Authored by Michael Letts via American Thinker,
Portland officials were proud of themselves in 2020 when they defunded the Police Bureau by $15 million instead of increasing it by $3 million as planned. One commissioner was even upset that the council didn’t remove more from the budget.
"Please take a moment to celebrate this victory, and let it fuel your fire, because we're not done," Commissioner Chloe Eudaly said at the time.
Along with the $15 million, another $12 million was cut because of pandemic-caused economic shortfalls. “As a result, school resource officers, transit police and a gun violence reduction team -- which was found to disproportionately target Black Portland residents during traffic stops, according to an audit in March 2018 -- were disbanded,” PBS reported.
A year later, the council was trying to add funding and retain the city’s police officers. “The added police spending is occurring amid a year of a record number of homicides, the city’s greatest police staffing shortage in decades and reform recommendations made by the U.S. Department of Justice,” PBS reported.
It was too little, too late. The damage was done, and the city has yet to recover. In fact, the city government is telling residents not to call police unless their lives are at risk. Given how dangerous Portland has become, it might not affect the volume of calls to police because more residents’ lives are at risk from criminal activity than ever before.
Commissioner Rene Gonzalez told residents that the city’s 911 system is overwhelmed with people calling about addicts on the streets suffering fentanyl overdoses. This is not a Portland-only problem. The state of Oregon decriminalized drug use three years ago. Gonzalez urged people on X (formerly Twitter), “Our 911 system is getting hammered this morning with a multiple person incident -- multiple overdoses in northwest park blocks. Please do not call 911 except in event of life/death emergency or crime in progress (or change of apprehending suspect).”
Over the past year, the city has experienced 104 homicides and 529 arrests were made for drug offenses, according to Portland Police. The city’s homeless population has also grown by 50 percent since 2019, topping more than 5,000 people.
“Portland's neighborhoods have been overrun with crime, homelessness, and drugs since the pandemic -- and despite pouring funds into relief initiatives, little change is occurring on the streets of the city,” the Daily Mail reported.
Humanitarian lawyer and ex-aid worker Andrew MacLeod exposes the involvement of UN security staff in the sex trafficking of young girls, who were kept in cages and abused as sex slaves, with the full knowledge of the UN's leadership.
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Dr. David Martin: "Remdesivir was too unethical to put into Ebola clinical trials in Africa because it had a 53% kill rate."
"But it was chosen in April and May of 2020 to be the drug of choice to treat Covid... despite the fact that the World Health Organisation said it was unethical to use it."
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Serious allegations from former CIA officer Larry Johnson about Senator Lindsey Graham: “There will be news coming out in the next couple of months about how he has profited financially off of money that came out of Ukraine, laundered through Latvia and made it way into his bank account. And now we're talking significant amounts of money. Department of justice is looking at it.”
🇮🇱 ❌ 🇮🇷 🛢 📈 — Deutsche Bank: Oil Prices will go to $125/barrel if the Iran-Israel conflict spills over into the Straight of Hormuz
@CIG_Telegram
Developments in the Iran-Israel war. It is currently 1:11am in Tel Aviv and 1:42am in Tehran.
Main points:
Iran and Israel have started targeting each other’s energy infrastructure.
Iranian missiles continued to target and impact northern and central Israel.
Israel has started targeting Iranian oil infrastructure, including oil refineries and oil depots.
Israeli airstrikes continue to target various parts of Tehran and the surrounding areas.
Iranian air defence seems to finally be doing some damage to Israeli missiles and drones. In turn, Israel has deployed dozens of small quadcopters and loitering munitions to waste Iranian air defence and saturate for larger attacks with cruise missiles.
Drones launched from Iran and factions in Iraq continue to target northern and southern Israel.
Missiles & drones:
2 rockets were launched from the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza by an unknown Palestinian faction. Neither were intercepted, with the IDF claiming they hit an open area with no casualties.
2 rockets were ...
OIL MARKETS REACT SHARPLY TO ESCALATING MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS
📈 WTI CRUDE IS NOW FORECAST TO HIT $94.10 BY YEAR-END, UP OVER $21 IN A WEEK, ACCORDING TO KALSHI MARKETS.
THE JUMP FOLLOWS IRAN’S CANCELLATION OF NUCLEAR TALKS WITH THE U.S., CITING ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES. WITH TENSIONS RISING, MARKETS ARE PRICING IN THE RISK OF REGIONAL ESCALATION AND POTENTIAL DISRUPTION TO OIL FLOWS THROUGH THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ, A KEY ROUTE FOR 20% OF GLOBAL OIL.
ANALYSTS WARN THAT A FULL CLOSURE OF THE STRAIT COULD PUSH PRICES ABOVE $120–$150 PER BARREL. ...