I GET PAID TO BE HOMELESS IN SAN FRANCISCO SAYS AN OLD SCHOOL JUNKIE:

A self-proclaimed “old-school junkie” who moved from Texas to San Francisco because “it’s f*****g easy” to be homeless there claims he’s being paid by the city government to live on the streets, getting $620 in cash per month and hundreds of food stamps while he sells Narcan and enjoys Amazon Prime and Netflix on his phone. “This right now is literally by choice, literally by choice. If we’re going to be realistic, they pay you to be homeless here,” James, a homeless man with face tattoos who has been living in San Francisco since June, told Michael Shellenberger, author of ‘San Fransicko,’ a book about how the city’s progressive leaders are worsening homelessness, inequality and crime. James said it only took one phone call to receive government assistance, including hundreds in cash and food stamps worth approximately $100, and notes that the “free money” is motivation to remain homeless.

“F*****g phone call bro… Two hundred food stamps and $620 cash a month. Forget about it. Why wouldn’t I do it? You know, it’s f*****g free money dude,” he explained. “Why would I want to pay rent? I’m not doing s**t. I’ve got a f*****g cell phone that I have Amazon Prime and Netflix on.” The interview comes as the city’s homelessness and drug problems have worsened amid the national opioid crisis that escalated over the course of the pandemic. Both local and federal leaders say they’re working to implement new strategies to combat the drug crisis. San Francisco Mayor London Breed has declared a state of emergency in the city and has vowed to crack down on open-air drug use and drug dealing. Similarly, the Biden administration seeks to limit infections and fatalities among drug users and has created a $30 million grant program to reduce substance abuse to underserved communities. James said the drug crisis in San Francisco has become incredibly “disgusting,” with dealers providing impure substances to users who then overdose because they take drugs alone.

Who is Leading BLM and Where are Their Millions Going:

Black Lives Matter is another major nonprofit in this country. But who is running it, and how are their donations being spent? The answers are hard to find. In 2020, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) raked in $90 million – a handsome sum for an organization that was only awarded nonprofit status in December of that year. Soon after, the group came under fire for not clearly showing how it spends its money. The attorneys general of California and Washington are now demanding that BLMGNF stop taking donations, citing a lack of financial transparency and delinquent registry of charitable trusts. (In response, an unidentified spokesperson for BLMGNF told the Washington Examiner: “We have shut down online fundraising as we work quickly to ensure we are meeting all compliance requirements.”)

Immediately following George Floyd’s death in police custody in May 2020, donations started flooding into the BLMGNF coffers, ostensibly to fight police brutality. But the organization then had no financial reports on its website. By April 2021, BLMGNF co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors was accused of going on a property buying spree, snapping up four homes worth a combined $3 million in the U.S. alone. This, despite the organization’s claim that she only made $120,000 from 2013-2019 – an average of $20,000 per year – and received no income from the group since 2019. After Khan-Cullors stepped down in May 2021, she handed the reins to two other members, Monifa Bandele and Makani Themba, who then gave a statement “clarifying” their status: “Although a media advisory was released indicating that we were tapped to play the role of Senior Co-Executives at BLMGNF, we were not able to come to an agreement with the acting Leadership Council about our scope of work and authority. As a result, we did not have the opportunity to serve in this capacity.” Who sits on this “leadership council”? Who is running BLMGNF now? Bandele and Themba aren’t saying and you won’t find the answers on the organization’s website either.

South Korean Diplomat Attacked, Nose Broken on New York City Street:

A South Korean diplomat was punched on a New York City street by a random attacker who fled the scene, officials said. The assault unfolded near the corner of East 35th Street and Fifth Avenue as the 53-year-old diplomat was walking with a friend at 8:10 p.m., according to the New York City Police Department. The attacker didn’t say anything while punching the Korean official, who suffered a broken nose, police said. The victim even showed his South Korean diplomatic ID to the attacker, who fled toward Sixth Avenue. The assault happened on the edge of Manhattan’s Koreatown and about a mile southwest of U.N. headquarters. A representative of the South Korean consulate could not be immediately reached for comment.

Examiner – Lens:

The Union Pacific train tracks in downtown Los Angeles are littered in debris from packages amidst a wave of freight train thefts. “This is a vivid symbol of a city completely of control. It’s a disgrace!” said Dr. Peter J. a long-time Los Angeles homeowner who is planning to move next summer to Florida. “I’ve had it,” he said with total disgust.

Koalas Are Now Officially Endangered in Australia:

Koalas are now on Australia’s endangered species list, the country’s government declared. Drought and habitat loss have left the animals bereft, as have the extreme wildfires that have devastated the country in recent years and charred more than 47 million acres. A stunning 30% of koalas, national icons of the land down under, have died since 2018 throughout the country, with roughly 58,000 left. A government investigation found that the koalas could be extinct by 2050 without greater protection in spite of 74 million Australian dollars spent on their conservation since 2019. Sussan Ley, the country’s minister for the environment, said Australia would take “unprecedented action to protect the koala.”

Domino’s to Customers – Pick Up Your Own Pizza and We’ll Tip You:

Domino’s Pizza Inc. really wants you to pick up your own pizza. They are willing to pay you to do it. The pizza chain is letting customers who pick up their orders in stores claim a $3 tip, it said this week, a move that comes as companies nationwide are facing a shortage of labor amid a tight job market. A new Domino’s commercial also touts the incentive. It shows a woman going to a Domino’s to get two pizzas. Her clothes then change into a Domino’s uniform and her car transforms into a Domino’s-themed vehicle before morphing back into regular clothes when she returns home. “When you order carryout online from Domino’s, you’re no longer just a customer,” the voice-over in the commercial says. “You’re a delivery driver.”

THINK FREELY – BE INDEPENDENT: Make Up Your Own (DAMN) Mind – Read LBN Examiner:

“Fearlessly Independent” and “Unbiased” since 2002. Read in all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries. Now you can invite your friends and family to sign up for free (if they’ve got the guts): www.LBNExaminer.com

Examiner – 20 Years – A Look At 2002

The LBN Examiner was founded on June 1, 2002, an incredible 20 years ago. Let’s take a look back at what was going on in 2002:

** In 2002, the most popular baby girl name was Emily, and for boys, it was Jacob.

** The world population in 2002 was 6,302,149,639.

Examiner – Lens:

Singer/songwriter John Mellencamp’s new album, “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack,” places him among artists who have found inspiration by confronting death.

EXAMINER – COMMENTARY by Nellie Bowles:

** Hasan Piker, a leading socialist political influencer among Gen Z and younger Millennials, is having a lot of fun. Piker, a handsome and very charismatic 30-year-old, does his progressive proselytizing via a platform called Twitch where he livestreams himself explaining what he sees as the hellscape that is capitalism to a rapt young audience. (If you haven’t heard of Twitch or Piker, he live streams for many, many hours a day here.) Piker’s content is very, very popular content, and it has incidentally made him quite rich. He recently bought himself a $2.7 million Los Angeles house and this week was featured in a cool video picking up his new $200,000 Porsche Taycan (soundtrack: “La la la la wait til I get my money”). The old phrase champagne socialist doesn’t do this one justice. He’s not stealing from anyone a la BLM – whose shadiness and financial corruption seems truly without end. Piker’s adoring fans just give him money to keep talking about how awful money is. And so: We salute this thriving young capitalist.

** At the end of last week, a 22-year-old Amir Locke, who had a legal firearm, was taking a nap on the sofa in a Minneapolis living room. Police conducted a no-knock raid of the apartment, looking for someone else. They entered the room. Locke, wrapped in a blanket, woke up confused and raised his firearm. The police instantly shot him dead. Amir Locke had nine seconds to figure out what the hell was going on and respond properly to a group of armed men smashing through the door, an event that may not be so uncommon in some of America’s rougher neighborhoods. As Reason Magazine put it: Anyone who cares about gun rights should be furious about this case.

** NPR this week tells us that white people need to use the white-skinned emojis when giving a thumbs up, not the yellow that Apple sets as standard. Ok.

** A team of brilliant Swiss researchers has allowed severely paralyzed people to walk again, they announced this week. By implanting electrodes and attaching them to individual nerve fibers, the researchers have helped multiple patients walk, bicycle and even swim. The most extreme case was one man with a fully severed spine who is now able to walk and climb stairs. Miraculous.

Examiner – Lens:

Ms. Mirranda Reinhardt, an LBN Examiner reader, who works as a photographer and home-schools her kids, says social media helps make her feel less isolated, yet more lonely.

Examiner – (Notable) Remarks:

** I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few days about a tweet by a Georgetown professor. Look at this chorus of entitled white men justifying a serial rapist’s arrogated entitlement. All of them deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps. Bonus: we castrate their corpses and feed them to swine? Yes. That tweet was written in 2018 by Georgetown professor Carol Christine Fair about Republican senators who supported Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Fair also writes a blog called Tenacious Hellpussy, which she describes as “a nasty woman posting from the frontlines of fuckery.” There she notes: “Cunty women get shit done.” I fully agree. For evidence, we need to look no further than Fair herself. When asked to apologize or explain her policy recommendation of mass castration and death she said this: “I will not use civil words to describe mass incivility.” She added: “Don’t expect me to. It’s an absurd request. I will use words that make you as uncomfortable as I am with this regime.” Though Twitter temporarily suspended her, Fair’s chutzpah here paid off where it mattered: Georgetown defended Fair’s right to speak. “The views faculty members expressed in their private capacities are their own and not the views of the university. Our policy does not prohibit speech based on the person presenting ideas or the content of those ideas even when those ideas may be difficult, controversial or objectionable.” Fair continues to teach at Georgetown. —- Bari Weiss

** Those of us who sustainedly criticize the excesses of the Great Awokening are often told that we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. That the real problem is censorship not from the left but from the right. That censorship from the left is largely a matter of pile-ons by anonymous Twitter denizens or college kids expressing themselves, while censorship from the right involves menacing officials dedicated to eliminating, for instance, discussion of race in schools. The characterization of the problem on the left strikes me as somewhere between uninformed and willfully blind. Yes, left-leaning students might demonstrate their free-speech intolerance within the cozy confines of their campuses, but one day they graduate into the real world and take that rehearsed intolerance with them. Superprogressive views may predominate in certain settings, but the presumption, held by too many, that their woke outlook doesn’t even warrant intellectual challenge in the public square is an extension of the broader “dis-enlightenment” I described back in October. —- John McWhorter, N.Y. Times

** My advice to upcoming high school seniors is this: try not to buy into the idea that any prestigious institution or affiliation will determine your future success. Credentials are no longer the proxy for knowledge that they once were; the internet has removed the gatekeepers of even the most specialized information. You don’t have to go to a particular college – or even college at all – to have a meaningful experience. Real growth isn’t about your GPA or the letters after your name; it’s about choosing discomfort and challenge rather than going along. —- Jane Kitchen

** “It is a little dark still, but there are warnings of the day and somewhere out of the darkness, a bird is singing to the Dawn.” —- “Excerpt from Representative American Negroes”, an essay by Paul Laurence Dunbar

DON’T BE AN APE – Read LBN Examiner:

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Examiner – Investigates:

** Gaming the System – Shondaland | Emily Zemler. Why America gives birth to – and is obsessed with – so many scammers and grifters. READ

** One hundred ways to improve your life without really trying. READ

** Chinese birth rate continues decadelong downward trend, falls 12% between 2020 and 2021 to 10.6 million births; marks the lowest number of annual births in the country’s modern history. READ

** Divers catch a glimpse of the rare blanket octopus. WATCH

** When you mess with a smooth criminal. WATCH

Examiner – Readers Speak:

Are civilian casualties acceptable collateral damage when pursuing terrorist leaders?

Examiner readers from all 50 of the United States and 26 foreign countries have spoken.

“Intel for Influencers” – Who Reads the LBN Examiner?

Cher along with 12 members of the White House staff, 3 Nobel Prize winners, over 100 Academy Award winners, 6 U.S. Senators, and over 300 Grammy Award winners.

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Examiner – Reader Question:

WHO IS THE WORST MAYOR IN AMERICA?

It is your time to vote for who is the worst mayor in America. We’re going to limit the nominations to the top 10 populated cities in America. Please send your vote to LBNExaminer@TimeWire.net (Cities listed below):

New York City — Population: 8,398,748
Los Angeles — Population: 3,990,456
Chicago — Population: 2,705,994
Houston — Population: 2,325,502
Phoenix — Population: 1,660,272
Philadelphia — Population: 1,584,138
San Antonio — Population: 1,532,233
San Diego — Population: 1,425,976
Dallas — Population: 1,345,047
San Jose — Population: 1,030,119

Send in your reply to: LBNExaminer@TimeWire.net

Examiner – Reader Comment:

** Contrarians can be useful! Yes, we’re very rude people, but sometimes we can help you avoid making a mistake. There’s a reason why the Catholic Church, when considering whether somebody should be made a saint, used to bring in a Devil’s Advocate. The Catholic Church of liberal wisdom is The New York Times. But if you work at the Times, you probably exist in an epistemological safe space into which no adverse information ever flows. You may never even hear about certain true things; the information doesn’t penetrate the media outlets you read, the dinner parties you attend or the podcasts you listen to at the gym. —- Kyle Smith

Renowned Entrepreneur & Author, Cynthia Occelli, Examines Joe Rogan’s and Spotify’s N-Word Controversy:

Joe Rogan and “The Joe Rogan Experience,” who is Spotify’s star podcaster, has been accused and condemned for the past two weeks into an expanding and far-reaching scandal over his earlier use of a racial slur. Since then, Spotify has been under increasing pressure to take a firmer stance on the podcasts it hosts. In about 70 episodes of his podcast, Joe Rogan used the N-word. He has a $100 million deal with Spotify, and the company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, refuses to remove Rogan from the platform, claiming that “canceling voices is a slippery slope.” Following Rogan’s apologies for using a racial slur in the past, Ek announced in a memo that the firm would invest $100 million in audio “from historically marginalized groups.”

Renowned entrepreneur & author, Cynthia Occelli, has strong opinions on this matter, indicating that she believes Spotify is not elevating real change that is desperately needed in business and our society. “I’m not sure what the correct answer here is,” states Occelli. “Why did they do it? Because they value money over compassion and social justice. Why do I care? Because Black people have endured enough racism and commercial entities should do their part to eliminate and not support harmful & divisive messages of hate.”

Occelli continues, “In 7th grade, my White friends complained about the Black kids from the neighboring city being bussed into our school. They called them ‘n——s’. I’m half-Black and half-White and when they realized their slip up they said, ‘but not you, Cynthia’ and then stopped being my friend. I told the school counselor about them using the ‘N-word’. She apologized and told me that we’d all just have to learn to get along. The counselor did nothing. I was called that word throughout junior high school.”

“My junior high school experience with the N-word changed me forever. More than 30 years later, it’s like I’m back in the school halls feeling disregarded and unsupported. Today, I canceled my Spotify account for refusing to silence Joe Rogan and instead choosing to invest in marginalized voices. It’s more of the same, those in power look the other way and maintain the racist status quo, no matter how much harm it causes. Racism thrives wherever it’s not swiftly excised. It’s up to us,” concludes Occelli.

www.cynthiaoccelli.com

Examiner – Cartoon:

Examiner – A Different View:…

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