Feb. 6, 2021 - Epoch Times
18:59
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| Good evening. | |
| According to new data that was just released by the FBI, it showed that gun sales have hit an all-time high in January of this year. | |
| Basically, Americans are buying up guns at a blistering pace. | |
| Meanwhile, over in California, a human trafficking sting operation led to the arrests of 64 people, as well as the freeing of at least two women who were being trafficked for sex. | |
| Now, over at the Senate, as President Trump's impeachment trial is about to get underway, a new poll found that the effort is actually backfiring and will likely embolden his voter base. | |
| And lastly, over at the White House, the press secretary appeared to make fun of the Space Force, which, by the way, is a new legitimate branch of the U.S. military, which makes this a great time to ask the question, what exactly is the purpose of the Space Force? | |
| Let's discuss that together. | |
| This is your daily Facts Matter update, and I'm your host, Roman, from the Epoch Times. | |
| Now let's start today's discussion by talking about the Space Force. | |
| I remember that about four years ago, when the Space Force was first introduced just as an idea, there was a lot of people mocking it, a lot of jokes being had about it, and a lot of people ridiculing President Trump for even mentioning the idea of creating it. | |
| However, since the Space Force has now become an official branch of the military, I actually forgot about that initial reaction. | |
| I forgot that people were laughing at it when it was first introduced. | |
| However, both myself as well as the rest of the country were given a reminder of that during this exchange at the White House a few days ago. | |
| Ask whether the President has made a decision on keeping or keeping the scope of Space Force. | |
| Wow, Space Force. | |
| It's the plane of today. | |
| It is an interesting question. | |
| I am happy to check with our Space Force point of contact. | |
| Am I sure who that is? | |
| I will find out and see if we have any update on that. - Now to her credit, the next day, Jen Psaki reversed herself and she said that the Biden administration is actually fully supportive of the Space Force. | |
| But her initial reaction is worth noting, as I believe at least it is indicative of how a lot of people don't actually understand the kind of threat that space poses in a national security sense. | |
| And so let's discuss it a little bit today. | |
| The Space Force is important strategically for three reasons. | |
| Militarily, economically, as well as in terms of natural resources. | |
| And that is exactly why both China and Russia are building up their space operations right now, as we're speaking. | |
| In terms of natural resources, space is absolutely abundant with materials that are needed here on Earth. | |
| For one, asteroids are filled with aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, and rare metals that can be potentially mined, which might sound far-fetched to you, but remember that flying an airplane from Europe to America was once also considered far-fetched, but now it's just the norm. | |
| And so mining asteroids might actually be the future. | |
| You never know. | |
| And it's not just asteroids, also. | |
| Our very own moon is thought to have an abundance of an isotope called helium-3, which we could potentially mine and use for fusion nuclear energy. | |
| And according to experts, fusion reactors are both cleaner and safer than the conventional fission reactors which we have now. | |
| And furthermore, fusion reactors can create energy in such great abundance that, in theory, just three trips to the moon and back can yield enough helium-3 to power all of mankind for a full year. | |
| And in fact, China has already officially announced plans to start mining on the moon. | |
| And since, as you might know, most large Chinese companies are actually state-owned, the line that separates the interests of the business with those of the Chinese Communist Party is murky at best. | |
| And in fact, similar to their One Belt, One Road initiative, one researcher said it this way. | |
| China wants to control the Earth-Moon system. | |
| By doing so, it can impose a toll on the space economy ambitions of the West. | |
| But potentially more critical than the natural resources is what's going on militarily in space. | |
| In 2015, both China and Russia reorganized their militaries to focus more on space operations. | |
| These countries, they know that they cannot compete with the U.S. head-on, and so they're working on ways to possibly shut down the technology that allows the modern U.S. military to function. | |
| And so researchers have found that they, meaning China and Russia, are working on things like shutting down U.S. GPS satellites, which are the backbone of U.S. military operations. | |
| Our satellites are what allow guided missile targeting, communications, tracking troop movements around the world, as well as detecting enemy ballistic missile launches. | |
| So hurting the American GPS satellite network can be devastating, and it's something that's actually called anti-satellite warfare. | |
| And this type of approach would allow, for instance, the Chinese Communist Party to make the U.S. military both blind and deaf by taking out our main method of communications. | |
| And by the way, China already has operational, ground-based, anti-satellite missiles that can shoot down low-earth orbit satellites. | |
| And by the way, this is not science fiction. | |
| I don't know if you remember, but back in 2007, when the Chinese needed to decommission an old weather satellite that was up in space, instead of doing it normally, what they did was they shot it down with a DF-21 intercontinental ballistic missile. | |
| They just literally blew the thing to smithereens. | |
| Which, besides polluting our stratosphere, was seen by experts around the globe as a real-world test by the Chinese to see whether they can successfully shoot down a satellite. | |
| Which they apparently can. | |
| And as bad as that is, according to a report that was declassified by the Pentagon two years ago, it is possible for a hostile foreign actor, like Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran, to equip their satellites with a nuclear weapon. | |
| And a nuclear weapon launched from space, such as from a satellite, could be used as an EMP weapon, that's an electromagnetic pulse weapon, and it can be used to completely knock out our electrical grid. | |
| And so, by the way, that is just scratching the surface. | |
| The deeper you look into it, the more obvious it becomes how critical a space force and a space command is. | |
| And so if you'd like to read more about the Space Force, as well as the challenges that this new frontier presents to us, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And while you're down there looking for those links, take a quick moment With your finger to smash that like button. | |
| You already know that videos that are like this, talking honestly about what's happening in this world, are routinely censored or throttled by big tech. | |
| The reach is reduced or they are just outright taken down or removed. | |
| And so when you smash that like button below this video, you are forcing the YouTube algorithm to share this video out to potentially thousands of more people, letting the truth be known far and wide. | |
| And now, by the way, this is a great opportunity for us to introduce our channel sponsor for this episode. | |
| And I'll do so from the sound room. | |
| The sponsor of today's episode is a very cool company called My Patriot Supply. | |
| And the reason they're a cool company is that when there's a nationwide food shortage, they make sure that you do not go hungry. | |
| They call themselves America's leader in survival food. | |
| And basically, I mean, if you live through 2020, you know when there's a big global problem like the virus or local problems like riots happening across major cities in America, one of the first ways that you feel it is that your supermarket store shelves, they become empty. | |
| I mean, I don't know about you where you live, but in my neighborhood, when I went to the supermarket around March or April, most of the fresh food was actually gone. | |
| And so what they do is that they send you great food, about 2,000 calories per day, that'll remain fresh for up to 25 years if you store it properly. | |
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| It'll also be in the description box below this video. | |
| And there you can save $70 on their popular four-week food kit. | |
| So again, preparewithroman.com. | |
| The link will be in the description box below this video. | |
| And MyPatriotSupply, thank you so much for sponsoring our episode. | |
| And now Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| And now, let's talk a little bit about gun sales. | |
| In a previous episode, we already discussed how the year 2020 had the most gun sales on record, and 2021 is continuing that trend. | |
| The FBI just released the background check data from the month of January, from last month, and it shows that 4.3 million background checks were initiated in January. | |
| That is, by the way, the highest number on record, and it's actually 300,000 checks higher than December of 2020, the previous month. | |
| One firearms expert that we at the Epoch Times spoke with, he said it very simply. | |
| Americans are buying up guns at a blistering pace. | |
| In fact, here's what this man said. | |
| He is, by the way, a director at the National Shooting Sports Foundation. | |
| And here's what he said. | |
| That's undoubtedly connected to President Joe Biden's plans to attack the firearm industry by undoing and rewriting regulations. | |
| These are jaw-dropping figures to start the new year. | |
| Americans are claiming their Second Amendment rights to provide for their own safety in record numbers. | |
| Now, some of the examples that he gave in regards to these new regulations are, for instance, the promise to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which would work to tighten the restrictions on gun licenses, as well as a potential ban on AR-15-style rifles by the Biden administration. | |
| Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we actually reached out to the White House for comment on these issues. | |
| But I've yet to hear back. | |
| But what's interesting, though, is that while these numbers are massive, they're very high, obviously, this type of sudden spike in gun sales is not unprecedented. | |
| According to the chief economist for Small Arms Analytics, the 79% year-over-year increase, however, was not unprecedented. | |
| An even higher increase of just over 100% was experienced in January of 2013, the month Mr. | |
| Obama's second presidential term began. | |
| If you'd like to read more about these increased gun sales, those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now let's go on over to California. | |
| In a sex trafficking sting operation, 64 people were arrested and two women were rescued over in California's Riverside County. | |
| According to the local sheriff's department, the arrests were part of something called Operation Reclaim and Rebuild, which they described as being a statewide operation. | |
| According to their statement... | |
| The task force arrested 61 males and one female for solicitation of prostitution, one male for soliciting a minor for lewd purposes, and one male for supervising or aiding a person to commit prostitution. | |
| They were also able to rescue two women who were believed to be victims of human trafficking. | |
| The statement said, initial investigations led the task force to believe these subjects were being forced to engage in acts of prostitution against their will. | |
| The identity of these victims will not be released pursuant to state confidentiality laws. | |
| Now remember, though, this was a statewide operation. | |
| And so, separately from Riverside County, over in Orange County, the Human Trafficking Task Force over in Southern California, they charged five men with sexually exploiting a minor. | |
| According to the Orange County District Attorney... | |
| No matter how many ways predators continue to try to disguise their sexual abuse of children, the Orange County District Attorney's Office and their law enforcement partners will never stop protecting these vulnerable victims. | |
| Now, these sting operations are not only happening in California. | |
| As we discussed in a previous episode, last month more than 70 people were arrested in a human trafficking sting ahead of the Super Bowl down in Tampa, Florida. | |
| Now, regardless of your political leanings, I think that we can all agree that saving innocent children from these depraved men and women is a great thing. | |
| This anti-human trafficking effort was pushed forward very heavily by the Trump administration, and I think that the entire country hopes for it to continue. | |
| If you'd like to read more about these anti-human trafficking operations happening across the country, those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now let's talk a little bit about what's going on over at Parler. | |
| Two days ago, suddenly, and to a lot of people's surprise, the founder of Parler announced that he has been terminated as the company's CEO. He said that the Parler board made the decision to terminate his position and that he did not participate in that decision. | |
| Now, for your reference, by the way, the Parler board is controlled by Rebecca Mercer, who is the daughter of hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer. | |
| And in a memo that was obtained by the Epoch Times, the founder of Parler said this. | |
| Over the past few months, I have met constant resistance to my product vision, my strong belief in free speech, and my view of how the Parler site should be managed. | |
| For example, I advocated for more product stability in what I believe is a more effective approach to content moderation. | |
| Over the past few weeks, I have worked endless hours and fought constant battles to get the Parler site running, but at this point, the future of Parler is no longer in my hands. | |
| Now, everything here is not as clear-cut as it seems, though. | |
| That's because Dan Bongino, who is of course a conservative news personality as well as an investor in Parler, he released a video on Facebook disputing that version of events. | |
| Basically, he's disputing the version of events surrounding the Parler CEO's termination. | |
| Take a look. | |
| John's story about wanting to be some free speech advocate for Parler is inaccurate. | |
| And is absolutely false. | |
| Because of some legal reasons, we have to be careful. | |
| But when the real story comes out about who was committed to free speech and who wasn't, I promise you, Mr. | |
| Matzi was not on the right side of that argument. | |
| So he changed his story today. | |
| Dan Bongino went on to further say that the CEO's statement is an outrageous attack on people who have done nothing but work day and night to get the site back up and to fight back against these cancel culture goons. | |
| And to get kneecapped like this by someone we trusted is a disgrace. | |
| So at this moment, it's still a little bit murky. | |
| It's not exactly clear what took place inside of Parler. | |
| And for your reference, Parler has been offline since about January the 10th, when Amazon canceled their web hosting services. | |
| And at the moment, it is unclear when they will be back up and running. | |
| If you'd like to read more about this Parler back and forth between the former CEO and Dan Bongino, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now let's talk a little bit about President Trump. | |
| Right now, as the impeachment trial is about to come up in the Senate, as different banks are deciding to cut their relationships with him, and even as media companies continue their blistering attacks, a new poll found that all of these efforts to cancel President Trump are actually backfiring and will likely embolden his voter base. | |
| According to a former Trump campaign pollster, furthermore, He said that: "Some polls show that as many as 75% of battleground voters view the forthcoming trial as a waste of time and money." Now, one of the reasons for this is that it is highly unlikely to succeed. | |
| In fact, two weeks ago, 45 Republican senators voted against holding the trial at all because they think it's unconstitutional to try a former president, basically someone who is no longer holding office. | |
| And convicting President Trump requires at least 67 votes in the Senate, meaning that at least 17 Republicans would have to join the Democrats in finding him guilty. | |
| Which, given that previous vote two weeks ago, likely won't happen. | |
| And that, by the way, is not even discussing whether the case has merits or not, which a lot of people disagree on. | |
| Even Chief Justice John Roberts, he basically washed his hands of the issue, saying that he has no constitutional requirement to preside over an impeachment that does not involve a sitting president. | |
| That's in fact why Senator Patrick Lee, a Democrat from Vermont, will be the one to preside over the proceedings. | |
| Which, by the way, essentially means that the Senate is both the judge as well as the jury. | |
| And so these new polls are finding that these actions to cancel President Trump are potentially having the opposite effect on his base. | |
| And we can take a look at two states for examples of that. | |
| In a city in Florida, the city leaders there have declared the first week of February as Donald J. Trump Week. | |
| That city, by the way, is Frostproof, Florida. | |
| Here's an announcement from the city's vice mayor. | |
| It is official. | |
| Happy Donald J. Trump Week in the city of Frostproof. | |
| The first of its kind, February the 1st through the 6th. | |
| And then, if we go over to Ohio, two state lawmakers there are suggesting designating June 14th as President Donald J. Trump Day. | |
| That's, by the way, his birthday. | |
| The two lawmakers wrote this in a memo. | |
| Let's show the over 3 million Ohio voters a record and historic number of votes received for president in Ohio who cast their ballot to re-elect Donald J. Trump, that we as a legislature recognize the accomplishments of his administration, and that the Ohio House believes it is imperative we set aside a day to celebrate one of the and that the Ohio House believes it is imperative we set aside a day to Now, it's unclear whether this measure will actually be adopted in Ohio, We reached out to the state speaker there for comment, but I've yet to hear back. | |
| If you'd like to read more about the upcoming impeachment in the Senate, these polls that were conducted, or about these measures that were taken in Florida and Ohio, all those links will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now lastly, I'd like to mention again, on the very same day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, YouTube made the unilateral decision to demonetize our program. | |
| We can now no longer run any ads before, during, or after Facts Matter, and the Super Chat feature is disabled. | |
| You can't give any money there either. | |
| Basically, they took away our ability to monetize this program. | |
| And if you know anything about independent journalism... | |
| When you take away a company's ability to monetize their content, you're basically suffocating them. | |
| You're basically trying to make it so they cannot report. | |
| In fact, that's something that the Epoch Times has been facing since our inception 21 years ago. | |
| The Chinese Communist Party has given us so much trouble in regards to advertising. | |
| They would literally... | |
| There have been many stories that I've heard in this company, in the Epoch Times, when people would work on a contract. | |
| They would work on an advertising contract for months. | |
| They would finally get the contract. | |
| Let's say it was a car dealership. | |
| They would get the contract and begin working on the ad. | |
| And then a few days later, that car dealership would call us up and say, hey, we need to cancel the contract. | |
| And we would say, why? | |
| Why do you need to cancel? | |
| Well, then they would say that, well, the local Chinese Communist consulate called that car dealership and told them that they should not do business with the Epoch Times. | |
| Because if they did... | |
| Maybe their future prospects in China wouldn't look so good. | |
| That's the reality. | |
| That is the reality that independent, honest media, who fights back against, let's say, the established narratives, faces in this country. | |
| However, if you'd like to support honest, independent media, I'll throw a link in the description box below this video to a page where you can subscribe to The Epic Times. | |
| I hope that you do. | |
| It doesn't cost much, just a few dollars every single month, but... | |
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| If anything ever happens here on YouTube, you can check out Facts Matter, Crossroads, American Thought Leaders, and all of our other programs on theepictimes.com. | |
| Again, that link will be in the description box below this video. | |
| I hope you check it out. | |
| And now lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| Subscribe to this YouTube channel so that you can get this honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while you still can. | |
| And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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