division regarding [REDACTED],” the record stated.
Patriot Front member Kai Nix was 17 when this picture was taken of him w/ FBI informant Michael Alan Jones.
The New Yorker and SPLC both reported on the now-20-year-old Nix’s arrest this week, but you won’t find any mention of how the FBI ran a sex-offender informant at the young… pic.twitter.com/R1KNGeG9SC
An FBI informant who was once a member of the Patriot Front was charged in 2022 with unlawfully possessing a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon—a charge stemming from a March 2022 traffic stop in upstate New York, where police officers allegedly found him in possession of an illegally modified AR-15.
That informant, Michael Alan Jones, may have been the CHS discussed in the above-mentioned FBI memo, given that he lives close to Charlotte—the office that received information from a Patriot Front CHS in 2019. If that’s the case, it would be the first public confirmation that Jones was acting as an informant while in the Patriot Front—court records only confirmed that he spied on the Proud Boys.
Jones, who reportedly stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has been referred to as a “fed-ophile” by his former comrades, due to him previously being convicted of two felony sex crimes.
Despite all that evidence, Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau has downplayed the threat of federal infiltration.
“The FBI, I don’t believe, engages in the type of undercover infiltration that a lot of people attribute to it as much as people think,” he said in June.
Zelensky Could Be Overthrown If He Fails To Hold Elections: Ukraine Lawmaker
An opposition lawmaker in Ukrainian parliament is warning that President Vladimir Zelensky could eventually face a coup if he persists in banning national elections. The Verkhovna Rada lawmaker, Alexander Dubinsky, wrote on Telegram that “a coup is possible.”
He warned this will be the case “if Zelensky, who has done everything contrary to the interests of Ukraine, remains in power bypassing the elections. Surely no one will tolerate this.”
But already, the government had canceled elections which were supposed to be held last spring, citing martial law and the necessity of no disruption in government due to the Russian invasion. This is a situation which looks to persist longer, angering many Ukrainians who are dissatisfied with Zelensky’s handling of the war.
President Putin had called Zelensky ‘illegitimate’ as a result, but NATO allies including the United States had accepted the cancelation of elections. Putin had said that his term “expired together with its legitimacy, which cannot be restored by any tricks.”
Dubinsky, the opposition lawmaker now highlighting the issue, has actually been under investigation for treason stemming from a years-long alleged criminal conspiracy involving corruption.
Kiev has long maintained that indefinitely postponing elections was in accord with the nation’s constitution:
Ukrainian legal experts consulted by DW said they expected Zelenskyy would remain in power until a new president is elected. “The Ukrainian constitution states this clearly,” said Andriy Mahera, of the Center of Policy and Legal Reform in Kyiv. “The president does not automatically lose his powers five years after inauguration. These powers are only removed when the newly elected president takes office, i.e., after elections.”
Presidential and parliamentary elections are currently out of the question. Ukraine’s constitution places a temporary restriction on the former, whereas martial law bans both — in part , officials have said, to protect voters from harm.
So long as Zelensky has the support of the West, it’s expected he will continue to rule without problems.
Lawmaker Alexander Dubinsky is a deeply controversial figure in Ukraine…
One potential coup scenario, however, might involve far-right elements connected to Ukraine’s military – such as Azov Brigade – stirring strong dissent in the scenario of Zelensky being willing to go quickly to the negotiating table with Moscow. While much of the Ukrainian populace is surely tired of the war, and might be willing to let go of some pro-Russian far eastern territories for the sake of peace, groups like Azov and Right Sector would be out for blood.
Two infernos, a vandalized storefront, a Metro bus slamming into three cars, drones spitting fireworks at drifting, souped-up muscle cars. Relatively, it was a tame Labor Day Weekend in Los Angeles County, where illegal street takeovers continue to terrorize neighborhoods that have been co-opted as tourist attractions for drivers and spectators seeking internet clout.
Contemporary “takeovers”—in which drivers commandeer intersections and perform dangerous stunts for a scrum of onlookers—are a kind of successor to classic California car cultures including drag racing, cruising, lowriding, and sideshows.
But propelled by the manic, mimetic spectacle of social media, they have become a uniquely dangerous part of the landscape.
Vehicle thefts, shootings, flash mob robberies, and pedestrian fatalities associated with illegal racing and takeovers have all increased from pre-pandemic levels, according to officials.
Law enforcement agencies say they are cracking down with a zero tolerance approach, and a multi-agency task force dedicated to addressing the issue, investing in educational programming and diversion, enhancing technology, and deploying street modifications has been used at problem intersections.
Despite all this, the problem appears increasingly unhinged.
“What we’re seeing is this increase in violent behavior—looting, cars on fire. Recently, we had two kids shot and one murdered at a takeover, at a spin,” Craig Valenzuela, commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Traffic Group, told the L.A. County Board of Supervisors at a July 30 meeting.
He was referring to a July 22 incident in which two 15-year-olds involved in a takeover were shot after an alleged robbery, including one fatally.
“That’s really what concerns us—it’s the level of violence and us trying to get in there to end those and keep our communities safe.”
At the meeting, other agencies and county staff presented a final report on illegal racing and takeovers in unincorporated county areas, nearly a year in the making.
They painted a rather bleak picture, acknowledging the scope and scale of the problem, and the fact that existing enforcement, as well as outreach efforts by authorities—seeking to influence the behavior of an anti-authority youth subculture—are not working.
“It has risen to that level where we really need to dedicate all of our resources and address this epidemic that’s wreaking havoc on our communities,” L.A. Assistant Sheriff Myron Johnson told the board.
Supervisors ultimately voted to direct staff and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) to report back on funding and an action plan in 60 days.
To advocates who have been lobbying for years to stave off the inevitable casualties of illegal racing and takeovers, it seems a long time coming.
“Unfortunately, I think it caught everyone by surprise,” said Lili Trujillo Puckett, founder of Street Racing Kills, referring to a surge of takeovers during the pandemic.
Puckett founded her organization after her 16-year-old daughter, Valentina, was killed in a street racing crash in 2014. She now runs diversion programs for youth offenders, as well as legislative and education campaigns.
“There were no laws in place. I started asking for bills a long time ago, but nobody saw it was a problem,” she told The Epoch Times.
Donald Galaz, founder of Project Street Legal, an organization focused on providing legal venues for street racing, says the problem has outgrown law enforcement’s ability to corral it.
“It’s just way out of control,” he said. “No task force is ever going to stop it—there are too many individuals, these kids out there, they just continue to move from place to place.”
Galaz is a longtime member of the Brotherhood of International Street Racers, a group that developed legal avenues for racing, which he credits with getting him off the streets and out of gangs in his youth. And while there is a “level of disrespect” and chaos in today’s takeovers that wasn’t part of the covert sideshows and drag racing of previous decades, then largely confined to industrial areas and parking lots, he says officials could still put a major dent in the problem by giving kids a safer alternative.
“I’ve been advocating for this for over 12 years—let’s do something. I’ve been through many city council members and mayors that promise to help,” he said. Galaz said he ran phone banks for a mayoral campaign, but the effort ended in a long line of “unkept promises” to address the issue.
“In the meantime, people are dying. The public is at risk. Businesses are getting destroyed. Streets are getting destroyed,” he said. “And then you see on the news all the time that people are getting killed, and still elected officials have done nothing.”
Uneven Impact
The destruction tends to be concentrated in certain areas, and often perpetrated by people who live elsewhere, say locals.
The city of Compton has long been an epicenter of Southern California car culture, home to motorcycle and racing clubs, and a Sunday lowrider cruise that continues to this day.
But in recent years, it’s also become a hotbed for out-of-towners in search of street cred and Instagram likes, a launching pad for drivers to make their name.
“If you want internet clout, you have to go to Compton,” Galaz said. “That’s no secret.”
During a July 28 takeover in the city, California Highway Patrol (CHP) arrested 63 spectators, issued 66 citations, and impounded 28 vehicles, according to the agency.
Recent LASD data show the vast majority of takeovers in the first quarter of this year—219 out of 289—happened in the county’s Second Supervisorial District, which includes South L.A. and parts of the Harbor Region. Most of those were in the cities of Compton and Carson, which had 90 and 109 incidents, respectively. This is an increase over the previous quarter, when there were 173 takeovers in the District, out of a total 234 incidents, with 74 and 58 in Compton and Carson.
Meanwhile, the Fourth and First Districts, which cover the southeastern and eastern parts of the county, had 55 and 15 incidents in the first months of 2024. There were no takeovers reported in District Three, which includes West L.A. cities, or District Five, which covers the northern part of the county.
“The increase in illegal street takeovers is deeply troubling,” Compton Mayor Emma Sharif told The Epoch Times. “It goes against the values of our city—it really does. This issue has had a severe impact on our community, affecting both the safety and the well being of residents.”
Both Compton and Carson do not have their own police forces but contract with the L.A. Sheriff’s Department, which coordinates with other agencies like the CHP on traffic enforcement. Carson city officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Looking at LAPD data for the city of Los Angeles, it appears that street racing and takeovers peaked in 2020, with 912 incidents. There were 319 in 2019, and the numbers have fluctuated since, dropping to 482 last year.
That shows redistribution, not eradication, observers say.
“Just because it has peaked in the city of Los Angeles doesn’t mean it’s gone down across the county,” Damian Kevitt, executive director of the nonprofit Streets Are for Everyone, told The Epoch Times.
As the LAPD’s street racing task force has gotten more aggressive, he said, the crackdown has pushed the problem to outlying communities like Compton and unincorporated areas.
The CHP, which enforces vehicle code in Los Angeles County, responded to 100 street takeovers, issued 2,000 citations, arrested 500 people for reckless driving, driving under the influence, spectating, and weapons offenses, and impounded more than 400 vehicles in unincorporated areas of L.A. County last year, according to the agency.
“Street racers will show up, do their takeovers, spend 45 minutes—they know how long it will take for the task force to do their thing, then they’re off to the next location,” said Kevitt.
LASD and LAPD data show takeovers increased in the first months of 2024 in both the county and the city, but the county saw an overall 15 percent dip in the second quarter over the first, from 289 to 245 incidents, LASD officials told the board at the July meeting.
That’s still more than the fourth quarter of last year, and Compton is trending upward.
‘More Brazen, More Violent’
In its June 12 report responding to a directive from the city council, the LAPD pointed to the diminishing ability of law enforcement officers and first responders to intervene at takeovers, which often include hundreds of spectators and countless vehicles.
Spectators use laser pointers to blind officers and helicopters, launch fireworks at police, intentionally ram and swarm cars, and resist arrest.
“I think they feel like they’re untouchable,” Galaz said. “And because it’s one police unit with two officers that shows up, they’re outnumbered right off the bat. So now you’ve got these kids that are out there blocking the cars, throwing rocks and bottles and shooting fireworks and doing that type of stuff to the police. … They just don’t care.”
Street racing has always been anti-authoritarian, but Galaz notes racers used to be more concerned with demonstrating their skills than taunting law enforcement.
“The last thing we wanted to do was get the attention of law enforcement while we’re out trying to get something done, you know? But it seems like they’re taunting them,” he said. “I don’t understand the logic behind wanting to do these things and just the amount of disrespect.”
Law enforcement and first responders are already stretched thin by budget deficits, understaffing, and an all-consuming homelessness crisis. For all the above reasons, agencies are looking to outsource some policing to technology.
“We’re not going in the center of the takeover anymore. It’s just too dangerous for us,” CHP South L.A. Commander Joe Zivi told the board in July. “There is no doubt these takeovers are more brazen, more violent.”
The CHP already monitors hotspots with helicopters and airplanes equipped with infrared technology and recording that can be used for prosecution, and soon it will have high-powered cameras to read license plates in real time, which they hope to bring to judges to get 30-day seizures, and then impound the vehicles at a later date, Zivi said.
Meanwhile, LASD hopes to expand a pilot program that uses drones to help with racing and takeover enforcement, while some cities are initiating their own programs.
In March, Carson debuted a new drone policy to “enhance city services,” and in April, it announced the installation of a multi-million-dollar, “state-of-the-art” surveillance system across the city to help “reduce suspicious activity” and increase stolen vehicle recovery as part of LASD’s License Plate Recognition Camera Project.
But some question the logic of investing in high-tech cameras to photograph license plates when many of the cars involved are stolen—and the drivers may be long gone by the time police show up.
Culture Clash
For older generations in racing and cruising scenes, contemporary takeovers and their attendant chaos are casting a long shadow.
“I think the car culture has been, and still is under attack from different angles,” Galaz said. “People will say law enforcement is just taking the fun out of things. But then the takeovers are giving a black eye to the whole culture,” he said.
Developed by Mexican Americans in the post-WWII era, lowriding is a beloved and recognizable part of the Southern California cultural mosaic, memorialized in art exhibitions, books, films—and now imitated by adolescents with disposable income in places such as Saudi Arabia.
Last year, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill legalizing lowriding and cruising—or driving “low and slow” to show off modified classic cars, overriding previous restrictions.
At the July 30 board meeting, public speakers from racing and lowrider clubs came out to remind the government that cruising is legal and should not be painted with the same brush as illegal takeovers.
Three days ago, word of an alleged whistleblower from ABC News emerged following the Trump-Harris debate who claimed, among other things, that Harris was given questions in advanced.
While unverified – and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt for now, the whistleblower also claims there are three topics that were off-limits.
President Biden’s health
Kamala’s tenure as Attorney General and District Attorney
“her brother-in-law, Tony West, who faces allegations of embezzling billions of dollars in taxpayer funds and who may be involved in her administration if elections.”
Kamala Harris’ brother-in-law married her sister Maya in 1998, and was one of her first political advisors, helping with the 2003 San Francisco District Attorney race.
As head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, Tony West took advantage of the Treasury Department’s secret “Judgement Fund”, a slush account used to pay inflated settlements without Congressional oversight.
Basically – if a government agency was being sued, this tax-payer funded slush-fund could be used to pay lawyers and special interest groups at the DOJ’s discretion to settle the issue. Payments of 10’s of thousands and millions of dollars.
President Trump banned this fund when he took office, but Biden made it legal again in 2021.
“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people— not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” said Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
“Unfortunately, in recent years the Department of Justice has sometimes required or encouraged defendants to make these payments to third parties as a condition of settlement. With this directive, we are ending this practice and ensuring that settlement funds are only used to compensate victims, redress harm, and punish and deter unlawful conduct.”
Tony West’s first order of business, according to one of his deputy’s emails, was to find the “best way” to use this settlement fund to “allocate” money toward his friend’s organizations.
“Settlements became the vehicle for paying off political allies,” according to Daniel Huff, former counsel to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.
One of Tony West’s biggest scores was a 2010 settlement with 91 Hispanic and female farmers who claimed they were illegally discriminated against.
Tony West intervened and “engineered a stunning turnabout” according to the New York Times. The DOJ agreed to a $1.33 billion settlement, including thousands of farmers who were never even involved in the case, and Native American farmers.
The left-wing NY Times admitted at the time that Tony West’s settlement was a “runaway train, driven by racial politics . . . and law firms that stand to gain more than $130 million in fees.”
The settlement payment grew to over $4.4 billion, creating a $60 million windfall for the lead lawyer, Joseph M. Sellers, who just so happened to also be a member of the Obama/Biden transition team.
Tony West also concocted a series of shady bank settlements with victims of the housing crisis, with questionable provisions requiring banks to make almost a billion dollars in mandatory donations to Democrat-supporting activist groups, excluding all conservative property rights orgs.
The Tony West corrupt settlement system was again used in 2016 to make Volkswagen fund a $2 billion White House electric car initiative that Congress had blocked. Tony then got a job with Uber, which profits greatly with the shift to EV.
An email from the head of the Indiana Bar literally shows staff saying they ought to “build a statue to West and bow down to this statue each day” after they receive their $200k pay day.
The agreement was co-signed by then-California AG Kamala Harris, all while being advised by Tony West, her soon-to-be White House counsel, if she wins.
DOJ used Tony West’s settlement system to pay FBI Agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page $2 million after their anti-Trump texts were published.
Strzok and Page became the target of Trump’s fury soon after the texts became public, showing the two officials disparaging Trump and his supporters. The pair discussed efforts to “stop” Trump from becoming president and characterized aspects of their work as an “insurance policy.”
Crime is a major issue in this year’s election, yet major media ignored the release of a significant new government report showing a surge in violent crime. The increase in violent crime during the Biden administration is a record increase.
The latest data released last Thursday from the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) reveal a sharp increase in violent crime under the Biden-Harris administration compared to when Trump left office.
During the debate, Mr. Muir noted: “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” But Mr. Muir would have been much more accurate if he said that the number of crimes reported to police fell, which isn’t the same as total crime. He might also have conceded, as Trump pointed out in his response, that fewer than half of police departments reported complete data to the FBI in 2022.
Since victims don’t report most crimes, the NCVS was set up over fifty years ago to get a measure of total crime. The survey interviews 240,000 people each year.
Since 2020, total serious violent crime (rape, robbery, and aggravated assault), the categories that correspond to the FBI’s measure of violent crime, has soared. Total violent crime was 55.4% higher in 2023 than when the Biden-Harris administration took office. Rapes were up by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55%.
The increases during the Biden-Harris administration are by far the largest percentage increases over any three-year period on record, more than doubling the previous record.
Even after several days, the media has failed to mention these huge increases.
The Associated Press ran a “fact check” on Friday after President Trump held a press conference in California. Relying on a statement from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ acting director that while the rate of violent victimizations in 2023 was higher than it was in 2020 and 2021, it was not statistically different from the pre-COVID rate in 2019, when Trump was president.
Note they don’t mention whether the rate is statistically different than in 2020 or 2021. Nor do they mention how large the increases are. Trump’s point was that violent crime had increased during the Biden-Harris administration. The rate in 2022 was statistically significantly higher than in either of those previous years. The violent crime rate in 2022 and 2023 was also significantly higher.
Total felonious violent crime increased by 19% from 2019 to 2023, and there is only one other time when the increase over four years was larger.
Americans in many parts of the country see that products at CVS and Walgreens stores are behind plexiglass. A customer must call for a clerk to unlock the glass and then wait while the customer reads and examines the different packages. Americans know that things were not like this a few years ago.
Much is made of the drop in murder rates over the past few years, but Americans sense that violent crime is on the rise.
Murders are almost always reported, so the data are relatively reliable. The FBI reports that the murder rate dropped by 13% in 2023, although it remains 5% higher than in 2019.
Although the NCVS doesn’t track murder rates, the data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) contradict the FBI’s figures. While the FBI reports that the murder rate peaked in 2020 and then declined in 2021 and 2022, the CDC data indicate that the murder rate was actually higher in 2022 than in 2020 (2022 is the most recent year for which CDC data are available).
The news media is trying to protect the Democrats from bad news regarding crime. This is important to many Democrat narratives. Democrats have argued that the flood of illegal aliens can’t be causing crime because crime is down. “The false message of the [Republican National Convention] was that [illegal immigration] was leading to an increase in crime,” Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg claimed on Fox News Sunday.
The news media won’t report the shocking numbers. They know that Democratic narratives would blow up if word gets out that rape, robbery, and aggravated assault rates are 55% higher than in 2020 and far surpass the pre-COVID level.
John R. Lott Jr. is a contributor to RealClearInvestigations, focusing on voting and gun rights. His articles have appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Post, USA Today, and Chicago Tribune. Lott is an economist who has held research and/or teaching positions at the University of Chicago, Yale University, Stanford, UCLA, Wharton, and Rice.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., made the startling claim Thursday that there are at least five known assassination teams in the U.S. conspiring to assassinate Donald Trump.
Gaetz told Just the News and Breitbart that a senior Homeland Security official told him about the five assassination conspiracies before Sunday’s latest attempt on Trump at his West Palm Beach golf course.
“Three of them that we know are foreign in nature. Two of them we know are domestic in nature, and that calls for a force protection that we do not have around the former president right now,” Gaetz said said, adding that DHS officials are “aware of this and were concerned that the Secret Service was not providing sufficient support.”
“Three of these teams are foreign-inspired, from my understanding – Iranians, Ukraine, Pakistan – and, you know, the work is obviously challenging to protect—protective detail, like a presidential campaign that is vigorous and out campaigning,” Gaetz said.
Matt Gaetz says the DHS knows of 5 assassination teams targeting President Trump, 3 of which are “inspired by other governments,” 2 of which are domestic.
Gaetz didn’t go into detail about the alleged assassination teams.
Sunday’s would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, may have been the Ukrainian-inspired conspiracy he referred to. As has been widely documented, Routh went to Ukraine in 2022 and claimed to have helped recruit fighters for the country’s war against Russia.
Routh’s actions in Ukraine apparently disturbed his colleagues there. One of them, a nurse named Chelsea Walsh, reported him to Customs and Border Protection in June 2022.
Walsh again reported him to the FBI and Interpol last year, after she heard that was attempting to recruit Syrian refugees to fight in Ukraine.
“She filed an online report with the FBI and Interpol outlining her concerns about Routh and others, she said. Neither Customs nor the FBI followed up with her,” the WSJ reported earlier this week.
One of the other plots cited by Gaetz is likely related to the Pakistani man arrested on July 12 for allegedly trying to hire undercover FBI agents to assassinate Donald Trump.
Internal FBI documents leaked to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, earlier this month included new information about the Pakistani terrorist’s alleged Iranian handler, as well as his movements and interactions in the U.S.
Both Merchant and Routh have pled not guilty in their respective cases.
