July 22, 2021 - Epoch Times
22:16
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| Good evening. | |
| Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a new bill which would make Washington D.C. the 51st state in the nation. | |
| This bill is now on its way to the Senate, and if it passes, that would make Washington D.C. not only the 51st state, but it would also make it a reliably blue state. | |
| Now, down in Texas, the attorney general down there has just filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden, arguing that his policies violated federal law and caused an influx of migrants with COVID-19 to jeopardize the health of Texans. | |
| Meanwhile, over in Columbus, Ohio, body cam footage, which was just released by the police, showed that the officer who shot and killed a 16-year-old girl was actually doing it in order to stop her from stabbing someone. | |
| And lastly, as an awesome new announcement from here at the Epoch Times, we are launching a brand new video platform called Epic TV. What is it? | |
| Well, let's go through 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 Portland, Portland, Oregon. | |
| Three days ago, after Derek Chauvin was found guilty in the murder of George Floyd, rioters over in Portland decided to celebrate by starting fires as well as by attacking local businesses. | |
| Video footage as well as photos from that day show that at least two Starbucks locations were vandalized, with one of the windows of one of the shops having an Antifa symbol spray-painted on it. | |
| Among other things, the words cops kill and stolen land were also scrawled in the buildings. | |
| And besides Starbucks locations, many other establishments in Portland were damaged as well, including a Boys and Girls Club. | |
| Now, the club's president, over in Portland, he said that these rioters inflicted about $20,000 worth of damages, and he added this. | |
| They are hurting the kids who are being impacted by social injustice, the very thing that people are protesting about. | |
| When they disrupt our programming, then they are perpetrating that harm that's happening because of the reform that's needed in our country. | |
| Now, later on in that same evening, a crowd started a dumpster fire near the Justice Center, and they also blocked traffic on that street, which prompted the local authorities to lock down the Justice Center in order to prevent unlawful entry. | |
| Now, at approximately 10 p.m. | |
| on that very same day, a police officer was wheeling his bicycle on the sidewalk when somebody stepped into his path. | |
| This officer then moved the person aside and kept walking, but he was then punched in the face by another rioter, protester, or person, whatever you want to call it. | |
| According to a police statement, this is what happened next. | |
| The sergeant landed in a dangerous position, underneath the suspect and on his back. | |
| That's when other officers moved in to stop the assault. | |
| In response to the violent conduct, some focused blows were used. | |
| Pepper spray was also deployed by an officer. | |
| After the suspect was handcuffed, officers rendered aid to help alleviate the effects of the pepper spray. | |
| The suspect was then arrested and charged for assaulting a police officer among several other charges. | |
| Now, if you would like to see photos or videos from that night, the links to that will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And by the way, that is that same little description box that is right below that like button that's right there. | |
| Now, I'm sure that you watching this video are a law-abiding citizen, and so you don't smash up windows. | |
| But I hope you take a moment to smash that like button, because you already know that videos that are like this, talking honestly about what is happening in this world, are routinely censored, throttled, or sometimes outright removed by big tech giants like YouTube. | |
| However, when you smash that like button that's 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, while we're on the topic of police, let's talk a bit about what happened over in Ohio. | |
| Three days ago, over in Columbus, Ohio, a police officer shot and killed a 16-year-old girl. | |
| Now, due to the heavy amount of anti-police sentiment and anti-police rhetoric that is so prevalent across this country right now, before any of the details of this case were actually made public, the mob was already out in full force, at least on the internet. | |
| Exemplified best, I believe, by this tweet from LeBron James. | |
| That tweet shows a picture of the police officer as well as the simple phrase, implying, I imagine at least, that this officer will be tried and found guilty just like Derek Chauvin. | |
| However, if you go on over to LeBron James' Twitter page right now, you won't find that tweet. | |
| That's because it was later deleted. | |
| Why? | |
| Well... | |
| LeBron James did not actually release any statement or justification as to why he deleted the tweet, but it could have something to do with the fact that the Columbus Police Department released body cam footage from that incident, which showed a different story. | |
| In that footage, a police officer approaches a driveway where a group of people are standing. | |
| Very soon afterwards, a young woman, who can be seen holding a knife, appears to try to either hit or stab another girl, who falls to the ground. | |
| This knife-wielding girl then turns around and appears to try to stab another girl, that girl right there, the one in the pink, at which point the police officer fires his gun, and the knife-wielding girl unfortunately falls to the ground and later. | |
| Now, by the way, that girl has been identified now by her family members as 16-year-old Micaiah Bryant. | |
| And according to the Columbus police chief, investigators will now be working to determine whether this killing complies with the Ohio state law, which says that deadly force can be used to protect yourself or for the protection of a third person. | |
| Furthermore, the head of the department told reporters this, We have never been able to release video this fast, but we thought it was important to share with the community to be transparent about this incident, to let them have some answers that we can provide tonight. | |
| We know we can't provide every answer, but it's important that we can answer some questions tonight. | |
| Now, as of right now, there have not been any new developments in the case, and as you just read, the investigation is ongoing. | |
| But there is one thing I would like to reiterate. | |
| The current political climate in this country has people giving, you can say, very interesting takes on this tragedy. | |
| For instance, a filmmaker over on Twitter who has a verified blue checkmark wrote this hot take. | |
| Furthermore, Valerie Jarrett, who was a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, she wrote this on Twitter. | |
| A black teenage girl named Micaiah Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight. | |
| Demand accountability. | |
| Fight for justice. | |
| Now, regardless of those takes, the entire incident is of course a tragedy, and we here at the Epoch Times wish the best for everybody involved. | |
| Our team is actually headed on out to Columbus, Ohio right now in order to get an on-the-ground look at what's happening down there. | |
| and will report to you any developments as they unfold. | |
| If you would like to read more about what happened over in Columbus, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now, before we move on over and talk about the lawsuit that Texas has filed against the Biden administration, I would like to take a quick moment and introduce our sponsor for today's episode, and I will do so from the sound booth. | |
| The sponsor of today's episode is AMAC, that's A-M-A-C, and it stands for the Association of Mature American Citizens. | |
| Now, even though I consider myself a mature American citizen, I am about 20 years too young to join. | |
| But if you or someone in your family is 50 years old or older, You should consider joining AMAC. They are basically the conservative version of the AARP and they have basically three main benefits to joining. | |
| The first one is the money-saving benefit. | |
| If you're a member, they will give you a ton of discounts to places like retail shops, restaurants, on insurance plans, on vitamins. | |
| It's actually a pretty long list of discounts you'll get. | |
| I'll throw the link in the description box below this video. | |
| You can check out the full list. | |
| The second benefit is that they will send you a magazine directly to your doorstep. | |
| And even though I'm not a member, I have read their magazine and it's pretty good. | |
| It's filled with a lot of really good thought-provoking articles. | |
| And then the third benefit, and what people consider the best, is that they actually fight for conservative values on Capitol Hill. | |
| Basically, they're fighting against what they're calling the socialist storm that's brewing in America. | |
| And so if you are interested, it doesn't cost that much. | |
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| Check out AMAC. The link will be in the description box below this video. | |
| Or you can go on over to amac.us forward slash facts matter. | |
| Again, that's amac.us forward slash facts matter. | |
| And AMAC, thank you so much for sponsoring this episode. | |
| And now, Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| And now, let's talk a bit about Texas. | |
| The state of Texas has just filed a federal lawsuit against Joe Biden's administration. | |
| What's the lawsuit about? | |
| Well, they are arguing that his policies violated federal law and are causing an influx of illegal aliens who are infected with COVID to come into Texas, which jeopardizes not only public health, but also the economic recovery. | |
| This new lawsuit, by the way, is the seventh lawsuit that has been filed by the state of Texas against the Biden administration, and what this one is looking to do is to return to a Trump-era style of border policy. | |
| Here's how Ken Paxton, who is the Attorney General of Texas, described it in a statement. | |
| President Biden's outright disregard of the public health crisis in Texas by welcoming and encouraging mass gatherings of illegal aliens is hypocritical and dangerous. | |
| This reckless policy change stifles the reopening of the Texas economy at a time when businesses need it the most and when our children need to get back to in-person learning as soon as possible. | |
| Law and order must be immediately upheld and enforced. | |
| And by the way, just as an aside, Ken Paxton also said earlier this year that illegal aliens cost taxpayers in Texas an estimated $855 million every single year. | |
| Now, the specifics of this new lawsuit says that about six months ago, the CDC issued a rule which was aimed at preventing illegal aliens who were potentially infected with the coronavirus from entering the U.S. through the land borders. | |
| And in practice, what it actually meant was that the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, were rapidly expelling illegal aliens from the United States shortly after they made unlawful entry. | |
| However, this new complaint from Texas argues that the Biden administration has since hastily and unlawfully departed from their own rules for large numbers of illegal aliens and created an undeniable crisis on our southern border. | |
| Instead of using the CDC's authority to prevent the introduction of covered aliens into the United States during a pandemic, defendants, meaning the Biden administration, have chosen to take courses of action that have resulted in the release of tens of thousands of aliens into Texas and the United States. | |
| Absent this court's intervention, such releases will continue for the foreseeable future. | |
| And so we'll have to wait and see whether this lawsuit is able to achieve what it sets out to do as it's making its way through the courts. | |
| If you would like to read more, specifically if you would like to read more about the details in this lawsuit, the link to that will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| However, while we are on the topic of Texas, it's worth noting that last Saturday, so about six days ago, the Biden administration abruptly closed a migrant facility over alleged unbearable conditions. | |
| Now, the facility itself was actually located inside of a warehouse near the George Bush International Airport, and starting in April, actually on April 1st, it opened as a temporary shelter for unaccompanied migrant girls. | |
| However, the organization which was running this shelter, the National Association of Christian Churches, allegedly had no prior experience in dealing with unaccompanied children. | |
| And so what were the conditions inside of this facility actually like? | |
| Well, the executive director of a migrant civil rights organization got a tour of the facilities and he said that the girls were treated like merchandise rather than treated as human beings. | |
| Specifically, after getting a tour of the facility, he said that the shelter was filled with just cots, that the girls were not allowed to actually get up unless it was to take a shower or to use the restroom, that there was not enough room for an actual dining space and so their meals were brought to their cots, and he described the desperation in the girls' faces as being unbearable and incredible. | |
| Now, we here at the Epoch Times, we actually reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services for comment, and they got back to us. | |
| They told us that this facility was actually intended to be used as a temporary measure, and that the decision to close it down was made to ensure continuity of care under conditions that meet our strict standards. | |
| They also told us that about 130 of the girls already have plans to be unified with a sponsor inside of America, and that the rest were moved to either the Carrizo Springs Influx Facility or to other emergency intake sites that have available beds. | |
| Now, if you would like to read more about the situation with these kids in these migrant facilities down at the U.S. southern border, the link to that will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now let's talk a little bit about Washington, D.C. Just yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a measure that would make Washington, D.C. the 51st state in the nation. | |
| Now, the vote was done on pure party lines in the House. | |
| All of the Democrats voted to back the bill, while every Republican voted against it. | |
| And because Democrats have a majority, it was passed through. | |
| Now, this bill is on its way to the Senate, and if it is approved there as well, Washington, D.C. will become the 51st state. | |
| It will be given two senators as well as one voting member in the House, and they will be given their own governor. | |
| Now, in justifying the need for this action, Nancy Pelosi said this about the bill. | |
| This bill would right a historic injustice by passing legislation to finally grant Washington, D.C. statehood. | |
| D.C. residents have been fighting for voting rights and autonomy for 220 years, with a full 86% recently voting for statehood. | |
| And it is well past the time to grant them the rights that they have been fighting for and that they deserve. | |
| Now the unsaid part of that statement, something that's between the lines, is that Washington, D.C. votes overwhelmingly Democrat. | |
| And so if it were to become a state, it would be a reliably blue state. | |
| And it would tip the balance towards the Democrats, specifically in the Senate, where they would add two more Democratic senators. | |
| Now, Republicans argue that granting statehood to Washington, D.C. runs counter to the U.S. Constitution. | |
| For instance, James Comer, who is a congressman from Kentucky, he said this on the House floor. | |
| Every Justice Department, from President Kennedy's to President Obama's, has been consistent that a constitutional amendment is needed to grant the district statehood. | |
| Now, because the U.S. Senate is currently evenly split between the Democrats and the Republicans, and furthermore, because this legislation would actually need 60 votes in order to advance, it is likely not going to happen. | |
| Regardless, we will keep you abreast of any developments as this bill is going to be making its way through the Senate, and if you would like to read more about the specific arguments for and against statehood, that link will be in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And now, I would actually like to tell you a bit about what New York City is looking like, and I would like to tie that into a new announcement. | |
| So as you might have already heard or read, New York City has gotten pretty bad. | |
| How bad? | |
| Well, let me tell you. | |
| So I normally take the subway in order to go from either home to the office or vice versa. | |
| And so two days ago, I left my office and I was walking the four or five blocks in order to get to the subway. | |
| Now, the area that I walk, it's a pretty decent area. | |
| It's a nice commercial area. | |
| Madison Square Garden is right there. | |
| There's nice businesses, banks. | |
| Target is there. | |
| Koreatown is not too far away. | |
| However, this area has gotten so bad recently. | |
| As I was walking, on one block, there was a couple just sleeping right there on the street. | |
| Very common sight. | |
| I kept walking. | |
| A few beggars are begging on the street. | |
| And as I kept walking, there's what I can only describe as either a homeless or crazy guy riding on a bicycle, yelling at people as he's going by. | |
| I kept walking. | |
| There's a guy literally pooping on the street. | |
| I'm minding my own business. | |
| He doesn't seem to care. | |
| I keep walking. | |
| There's another guy right there. | |
| It looks like he's shooting up heroin. | |
| He's looking for a vein in his arm. | |
| I didn't stick around long enough to see if he was actually shooting up heroin, but that's what it looked like. | |
| So that's the situation above ground. | |
| So then I go downstairs in order to get into the subway entrance, and as soon as I go downstairs, I'm hit with the smell of marijuana. | |
| Just so strong, it's obvious someone was just smoking down there. | |
| Which, honestly, it's not too weird of a thing, because a few weeks ago, New York passed a law allowing for recreational marijuana use. | |
| So anyway, I get into the subway. | |
| And I'm waiting for my train, and then on the stairs you have a hysterical couple laughing. | |
| They can't even walk up the steps. | |
| They're laughing so hard. | |
| I can only imagine they're on some kind of a drug. | |
| It doesn't seem like marijuana. | |
| Maybe it seems like something a bit stronger. | |
| Regardless, the train eventually comes. | |
| I get on the train. | |
| I sit down. | |
| I begin to read. | |
| So I read, read, read, and I go a few stops with that incident. | |
| But however, after I go on a few stops, suddenly someone throws a bottle at me. | |
| They throw a bottle at me. | |
| So I look over. | |
| I'm like, what the heck is this? | |
| And so this homeless guy, well, he looks like a homeless guy. | |
| He also looks like he's either deranged or he's on some kind of drugs, walks up to me and starts just insulting me. | |
| He's insulting my glasses. | |
| He's insulting my shoes, just lunging all types of bad words towards me. | |
| And so I'm looking at this guy, and he's getting a little bit erratic. | |
| I'm like, man, I don't want to deal with this. | |
| So the next stop, I get out. | |
| I walk over to the next train car, right? | |
| So I get in there, and in that train car, there's another homeless guy that's sleeping there, and he has incense. | |
| He has a stick of incense lit in the train car that's filling the entire car with smoke. | |
| So I'm like, man, what is this? | |
| So I sit down, and at first, whatever, for three, four, five minutes, I try to bear it. | |
| But then I'm thinking, man, what is this? | |
| I'm so tired of this. | |
| So I get up, I take the incense stick, and I throw it out the window. | |
| In hindsight, maybe that was the wrong thing to do. | |
| Maybe I should have just minded my own business. | |
| But it was just the accumulation of all this. | |
| I just got so tired of what, in my opinion, is just people taking over the city. | |
| And so this homeless guy, he wakes up and he looks at me. | |
| He's like, what you do that for, man? | |
| How dare you? | |
| You got a dollar? | |
| You owe me a dollar. | |
| That incense stick was a dollar. | |
| You got a dollar? | |
| I'm like, yeah, I got a dollar, but I'm not giving it to you. | |
| This is not your living room here. | |
| You can't just fill it up with smoke. | |
| And then he starts cursing at me, lunging curse words. | |
| Now, by the way, this guy is a little bit erratic. | |
| He's I don't know if he's on drugs, but he's not rational. | |
| He's not clear in his own mind. | |
| So then he starts picking up sticks of incense as he keeps hurling insults at me. | |
| He relights it up, sticks it back up, goes back to sleep. | |
| I'm just sitting there. | |
| I don't know what to do anymore. | |
| And so at the next stop, I'm still sitting there. | |
| The crazy guy from the first car, he walks in here, into this car, and starts making trouble again. | |
| So this erratic, crazy guy, he starts picking a fight with this Mexican guy who's standing right there. | |
| And so I'm looking at this situation. | |
| I'm like, man, this is getting nuts. | |
| So then I leave and I go off into the next car. | |
| However, through the window, I can see what's happening. | |
| Two Mexican guys have started to beat up on this homeless, erratic guy who's picking fights with them. | |
| They beat him up. | |
| They throw him to the ground. | |
| They just punch, punch, punch. | |
| And then they throw him out of the car, and then as the train moves, I look at this guy, and he's beat up. | |
| He's looking up like this. | |
| He has no shoes on because they just threw him out, and he has this look on his face. | |
| But anyway, that is the state of New York right now. | |
| I mean, that is a bit of an extreme example, but I told this same story to a few people here at the office, and they're like, yeah, I mean, that was a lot of different things happening at one time, but everybody has seen different parts of that happening at different times. | |
| And by the way, so then the next day, in here in Manhattan, I go over and I try to go and unlock my motorcycle. | |
| However, I can't unlock my motorcycle. | |
| My key won't go in. | |
| Why? | |
| They were trying to pick the lock on my motorcycle, but it looks like what happened was their lock pick actually broke, and now there's a piece of metal lodged into my bike lock, and I can't open it. | |
| This is the state of New York City right now. | |
| And by the way, just yesterday, the Manhattan District Attorney, he made the announcement that they will no longer be prosecuting prostitution. | |
| And so everything I just described to you, imagine a few sex workers walking around there as well. | |
| That is the state of New York City right now. | |
| And yet, if you talk about what's going on, if you question whether it was a good idea to defund the NYPD by a billion dollars, or if you report on what's happening honestly, you're attacked. | |
| You're marginalized. | |
| You're called insensitive. | |
| You're called backwards. | |
| You're called being too conservative, among a slew of other things that you might be called if you talk about what's happening here honestly. | |
| And of course, you know that this applies not only to homelessness, drug use, and prostitution. | |
| Reporting honestly on things like vaccines, the virus in general, on the election, as well as many other topics is not easy. | |
| Largely in part due to giant tech companies like YouTube arbitrarily deciding to censor, throttle, or demonetize videos based on their content. | |
| In fact, I'll tell you. | |
| I've logged into our backend here on YouTube, on our YouTube account, and I see for myself that our videos get deleted sometimes. | |
| I just log in and I'm like, oh, this video got deleted. | |
| And even though, if you watch this episode, you know that our videos are accurate, they're factual, and everything is properly sourced. | |
| We put all of our source material into the description box below our videos, and yet it doesn't matter, because this is their platform. | |
| This is YouTube's platform, and for the time being, this is the way that they make their rules. | |
| However, I have something very exciting to announce. | |
| And that is, we here at the Epoch Times are launching our very own, very cool, new platform called Epoch TV. What is Epoch TV? Well, it is our brand new platform that we just launched. | |
| Literally, today is the first day. | |
| And it will be the collective home for all of the Epoch Times programs. | |
| It will be a place where you can go and you can watch honest news coverage as well as honest commentary that is made without thought of censorship. | |
| Right now, it's still a bit nascent. | |
| We have on there The Larry Elder Show, Crossroads with Joshua Phillip, American Thought Leaders, Counterpunch with Trevor Loudon, among several other programs, including Facts Matter with Roman Balmokov. | |
| And of course, we're going to be growing it in the very near future. | |
| And now, by the way, moving forward, what we'll probably do is we'll upload several episodes here on YouTube, and every week we'll upload several more episodes exclusively on Epic TV. | |
| Or maybe we'll have each episode split into two parts with one part available on YouTube and the second part available on Epic TV. | |
| It's a little bit early, so we haven't figured out exactly how we'll do it. | |
| But regardless, I hope that you check it out because it's going to be an awesome platform for awesome programs that are just not censored, that just talk honestly, openly about what is happening in this world, things that you cannot talk about here on YouTube. | |
| It'll be pinned in the top of the description box, and I hope you click on it, I hope you subscribe, because not only will you be supporting traditional journalism, but you will be also getting content that you know does not have to go through mental filters and mental gymnastics in order to get into your screen. | |
| Again, that's epictv.com. | |
| The link will be pinned in the top of the description box. | |
| I hope you go there. | |
| I hope you subscribe. | |
| And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this world through honest journalism that's based in truth and tradition. | |
| Now, if you haven't already, smash this like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| Subscribe to this YouTube channel in order to get this type of 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. | |
| Stay informed and stay free. | |
| Now that's all for us here at Facts Matter. | |
| Stay tuned next for Deep Dive with Tiffany Meyer. | |
| And until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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