Tag: corruption

FBI Raids Largest Hindu Temple In US Over Human Trafficking Allegations

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents raided a temple in New Jersey Tuesday after allegations that a Hindu sect lured hundreds of low-caste men from India to work on the building’s construction for about $1 per hour under grueling conditions, numerous sources reported. 

At least 200 low-caste men are involved in a lawsuit that accused Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha, a Hindu sect known as BAPS, of exploiting the men at the Robbinesville site, according to CBS. 

Lawyers representing the men said they worked nearly 13 hours per day and did intense manual labor like building roads and digging ditches for roughly $450 per month, according to The New York Times. They were allegedly forbidden from speaking to visitors and religious volunteers and were given foods with insignificant nutritional value, like lentils and potatoes. The men also reportedly faced having their pays reduced if they committed minor violations, like not wearing a helmet. 

The lawsuit says the men were promised standard work hours and time off, the Times reported. They lived in trailers on the property and allegedly were not allowed to leave, CBS reported.

“They thought they would have a good job and see America. They didn’t think they would be treated like animals, or like machines that aren’t going to get sick,” Swati Sawant, an immigration lawyer who arranged legal teams to represent the temple workers, according to the Times. 

Most of the men are Dalit, which is the lowest caste in India’s caste system, accoring to the Times. After one man died from an apparent illness in the fall, workers reached out for legal assistance. 

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Reporters Once Challenged the Spy State. Now, They’re Agents of It

After the Capitol riots of January 6th, the War on Terror came home, and “domestic extremists” stepped into the role enemy combatants played before. George Bush once launched an all-out campaign to pacify any safe haven for trrrsts, promising to “smoke ‘em out of their holes.” The new campaign is aimed at stamping out areas for surveillance-proof communication, which CNN security analyst and former DHS official Juliette Kayyem described as any online network “that lets [domestic extremists] talk amongst themselves.”

Reporters pledged assistance, snooping for evidence of wrongness in digital rather than geographical “hidey holes.” We’ve seen The Guardian warning about the perils of podcasts, ProPublica arguing that Apple’s lax speech environment contributed to the January 6th riot, and reporters from The Verge and Vice and The New York Times listening in to Clubhouse chats in search of evidence of dangerous thought. In an inspired homage to the lunacy of the War on Terror years, a GQ writer even went on Twitter last week to chat with the author of George Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech about imploring the “authorities” to use the “Fire in a Crowded Theater” argument to shut down Fox News.

Multiple outlets announced plans to track “extremists” in either open or implied cooperation with authorities. Frontline, ProPublica, and Berkley Journalism’s Investigative Reporting Program used “high-precision digital forensics” to uncover “evidence” about the Boogaloo Bois, and the Huffington Post worked with the “sedition hunters” at the Twitter activist group “Deep State Dogs” to help identify a suspect later arrested for tasering a Capitol police officer. One of the Huffington Post stories, from February, not only spoke to a willingness of the press to work with law enforcement, but impatience with the slowness of official procedure compared to “sleuthing communities”:

The FBI wants photos of Capitol insurrections to go viral, and has published images of more than 200 suspects. But what happens when online sleuthing communities identify suspects and then see weeks go by without any signs of action…? There are hundreds of suspects, thousands of hours of video, hundreds of thousands of tips, and millions of pieces of evidence… the FBI’s bureaucracy isn’t necessarily designed to keep organized.

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REPORT: U.S. Special Forces Train Drug Cartel Enforcers Linked to Rape, Torture, Decapitation

Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) has become one of the most feared paramilitaries in Mexico over the last decade. Images of the group have become the standard depiction of the Mexican cartel writ large. Their propaganda videos often feature groups of masked men bristling with enough small arms to make them formidable against even conventional armies.

In an interview aired on Mexico’s Telemundo network in May 2019, a former CJNG soldier described his experience at a training camp and claimed that the cartel employed U.S. special operations forces (SOF) to train their recruits. According to the former sicario assassin: there were Marines, there were Navy from the United States, there were Delta Force, there was everything there.”

The cartel dropout’s account is consistent with years of reports which show that U.S. special forces training is diffusing into the service of paramilitaries in Mexico.

The Special Forces training has been funded under the Plan Mérida, which has resulted in the U.S. providing more than $1.6 billion for fighting the War on Drugs, most of it in military aid.

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Biden Administration Requests Ethics Rules Be Ignored for Union Bosses Appointed to Top Administration Positions

The Biden administration has been requesting that union bosses, after being appointed to top administration positions, be excluded from ethics rules that bar them from being lobbied by their former union.

Biden has relied heavily on labor union personnel to fill vacancies within his administration, which in turn helps drive policy in their favor, according to the report. Biden gave the unions a huge voice within the federal bureaucracy “at the cost of strictly adhering to his own stringent ethics standards,” the report showed.

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Secretary of state fighting Arizona audit once vowed to use her office to help Dems take over

Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs promised while running for her current position in 2018 that if she were to win she would help Democrats prevail in races statewide.

Hobbs made the pledge at a Democratic candidates forum in the spring of that year, saying, “We going to do very well electing statewide Democrats, and the secretary of state’s office is how we’re going to hold on to those wins, how we’re going to continue to make gains in the legislature and really create a state that reflects all of our values.”

That does not sound like the type of partisan mindset you want in the official overseeing the state’s election, but she narrowly won.

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Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer Borrowed Billionaires’ Private Jet to Secretly Travel to Florida During Lockdown

As previously reported, Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer vacationed to Florida during Michigan’s Covid-19 surge while telling Michiganders to stay home and avoid travel.

Whitmer specifically attacked Floridians and blamed “snow birds” traveling from the Sunshine State into Michigan for her state’s Covid surge.

The governor’s spokesperson confirmed last month that Whitmer took a “personal trip” to Florida in March during spring break.

But Brown denied the allegation. Brown said Whitmer “did not go on spring break,” but traveled “to assist her elderly father who is battling a chronic illness,” according to a report from Detroit Free Press. Brown added that Gov. Whitmer has left the state three times in the last six months.

Whitmer’s office insisted the governor didn’t travel to Florida on taxpayer dime.

Deadline Detroit reported that Gretchen Whitmer borrowed a private jet from a group of uberwealthy Detroit businessmen.

The Detroit billionaires have major dealings with the state of Michigan so when they were asked by Whitmer if she could mooch their private jet, they said yes.

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